Joshua Blackh4t

Personal risks aside, please don't ever be SURE of anything on your plane. Keep monitoring everything from your engine to paint chips to intercom static and make continual judgements on what is safe. If we were ever sure we'd never need to do a pre-flight, or practice forced landings, or have alternates. Back to the landing gear. You've done the test of "we landed on it for many years and there is only a hint of a possible crack", now you could do "we are still landing on it and nothing is getting worse". Both are very good tests for metal stress cracking.

I can't talk for the GA world, but in recreational/ultralights, it would not be uncommon that an undercarriage got a tiny crack during a really bad landing, and the owner decided to continue flying and keep an eye on it. Yes, failed undercarriage CAN be catastrophic, but likely wont be. Add in that its also not likely a crack will fail, and its not even likely it IS a crack. This adds up to a very low risk for continuing to fly and monitoring the suspected crack.

Am I the only one who thinks that its a non-issue due to it only being landing gear? It has 2 potential modes of failure IF it is a crack: Slowly stress cracking which will be noticeable well before it fully fails Or being the weakest point and breaking in a significant hard landing. With such minor cracking it would need to be a very hard landing that would hurt other things anyway. With either failure mode, there is neglegible danger to the people. Since it can only fail on the ground, asses it like you would for a car. Sure, an expensive car, but one that only drives 100km a year.

Australia is lucky that the government is giving a subsidy of 50% of the cost up to $5000 AUD per plane to install ADSB out. It made Sentrys affordable for ultralights and made an AV30/Tailbeaconx about half price. Yes, its annoying getting stalked but the amount of times it has made my life easier and safer makes it worth it. Especially at busy non controlled places and you get 3 people with bad radios in the same area, now instead of trying to work out what the little rag and tube things are doing you can see them on the screen. And with the tailbeaconx, you can always forget to turn on the nav lights. Oh dear, small gap on flight aware. Happened to a friend of mine.

The following happened to someone I know. At one point the mechanic found a crack in the engine mount which had my friend worried. It was very minimal, probably similar to that. It needed a mirror etc to see. Luckily for him, the mechanic is very common sense and let him continue to fly it but kept monitoring it to see what it would do. Since it never changed, they decided its a flaw in the metal and just keep monitoring it. Since yours is in the landing gear, and therefore no risk of it causing a scary accident, I would definitely be suggesting it could have been there its whole life and can they keep monitoring it and see what it does. Offer to bring it back after 10 landings.

Agreed, I would be in the same place. In that case, after a descent to 7000, I would be happy that the cylinders are already cool and have no worries of power right back, hold the gear lock switch to silence the alarm, prop full forward for max braking and nose down as fast as you are comfortable.

Not an IFR pilot here, but in my VFR experience, I am wary of the yellow arc. Not that I think the wings will fall off, but its a dead end to descending quickly. Too many times I have hit turbulence while trying to squeeze down a hole in a cloud, and then had the same situation as the OP. So if there is any chance you need a steep descent, start early to slow down (also less airflow = less shock) and don't be afraid to put wheels out, and remove later if needed. Also, we didn't ask why was the expedited descent required. Could the OP have anticipated the descent and requested top of descent earlier? It just feels like a problem I used to get a lot, but now don't anymore. I think I stopped wanting every second of speed and concentrated on more of a smooth procedure.

I will 2nd that. Not meaning to scare away potential useful suppliers, but this company has repeatedly come to these forums with blatant advertising and not even trying to make it Mooney connected. It doesn't really worry me, but we do have the LHS company who have been respectful, helpful and friendly. Out of principle I will support the nice guys because I hate seeing people getting an unfair advantage because they are breaking the rules. I support the idea, but the wired in LHS ones which can be turned off quickly when not wanted sound like a way better idea. Good for night and for a gear alert, but yeah, no need on a normal day.

Haha, I was being facetious. But never know, if you said that to yourself every landing it might sink in.

We have a pre-take off brief reminding ouselves not to turn back, how about a pre-landing brief? "In the unlikely event of the gear not being down I will close the throttle, and mixture, switch off the mags and allow myself to slide to a stop" I think its a great discussion to have and might save a few lives when a new pilot is considering a go round and remembers back to what he/she read in the formative years on a forum. I would like to think if I brushed it, I could get wheels down and land on the rest of the strip, but not sure. Manual gear is fast, but would be difficult. As everyone says, have enough insurance that you can buy another similar plane, and then ride it out.

Had any experience with courts? The judge probably has nil experience with mechanics, so you have to explain it to him like he/she is a small child. And you aren't an expert opinion, so you'll need to find an authority to write a report and pay for that. You'll need proof that nothing was damaged before. Then prove it was the shop etc. Not defending the damage, just strongly not advocating courts

So I sealed around it with rtv and it seems to have helped. Probably 15 ° f with similar oat. However I'll see if it handles it when I go back to hot areas. That doubler is solid riveted and will support the screw. Unfortunately VH-CBA is a working plane and doesn't get the luxury of replacing everything as soon as its not optimal. That screw (and many similar) will still be structurally adequate up until the next time its removed. The issue may have something with the nut plate clips not sealing as well as the original nuts, but I can imagine getting them off would be insanely difficult.

Thanks, I'll seal it up and see what happens. If it keeps being too high I'll start troubleshooting.

Thats the temp in cruise with an OAT of 15 degrees C Yes, I know my left tank guage is not working all the time.

Hi, After annual with combined avionics install, I have noticed higher than previous oil temp. Its over 200 where previously I would expect between 180-200. It came a bit down with cown flaps. I have noticed they didn't reseal around the cooler. Would this be likely to cause it? I have occasionally seen higher than expected temps before but they normally aren't sustained. That has me thinking maybe the vernatherm is getting sticky? But I'd like to first eliminate anything simple. Also, the guage equals the OAT on start up. Although it could still be an issue because I'd expect the oil a bit cooler inside the cowling with no reflected heat.

Its also statistics. I had someone once give a lecture on construction workplace safety. One of his ideas is this: Major accidents are largely random and unpredictable, so they are hard to avoid. BUT we know they happen at a relatively constant rate compared to minor accidents. SO, if we can cut down on small accidents we automatically cut down on major accidents. In construction thats like avoiding "harmless" things like splinters, hitting thumbs, dirt in you eyes, tripping over things etc. In aviation its all the little things that don't really matter but make us look less professional.

A slightly different sort of minimum I learned years ago: If more than 3 mistakes happen before take-off, then don't fly that day. (Or if its important, work out what you'll do to mitigate that you're not in the right headspace) I mean mistakes like forgetting a fuel drain, trying to start the engine without priming it, making a radio call before turning on the radio. The point being that we all occasionally make mistakes, but when there is a pattern, then we are likely to do something serious unless we change it. And it might just mean "you're stressed and dehydrated, drink some Gatorade and take 10 minutes to focus on the flight and stop thinking of work"

Sort of a side question, is there any issue with requesting an instrument approach when in vfr and not IFR rated? Poor plane. Same colours as mine. Hope mine never looks like that.

I remember a comic from a flying magazine. It had graphical illustrations of a quiz. What makes a wing fly? Is it: A: Bernoulli B: Newton C: Coanda effect D: Bucket loads of cash

I'm definitely not one to go changing everything for the sake of a few offended individual. BUT planes have hardly been around for 100 years so pilot-related terms have a much shorter history than 1500 years (even if the convention is further, English is a mixed bag and hardly ever follows its own rules) I personally want to encourage as many women as possible to be pilots. Most of the female pilots i know are damn good at it. So if changing away from one word will help, then hey, no worries. But that isn't even the point. The point is that right now someone has been so petty to change something from a perfectly fine neutral acronym, to an obviously male-sounding one. If you want to play the "what next" game.... next they roll back autopilot approvals because real men hand-fly their planes. Next we can't say "Avgas" because its this modern generation shortening things, it must be called Aviation Gasoline. From now on, only 2 kinds of fuel: car fuel and plane fuel. This 'diesel' and 'jet A1' wanting separate bowsers is not what God intended. Running LOP will be banned because its all a conspiracy and burning fuel is good for the planet I hope no one is offended....

Does this mean that female pilots don't have to read them? Or is the full plan to ban female pilots? Its just plain stupid, Air Missions might sound clunky, but it was good that no one changed the acronym and still made it neutral. This seems a bit of a d+ck move. I wonder if other countries will follow. I hope not.

Also, why was it parked up? I got bitten by not seeing that red flag years ago with someone wanting to do a halvsies deal with him providing the plane and me fixing it up when there was "nothing much wrong with it and we can register it experimental and fix it up easily". Anyone who parks a plane with nothing much wrong with it is not understanding planes in the first instance (value will only go down, sell it while you can) and doesn't understand that the 10 years (or 20 in your case) are worse than the original problems. In other news, anyone want a project to rebuild an Osprey 2?

I have the tailbeaconx and av-30. Its great. You might run into problems with the later models with the full rudder and the tail light mounted on the rudder. Also, to enter the squawk code is a bit of a b**ch. If you mainly fly class G then its great, lots of controlled and it can be frustrating. They are working on trying to improve that. Talks of even a number pad possibly. The Av-c is lovely and has lots of information and easy to read. Adsb out is also nice to have. Safety, and the convenience of controllers already having a positive ID on you before you ask for clearance.

I get mine up below 90kts, and down at about 100 kts but i never feel like i need to worry about speed. Occasionally i have had seatbelt tangles and had to let go for a second and it just sits about halfway. It easier than the gearshift on some old machinery

If you delete the ram air, do you still have an alternate air? I thought that was required.