A64Pilot

I used to bicycle a lot in Tx around 1990 or so, That’s where Camel Backs came from, they had a new one called an ice back, the top was insulated like normal, but the part that laid on your back was just mesh, having cold ice water laying on your spine really seemed to help a lot. Sadly it seems for some reason it’s no longer made

Since he is in Germany I’d say he probably doesn’t need a fan. My rule is if the box has a fan port, it gets one, you will know it’s a rather obvious tube sticking out the back ‘But in the South in the US I think a fan wired to the Master is a good idea, even if you just stop to eat, in the blazing Summer heat the avionics get heat soaked, if the blower is wired to the Master then you can run the fan for a minute or two and cool things down before you turn them on, because that black glare shield absorbs quite a lot of heat. I too believe heat kills electronics and while it’s true modern ones don’t generate as much heat operating, they can still get heat soaked in a hot cockpit. For some dumb reason the top of my Mooney is painted dark blue and the bottom white, painted that way you can get skin burns just getting in the thing and the inside is like an oven, sure wish it was white on top and blue on the bottom.

Funny, for most of my trips now I fly at 1,000 ft, which is nose bleed territory for me. I either fly low, or high, 7500 seems to be a sweet spot, the Maule it was between 10 and 12,000. 210 was about 7,500 too, which I think is about average for NA engines. Every design will have a sweet spot where lower eats more fuel and higher is slower, but short trips it doesn’t pay to climb to start an almost immediate descent when you get there. One thing the Mooney does better than most is pick up speed in a gentle decent, most designs have so much drag they don’t pick up all that much, but if you leave cruise power in a Mooney and just trim for a few hundred feet a minute she picks up quite a lot of speed, you just start down much further out than you do with most aircraft

If you read his history on why he became a test pilot it’s interesting. I never got to meet most of the greats, but a friend and I made a precautionary landing at a field in Oberwinter Germany and Adolph Galland came out to look at the helicopter. That was the hope anyway because at that time you didn’t just get to go see him.

Way I see it, is if Scott Crossfield couldn’t fly through the things I have no chance https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2007/september/27/ntsb-releases-final-report-on-crossfield-crash Scott Crossfield is one of the ones I respect A few of us are of the opinion that Center vectored him into it

It was rising air, it’s sort of like Mountain wave turbulence, I ran into that over the Canadian Rockies, there you learn to let it carry you up however high it will, don’t turn it into airspeed, because the down draft is coming and if you only have 2,000 or so above the mountains it might get uncomfortable. Stay out of the CB’s buried into the soft fluffy ones will be an ugly one.

In Kuwait we had to park the aircraft on 2x2 pieces of plywood or the wheels would sink into the new asphalt, of course we found that out the hard way

In Summer you fly early, or late or at night, nights were my favorite. I love Summer. I think I’m allergic to cold. But as we used to say in Tx, climb and maintain 70, 70 referencing OAT of course

I know a Walker can be disassembled and cleaned every so often, As the Airwolf is a Walker I assume it can be too, it’s not hard. You don’t have to drain the oil back to the engine, you can simply drain the separator before or after a flight, if you forget it will fill up and any more after it’s full just goes overboard like there is no separator, or fit a catch can and drain it. I like separators, they keep the belly clean, I used to make my own, but don’t have the facilities anymore. If I ever build an experimental I’d plumb the blow by into the exhaust, done right it would pull a slight vacuum, couldn’t freeze of course and ought not get onto the belly as the exhaust heat ought to vaporize the oil mist. I know we can’t, but I think it would be a good idea. Since forever Auto’s plumb the crankcase gasses into the intake, I assume aircraft don’t because in the unlikely event you broke compression rings etc that could dump an excess of oil into the suck side of the engine, but a slight crankcase vacuum helps prevent leaks and does other good things like help ring seal and help prevent ring flutter.

With what tubes cost I’d wait until I needed tires then the old ones are the spare, or I guess buy two spares and use them when you do get tires, but read up on how to best store them because they do go bad. I think best put in a zip loc bag coated in talc and keep out of sunlight. I’ve heard but can’t verify tire talc is different than baby powder. I’ve also heard if your a welder and have it anyway to flush the zip loc bag with Argon. Yeah I know but if you happen to have it anyway why not? Dont lose the yellow metal caps, you need them and they are stupid expensive for what they are, don’t use plastic caps, the metal ones have an O-ring and are a back up if the valve starts to leak.

I had a 100 gl tank in the bed of my truck, I fueled my 140 with it and the Center Console boat I kept at the Naval Warfare Center in Panama City Fl. If you run the numbers on the price difference in 100 LL and car gas if you only burn car gas at least for a C-85 the money saved will pay for an overhaul, it’s not insignificant. The little motors like the C-85 actually seem to run better on car gas and don’t foul plugs etc. Min octane fuel for the C-85 and even most models of the Supercharged R-1340 is 73 Octane. Quite a few of the very old designs don’t require high Octane fuel, because I don’t think it existed back then, 100 Octane didn’t become available until well into WWII I believe. The 1340’s that can’t use 73 Octane require 80 Octane, which I’m sure car gas meets. Remember car Octane and Aviation don’t directly correlate. Without the US made 100 Octane fuel it’s likely the Battle of Britain may have had a different outcome, and it most likely would have been lost too except for the license built Hamilton Standard props fitted to the Spits at the last minute. Without those two things the Me-109 outperformed the Spits. https://www.rsc.org/news-events/articles/2009/05-may/spitfire-fuel/#:~:text=The 100-octane fuel that,London and south-east England. Most of WWII aircraft fought the war with 87 Octane fuel. The Me-109 could only produce 1600 HP without ADI, but ADI took it to over 2,000 HP, 500 additional HP. Interesting a lower percentage of Alcohol, 30% gave the best power, 50% was used mostly for its lower freezing point, which I assume in a Russian Winter was important. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MW_50

IF LL is outlawed, then there will be a big demand for 94UL because the majority of the fleet can use it, and like I said if we don’t get stupid it can go into the old LL supply system, tanks, trucks etc. Just as I’m sure the Gami fuel could. Pretty quickly nearly all the lead will be gone, best way to get rid of it would be to burn it, but if we get stupid and require some kind of extensive decontamination, replacement of hoses etc, what do you do with all the contaminated stuff, to say nothing of the expense. What I think may happen is a return to two fuels, 94UL and the Gami, because I think the Gami won’t be as cheap as many think. But many of the lower compression motors can burn Auto fuel now, so we will see if 94UL has a place or not. 94UL on the other hand if in fact it’s simply 100LL without the lead, everything is in place for it, production, transportation, storage, dispensing etc. just don’t put the lead in it, start delivering it tomorrow Leaving the high compression motors and turbos requiring either ADI or the Gami fuel. From years ago even though only a fraction of the fleet need the high octane stuff, they burn the majority of the fuel. We will see what happens

To be clear I’m not abdicating putting in rivets in spotwelds, I believe the band is overhardned by the welds so it’s too late. ‘I think he meant it as a joke, but you never know

Now this I could see as an AMOC, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, what happens if I understand the failure mode is that the band cracks at the spot welds from them making the metal brittle, the crack spreads of course and the clamp comes apart, caused usually I believe by someone over opening the clamp more than the min required. Riveting I’m thinking doesn’t make the band brittle so it doesn’t crack. But I have never seen a “solid” clamp, how could you open that up to put it on? I’m sitting here thinking about the ring that holds the top on a 55 gl drum, it’s solid, so maybe?

Shouldn’t require an AMOC, if riveted clamps are allowed you simply terminate the AD by installing a part that the AD doesn’t cover. To get an AMOC you of course have to go through the FAA and get it approved

Mine has not returned to what it was, and I do not believe it ever will. One reason I say that is inflation has increased everything by 15% since the date we are using, so to break even you would need it to increase by 15%, so since mine dropped by about 25%, I would need the original 25% plus the additional 15% from inflation, which is of course 40%, and that’s not happening. Inflation is of course cumulative that’s where the 15% comes from, we were running 2% yearly prior to that date We should be OK, depending on what’s on the horizon but only because I had planned to survive a 29 era Depression, that’s survive not thrive. But it’s unlikely that we will buy the RV or Trawler to cruise around in this year like I had planned, I lean toward the Trawler and doing the Loop, but an RV would fit in the hangar. I say Retire early and adjust your life style to what you have to spend, because I’ve seen way too many wait too long, sure they have the money, but don’t have the health to spend it doing what they want. We Retired on a boat, a nice boat that was paid for, and I can attest that as long as your mechanically inclined that you can cruise paradise in a nice boat for about what it would cost to live in a Retirement trailer park and live well doing it. You can live in some Central American Countries very well on a fraction of what it cost to live here. But once your health is gone, I don’t care how much money you have, you’re very limited in what you can do.

Florida, I can’t speak to other places, I don’t live there. https://www.flhsmv.gov/insurance/ That $10,000 insurance coverage cost the Pizza deliver kid etc over $1,300 a year, I don’t know why, but I suspect the profit margin for required insurance is among the highest profit insurance there is. $1,300 yearly for $10K coverage is crazy. Example, that’s $13,000 a year for $100,000 of liability. Some of us carry $500K liability and don’t pay $65,000 a year for it, which is the rate the average legally required insurance costs in Fl. Methinks I smell a Rat. https://www.marketwatch.com/guides/insurance-services/average-cost-of-car-insurance-in-florida/ I have and I bet it’s very common, underinsured and uninsured insurance coverage, as I’m sure most do, so I really don’t care too much if the person that hits me has insurance that will give me or I bet actually my insurance company $10,000 or not. To put it in perspective, my Wife’s car was hail damaged when she was at work a month or so ago, from 50 feet you couldn’t see any damage, no glass was broken etc. Small dents on the hood and trunk and left side of the car, top is glass and undamaged. Cost to repair? $14,000, and some will kick in and say well that’s because Tesla parts are so overpriced. $1,800 of that $14,000 is parts. AVERAGE auto bought in 2023 cost over $48,000 and expected to exceed $50,000 by year end. That’s why I say $10k is nothing, it’s just barely 20% the cost of an AVERAGE Auto, 20%. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a43611570/average-new-car-price-down-still-high/ But extrapolating the average cost of $1,300 a year for the current legal min and increasing it to cover the average cost of a new car is $6,500 or $541 a month, think the average wage earner can afford that? So what’s wrong here? It seems to me not being an industry insider that the legally required insurance is a bit overpriced, because in my option the law requires it, the average wage earner has no choice Price of average Auto’s by category, Remember this inflation is transitory Where we go from here is the big question. The head of sales for Toyota North America, Jack Hollis, said in March that he expects new-car prices to top an average price of $50,000 sometime in 2023. That doesn't seem outlandish, given December's ATP of $49,501. Understanding how new vehicle prices are changing means breaking them down by category. The average new luxury vehicle, for example, cost $65,202 last month, effectively even with the February number. Prices for electric vehicles are headed up slightly, with an average price of $58,940 in March. It was $313 lower in February. The average price for a non-luxury vehicle in March was $44,182 and has been on a downward trend since January.

I have been astonished why no camera myself to look ahead. ‘The pic shows what I helped designed and Certified, it was a Thrush with 11” longer nose to correct CG without ballast, save a couple hundred lbs The red and white airplane, not the B-25. Anyway on a few we exported I put camera’s to look forward and the FSDO had no problems with it. US guys had no interest, they have learned to accommodate the blind spot I guess, oh and from memory it was a couple hundred dollars and on a million dollar airplane, what’s $200? It’s nose is much longer than I believe any warbird, you get used to it and learn to look way ahead. ‘Anyone who’s flown helicopters will tell you on approach they are nose high, so you look through the chin bubbles, but Gunships like the Cobra and Apache have no chin bubbles, so you learn to look at either side of the intended touchdown point and pick references, because you can’t see where your going to land as soon as you start decelerating. I don’t know why the Warbird guys haven’t learned, or put in cheap cameras to cover the blind spot. I think I remember one ran over an RV or something at Oshkosh a few years ago killing the pilot?

Years ago I had them put on the drawings for the Thrush crop duster and of course that’s what we used in the factory, reason is because a crop duster flies through chemicals every day and a prudent owner washes the aircraft every day, often with a pressure washer, over time the non waterproof connectors allowed the wires themselves to corrode, and when I got to looking into it, it wasn’t just the connection area that was corroding, the water and soap was wicking up into the wire strands and if you stripped the wire back the corrosion was sometimes several inches. As I was putting together a live aboard cruising sail boat I became aware of them that way, since then I’ll only use Ancor wire terminators and splices. But Delco has for years made what I believe are called weather pac connectors and in my opinion they are better than anything I’ve seen on aircraft, for something like a landing light that is frequently disconnected they would be tough to beat, absolutely waterproof, easily disconnected and won’t come apart accidentally, but I’m sure not fireproof, but what wiring connector is? Sort of like putting tie wraps forward of the firewall, everybody does, God knows the Thrush had way too many, I lost that battle, but I’ve not seen one that doesn’t burn. For those that haven’t seen the marine butt splices, Ancor especially has a larger and thicker barrel so a better crimp, but the plastic is hot glue lined heat shrink so when you hit it with a heat gun it shrinks down, then the hot glue melts sealing everything and the adhesive glues to the insulation making an even stronger connection. Of course there are cheap poorly made knock offs so stick with Ancor

STC will tell you how to mount it, it’s not harder than batteries which are more dense of course. Your convinced it’s going to be difficult, I don’t think it will be, we will see if it becomes widespread. I for one can live with 25 Squared, it’s how I flew my 210, but then that may be why I never had any Cylinder problems on the IO-520 either, but again I feel the 500 FPM climb extremely conservative, pretty sure I can get that at 2700 / 25” and use no ADI. The little bit of oil deals with Methanol corrosion, this isn’t new and un-proven, it’s been around since the 1930’s and widely used in WWII and after and sort of fell out of use when big high performance radials went away Just call me extremely suspicious of what the Gami fuel will cost, I believe if LL is banned and it’s the only option there will be quite a lot of profit taking, like trying to buy a chain saw of generator after a hurricane, after all the developer isn’t the one making or selling it is he? In fact I don’t expect to see it until LL is banned, then we will know what it costs Why would 94UL cost more than 100LL if it’s not subsidized? It’s just 100LL without the lead? Does it cost more to not put the lead in? But if it does then Premium auto fuel is an option. I run auto fuel in my 140 and it’s not bad, no worse than the lawnmower that sits over winter. I think just like when LSA first became a thing that aircraft that can burn Auto fuel will quickly become in short supply and be overpriced when and or if LL goes away. That’s when I bought my 140, pretty much overnight when LSA became real, 140’s which had been since they were first built the most expensive of the little airplanes dropped in value drastically, because they weren’t LSA legal, so I bought mine for a song.

I don’t know how they will handle a turbo I’m going to bet you money that when or if the Gami fuel becomes available you’re going to spend more than you think a year on it, every year. Install should be dead easy, it’s just a tank with two integral pumps, an MP sensor and cyl head temp sensor, most likely will tie into existing ones as many have one on each cylinder and a control / display box, the mixing / injection plate will be just that, ever install Nitrous on a car? For most of us NA guys 5 gls of fluid will last a long time, at 5,000 ft we are at 25”MP wide open so above that it’s off, if we climb at only 500 FPM and start at sea level and add 1 min for T/O that’s 11 min at 6 GPH, but you know most will likely do much better, most can beat 500 FPM but that’s about 1 gl, so 5 T/O and climbs? Worst case you only carry the alcohol and oil, at 1% mix the oil is nothing and 40% of 5.5 gls is what? maybe 2 gls. Any airport will have water. It’s not “special” Aviation alcohol, so yes I’d suspect FBO’s would carry it if there was a demand If think you will run short soon as you get the gear and flaps up reduce to slightly less than 25” she will climb fine, just a little slower. I reduced my C-210 to 25 squared with flaps and gear up as it was 300 HP for only 5 min, it did just fine, by reducing to 25” your putting the engine at 5,000 ft, a Mooney climbs fine through 5,000. Best chance we have for keeping prices from going through the roof when LL goes away is to have options. Plus in a great many countries Avgas simply isn’t available, that’s the biggest reason for the Diesel push, but with ADI you could burn Mogas So far as finding it, even my local Walmart has it as do a lot of paint stores, even Amazon, if your traveling and need it have Amazon ship it to the FBO your going to, just tell them you have a package coming and you’ll pick it up. I’ve done that a few times for clothes and other stuff.

Sent it to a neighbor with an Enstrom helicopter. Went to breakfast with him today. His question “So I can drill out the spot welds and put rivets in, right?”

According to this there is a way to keep your separator without having to have a Vacuum pump, but I’ve not done it myself. Paragraph 3 where it says on all electric aircraft they rob hot air off of the cylinders, they don’t get specific though, I’d give them a call http://www.airwolf.com/aw/products/air-oil-separators/product-information ‘The Airwolf is I believe a copy of the Walker separator and is a very good one, so I would want to keep it myself I made my own, copied the M20 design, seemed to work just fine, I had a wet vacuum pump and needed one.

You can get it all over Fl too, but a real problem is exactly what is Mogas? It’s chemical composition changes every so often and certainly in most places seasonally, so without an exacting standard Certification may be tough, depending on how much Political will there is in the FAA, they are a Government agency after all. https://www.epa.gov/fuels-registration-reporting-and-compliance-help/gasoline-properties-over-time Formulation changes by where you are and what time of year too https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11031 Of course California gas is different than everybody else’s https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/fuels-enforcment-program/california-reformulated-gasoline#:~:text=As part of an overall,Gasoline requirements in January%2C 1992. I was forced by a fool to go down a road of trying to Certify our airplane to burn Bio-Diesel, which it would do so happily, but the obvious problem is what is Bio-Diesel? It’s an undefined product, some of it comes from animal fats, some from several different plant sources, all of it having quite different properties, so how do you certify to something when you don’t know what it is, it can be blends of lots of things too, pretty much anything that’s not Petroleum, is a liquid and burns is labeled Bio-Diesel. Only possibility is to Certify to every possibility that it could be, good luck with that. I did find out in my researching that maybe not unsurprisingly the absolute experts, the people that knew more about it than everybody else combined was John Deere. That was 15 years or so, back when offset credits were all the rage

There are other issues, first Ethanol is prohibited, and non ETH fuel can be hard to find. Phase separation is one good reason But it’s been years ago but I searched the NTSB database long and hard looking for an accident that the cause was Auto fuel and couldn’t find one, maybe I just wasn’t searching correctly, or maybe they are almost non existent?