dkkim73

That's interesting. I would have assumed the WSOs would always fly in Aft Initiate. Even as a flight doc, once the pilot would get to know you enough to trust you're not constantly trying to kill them, they would do the same in the D model. One of the edge-case nightmares in Normal mode would be punching out and leaving the pilot to die in a situation like that if things got rushed or jumbled and you didn't turn the selector valve. I always assumed a duck would be a bigger liability to the front seat, but now I wonder if that would've been true in the -B and -D as well... PS. insert fowl joke (snort).

Same thought crossed my mind... if you're planning on a non-turbo retract anyway. If you're really agnostic to the model and looking at #s, you might consider letting it be driven by the quality of the specific airplanes you find. That would make your search more complex, though. And those models mentioned above would be pretty agile and sporty vs. an Archer. Heck, you could look for a Cardinal RG and get a lot of IFR chops in that for little fuel. D

Though mentioned above, I'll reiterate: I was surprised during my initial researches last year that total cost of ownership of a Cirrus was not necessarily favorable vs. a comparable Mooney (I'd naïvely assumed it was because, you know, plastic and all ). Insurance was brutal for me the first year. Hull value is a key input regardless. Annual cost is something I'm trying to get a guesstimate on for the next few years. I think Don Kaye's conservative estimates above are good for the level of complexity of the M20M or later. Something discussed only obliquely above; is a turbo a must-have or a might-want-someday? That would change the cost and complexity equation a bit. E.g. look at Ovation or J. PP thoughts only, not an accountant.

I wonder if anyone has tried the wrist mounted version? Longer battery life, it looks like... Sensor still wraps on the finger.

FL240? LOL, I'm not in any hurry to go there myself without backup O2 and some continuous monitoring. The area to get there and back requires above 13k or 15k along some segments IFR. I feel things these days above 10-12K, so being conservative re: animals. Alternative, with good weather, is "IFR" (I Follow Roads) to stay lower. Just found out the problem is going to be sidestepped by my wife with a road trip... At some point I will probably have to get a dog mask, though, but that's a more common problem.

Just when you thought everything had been asked before! Has anyone come across an existing solution, or built one, for transporting small animals (e.g. rats in this case) with supplemental oxygen? I would think some kind of simple oxygen tent would be feasible, but unsure if any appropriate turn-key solutions exist and how to approach the flow rate and concentration question (if trying to do with any precision). Sticking a regular cannula into a small pet tent seems reasonable, but with such small animals I am doubtful of getting SaO2 data and so it would be pretty empiric. Any tent would probably help with noise and stress, too. Oddly, there are tents for "oxygen therapy" out there. Any thoughts appreciated. David

I went to a local avionics shop yesterday (they do a lot of really interesting custom panel work, experimental etc, but also do bread-and-butter and are very approachable). They let me play with the A30, DC One-X and Zulu 3 (no DZ's in stock) and offered to let me borrow sets to try. I did notice a very faint high-frequency hiss with the DC One-X, which was a surprise. One gent thought it was due to noise from the flourescents. Just curious if anyone here @NotarPilot has had that problem, or maybe it was a one-off? Thanks!

You mean you're spoiled by an FO who calls out gear checks and gets you coffee? *Just kidding!* My comments from a human factors standpoint are very general. There are clearly a lot of other things, including cultural, procedural and environmental controls, that play a huge role. And the level of training and habit you have is beyond what I am accustomed to in my own flying. I try to take some of my prior military and 141-trained instructor exposure to inform my own personal flying, but that's secondary. I can feel the protective effects of the Law of Primacy in my own experience, and the level of conditioning that professional stick actuators get is beyond that for sure. I do think we tend to "fall to the level of our training" (or I might say experience and currency) so it's worth thinking about what is helpful to the GA community more broadly, average and median. PP thoughts only, not an airline pilot... (I've been waiting to say that; hat tip Signore Caruso)

Well, I would guess the charge/discharge profile of a marine battery might be different. I think it might actually be worse in some cases (anchoring overnight). But, at least @GeeBee's post explains all the fires I see flying over marinas...

Ah, rubbing it in, are we, that I bought Continental's high-performance Rube Goldberg/ Wile E. Coyote device, which I now love and can't abandon? Seriously, though, that is a great point! David

I believe, from a general human factors standpoint, people tend to tune out routine stimuli, particularly automated. OTOH if you are expecting height callouts and it tells you instead "checking landing gear", that would stick out more. At the very least, it's true for me. The FO (or involved personnel on the ground, not just calling "check gear down" routinely) could challenge you if you aren't verifying the gear or they don't see it. An automated system not connected to the indicator would however be more like an audio checklist. D

Thank you, that is very helpful indeed. The prices all seem to have increased since even a few months ago, but that seems to be inflation, as the offsets are again similar ($1300 bose, $1200 lightspeed, about $1065 DC). I actually emailed Sporty's back-and-forth, and they seem sincere about try it for 30 days and then try another if you don't like it. David

@aviatoreb You will, of course, need the gear wiring in place. The warning per se is, IIRC, a setting in the system which is easily accessed via WiFi in the first few minutes after power-up. The documentation is in the installation and operation manual, on the website if you don't already have it. Of course, be careful changing things and verifying it does what you think before relying on it (e.g. I checked the "gear still up" warning with a safety pilot and brief during transition training). It's a pretty nice, friendly, user-tweakable product. I'm really happy I added it. D

@Wing Nut Based on my experience last year, I would say things to consider include 1. time to source a good airplane, not trivial, and 2. time to green it up. Even buying a plane that I think was in good shape, there are little bits and thistles to iron out that come up (valve issues, weird idle problems, etc) until you "know it". I would also 2nd that the first annual might be more expensive than anticipated. I was able to lead-turn some of this, and work with the seller/broker, but other stuff simply came up later, or was stuff I wanted to do. I was new to airplane ownership, you are not, so forgive me if all this is obvious and/or factored into your assessment. HTH, D

Very cool. I'll bet the Stearman guys enjoyed that, too.. esp if you guys were in burner for the climb. And yes that looks like Meigs. D

@Rick Junkin Junkman, Are you still liking that installation arrangement? Now that I've had the plane a bit and have gone through the schematics, I'm circling back to this task. Thinking that the best mix of cost-effective, clean, and good prevention is to start with one BatteryMinder, 2 certified install kits, and the manufacturer's Y-connector (looks like it limits cross-current IIUC). Then can charge/condition each battery and then Y them together for maintenance with the S5 connector. Post-flight, as long as the cross-battery trickle charge is working, I am thinking can go directly to the Y-connector. Unfortunately don't have my own hangar, but boarding at 2 very reasonable places, so I think they will help me with occasional hook-ups. There is some clause in one contract about not leaving things plugged in, but at some point I could get a SwitcheOn and use it to run the minder and the pre-heat separately. @Brandt Brandt, similar question. I know you kept your install more "central" in the tail. Are you still happy with the trade-off of pulling the side panel to hook up or maintain batteries? And do you do it every time you park? @donkaye's setup is very elegant as well. He has inline fuses so I am thinking it is as safe as the certified setup, and all the non-aircraft parts are transient and outside the airframe to boot. Thanks, David

This might be a dumb question, but is something causing the batteries to be abused? E.g. the trickle-charge fuses blown, regulator off, etc?

So, after nearly joining in, then dropping out, I find myself in a position to want Bluetooth, LEMO, and an additional headset. Calling for clearance in the sticks with variable radio reception suddenly make BT seem like less of a luxury. Looked at further modding my old DC 10-13.4 by adding a LEMO plug and BT box, but at this point getting an additional headset makes more sense. --> So... how do you guys like your Delta Zulu's? I've looked at a few reviews incl. that, the A30, and the DC One-XP. It sounds like the strengths of the DZ are - passive attenuation - warranty - extra features (the audio EQ seems most interesting to me). (BTW I think the "buy n+1, get a better deal" offer is no longer active, so mostly just trying to buy smart for the next many years) Thanks, David

Yes, to clarify I am trying to understand if I should consistently always lean it a lot further out. Someone mentioned adjusting MP to further affect FF. It isn't clear what the relationship would be to TIT LOP; is the higher mass flow cooling in it's effects? Or is it going to lean it further despite the mechanical mixture. And then since FF determines energy flow LOP, one could adjust MP and RPM for whatever gives the best mechanical efficiency. Eg use the POH or do test runs to fill in a matrix of TAS. (I am) Overcomplicating this for sure. But ty for verifying the concern re < 1600F. D

Great PIREP. I am seeing old Bob Stevens cartoons in my head as a result of reading your description. That's high praise in aviation humor!

Do it! I've only flown into Pal-waukee, so I'm living vicariously through you guys. Missed Meigs by not very much time. Of course, I could've been grounded when the Pharoah of Chicago closed the airport overnight...

Some notes from my kneeboard yesterday, and looking now at the G1000 logs.... Yesterday I was at 15K with OAT at one point -22C, saw: 29"/2500 72LOP TIT 1618 FF 16.7 TAS 194 29"/2500 90LOP TIT 1600 FF 16 TAS 183 29"/2500 FF 16.9 TIT 1638 (so would be about 52LOP) TAS 190 (not sure that makes sense, that was captured a bit later) 25"/2500 83LOP TIT 1584 FF14.3 TAS prob around 173 avg (decelerating, and other things changing then) I was looking over the posts, and some guidance from @Schllc and others about staying below TIT 1600 (before I'd registered an intuition for these #s). Doh. I'd been shown how to use the lean find during transition, according to the POH, and that leaves me significantly north of 1600 at times. 1650 was mentioned by another experience pilot as a caution #. The engine has a GAMI spread of 0.6-0.7gph and a few folks think the injectors would help narrow further. I've sent a log to GAMI and got a few calls in to them (I think they're behind due to Sun n Fun). I could also just keep leaning it out past the above points, as the engine needs to go quite a bit further to get noticably rough. Has anyone written a "procedure guide" for these LOP ops for the Acclaim? I'm particularly confused during the descent, where I want to stay a bit lean until go-around, but probably not the wildly LOP from up at altitude. I understand that the system is supposed to adjust up to a point with power changes, but when walking back the MP during the descent, it would be nice to have a procedure to follow. Well, that was longer than intended, but this is an interesting conversation! David

Hi All, I had not been routinely checking my standby alternator. As it is part of the IFR pre-flight, esp. in FIKI planes, I started doing it recently. My question is: what do you normally see in the part of the procedure where you have the Stdby field ON, Main alt field OFF, and pull the 70A BAT breaker? It says the warning light should extinguish (I also look for positive charge). The manual warns that this doesn't occur below 2000, but I am seeing it happen a bit higher. Maybe because I drained my battery pre-start, but who knows... Figured I'd ask the hive mind. Thank you, David

Or the voltage regulator. I took this as a good opportunity to learn a bit about the system... the "M20TN SERVICE & MAINTENANCE MANUAL " (MAN180.pdf) has a pretty good description of theory and also has troubleshooting and service instructions, including voltage adjust. The voltage regulator ("APAC" in that reference) is actually fairly full-featured. That said, if something's changed, you would presumably want to thoroughly check everything before just empirically adjusting the voltage. Perhaps a more experienced person (esp. A&P) can weigh in here on whether these things drift on their own. HTH, D