takair

Aveo makes some compact lights.

Even if it did, wouldn’t it provide false data with each move of the yoke?

Ross Ref the trim, it should not come out. Full left should give you a few degrees of left turn, full right the other way. With equal fuel and pax, the trim should be set up relatively centered. The autopilot will do better with the trim set to wings level. Edit: Just realized that may be Marauder’s picture.......A side note, there is another thread about seats slipping on TO. Looking at the photo of the gear indicator, I can see you have some impacted dirt in the seat rails. This can contribute to a seat not locking. Very easy to clean using a drill bit turned by hand. Nice plane!

2. Is the PC roll trim 3. Looks like PC enable. Do you have a pushbutton release on the yoke? Can you ever get the PC to disengage? If not, the pilot Valve may be stuck, line linked....or....

In our area I have been impressed with how complete the traffic picture has been. I did come across a guy with no transponder that was invisible, but. He was talking to ATC and was no factor. Perhaps worth asking around local pilots to see if others have run into this.

In fairness, the airplane can do it if maintained. I was just suggesting that the maintenance may be greater than a metal wing. I guess I would be more concerned about the storage. My hangar landlord has a Bellanca Super Viking on a lift over my plane. They make great IFR planes, but storage is an issue. He does not even like the door open on a wet day. I guess a few nights outside on a trip would not kill it. If you really like it and can store it and maintain it, you should take a closer look. It would be a great fly-in airplane....

Some other considerations are hangars. Do you have a good hangar, preferably temp and humidity controlled? As others have said, do you have access to a wood savvy mechanic. These can be great collector planes....but they take a lot of care. Some folks love to work on planes as much as fly them, if that is you, it may also be a good fit. If you prefer flying in all kinds of weather and not worrying about the wood, then metal is better.

I have moved my plane in and out of experimental R&D while working STCs with it. It was very restrictive and not practical to keep it there. It restricted where I could fly, who I could fly and VFR only. Also, it did not give me any broad authority, but limited me to what I said I would be doing. I suspect older X R&D tickets may have been broader, but there should still be a limitations document with it. In addition, I’m not sure it is readily transferable. I would investigate further before buying.

I miss the V12 days... watching the rerun and falling asleep...

Heading back to airport now. It is a matter of being half tooth off. As a long shot, I called Surefly....and wouldn’t you know, Jason answered! Very friendly and helpful guy and he has run into this before. They will see if they can exchange my gear. Seems like Lycoming has a few configurations and the timing adjustment falls oddly in the middle. Stay tuned...

Evan Looks like you’ve done a couple of these now. Any trouble timing them? I’ve been trying to get mine timed for a couple hours now and I keep falling outside the adjustment. Surefly says to turn the gear 180 if this occurs, but there is only one woodruff key. Wonder if there is an alternate clocked gear, but they are not cheap. I’m not really aware of the gear being made with two slots as shown in Surefly drawing. About to put the mag back on and sort this out later.

This is a good idea. However, I would encourage everybody to look at their seat rail holes and clean out the FOD. I have read about this in previous posts and should know better. However, after way too many years of ownership and annuals I never took it serious enough....assuming my rails were clean because the seat always latched “nicely”. Today, I decided to clean them and was seriously surprised by how much impacted dirt was in each hole. It took some time to clean it all out and It kind of bothered me to realize how much more pin engagement there now is. In some holes I had very minimal engagement. I used a drill bit, turned by hand, and a vacuum to do the job.

The chart is an oversimplification. The flaps contribute to the lower stall speed, but the gear out does not. However, as others have said, gear affects performance. So, in climb, gear up provides better Vx and Vy performance.....so for clearing obstacles and gaining altitude, gear up and flaps as appropriate. Where the gear out situation may be more effective, is in slowing the airplane down to stall speed. So, for an off field landing, it is easier to slow the plane to achieve stall speed with gear out. So, to get into a small field, or treetops at stall speed, gear out may be the way to go. To stretch the glide or ditch have the gear up. As others have said, J bar aircraft, gear up early for no other reason than it’s much easier. That said, many airports in our area are surrounded by trees, so I like the performance early to have more options as I run out of runway. Would prefer a gear up on the runway, than no options as I approach the end of it. This can likely be as controversial as LOP and flap take-offs. Worth trying various methods with a CFI to see what works best for individual aircraft, pilots and environments. No trees or buildings off the runway might yield a different preference.

Did all 231s have retractable steps? I was not aware. Thought they ended with the Fs. That must mean some 201s have them too?

I’ve been a big fan of of the PC with Accu-Trak and AccuFlite, but lately have been tempted by one of the new autopilots coming to market. Both, the Accu-Trak and Accu-Flite just seemed a little sloppy in holding headings and track. I convinced myself that this is the way it always was. After annual, where I did the yoke shaft AD, it seemed a little worse. This past week, the system seemed exceptionally lazy for much of the flight, at times not even leveling the wings. This weekend I removed and cleaned the vacuum pilot valve....no real findings there. I started tracing things back, applying light vacuum to look for leaks and found the yoke disengage line was leaky. Pulling the yoke cover off, first thing I noticed was I had put the line on the wrong tube, it belongs on the innermost tube, however, I still had a leak. Focusing on the button, a visual inspection at the o rings revealed no obvious issues, however putting the button into the yoke revealed that the large (1/4”I’d x 1/16”) o ring was loose in the hole. Replaced it with a new one and it sealed up nicely. Test flight today in bumpy conditions and what a surprise. The system worked fantastic, has not performed this well in years...if ever. Instant response in wing level mode and held heading and track perfectly. It seems that a partial leak in the yoke button will allow the shuttle in the pilot valve to move part way....allowing some semblance of functionality, but not optimal functionality. In summary, sloppy wing leveler, check the o rings on the button. As a side note, in another thread I suggested removing the button if you want to disable the wing leveler for training or other reasons. Turns out, this likely wears the o ring in question, causing this issue. Otherwise this o ring remains static. Hope this saves someone a few $$.