A64Pilot

Just about any of the warnings associated with electronic sensors should in my opinion first be verified with an old fashioned crude direct reading instrument, sure they don’t display digitally but you don’t need that. Very often there is no problem with the aircraft, it’s the sensor, wiring or the electronic gauge / panel etc, even old fashioned gauges fail, but I have seen much money spent trying to fix an engine problem that was just the gauge. One I remember well, oil temp on a turbine, he has changed everything, even cut additional holes in the cowling to let heat out etc. I told him to not run the aircraft that I would fly over and look, well I jumped in turned the battery on, oil temp read 70C or something and I looked at him and said Jerry I thought I asked you to not run it, he said I didn’t. I pointed at the gauge and told him I think I’ve found your problem, took two min to change the gauge as I had brought one with me. He had spent thousands chasing an oil temp problem that he didn’t have. In other words I would temporarily plumb in a direct pressure gauge and verify your have an actual pressure and not instrument problem before you do anything else.

Sure it’s toward the fwd CG limit, the 210 I talk about with two good sized guys was all over tgt fwd CG limit, my Maule the same, the Maule in truth was a little out. I would go so far as to say ANY good GA aircraft with fuel at worst CG case and two good sized guys up front should be all over the fwd limit, because everything that gets loaded after that moves the CG aft, both the 210 and my Maules absolute limit loading wise was the aft CG limit, you can overload some and not get hurt, being too far aft can hurt you. I think the point is and no one seems to disagree is that departure stall in a high power aircraft are a whole lot different than a lower powered aircraft. I had to take the crop duster we were Certifying and stall it at T/O power with no load and min fuel, the purpose was to determine the absolute max nose up attitude it could get it to then we had to put it in that attitude and prove the fuel system could deliver the max fuel flow the engine could consume at rated pressure, logic would seem to say I proved that in flight, but you can’t use logic, we needed a ground test. But because it was a tail wheel aircraft and therefore had a rather large rudder it wasn’t the issue that I was afraid it could have been. I knew I had a picture, I had to dig a hole with my backhoe in a ditch to back the tail wheel into and have the mains on top of the ramps I used to change oil on my truch to get to that attitude, it’s a lot nose higher than it looks

I keep reading how pretty much everyone has the opinion that the big motor Mooney’s are nose heavy. But they can’t be, not really because while I have not looked but their CG range has to be similar to a little motored Mooney, sure there is more mass out there of course but if nothing else the stall speed requirement limits the fwd CG limit. Now if you got into a spin that additional mass is going to work against you of course due to the inertia, but they can’t be much more nose heavy, yes they are heavier and they have significantly more mass on both ends which has inertia. Another thing people get upset with me about a Mooney is me saying that a Mooney doesn’t have gentle stalls, because it has stall strips, sort of by definition any aircraft with them doesn’t act nicely in a stall, the strips are added to tame the behavior, so any airplane that has stall strips in my opinion ought to be treated with a little more respect than an airplane without them when nearing a stall. You can be pretty sure that ANY high performance / efficient airplane gives up good slow speed handling and gentle stalls (TANSTAAFL) I’m not saying it’s stall is evil, just that it likely requires a little more attention than a Cherokee 140. My belief is that power off that any Mooney is going to be pretty controllable in a stall and that as long as your VMC you ought to be able to handle it. However at high power especially the big motors are very likely to get real ugly real quick, I’m talking a real stall, not one of the training maneuvers where you break the stall before it actually occurs. I believe many don’t actually have the respect of an honest departure stall because they have never gotten into a fully developed one, which makes sense the purpose of the training is to learn to recognize the onset and correct for it. Now I have not and will not go out and stall / spin any Mooney, I don’t do that kind of thing anymore but it is a Certified airplane (that doesn’t have an ELOS) so it’s stall should be controllable. Very few of us actually go out and fully stall an airframe, and we shouldn’t, it’s a normal category airplane after all, sure it’s not prohibited from stalls, but if you going to go out and fully develop a stall especially under power you should be prepared for a spin. I am not berating a Mooney, I bought one by choice, just saying that it just might demand a little more attention in a stall than say a trainer aircraft, whether it has a big motor or not, and all of this is not from actual experience in a Mooney. I have done an honest departure stall in a C-210, and it will roll over on its back to the left, you cannot stop it, and I’m pretty sure that if you didn’t pull power that it would spin and you also couldn’t stop it. That was in a very fwd CG too with just two people in the front seats, with the airplane fully loaded with a much further aft CG it would have been much worse. Until then I thought the 210 was a Cessna, which frankly put meant you had to be stupid to get yourself in a situation with one, but after that it really changed my mind, but once I thought about it, the 210 is a high performance / efficient airplane and of course gave up some of the trainer handling so common on the little Cessna’s. The reason the 210 WILL roll over on its back is that at high power and slow speed there isn’t enough rudder effectiveness to counter the engine torque, I suspect adding 100 more HP on a Mooney and keeping the small rudder if anything woukd make it worse than the 210.

Many kits are sold that an A&P can’t legally use, even the simple compass fluid and gasket kits. An A&P can’t repair an instrument and a compass is an instrument, just one example, whenever I installed a very sophisticated GPS for navigating for spraying I had to put a decal beside it that said it wasn’t to be used for navigation, now I ask you what else could it be used for, entertainment? FAR’s were meant well but can’t cover every possible situation, the GPS statement for instance clearly was meant for IFR, but by leaving those three letters out the required statement is nonsensical. Just because you fly around and listen to 121.5 doesn’t mean anything, all you can do is call Center or whoever your talking to and tell them your hearing an ELT, they will ask others if they are hearing it, if it’s real (it almost never is and because of that it’s usually not taken seriously) maybe in a day or two they will find you, but likely not. The BIG deal is the Rescue Co-ordination Center with its satellites is no longer listening, the satellites could triangulate the signal and get a rough location that teams could search, but they don’t anymore. So the Pro’s if you will they guys who’s sole purpose is rescue coordination no longer even listen for 121.5 hits. However they DO listen for 406 and even without a GPS location the Sarsat can triangulate location relatively quickly, but of course the relatively precise location transmitted by the ones with a built in GPS is better, and it updates 406 ELT and EPIRBS are essentially identical except what activates them and EPIRBS float, but they save many people yearly, it works. A PLB is pretty similar to either, except it has a shorter battery life once activated and requires you to turn it on, it’s not automatic. Many hang their hats on a Spot or now Garmin Inreach, but they do NOT connect to the Air Force rescue center, they will call them, but a PLB is better, just can’t message your buddies etc with a PLB. I believe though it’s sort of a mute point as 121.5 ELT are now illegal to be sold in the US, those of with them are legal, but when they die they have to be replaced with a 406. I’m nursing mine until they die, I don’t believe I have the need for an ELT myself, now if I was flying in the NWT or some thing then I would. Maybe you can buy used ones, even if it’s not legal I doubt anyone is watching.

You have to have an ELT, Congress mandated it, not the FAA. Unless it’s a 406 mhz, it’s useless, no-one even monitors the things anymore and haven’t since 2009, yet you have to have one, Congress says so. https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/aircraft/aircraft-operations/emergency-locator-transmitters If it were me, I wouldn’t put 5c in a 121.5 ELT. If it’s a 406 ELT, you might want to get a repair quote and then compare it to the price of new, sometimes new is about the same price, OK maybe not sometimes, pretty often actually. I know there was at least one brand of the old type that used user replaceable D cell alkaline flashlight batteries, there may be new 406 ones that do. If so they are painless, every five years open it up and replace the batteries with new quality D cell alkaline batteries, change the due date, run the self test. I think they can self test anyway. Oh, the 406 ones work, really work. the 121.5 ones went “beep” there was no data, just beep. A good 406 tells them the tail number and exact location, with the tail number they look you up in their file and call the contact number you have on file, if someone answers and says he’s out flying they launch rescue, if you answer they tell you your ELT is going off and most likely you call the Avionics shop and tell them they set it off, don’t know why or how but they often do. On edit I think there are two types of 406, one type has a built in GPS and it transmits an exact location, the one without a GPS has to be triangulated by the satellite which may take a few passes, each pass gets the location more precise but it takes awhile, whike the one with the built in GPS of course very quickly transmits your exact location, at least that’s the way it used to be, maybe they all have a GPS now, I would expect that myself as they are easy and cheap

I don’t think people read the threads, question is should I put camguard in and that’s all that’s looked at, camguard If you look, this oil is specifically what he wants, is used as a break-in oil etc https://phillips66lubricants.com/product/aviation-anti-rust-oil/ What does it not do that he wants done? It’s not even expensive or hard to get.

JP-4 has been gone I think for more than 30 years and I think maybe only the Army burnt it anyway, it was a cheap gasoline based fuel, not as safe as kerosene based fuel. I guess the Air Force did burn it. It was gone in the Army prior to the Gulf war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-4 Anyway in the adoption of a single fuel back in the 80’s I think JP-4 went away and JP-8 came online and was used in everything, trucks, tanks, forklifts whatever but cookstoves or when I retired anyway still burned Mogas, I’m sure not now. I remember the changeover well because suddenly we carried 100 lbs or so more fuel, our fuel gauges were capacitance gauges so they literally weighed the fuel and of course fuel was displayed as weight not volume, but we didn’t know if our burn rate in lbs per hour would change or not, it didn’t thankfully or all our performance charts would have been invalid.

My Daughter inherited her Great Grandmothers Japanese China. It was smuggled back to Albany Ga (Turner Field) in a B-52 from Japan. Story is her Great Grandfather who was a civilian working at Turner Field built a Cargo pod for I think an F-100 for a Col who brought the China back as a gift for him, some kind of single seat with hard points anyway. Back in the 50’s they apparently just did things like building a cargo pod. I tried to make my Daughter understand that not many have China that was smuggled back in the bomb bay of a Nuclear bomber. It’s sort of unusual. Back as a kid growing up in Albany it was common to see Honda motorcycles and other things that weren’t for sale in the US as they were brought back from Japan in Globemasters, B-52’s whatever went to Japan and back.

Like you say a 200 PSI acetylene is not going to back flow into a 2000 PSI O2 tank but if you don’t mind advice from an old oilfield welder buy yourself a set of back flow preventers for your torch Here I looked it up https://www.amazon.com/hz/mobile/mission?p=Ugtnfet0UfvYSyARi6RiThghuzshPxH0a6o2BA%2F5SVq1ilwD4eGSmcVfqC2Oe49eeIV0pdL7WgJlVHNFhD3JMFuE8LSV4dagjQe%2Bwbh7HhCvMjD%2FK6rhMT%2BicjWCxjGjUWUTmCwZPGQ0TYEdzDMDnW8b8OLdajJcSqJoF%2FF348czJpkP%2BM0xc33SO2RuXOethxzXa4Mqj3oBdV3xR0LF5V5wLETBpZE%2B8a8pxdiEf1CLBFBhEMc3wozI4VO0M%2BSiAshCgHzEnyxT6W2zafg34%2B6cDyrccNP4P4mZ3L195TGlXBKoIs4CLJyhFk2lALS%2Bmkd%2B4QkEpzz0DgGpBbxZO4%2FQ1jAA%2BKFIvP4t3KlxLxnbG0h5ex0v%2FimBtgzUDJi7g%2F1xiFDQ95F8jHsjYn4Jtw%3D%3D&ref_=ci_mcx_mi&pf_rd_r=ZTJSFGMQTGHGN9708BNN&pf_rd_p=b80cecd8-43c1-4955-af2d-bd2ab15b2bc4&pd_rd_r=ebe103bb-835e-49ce-8aa6-ce9ef7ab90ac&pd_rd_w=pmgYJ&pd_rd_wg=jNCj5 $15 to $20 on Amazon called maybe flashback arrestor or similar, somehow once in a blue moon the flame can jump back into the torch and bad things happen then.

I’d look on facebook market place or whatever has replaced Craig’s list by now for a welding set up, that gives you a torch, regs and hoses, the wheeled cart and an acetylene cylinder. I don’t know what they go for, but maybe less than a new O2 tank? I gave mine away years ago

There is no telling, first what is PTSD anyway? My guess is anyone who loses a Wife or child etc suffers from it, yet they have to continue to work. Of course some “fall apart” and some even pass away themselves pretty soon, but they are a fraction of the norm, some suicide. I suspect Military members fall into the same pattern, that is it damn sure wasn’t enjoyable, you dream about it for some time etc., even waking up in a panic, feel depressed and guilty, I think guilt is the biggest reason some suicide, but over time you get over it, sure it’s always there, you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy etc. but you cope, you don’t have much choice, you have to raise your kids etc. A few don’t or can’t and a not insignificant number of those that can’t suicide, which from societies view solves the problem, cruel observation but it is what sometimes happens. Is guilt PTSD? At least some combat activities are or could I guess be thought of as murder. It was one thing to be an infantryman in Vietnam etc facing an enemy charge, that was kill or be killed, self defense. But if your sitting in airconditioned comfort a long ways away, but you have a gyro stabilized 126 power magnification sight and can pretty much see faces of people that don’t even know you exist and your told to “take them out” with a 30mm Cannon, you get to watch them get torn apart, because a 30mm Cannon designed to destroy light armored vehicle does tear a human apart. That’s tough to get over, you get to wondering that surely there was a different way to handle that. But in truth many of these people are so dedicated that they will literally blow themselves up in the hope to kill a few of you, that’s also a real tough thing to imagine, because I do not have that kind of dedication. If you let yourself think about this too much it will get to you. Nothing in any kind of “normal civilized” life can prepare you for the brutal truth of how savage people can be and how savage you have to be to combat it, you sort of have to become the thing your trying to eradicate, and that eats on anyone with empathy. Some seem to not have any empathy, I saw that in business, some have no ethics, when pushed they look at you like your stupid and tell you “it’s just business” I doubt the “VA” is telling them to not work, but as with everything else that has money in it, the law offices of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe are involved, for a cut of the benefits for as long as the recipient is alive anyway and that can add up over time to a large sum, especially if your getting 40% of hundreds of peoples disability Additionally the VA has “certified” individuals to assist in disability applications, how do they get paid you ask? They get a cut of your disability, the VA set that system up, they created it. But there are some agencies that will help for free, but to be honest you sometimes get what you pay for, on paper the American Legion is helping me, but in reality I found an older Marine Corp Nurse recommended by a friend that’s helping me, and yes I pay her, but not by a cut of my disability. You think taxes are complicated? They are simple compared to VA forms and paperwork, many that contradict each other of course, I’m certain the complexity is intentional. Do you think these people who are after a cut of your disability just might advise you on how to “game” the system, tell you to get the max benefits you have to quit work and school you on what to say etc. remember they get a percentage and they aren’t perjuring themselves, you are. How often do you see people with the cripple tags or license plates park in the disabled spots get out and walk or even run into a store when it’s raining? More often than not from my observation, people are crooks plain and simple, and most of them feel entitled to be so.

Get real serious with the corrosion inspection, pretty much anything else is recoverable, but corrosion will kill one stone dead especially one that old. People get wrapped around the axle worrying about wheel bearings, brake disks and other things that are easily fixable, don’t be that person, forget about the nickel dime stuff, get real serious with looking for corrosion, any significant corrosion is cause to walk away

My theory is it’s as much heat as anything. Apparently almost any type of fuel as the volatiles flash off leave something behind, perhaps if it’s oxidized it becomes no longer soluable in the fuel. This doesn’t happen to the insides of portable fuel tanks or just tanks making me think that heat has something to do with it, but also apparent air is required. Any regular engine with a carburetor if left with fuel in it for long enough will gum up or varnish, we have all seen it, but a modern fuel injection system that keeps the fuel not exposed to any air can be stored for years even with alcohol fuel and it won’t gum or varnish, the difference is none of it is exposed to air, even the fuel tank is pretty well sealed to prevent pollution from evaporative loss. I’ve not seen this in 100LL fuel myself though so you maybe cant make direct correlations with autofuel and Avgas. Will the replacements for 100LL be as “pure” and store as well and not oxidize as well as Avgas? I suspect it will be similar to many of the blends of gasses for refrigerant are, that over time some of it is lost and it changes its properties as some of the components are lost. But time will tell.

My solution for cleaning injectors, the smallest baby food jars and 1qt of Hoppes is $16 on Amazon Put them in an ultrasonic and let them float in the water. Jars are 2.5 oz if filled to the top, but you only need maybe an oz, just buy them at Walmart and dump the nasty out and wash them, empty one sell for more on Ebay than the ones full of food at Walmart.

You may be right, but obviously what’s mandated isn’t good enough or they wouldn’t have pushed for and be recommending top fuel so hard, they even put it in owners manuals, not that anyone reads those

I don’t think Hoppes removes lead fouling, scrubbing does, that why wire brushes are used, for metal fouling. I used to shoot a lot of high velocity 22-250, 220 Swift and .204 Ruger, high velocity copper fouls as that’s what a bullet jacket is made from, Hoppe’s has pretty much no effect, but nearly pure Ammonia sure does, use it and patches come out green from oxidized copper. However Hoppes is an excellent powder fouling cleaner and I believe powder fouling is mostly carbon, but not sure. On edit, Hoppes claims to remove lead, but it also claims to remove rust. I believe that’s marketing, if you pushed I bet their answer would be if used according to instructions that is vigorous scrubbing with a wire brush that it does remove lead, but I bet vigorous scrubbing with a wire brush and WD-40 would also remove lead. My experience with it us that it has very limited or no effect on metal fouling, but suspect that a fuel injector never gets lead fouled anyway. Acetone I believe has very little effect on most metals, it’s primarily I believe a very powerful de-greaser, maybe it’s for that varnish that was spoken about? Just guessing. It strips paint off of Bell Pitch change links well whatever that’s worth.

I don’t think they got the federal mandate which is surprising considering the effects of carbon build up on emissions. Most of the automakers banded together and came up with a set of standards higher than federally mandated, this is called top tier fuel and has been around for almost 20 years, the below links explain it better than I can, there are many others of course, many even low cost fuels meet top tier, but many don’t. It’s worth buying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Tier_Detergent_Gasoline https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/fuel-economy-efficiency/top-tier-gasoline-worth-the-extra-price-a7682471234/

An injector is not just a carburetor jet, to continue the carburetor comparison it’s an emulsion tube. That is it mixes air and fuel, the air bleed isn’t flushed by 100LL and yes it can clog, it’s a screen presumably to stop from sucking in bits of dirt to clog the air bleed hole, so the screen is a filter and like all filters it can and will over time become blocked

The guy from Airgas that brought our Argon dewers gave it to me, took it off the truck. My assumption is something they use regularly. Did a quick google for cga 540 fill whip, many are out there, this one for $50 looks good on Ebay, it even has a gauge https://www.ebay.com/itm/194020471334?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1qik4p5CrR9W8hVc-Qc0Atg57&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=194020471334&targetid=1585159290171&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9011535&poi=&campaignid=19894961968&mkgroupid=148855406073&rlsatarget=pla-1585159290171&abcId=9307911&merchantid=6296724&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0vWnBhC6ARIsAJpJM6dKPzOnNVw2oNZazOZ49j3OOoQn8ZRU8aaHX7OR0-v-9vPKArKvTKcaAuilEALw_wcB Super Deluxe for $100 https://www.ebay.com/itm/224854850813?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20201210111314%26meid%3D621a7b0e50514c7983cc5e31a80fb1af%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D194020471334%26itm%3D224854850813%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D4429486%26algv%3DSimplAMLv11WebTrimmedV3MskuWithLambda85KnnRecallV1V2V4ItemNrtInQueryAndCassiniVisualRankerAndBertRecallWithVMEV3%26brand%3DPrecision&_trksid=p4429486.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum%3A224854850813621a7b0e50514c7983cc5e31a80fb1af|enc%3AAQAIAAABUPqB0EgCndAssfMWNy0AT0GytGzF9%2By0G%2BlcW69DgBK3Qlz4BjwJQqPkN4K8I7qz9GoVciN1QNWqyS8EeqYS8rZRsDvyvw34m3N%2FyJKokwCTIIc3RNym2SNW8ARudP72DyiwgIY0dfUnIr5%2BMZDTaoutPD9lro52dRI3vCtiZn6tDj2GEG1AHwBk%2FyCSjmojLn8VHVhHd%2BPf8bsf01qxGK6XpgWUWYl1cPsPYHOeQ3ryGGQnAAHTIq94PI7A47Mk5HufyM%2FX5m7dz3bF2lMIY2DfF%2FL9976ugqW9t3iGMmVhzD%2FxB5kYwOPtL7C7G7hgZHcVNZ59xQcRDovxfH%2B6B9wmjtwk91Nqn2bAlrg%2BhaZa4jYmTEJSGv5rWimPfSABZJvHfXAooC5UWIZgDc4hLlyVqalSlmDwef1OvXyEWamVn7ydnwDopuZDKEduovWAfA%3D%3D|ampid%3APL_CLK|clp%3A4429486

Ideally you want to cascade two or more tanks, the more of course the higher the end pressure will be more often, but you have to balance that with expense of multiple bottles against frequency of use, but I’d want two. Of course start with the low bottle and use the high one to top off The ideal is a Haskel which is an air driven compressor that will take your fill tank down to 200 PSI or so to fill your airplane, but you’ll never break even with paying for the Haskal unless you get a steal from a Scuba shop going under or something. A Haskal is what every tech diver wants, O2 is cheap, ultra pure Helium is not. I’m sure you know but be extraordinarily careful with cleanliness with O2 fittings, even oil from your skin can ignite under pressure with pure O2. I’d put the hose ends etc in a plastic bag when not being used. If your getting the fill bottle hot, slow down in filling, nothing wrong with it taking 5 min to fill a bottle. The attached picture is all you need to fill a portable, simple hose with a CGA 540 on each end, you don’t need gauges or anything else because the portable has a gauge on it. That attachment in the bag you have I believe is for filling portable medical bottles, which I don’t think many use for flying, some might have home brewed something I guess. ‘I think you will be surprised at the money your going to save and at least as important you’ll be more likely to go on O2 now that it’s available and much cheaper.

Assuming one has a good analyzer and to put it bluntly but knows what they are looking at, any issue with dirty injectors should highlight itself. If you don’t have any change in when and in what order your cylinders peak, then it’s likely you don’t need to clean anything. But if different cylinders start peaking first and or the spread between peaks is getting bigger then you may need to clean them. In my opinion cleaning on a regular schedule is probably most applicable for people like me that don’t have an analyzer and won’t know somethings up until it won’t run LOP as smoothly as it used to, but then there is the argument that as long as it will, what’s to clean? Two schools of thought, one guy cleans and rotates his plugs every oil change, next guy waits until Mag checks get flaky, Who’s right? Who’s wrong, both approaches work.

A whole lot of LED’s bought off of Ebay, Amazon etc are junk, cheap and noisy as hell. I had a high freq radio on the boat used for over the horizon comms, same as used to be used on intercontinental aircraft back in the day, it was particularly susceptible to noise, I had to turn off the fridge to use it, the Adler Barbor variable frequency drive compressor power supplies made a noise similar to a space video game. Again boat stuff, but Marine Beam tests their lights etc for rf output and their stuff is quiet, if someone is going to roll their own lights etc they are an excellent source for high quality RF quiet lights etc. Often boats come out with tech before aircraft, 406 ELT’s came out in boats before aircraft and are called EPIRBS, boat AIS is very similar to ADSB and pre-dates it by years etc. https://store.marinebeam.com

Oh, beware of LED’s, many of them are noisy as hell with RF and really can interfere with radios and nav equipment etc. I think it may be their power supplies that are a part of the light, but again I’m no EE, by beware I’m noy saying they are all bad, but some are so be sure you pick “quiet ones” This is a boat warning but aircraft use radios too. I’m surprised the FAA hasn’t issued something but I guess they believe everyone only uses FAA approved LED’s?

I am no EE, but a pwm dimmer on regular bulbs shouldn’t get hot and will work. However not all LED’s are dimmable if you try some flicker and oddly some cheap ones dim just fine and some high quality expensive ones won’t. I went around and around with this on the boat. Instrument lights power is very minimal, but if you night fly you should have a back up light. I have both a handheld myself that clips nicely in the overhead light tray and my go to is an inexpensive headlight, inexpensive because you don’t want a bright one, a head light leaves your hands free of course and illuminates anywhere you look, even if you need a chart or something from the back seat.

I think it is, but even if it’s not, what are you to do about it? A theory and there is likely some merit to it is that if you use almost no oil then your cylinders won’t last. Only cure for that that I can see is to replace them, but wouldn’t it make more sense to run what you have until replacement is required? In my one case instance that wasn’t the case because at 1000 hours they all had great compressions, but that’s one case too, and I worked to keep temps down. My personal belief is that cyl head temp is tied more to longevity than most any other metric, do not be afraid to open the cowl flaps, that’s why they are there. Many because they were taught that way close them immediately at the top of the climb, and will cruise at higher than desired head temps. I don’t have an engine analyzer so I can’t give you actual temps, but there is no MP/RPM with my NA engine that I can’t maintain middle of the green head temps, now on a hot day that means climbing at only 500 FPM and 130 KIAS, but it can be done. Remember most everything you get, even from an “expert” is an opinion, none warranty their advice, so always operate the engine IAW the POH / engine manual