rbridges

I don't file ifr for shorter trips in vmc, but I prefer ifr on longer trips because sky conditions can change. I prefer having ATC helping me out along the way.

my wife used to say, "I thought you got that instrument rating to fly in the clouds." I told her you can't change physics with an instrument rating.

Wouldn't have guessed. Looks great in the photo. Congrats on the purchase.

Yeah, I wasn't too clear with my post. I was actually referring to gliding close to a boat. It seemed like we saw a lot of them along the way.

This one has the STC that lowers the height to avoid nipple impacts. The down side is that it requires a longer roll out.

I flew with my friend to the Bahamas, and we just used life vests in his Cirrus. One thing I noticed was that there were lots of boats along the way. Between glide distance, life vests and other boats/planes; I felt okay with just the vests.

I'm just going to throw this out there, but could it be something like an ILS middle marker?

I'd say wax it often. Polish if you have areas of oxidation, but waxing may buy you some time and protect some areas where metal may be exposed.

Well, you're the one who will have to suffer in an aerobatic tail dragger. How much fun can that possibly be?

I'm really the last person to give mechanical advice on a plane, but I don't think there's much load on a manual system with the flaps lowered and no air flow. When I had my slow leak, the flaps would hold overnight but would slowly inch up with just the propwash at 1000rpm.

The best part is that your plane is now worth $1,000,000 more with a complete set of logs.

I'm holding out until you sell me that Encore for a sweet deal.

You know it depends on whether or not your plane has bladders.

nice. That avidyne screen dwarfs the 430. Sometimes I wish my 430 would crap on me so that I could justify upgrading.

600 lbs for fuel and passengers? Wow.