Slick Nick

You’ll be fine. I keep the oil cooler in my J half taped off in winter and it’s had no problem up to +10*C

I always wondered what the hell that fuse holder was for! Mechanical tach MSE here.

The factory beacon is a Whelen 90033. I believe -19 is the correct dash number for the red cover, with drain hole, and 3 pin molex connector. They are BRIGHT and have a nice, soft flash to them. The wiring is already run to the tail for the belly beacon, you'll just need to add the 3 pins to the AMP connector by the battery door. Then, a 3 pin Molex will plug right into the beacon light. BAS has the switch you're looking for in stock, (as well as the beacon light) it will slot into the bus bar in your overhead panel and there will be a wire run (should be LB01A20 - light, beacon, circuit #01, 20 gauge) that you'll put a ring terminal on for the switch. The OEM beacon light is offset to the right side of the fuselage slightly, since the rivet seams run the center. Wouldn't take you more than an afternoon to install if you had everything lined up.

It’s a big jet thing. In every Boeing / Airbus I’ve flown, landing lights on at 10, turnoffs on with approach clearance, and taxi on with landing clearance. Makes it easy to confirm with a quick glance up to the switches on final that you’re clear to land.

Shorten the bolt.

I have one of the Commander docking stations for updating my KLN. The base stations / power supply are the same for all units, they change the top cage to fit the unit you have. There are two connectors on mine, a data connector and a power connector. I took them apart, and honestly, if you're handy with a soldering iron you could make your own if you have a DC power supply for the unit. Download the installation guides for your units and have a look at the pinouts to see how many wires you need. The Bendix King stuff I have, has a special "take home" pin that needs to be grounded so the unit knows it's in "practice / update" mode and not in an actual aircraft, so it won't give errors for no GPS position, etc. With that grounded, it pretty much ignores all the inputs and just needs a power/gnd. The data cable is totally seperate, but is just a DB15 cable with a couple wires for RS232 in/out that I run to my computer. Honestly, I like having the heavy chassis to hold the unit on my desk when I'm doing an update, but they are expensive. Up to you if you want to spend the money, but it's nothing you can't fab yourself in an afternoon if you don't mind a more "temporary" setup for updating.

Great news! What were the symptoms you were experiencing? I suspect one of my sensors may be starting to become intermittent.

Instead of saying “unless unsafe” it should say “unless practicable.” Common sense (airmanship) is severely lacking these days. People taxiing around day or night with high intensity lights on just “because it says so” with no regard for other aviators is far too prevalent. (Among other things.) I come from the “big iron” world also, and it’s embarrassing to be caught with your strobes on while taxiing. Usually, you’ve got about 7 seconds before the guy in lineup behind you chides you on the frequency. Best practice is to turn them on when entering an active runway and off again once clear. If you have a lower intensity beacon light to leave on instead, all the better.

Always always sump the tanks. Always. Even if you fueled it yourself. What was the quality of the avgas you just put in? Was it full of water? I always let it settle out for 5-10 minutes after fueling, then sump the tanks. Haven't found any water or contaminants yet, but that doesn't mean it's time wasted.

I solo’d at 14. In Canada you only need a student pilot permit for supervised solo.

In regards to your glideslope issue, have your avionics guy use a signal generator to determine if it’s the instrument or the antenna. Your post above mentioned that on an ILS your other instrument didn’t show glideslope until close to the station. This could also be an issue with your antenna diplexer.

I think you may be confused on how the HSI works. It is two separate systems, integrated into one instrument. There is a heading component, and a navigation component. Other than being displayed on the same instrument, the two have nothing to do with one another. You could remove your GPS from the airplane entirely, and the directional gyro component would still work normally. A compass swing is a deviation check. 5-7 degrees is within limits, but I wouldn’t fly IFR if I was off by that much on the HSI. You can correct for this by having your KA-51 adjusted, which is what I suggested originally. Even the super old units with no internal adjustment, the Bendix King procedure was to actually clock the magnetometer in the wing accordingly to compensate.

It’s very possible. In fact it’s been the cause of Mooney engine failures before.

What’s the benefit to that system? Is there much of a performance gain to be had with some sort of adjustable timing?

Up on top today, with Mt. Assiniboine poking through at 11,765’.