fantom

One more WELL DONE, Cris. It looks great! You are right on about the two types of Acry Glo, and most shops don't explain it to us, so do research beforehand.

Quote: testwest We really want to put an Aspen in, but can't stand not redoing the whole thing with an EDM-930 primary as well.

Plus or minus 2.5%, or so. Basically good enough.

I would be very careful with a used halon bottle...just how old, how full, and what type of halon is in it? I keep a bottle in my hanger, but wouldn't have one in my plane. Many years ago I had an inadvertent discharge in a new plane I was ferrying. The cockpit fogged up immediately...thick IMC, and breathing was very difficult for a minute or 50 ;-) Plus, I didn't know what was happening at first. Funny how many of these topics pop up right after a recent video or article; AOPA for this subject, I think.

If you've ever had to clean out Halon discharge, using an extiguisher would demand the same fear as pulling the red handle in a bottle airplane ;-)

"Should be useful in my goal of busting 300 knots in the flight levels this winter" I hate you 252, 231 and Rocket guys ;-) How's the heat in TX?

...or "None, because I don't think it's necessary"

"Why do you think that is ?" Certainly not for our reasonably priced dental care. "You need to wake up and stop taking whatever it is you are on" I trust you're more civil in person.

For those of you that don't have one: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11644888&cm_mmc=BCEmail_653-_-FOCUS-_-18-_-MarketingItemName I'm sure you can get the same price elsewhere, and they are interesting, even at lower altitudes.

"By your logic everything is unnecessary including our Mooneys ! We might as well fly a J3 Cub" You're a hoot, and as always, take a logical discussion to a ridiculous extreme. I believe you could handle a J-3 Cub about as much as I believe you can cruise your J at 165 kts on 9 GPH.

"Please educate me" I don't have that much time, or patience ;-) What you're not getting is that almost ALL our upgrade choices are "nice but unnecessary". Yours certainly was.

"Somehow it had to be the buyer" Only in this one case.

Well, I think we certainly DON'T have the complete story ~

"It's nice but unnecessary" Just like putting a GTN 750, GMA 35 and GTX 33 in an otherwise old panel....

Doubt that, but it does burn a bit more fuel.....

http://360vr.com/2011/06/22-discovery-flight-deck-opf_6236/index.html What, no Garmin GTN 750? ;-)

Interesting point about installer price variations, not unlike dentist mark-ups for products like Invisaligns and teeth whiteners ;-)

Couldn't agree more, Parker. There are probably more PIA, cheapskate, know nothing, blowhard, time wasting, tire kicking shoppers around, than decent, value added brokers, like AAA, who are by almost all accounts, the best in the business.

Thanks for the excellent write-up Craig. Your factual analysis with specific reasoning and sound logic is something we can all learn from. I also like the G500 aesthetics, and give weight to how much Parker liked his unit. But dealing with robber baron Garmin, who charge as much as the traffic will bear for everything, and don't think twice about obsolescing their last offering with no reasonable upgrade potential, is foolhardy, IMO. Peter and Aspen have proved extremely pilot customer friendly from all reports, and their technical innovations have made the bigger guys go back to the drawing board. You have the best looking and most functional Mooney retrofit panel I've ever seen. Well done!

This is my #3 favorite hot rod, after my Mooney (not for sale - sorry), and a Siai Marchetti SF-260. It's a Swearingen SX-300 kit plane, and it's name was derived in the same way as a Mooney 201 or 252, so it's faaaaast. It's got tiny wing, tiny landing gear and a big bad 300 HP Lycoming. Yes, it's fully aerobatic, has eatest up more pilots than any records will ever indicate, and has killed a few. Rotate at 90, and hope to lift off at 110; approach at 110 KIAS, cross the threshold at 100, flare and add a bit power to check descent for a touchdown at 90....if you're lucky. We won't talk about take-off or landing roll distances. The guys at Spruce Creek have given up their SF-260's for SX-300's

You ever wonder why Columbus needed three ships, when one could have done the job? flyboy. Please visit the Cape before it's too late, in order to get a better appreciation for the program. Ten years ago there were about 150 American astronauts, today about 60. Since the inception of Space travel just over 500 humans have gone into space, and ~ 350 of them were aboard the Shuttle. Given initial training, mission specific training, multi reason drop out potential, after mission physical recovery time, extensive debriefing, and a multitude of additional duties, their numbers are not excessive at all. WX this morning in SoFL was poor, marginal VFR at best. Broken decks at 2, 2.5 and 3 thousand feet, with lots of scattered clouds above that. Wind out of the south at over 20 knows down low, patchy rain showers, and just plain gloomy. Holding abound ODDEL on V-441. Not for inexperienced pilots, and photo opportunities were minimal. Then, low and behold, just after a last minute delay, they sky lights up and the final launch goes off through a hole. I suspect someone may have stretched WX launch parameters. Nothing will match being in the VIP area for STS-8 to see, feel, and smell Challenger slip the surly bonds of earth, at about 2:30 AM over 25 years ago, during the first night launch ever. Now we"ll hitch rides with the Russians, and watch the Chinese put a man on the moon in about ten years. Their time has come, and ours is about over, I fear.

Care to share your source with the rest of us, 201er?

"The only source I've found so far wants $25 for a little piece of plastic!" Wait till you see the shipping and handling charge!!!

Oh, good, it isn't NASA you find fault with flyboy, but the grossly overreaching, morally corrupt, incompetent politicians we have in Washington. They do have an unblemished record for screwing up everything they get involved with. BTW, it's a lot more than several million bucks to train any astronaut (not just pilots), they stay in the program for many years, are somewhat older than your average military jock, and we needed lots of them for the program that never got extended. Keep your scorecard for the broken campaign promises and metrics for the massive spending programs of the past few years. These lies will dwarf anything you can say about NASA. BTW, the mission has not be scrubbed yet, as the weather forecast remains unchanged for tomorrow's launch with still only a 30 percent chance for acceptable conditions. Here's the description from the meteorologists: "Moisture continues to increase over Kennedy Space Center as a trough of low pressure moves in from the south-southeast. An upper-level low in the Gulf of Mexico is also affecting clouds associated with convection in from the southwest. Scattered showers are prevalent over the area this morning, and the saturated atmosphere will continue to breed showers and thunderstorms for the next several days with the most activity today and launch day," forecasters say. "Our primary concerns for launch are showers and thunderstorms within 20 nautical miles of the Shuttle Landing Facility, flight through precipitation, and cumulus clouds." The specifics call for scattered low- clouds, broken decks in the mid high levels, showers and thunderstorms in the vicinity, good visibility, south-southwesterly winds of 10 peaking to 15 knots and a temperature of 80 degrees. If Atlantis' launch slips to Saturday for some reason, the odds of acceptable weather increase slightly to 40 percent and then improve to 60 percent on Sunday. "Still, cumulus clouds and showers are concerns for each launch window through the weekend."

Thanks for the good infor Becca. Those low approach Shuttle tours were very cool but are a thing of the past since 9/11. Don't worry about me, I've seen a bunch of launches, from the air, the ground, and even one from the VIP area. ATC does an excellent job of keeping us stacked and at a legal distance. They even give us launch time updates. As for Mike (flyboy)....I'm beginning to worry about him ;-)