A64Pilot

Good tip, but I’ll add every once in a while replace the tape. You’re looking to ensure no corrosion on the tube of course. Over the years years I’ve seen significant damage to tubes covered by clamps, tape etc. My airplane had some masking tape on a tube under the pilots side of the instrument panel, the tape had been there for decades. There was no reason for it that I could see. I removed it and there was significant rust under it. I’m thinking it was put on at the factory as some kind of label maybe.

Pumping fast won’t of course cavitate the fluid, but it will take air bubbles that are already there and them into foam and the foam being many tiny bubbles is harder to get out. Even on cars don’t pump the pedal fast when bleeding or you will foam the fluid. Of course time breaks up any foam back into a large bubble that’s easier to remove, so if you make that mistake, just take a lunch break or something. Done correctly you don’t ever need to even get in the cockpit of a Mooney except to test after the job is done. Last Summer I re-built my Master cylinders ( I’m an IA) and I was worried about bleeding. I used a bleeder ball, essentially an insect sprayer with hyd fluid resistant rubber bits and flushed most of a quart through each side quickly to push any bubbles up and out. I was worried having read all the threads, but complete non event, hard pedals right off. I’m convinced of two things. 1. bottom up is the way to go as of course air bubbles will rise naturally in the fluid column. 2. Push a significant amount of fluid quickly through the system and both the flow rate and the volume will get ALL the bubbles, and you really want to get a good flush if your using the old antiquated fluid that burns easily and oxidizes and turns into goo over time. Using an oil can works on most aircraft like Cessna’s, but I think aircraft with long complex systems like our Mooney’s really benefit with a pressurized fluid source that can quickly and continuously flush a significant amount of fluid through the system, you only have to buy the tool once. This is the one I use, I’m sure there are others. I’ve seen some excellent ones made from empty freon tanks for example. The Freon tank one was probably better https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/lgpages/hydraulicBleedertank.php?clickkey=4306

I think your better off, remember these things fly regularly at altitude with deep in the negative temps and at relatively low power output. Breaking one in in Summer is hard on them

What is it you guys do with an AOA? Do you ever fly that close to the ragged edge of a stall? I’ve flight tested them for crop dusters and besides the fact that two are needed, one for each wing as the most likely, and worst time for a stall is turning, where there is a different amount of lift on the two wings. Assuming you’re in trim the wing away from the turn will stall first. If your turning left the right wing will stall. I came out with the conclusion that for a straight winged GA aircraft that they are essentially a toy. What I did find out through testing was that for a maneuvering aircraft that’s nibbling at the edge of a stall that mounting the trim ball on top of the glareshield costs nothing yet was more valuable than AOA, it’s being out of trim while maneuvering that will “get” you, having the ball in your direct line of sight was valuable, because many pilots when finding the turn isn’t as tight as they need it will subconsciously use rudder to tighten it, and that of course can “get” you.

Accessories don’t get a separate Annual. When you see an Annual entry for the engine or prop it’s incorrect, but nobody as in FAA for some reason doesn’t get bent out of shape over it, which surprises me as some seem to concentrate on minutia. The “airplane” as in the whole thing not airframe gets an annual, We have over time started calling the Airplane logbook the airframe logbook, but that’s not really the case I don’t believe. I believe technically the engine and prop logbook are a part of the Airplane records not separate records, but I’ve never seen that written down. I said records not books intentionally because I think the FAR’s cover records, not books. May seem to be a silly difference but it can be important. There is no requirement for the engine and prop to have their own logbook I don’t think, I can find places on the internet that says they have to, but I don’t think that’s correct. It’s rare to see a separate logbook for a fixed prop for example or has been in my experience. I can come up with several possibilities as to why separate logbooks came into use but they are just guesses. My guess is back when airlines had big round motors, they used to change motors even more frequently than we do spark plugs, it’s was surprisingly easy to do an engine change, maybe I should have said quick instead of easy but they changed motors out frequently, repaired the one removed and it went into the spares pool. So as they were changing motors so frequently it made sense for it to have its own log, but also darn near every component in a turbine has a life limit in hours or cycles and having its own historical records separate from the airplane just makes sense. A whole lot of Aircraft maintenance, more than most want to admit admit is done because “we have always done it this way”. For example until recently I thought an Aircraft had to have a Logbook, but apparently not, seems a box full of scraps of paper with entries on them is all that’s required. I think that’s the gist of this discussion, records are required to be maintained, but they don’t have to be in books, books make sense of course but aren’t required. I’m still learning. I’m 99% sure that ONE IA has to complete the entire Annual and that you can’t have more than one doing inspections, not to say it doesn’t happen. However an A&P or another IA can sign off the 100 hour on the engine and or prop, because it’s not part of the Annual. I don’t think they are required either, but people thought “I have to put something in the book” so we started entering 100 hour inspections None of this I can back up with references, it’s all what I’ve gleaned over the years and as always it may be incorrect.

The difference in RC aircraft and drones is skill required. RC you don’t just take it out of the box and fly it successfully, it takes training, so most join a club that most often requires AMA (American Modeling Association) membership for the insurance and in this club people know, teach and most often follow the rules. Used to be and still somewhat there were at least several full days of building before it was ready to fly. There are RTF (ready to fly) models now, but usually those are cheap foamy jobs You don’t fly a drone, it flies itself, you merely direct the thing, so you can take it out of a box and fly it with zero training or knowledge, 20 min to charge and your flying. I think Drones fulfill that instant gratification that’s so popular now and why most often you see old men flying RC and kids flying Drones, not always of course but most often. My Wife teaches and has done so for 20 years. There has been a very significant change in the way kids view rules / laws in the last several years, a huge sense of entitlement exists now that didn't use to, so I think even if they are aware of the rules they don’t believe they apply to them.

I bought mine to take pics / videos of the sailboat underway, with the theory of landing it on the Solar panels. By altitude I mean AGL, not MSL. Mine has some kind of altimeter as it displays distance from you and altitude so it “knows”. If it knows then imposing a ceiling would be easy. I think it has a barometer that resets to zero on initialization. It’s a “bugs clone” so small and inexpensive. This thing , under $200 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CSNSLHC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Never did though, pretty useless device in my opinion, unless you’re into photographing yourself, which I guess I’m too old for that as I don’t get the whole gopro videoing your flight thing. It’s a Millenium thing I think. I did Gopro a couple of cave dives, but never watched much of it, it’s pretty boring actually. We went out to get a Pizza in Panama City 5 yrs or so ago, sat at the table I guess for 20 min. A young girl sat near us, she spent the whole time looking at selfies of herself . My generation never had that high opinion of ourselves, young girls back then woukd see a picture of themselves and stress that they weren’t pretty, now they look at selfies and admire their beauty it seems.

I’m not very smart and I can think of an easy way. Every one I have seen and that’s not many, but they need to initialize the AHARS or whatever it is they use to sense accelerations etc, during that initialization that also corresponds to GPS initialization, the software accepts this altitude as zero, then the drone could restrict itself to a max altitude of 400’ above the initial ziti on altitude. Personally I think there is no need to be over 200’ max, at 400’ you probably can’t see most of the things.

Use the sponge rubber that’s on the refrigerant lines for a house airconditioner? That stuff seems to last a long time. I didn’t know there was a seal there.

While you can drive any rivet with a hammer, I find that a rivet gun with the proper set and a bucking bar does a better job with much less likely hood of damaging the part. For those that haven't driven a rivet before it’s the bucking bar and not the gun that flattens the rivet. While I have not driven an iron rivet, I’ve driven many a monel rivet that I’m certain is harder to drive than iron because monel quickly work hardens. If it were me I think I’d drive them wet with fuel tank sealer, the sealer will keep water and therefore corrosion out, at least drive them wet with epoxy primer

Bondo is actually not uncommon even on new aircraft from the factory. A perfect 50 yr old airplane doesn’t exist and the very few that come close are exceptionally rare and most often priced above what most want to pay. Face it, those of us that shop 50 yr old aircraft are doing so because newer ones are out of our budget, or we would be buying newer. Most often as an aircraft depreciates due to age it begins to lead a tougher life, more likely to be tied down outside and or repairs and maintenance are more likely to barely meet standards as opposed to “I don’t care what it costs, I want it done right”. Most 50+ yr old aircraft have a history of accidents whether the book reflects that or not. 99% of owners will fight a mechanic that wants to include why the repairs are being made and we now even have experts telling owners to never allow any kind of negative logbook entry, to only allow those entries to be made on stickies that can be conveniently lost or tossed after the min time to keep them has past. So logbooks have to a great extent become worthless where they used to be a biography of the aircraft.

The Concorde Component manual may be some interesting reading, especially for capacity testing and trying to recover lost capacity if a battery fails the capacity test. (conditioning charge procedure) You can get some capacity back sometimes by cycling, but you will get more back following the manual procedure. There is even a deep discharge recovery procedure for that battery that’s sat on the shelf for years. Both the conditioning charge and the deep discharge are intentional monitored overcharges with the purpose of converting sulphation back I believe into lead. https://batterymanagement.concordebattery.com/BatteryDocs/5-0171.pdf The Lifeline manual is much more comprehensive and explains things better in my opinion. Lifeline is Concorde’s ground batteries and if you talk to the Concorde folks the Lifeline and Concorde aircraft batteries are essentially identical, excepting of course the FAA PMA approval and their use profile, Concorde starting of course, Lifeline primarily deep cycle https://lifelinebatteries.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/6-0101F-Lifeline-Technical-Manual-Final-5-06-19.pdf Then just if you’re curious the Company history is interesting, 100% US made, owned entirely by the Godber family. If you look at the Company phone tree you will see several Godber names so they are still apparently running things. (my data is a few years old) but I wouldn’t expect things have changed. Call their tech support line, you will speak to someone who knows their stuff, not someone who’s read the manual.

It has to slightly, but Concorde says it doesn’t. I think if recharged at a high rate immediately at the end of the test the damage is negligible. Sulphation is what kills lead acid batteries, and sitting at partial state of charge is what most often seriously reduces their life but even if you do everything perfect and keep one on float etc., eventually it will sulphate and “die”, capacity testing tells you of course how far down that slide to death your battery is. I wish a charger could desulphate a battery, but they are snake oil. Now if you follow Concorde’s instructions and intentionally overcharge a battery then some of the sulphation can be reversed, but if it’s old sulphation built up slowly over time then it’s unlikely to be able to be reversed, Concorde has their own name for it that I forget but the rest of the battery world calls it an equalization charge https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-404-what-is-equalizing-charge I assume in this conversation we are talking about Concorde’s VR RG SLAB ? Wet Gill’s aren’t worth the effort in my opinion

There is something called Peukerts law, basically it states that for a lead acid battery the smaller the discharge current the more Amp Hours a battery will give you and it’s not just a small amount. ‘I’m sure that tester will work fine, just know the battery if tested at a lower rate will give more AH output https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peukert's_law Often deep discharge batteries AH is rated over a 20 hour time, discharge one in one hour and you get a lot less, if Concorde specifies one hour then I assume their AH rating is rated at one hour. Manufacturers get bigger numbers if the rate at 20 hours, much bigger numbers. Resistive loads work well enough for government work but their amp draw is constant but as battery voltage drops so does the draw in wattage. This is a load bank I built for Certification of an aircraft I had to load the Starter / Generator to max load and then measure temps at different conditions, I think the lights were 800W each, (6,400 Watts) so much heat that I had to have the hopper full of water or they would start a fire. Filament light bulbs work pretty good for a load bank, just be wary of the heat.

I could see it coking up, and I assume this coking could be handled with an inspection at oil change time, that is pull the hose off and clean the opening as necessary, but probably less exposure if you will to simply revert back to open to atmosphere. I can see how that could lead to blown seal, most dangerous one being front crankshaft, but I don’t see how it could lead to cylinder wear? Even with a coking possibility I’d rather have a clean belly if I could, but that’s just me. Every airplane I’ve ever had the belly gets oily, add in a little dust, and it’s nasty.

Why would you need a separator if the gasses go into the exhaust? Surely the exhaust could handle the small amount of oil? By handle I mean eliminate it, exhaust can of course “handle” large amounts of oil, smoke like you see at air shows is just oil injected into the exhaust of course and other than an oily belly there is no harm. I assume oily belly, I know a Huey smoke bird’s tail boom was covered in oil to the point of it dripping off, but that was a HUGE amount of oil.

(in my opinion) the proper way to handle crankcase blow by is to duct it into the exhaust, done properly it would form a slight negative crankcase pressure which is good, it also of course couldn’t freeze up and it’s my belief that the belly would stay completely oil free as surely the exhaust gas is hot enough to at least vaporize the oil mist. I don’t know why this isn’t done, it would seem to be to be an easy money maker for an STC to do this.

I promise you, fly enough and one day you will realize that you can no longer see the wing tips, more likely to happen at night of course, happened one night to my Father on a night with the forecast of severe clear, the wing leveler on his C model likely saved his life, maybe. He started instrument training right after that I think When that happens you will either kill yourself and possibly others, or survive it. The likelihood of survival increases with the amount of training and actual experience you have, and to some extent the equipment, but equipment is not a replacement for training (in my opinion) ”Back in the day” Army helicopter pilots were trained to a standard of a “tactical instrument ticket” that is to be able to maintain level flight and accomplish a 180 degree turn etc but not to be able to operate in the National airspace IFR and execute approaches etc. Later due I believe to the accident rate they were trained to full IFR tickets and of course Commercial Pilot standards. In my opinion, any training is good, better of course to get the full ticket, but as an example I believe upset AKA unusual attitude training may one day save your life, probably best to get the full aerobatics sign off, but even if you don’t the unusual attitude training is valuable. Honestly I don’t think you can’t get too much training and or experience, even sometimes if it’s something you never expect or intend to do, like how to recover from a spin for instance. I will never intentionally spin my Mooney, but being familiar with spin recovery may one day be valuable. Trust me table talk in no way really prepares you for an honest spin, and pretend IMC really doesn’t either. (another opinion)

Sometimes they are necessary, like for example if you have a wet vacuum pump, the pump being oil lubricated discharges an oil mist that either oils the belly or is separated and put back into the sump. Most often an oil sep is installed to clean up a belly, they aren’t necessarily an indicator of a worn engine but could possibly be. I used to build my own, this is a knock off copy of the M20 separator, it works but not as good as an Air Wolf which is a copy of the Walker oil separator originally used on marine GM Diesels I believe. In my opinion it doesn’t hurt to remove them every other annual or so and let one sit overnight in mineral spirits to clean one out, maybe over time they could accumulate some sludge, or maybe not. As far as I know mine never did but I’ve heard reports of them that have, perhaps it’s due to the temp differences where they are used, I fly in warm weather almost exclusively.

If you put one on a shelf. be sure to corrosion proof the thing, I recommend covering the entire interior with Par-Al-Ketone, known as Black Bear, very similar to cosmoline or the preservative put on steel cable. Dries to an almost black looking wax substance, goes on like grease. Whatever the steel in a cylinder is made from it will rust overnight, take special precautions if storing one, maybe in ziploc bags with desiccant if you don’t like the Black Bear (it washes off with mineral spirits easily)

Almost 50 years ago I did that on a small block Chevy, didn’t damage anything luckily, put a nasty burr on the actuating plunger though that I filed out. Funny how many similarities there are to some automotive engines

There are a few “Bottom lines” that I think should be stated, and maybe discussed. According to Lycoming below 75% power you can run any mixture you like and it won’t hurt anything, personally I use 65% for a couple of reasons, it adds additional cushion and Lycoming has published for maximum engine life cruise at 65% or below power, plus most myself included a large reason for LOP is economy, and economy is best below 65% power. So other than being in a hurry, I can’t see any reason to cruise above 65% power myself, others say I bought a Mooney for speed and slowing down is stupid. I see their logic, just I’m not in that big of a hurry. (NA motors only) Blown motors are a whole nuther thing. Spending thousands on engine monitors and special injectors, fine wire plugs certainly doesn’t hurt but isn’t needed, because if you only aggressively lean at 65% or less power then you can’t hurt anything and all that expensive stuff isn’t necessary. People as in a large percentage of pilots have been running LOP in engines that would since before WWII, it just wasn’t given a name etc until it started being marketed. Many or most engines won’t run LOP, most were running just fine at or very close to peak, for longer than most of us have been alive. In my opinion, and this is just an opinion, but I think as a new pilot you should spend that money on fuel and fly very often, get instrument training if you haven’t already and practice, practice, practice, run 65% of less in cruise, continue to lean as you were taught and put all that special engine ops training and big bucks for special instrumentation off until you have become a Master Aviator and can fly in hard IFR, land in excessive crosswinds etc. Oh, and for high power run very rich, in my world in the flatlands that’s full rich, but your runway may be at higher than my normal cruise altitudes so I won’t say full rich. Another bottom line, you can’t be TOO lean, engines are hurt by not being rich or lean enough, but if you stay very rich until 65% you can’t hurt anything and your engine will last a long time, there is nothing wrong with the way you were taught, I’d just add be at cruise power (65% or less) before you do it. It’s a very good KISS way of leaning, and KISS isn’t stupid. Most engines won’t run LOP, the Lycoming IO-360 is the poster child of LOP, so I’ll bet lunch that your bone stock IO-360 if in decent shape will run LOP just fine, but regardless even if it won’t leaning the way you were taught if below 75% power, is fine. It was after all the way most everyone leaned for the majority of the time these engines have been operated, now if theses engines were a new design, then it’s likely that a new way of operating them would be required, but face it, we fly behind our Grandfathers engines, literally.

I’m still putting these things in the same category as Intake Vornado’s and fuel line magnets.

An STC by definition is Major, ANY change to type design is by FAA definition, so as stupid as it is, yes installing Rosen sun visors is a major alteration, not because of the work, but because the FAA issued an STC, installation of an STC Requires a 337, and a 337 Requires the involvement of an IA. STC’s are sometimes issued as a work around when there is no other legal way, for example when Whelen first came out with the Parmethius LED landing light, the FAA had no TSO for landing lights, so how could you determine if an LED was legal as there were no standards? TSO = Technical Standing Order, it specifies performance standards etc for a standard part, like tires for instance, it’s what keeps you from putting tailwheel tires you buy at Northern Freight even though they look identical for example, because they don’t meet TSO, nor are they made by someone with a PMA. A part needs both as a min. An STC can skip those steps. So the answer that the FAA would accept was that Whelen bought the STC from Floats Alaska that had them installing LED landing lights, so the Parmethius was originally sold with an STC with instructions for continued airworthiness etc as all STC’s are required to have. As it was an STC, that by definition was a MAJOR which required an IA and a 337 to change a light bulb. Which of course brought up the joke of what does it take to install a light bulb in an airplane.

I’ve brought this up before but flying to Breakfast with a group I’ve leaned it out and brought power back to 120 kts and burned 6 GPH. Flew past a neighbor is his Legend Cub equipped with everything and asked him what his fuel burn and speed was. It was 80 kts and 6 GPH. So I was flying a four place airplane 50% faster with the identical fuel burn. To me it’s not speed, face it if you look at an F or J model many aircraft are faster, but it’s a rare one that’s four place with 1000 lb useful load that’s as efficient. So for me it’s not really the speed it’s the efficiency. ‘My last two airplanes an M-6-235 Maule and a Cessna C-210L both burned exactly the same amount of fuel over a distance, but the Cessna was 30 kts faster and could carry hundreds of lbs more weight than the Maule, so while I loved the Maule it was an inefficient airplane, and the 210 really only burned about 1/3 more fuel than my J at similar speeds.