A64Pilot

It is but the reality of one of these types of contracts is that they are in fact pretty much un-enforceable. By that I mean the cost for you to enforce it is likely to exceed the remuneration of the enforcement, so yes contracts are nice to have, when they mean something, but if they don’t they they don’t. The Lawyer is the winner, or Lawyers actually if you try to enforce it. Example, you think a deposit by the prospective buyer means that as long as your aircraft passes the pre-buy then they have to purchase the aircraft, or you keep the deposit right? Unless it’s some really unusual contract that I’ve not seen it doesn’t. The buyer can back out at any time, for pretty much any reason. Just as I’m pretty sure the seller can back out too, as a buyer you may get the money you spent on a pre-buy back if the seller is honest, but time and money traveling etc is most likely gone. The system works because 99% of the time, especially if the prospective buyer has spent money they really do want to buy and by the time the seller has some time and money into it, they really do want to sell. I have never seen a boat, car, airplane etc bought because the buyer was contractually obligated, maybe in a unusual circumstance like a partnership if there was a contract that stipulated if one of the partners lost their medical the other was allowed to buy them out at xxxxx dollars and if the partner wanted to then that’s an enforceable contract. But the normal contract that I sign that says I agree to buy upon successful completion of a pre-buy and test flight isn’t. It’s as simple as saying the Wife decided she didn’t like the color or it just didn’t handle well etc.

Pic of our family dive boat

Trust me, I didn’t have to point the nose down that much at all, more than normal I’m sure but not as much as you would think, not enough to think something was wrong. On edit, go out and just push down on your flaps, I don’t mean hard enough to bust anything, but see how much they flex? well the faster you go the higher the air load, the more they come up, at high speed I’d expect they come up quite a bit. Way back in the day manufacturers usually designed for roughly 20 years, they logically expected on average small aircraft would be replaced about like cars are. Before far 23 fatigue wasn’t even required to be analyzed, just “considered” Of course even before far 23 it was obvious that GA aircraft were going to be used for far longer than ever considered and that’s why far 23 aircraft have airframe life limits and other major structure limits based on analysis, CAR 3 aircraft have no life limits, not because they were thought that they would last forever, but because it was expected they would be junked like automobiles before fatigue and life limits would be exceeded. If you have ever worked with the FAA small airplane directorate and or the ACO, there are very concerned about “the aging aircraft problem” their words not mine. Not read this, just popped up with a quick Google https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/small_airplanes/cos/aging_aircraft/media/roadmapGAAgingAirplane.pdf There is not a small number of FAA Engineers that want to establish mandatory retirement’s for GA aircraft, in their opinion it’s the only way to eliminate the “problem”

It’s that I think what’s being taught is at best ridiculous and I think could possibly be considered mental illness in the extreme cases, most I think is just idiots that desire attention, like the idiot who faked an engine failure and jumped out of the Taylorcraft. I don’t let it upset me, I just ignore it. I am a little concerned that for reasons I cant understand we are catering to these people, but accept the fact that I’m old, it’s time to pass the baton onto the younger generation and let them decide. I’m 64 by the way so I’m not geriatric, but I’m not the guy I was at 30.

I’ve heard of someone who did a low pass at J model VNE (196 kts) with T/O flaps, once without any apparent harm. But just because it didn’t break anything right away doesn’t mean there wasn’t any harm done, there was certainly fatigue, and that’s the issue. Many think that I’ve done X several times, those max airspeeds aren’t real, they are so conservative etc. without understanding the damage is cumulative, the first time you bend a coat hanger it doesn’t break, but keep bending and see what happens. Here’s another thing, most of the fleet is actually being flown well beyond original design life expectancy, it probably behooves us to add in additional cushion to those max limits if we want to keep these things flying without breaking parts, some that aren’t available anymore. As a maintainer one thing that drives me nuts is the instructors that teach to drop gear at the max gear extension airspeed, sure it’s allowed, but isn’t it logical to think that if anything is done repeatedly at the maximum limit that over time it just might cause more wear and fatigue than if it wasn’t done at max allowable limit?

Yeah, trust me there is a lot of interesting bookkeeping. For instance, one year when a certain Tx Presidency’s term was about to end one Arab country wanted to buy a bunch of F-16’s, F-16’s were built I think in Texas, FT Worth. Well it seems Israel had enough pull in Congress to block that sale, so an entire Squadron of US Army AH-64’s were pulled and through foreign military sales were sold to the Israeli’s. So the Arab country was allowed to purchase the F-16’s, because the Israelis were allowed to buy Army AH-64’s. The rest of the story is that Israel was quickly forgiven the debt, so the cost to the taxpayer was 24 AH-64’s for General Dynamics to make a big sale. The Army did not replace those aircraft, they were just gone. I’m nearly certain all the military hardware going to the Ukraine is being pulled from active duty Army units, there is no excess stock of that hardware, no Army store where you can just buy a large bunch of MLRS rockets etc. and I’d bet lunch no big contracts have been made to replace what has been given away, it’s just gone. Seems some contracts have been let, but in many key systems we have drawn down so much it will take years to replenish. https://www.csis.org/analysis/united-states-running-out-weapons-send-ukraine There is historic precedence for this, in the 73 Arab / Israeli war we pretty much stripped all the ammunition stockpile in Europe and lots of equipment and shipped it to Israel, if the Russians had wanted to they could have marched through the Fulda gap and been unstoppable. But it was replaced in an almost Emergency rate. So I am not playing politics here, just a lot goes on that for some reason doesn’t make the news, any news. It’s my understanding that if all goes well the US strategic oil reserve will be back to the level it was last year in 2022 in 2027 for instance, if all goes well, so one years sell off will take at least four years to replenish, if all goes well. It’s being replenished by a Congressional mandate I think.

IF it’s only 35K an hour I’d be very surprised, way back more than 20 yrs ago we were funded 5K an hour to fly the AH-64D That didn’t include any fuel and of course didn’t include personnel, it was just parts, most of the parts $$ was electronics. Every modern combat aircraft has become primarily an electronic machine, sure the airframe is cool, but it’s the electronics that make it so capable, and bleeding edge , very low production rate electronics that meet Mil-spec are very expensive. A class A accident back in my day was the worst, it meant more than 1 mil in damages or a death. On the Longbow if the Master Zeroize switch was flipped, it was a Class A accident, because it fried over 1Mil in circuit boards, mostly the FCR (radar). So my bet is the F-35 is over 35K an hour, because the Military and particularly the Air Force have been known to do some interesting bookkeeping

You’re right it is similar to a straw, pinch the end off and you decrease airflow through the straw and therefore decrease the drag. Drag is proportional to airflow through the straw ‘Your assumption is that the cu ft of airflow must remain the same open or closed and if it did then your theory would be correct, but airflow decrease with the flaps closed. Pressure in the straw remains constant only the flow changes ‘It’s very similar to the belief that a ram air intake inlet should be funnel shaped to scoop more air into the intake, except that is completely incorrect, the inlet needs to be a divergent cone to build pressure a convergent cone would build velocity and decrease pressure. The greater the amount of airflow around the engine, the greater the cooling drag

Now you have me confused. The lens is the yellowish cover that goes onto the strobe light itself and I feel sure isn’t available, your lucky if you can find a used light assembly, otherwise your most likely going LED, and we have a member that sells Whelen at a discount I think. The cover, is the clear plastic aerodynamic wing tip.

I never even advertised my Maule, word got out it was for sale and I got a fair offer before I even got it advertised. Pre-buy was done by the Maule factory and I knew them, and well they did build the thing.

You don’t need anyone to do a flight control check, you can do it all, you check the rudder is connected on pre-flight and moving the pedals confirms it moves, everything else you can see from the cockpit. ‘Interestingly I got a safety email from the FAA a couple days ago, topic is first flight after maintenance, it’s three .pdf files. I don’t know how to attach those but here is a couple of screen shots from the first .pdf. It’s on topic. a few would still be alive if they had done a flight control check, and how many check throttle and trim as part of a flight controls check, throttle you can check before starting engines.

I woukd say it’s exfoliation corrosion, that’s what inter granular turns into when it’s bad

I don’t honestly know what non binary is. Many thought of theirs as female, I honestly just never thought of it as anything except a machine. It really is quite an ugly thing, hard to think of it as female.

You laugh but every time I came back from a mission I would pat the TADS on the Apache and thank it for bringing me home. I do that occasionally on the spinner of the Mooney, but not so much

I don’t mind the noise, it’s that it gets stuck on the Damnest things, finds “cliffs” that aren’t there and even sometimes gets ‘stuck” sitting there in the middle of the floor. It’s fascinated by the sliding door track, won’t leave that area alone, isn’t happy until it drops a wheel into the track, and yes gets stuck. Little dog is good, he almost never has an “accident” but did once, let me tell you by the time the robot vacuum was done with that it was worse than if someone slaughtered something in that room, it smeared it all over the room and I had to completely disassemble it in the sink scrubbing everything with a toothbrush to get it so it didn’t drive around distributing that stench, it sucks in and blows out a lot of air, coat it’s insides with dog crap and you can imagine the aroma. Great concept, terrible execution

Daughter gave us the thing, unfortunately that’s not an option

Mooney doesn’t have a name. ‘But the stupid robot vacuum does, it’s called A$$hole, because I’m way past being annoyed by that thing

Contracts aren’t worth the paper they are written on, because you can sue, what’s that going to cost you? Then good look being rich airplane owner trying to sue some poor mechanic, then it’s your word against his and he’s a Federally licensed mechanic, what are your “bonafides”? So you hire a pro, more money. Then how long does this take? months, possibly years? Your last statement is the one that’s valid, but sometimes you get bit and they aren’t honest. In my case I’m well known in S Ga aviation, I knew the sellers IA well etc., I’m sure he vouched for me, and that likely had a lot to do with the handshake deal. ‘So far as getting a Broker to sell it for you, that’s what I did with our boat, because I had zero tolerance for shoppers that just want to go for a free sail and looking at boats is a weekend entertainment for them, most can’t afford one and have no real intent to buy one, but shopping during the weekend they get to live the dream that they could

It was until some jack leg idiot got ahold of it during his PPI, and the deal falls through leaving you to try to fix the things they broke like your plastic interior panels etc. When the day comes for me to sell mine the buyer is welcome to come sit in my airconditioned hangar and I can show him or her anything they want to see and they are allowed to bring their mechanic, I’ll even feed them lunch, they can swim in the pool weather permitting, I’ll even let them stay in the guest bedrooms, pick them up and take them back to the airport etc. But I’m going along for any test flights too. But I don’t think I’m flying the airplane to some facility that I know nothing about and leaving it there with the hope that I don’t end up with any maintenance induced problems. My circa 1981 plastic interior is in pretty good shape, but that stuff is fragile, have to treat it like it’s made from egg shells. I drove up to Moultrie GA to look at the airplane I bought, decided I liked it, agreed on a price if it passed inspection on a handshake, and drove home, drove back to the owners mechanics facility and paid him to do the work for me to inspect. This was in 2021 when sales were crazy and the seller got offers higher than mine sight unseen, but we had shook hands so he honored the price. Paid for the airplane and had a friend fly me up to bring it home

I’ve sold and worked on airplanes in Countries where the mechanic can ground an airplane. What keeps it honest is their Federal agency, if the owner thinks he’s being fleeced they investigate, usually if your being fleeced your not the first, if they find an unscrupulous mechanic, at best he’s no longer a mechanic, but I’ve heard of jail time too. Only time I’ve seen it is the “grounding” is a last resort, every time I’ve seen it the problem was shown to the owner and fixed, no “grounding” was necessary. I think any mechanic that grounds one without it being a very serious issue is bad for his business as people hear of it and avoid that mechanic. Many countries especially those under the British system require the factory to approve or even perform any major repair, for example I had to fly to St Vincent to replace a section of lower longeron tube, which really was not a difficult repair. Aircraft didn’t have wing root fairings and rainwater had dripped on the tube for years. Even most Central and South America countries have much more stringent regulations than the US, like TBO’s are mandatory etc. I assume for aircraft without factory support they have to hire a DER to design a repair? As much as we complain we have it easy in the US, many parts of the world fuel is outrageous and there are many fees to pay just for flying a few circuits

A technique for a hot runway and just floating in general is to reach over and flip the flap switch up, as they come up she will settle and land, you will probably have to add a little pitch up, but at a higher speed than it would with full flaps of course, but it stops the floating, waiting for the heat bubble to burst and a thump down landing. ‘I’ve not tried this with my electric flap Mooney but it works well for the hydraulic ones and I cant see any reason it wouldn’t for electric. Just haven’t had the need down here, grass of course you don’t get that huge heat like we did off of asphalt on a near windless afternoon in Tx, yes I know near windless in Tx in Summer is very rare,

Unless things have changed I’d be more worried about coming back, those are the ones that can be a pain. I think the ADSB requirement may not be a diversity Xponder but maybe 1090 ADSB, which I think is pretty much standard for the rest of the world? https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/august/04/nav-canada-delays-ads-b-mandate

If you use the barrel connectors dip the stripped ends of the wire in DC-4 before you insert them because they aren’t waterproof.

Then this one may not be the one, keep looking. I think it’s not a bad time to buy myself, we are considering a small motor home, and their prices have dropped drastically over the last year or so, how much lower I’m not sure, depends on how much worse the economy gets, I think airplanes and motor homes sales wise compare. I think though with our realistic use, it would make more sense for us to just rent one, so I’m waffling, besides I’m not sure one would fit in my hangar. Although they are responsible I don’t think the average owner in truth knows very much about AD’s much less SB’s etc. Most know where the oil goes and not much more. In my opinion your only real concern is corrosion and engine / prop and in truth cylinders aren’t a deal breaker to me, sure they figure into offering price but I wouldn’t walk if everything else was good. Unless you have a very large budget your not going to find the perfect airplane, your looking to make sure the warts aren’t terminal or hugely expensive, original interior may not be your dream, but I’ve not seen one ground an airplane and how much it costs to replace is well known, and this is something you can do yourself and save huge amounts of money. I bought mine with its original interior and poor quality paint job, I wish it had been original paint though, an older airplane with decent original paint has not been kept outside. 40 years of sitting outside and the paint is way beyond gone. ‘But It had a Gann Performance overhaul with about 350 hours on it, prop 350 since overhaul and all accessories new with engine overhaul, Mag overhauled. 2200 on airframe, first overhaul.

What I’m saying is travel yourself to there, if you have any kind of mechanical abilities and or sense of what logbooks look like you can tell a pig from a good airplane, only thing I’d caution you against is not to put too much into a paint job and interior etc and depending on your budget the panel, it’s the bones if you will your concerned with. Once you find one that you consider worth spending some money on to find out if it’s a keeper or not, then sit down with the owner and talk about what it would take for them to take the airplane where you want or whatever, and if he understands that your willing to put a considerable deposit on the line (money in escrow, don’t write them a check). Four hour drive or one hour flight is in your back yard, I’ve travelled many States just to look, sometimes don’t even get within 50 ft and I know I’ve wasted a trip. Once you sell one you’ll understand, most come in and honestly can’t afford the airplane and don’t have any real interest in buying, but want a free ride and drag you through all kinds of concessions etc. I think it’s a hobby or something, maybe let’s them for awhile love the dream of being an aircraft owner, who know what but there are a lot of them out there.