N201MKTurbo

I think all this talk about DEI is a red herring. The real problem is flawed procedures that require absolute perfection and have no room for error. No visual separations at night on the helicopter routes. I think a 500 foot minimum separation would be reasonable.

I was able to find it on YouTube and watch it there.

You tube won’t play unless I sign in. That’s weird. I don’t have a you tube account.

Perhapse they had an autopilot or trim failure.

I will not make any judgement about her flying abilities. I have no information about it. I just said she was involved in things beyond what would be normal duties of an army captain. I would like to know if she was as current as her contemporaries.

I don’t think you can blame the CRJ pilots for anything. If they had crashed, that would be a different story, but they were hit by a helicopter while on a perfectly fine short final to a major airport.

The news has been reporting that the helicopter was doing this continuation of command mission. I just looked this up on the map and if the mission was to take people from the Pentagon to Raven Rock Mountain Complex, they were going the wrong way. Flying the river north would get you most of the way there, but they were flying south.

The highest ranking person on the helicopter was a captain, so I assume she was the pilot in command. News reports say she was extreamly experienced with 450 hours of flying time. That doesn’t sound that experienced to me. I have no idea how good a pilot the captain was or how much recent experience she had. There were numerous news stories about her attending high ranking socal events in DC including escorting foreign dignatries. I don’t think this is typical duty for an army captain. I wonder if these events distracted her from her flying duties?

If the military wanted to fly this mission, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to call ATC and request that the airspace be cleared for 5 minute window and let the helicopter fly its mission. As soon as the helicopter was clear, operations could resume. My understanding is it was a continuation of command training mission. Practicing taking high ranking pentagon officials to the bunker in Raven Mountain. The mission is flown assuming all navigation facilities are off line, so they are flying visually with NVGs following the rivers edge, which would be reliable pilotage. The only time these procedures were used, was after 9-11 and if you remember, all air traffic was stopped. So practicing with approaches going on does not seem realistic.

I would think any corrosion would cause blistering or flaking of the sealant. It is hard to imagine any corrosion would start on the tank side, so inspecting in the wheel well should show it first.

It runs cooler ROP at 20 degrees. Which was the intent of the change. It seems a bit more efficient at 25 LOP.

I made one out of high grade birch plywood. It’s lovely. And my wife even likes the looks of it.

BTW, I have run my engine at both 20 and 25 degrees. It runs better LOP at 25 and better ROP at 20. I always run LOP so it is set to 25. There was no difference in starting.

If the impulse coupling is set to 25 degrees and you time it to 20 degrees it will fire 5 degrees after TDC. I can’t see how this would hurt anything and should start just fine.

What kind of a free Mooney?

It’s crazy, he makes the worst decisions ever and in the end it always works out for him.

Most people out at the airport just love airplanes. Working on them, flying them. It is all good. It is amazing how many airline pilots show up in their monkey suits, change and start swinging wrenches.

There seems to be different attitudes in different parts of the country about airplane work. There are quite a few mechanics and IA willing to work with people around here. A lot of airline people who moonlight out at the hangars.

It seems like half the hangars at the home drome have some kind of rehab project going on. A friend of mine has done three in the last few years. He made money on all of them.

What I see is sealant put over sealant. And mystery sealant. And sloppy application. The only repairs approved in the maintenance manual requires the leaking area to be cleaned of all sealant down to bare metal. Then a bead coat of the specified sealant and after it cures, a brush coat of sealant. After that cures a top coat is applied. The repaired area should look like a brand new tank. That’s not what I see in your tanks.

Just an update on my Monster tires. They have been on there for quite a while. Almost 10 years. They still have tons of tread. After I ground 1/4 inch of tread off of them, they are great tires. I think they make a standard sized tire with the same rubber.

If you stripped those tanks before you put the bladders in, you would probably gain 10 Lbs of payload.

After looking at the repair work done on your tanks, no wonder you are putting in bladders.

Not after they Bondoed the whole thing. That is going to be quite a job to get off.

There are a couple of things to look at. One is the pivot bearing. Laser had an oversized bushing that was reasonable and easy to do. The other thing is the steering horn. If you cannot get a new one, you can shim up the old one and it will work OK for a while.