FloridaMan

I usually slow to maneuvering speed just because the ride is rough. A couple saturdays ago in FL there was a front coming through and it was just miserable. As for turbulence definitions. Light is bumps Moderate is *really* bumpy, but you can maintain control. That Saturday it was moderate as hell. Severe is when you're out of control of the airplane at times. I experienced severe clear air turbulence in my Mooney in New Mexico. It was 15 seconds of pure terror. The flight was so calm and boring at 11,000ft, that I was messing with my phone, listening to music, just letting the time pass. All of a sudden I am completely out of control. I was pulling a good 4Gs of acceleration in what was more like a smooth roller coaster ride than bumpy turbulence.

Isn't there a knob to tweak that out? My '67F has an adjustment on the panel.

I'd also like to add that the folks up there at Willmar were incredibly nice. It's on my list of places to go again.

I do it all the time when I fly long cross county flights. If I get 3 hours out of the tank that I warmed up on and climbed out on (from departure time, not power on time), then I know I have three hours in the other tank, or, as I think of it, two hours with reserve. I've also run my right tank dry before to see how much it took. I had my hand on the fuel selector and I kept an eye on the fuel pressure gauge. I switched tanks immediately when the pressure dropped, didn't turn on the fuel pump and the engine sputtered for a couple seconds and came back to life. I also like my available fuel to all be in one tank when it comes to landing if I land in my reserve. Having "an hour" left that's split between two sides does not appeal to me.

M20F. 158kts @ 8000 / 10GPH ROP. (LoPresti cowling, Powerflow Exhaust, 201 glass, GAMIs, other speed mods).

I don't know about Continental, but I believe that Lycoming released a bulletin suggesting that watching EGTs climb with the mag check is now the preferred way.

Are you the one responsible for making sure the milk gets bagged properly?

There were two separate airplanes other than me in that exchange. One was on approach; the other I heard call for flight following a minute after I had cleared the clouds. I assume he departed after me. The inbound VOR23 approach was being broadcast on CTAF, which I was monitoring and speaking my intentions during taxi. When he went missed, I saw a blue and white twin pass over me while I was holding short of RWY 5 -- I'm guessing it belonged to ATP and an instructor was having the student shoot an approach. I assume that if there was someone with a 5 minute release window on the ground for the opposite runway that ATC would not have cleared that other aircraft for an approach. It was strange coming in to that airport that day as well. ATC asked me if I wanted to cancel IFR and to expect a visual approach. It was anything but VMC there and I have a feeling that ATC may have cleared that other aircraft thinking that it was VMC at the field. After departure I switched to my departure frequency, climbed through the clouds (which I'm still as nervous as a whore in church doing), popped up through the overcast and I hear the other plane call up asking for flight following. There was no hole in that overcast.

I think that you misinterpreted what I was saying. I meant that those people who willingly enter IMC without clearance/release/flight plan put others at risk, willingly. The system, as it stands, provides us with safety and the infrastructure supports us. There is no reason to not use what's available.

Seriously, f- those guys. And anyone who does this. I took off from KDED a couple months ago. It was 900 ft overcast. Solid overcast. I had a release time and a void time since we didn't have a tower on the field and I couldn't reach the radio service on the ground. I finished my runup and pull up to the hold short of runway 5. Just then, I hear a foreign accent on a VOR approach for 23. WTF!? Ok, so I wait, and wait, and wait; they go missed and I see him cross overhead. I get out at the last minute before my void time and climb through 3000 ft of solid overcast while establishing communication. Then I hear, "Center, this is Skyhawk 12345 just off of Deland requesting flight following." There is no way that guy could have been legal for VFR. There were no holes and it was thick. It wouldn't bother me so much except that these guys were willfully maneuvering around in IMC in the vicinity of a relatively busy uncontrolled field with IFR traffic. It's one thing to be VFR, encounter some rain and have a cloud settle on top of you and to get out of it quickly; it's something else to willfully violate things in a manner that create a safety hazard. I will also add that it's all well and good to trust your instruments as you're taught until you get a case of the leans and your senses aren't just not giving you any cues, but actively telling you that you're in a steel spiral when you're straight and level. From that AOPA report of the Cirrus accident, I would be almost certain that's what the pilot experienced.

Having a bicycle is to having a car as having a car is to having an airplane. Having a car is to taking a bus as flying yourself is to taking an airline.

I like to take my feet, pick them up off the floor, and dance on the rudder pedals to wiggle the rudder back and forth on short final to ensure that I'm loose. That, combined with trying to hold the plane off the ground and continue to accelerate the yoke towards my lap as I touch down I've found has made greasing in landings, even in gusty crosswinds, infinitely easier. The rudder dancing also helps quite a bit with stalls. Supposedly a leading cause of people entering and then being unable to recover from spins is related to tense legs and inadequate application of the correct rudder, since they're pushing against a locked leg. Picking your feet up off the ground and wiggling the rudder ensure's you're not locked up.

I had issues with fouled plugs and switched to the extended electrode plugs and the issue went away. Even so, sometimes I'll still lean on the ground and I like to lean as aggressively as possible so the engine won't run up if for some reason I forget the mixture.

I always seem to miss things. Although I did show up at KFMY a couple weeks ago and found a B17 and a B24 parked on the ramp. I flew about 3 hours today all over florida and got kicked around pretty good in these winds. I felt like I was landing a taildragger.

Bennett, Have you ever experienced this? Watch start from the 0:40 to the 1:00 mark:

ok. I modified the poll. The ability to edit polls looks like it's based on us all being decent people. I'd say you could make some people look a little funny by changing the prompt and responses.

I bought a metal lathe a few years back. Switched to a 3D printer for most things now.

See poll (this is my first attempt at a poll, let's see how it works).

I just checked my logbooks. Paul signed them in 9/15/2005 for the tank reseal. I have noted zero leaks and minimal fuel level changes when the plane sits for a week (likely from venting here in the FL heat). Occasionally I get a little black spec in the fuel cup when I check the fuel, but I understand that to be completely normal. I've run the right tank dry before and noted that it takes 34 gallons to fill it. I've gotten it down to 32-33 a couple times (on long cross countries, I switch tanks 3 hours after take-off to make sure I have two hours in the tank that I didn't climb out on with reserve).

I asked the pilot I purchased my Mooney from if he had ever experienced an engine failure. He had over 35,000 hours of multi time and put at least 2000 on the tach on my Mooney, before mine he owned another Mooney. If I understood him correctly, he said he had never experienced an engine failure.

I tend to smell fuel when I first turn on my cabin heat. I have a CO detector and it hasn't detected anything, so I'm guessing some richness may load up in the heater that comes out when I turn it on.

I believe he did my F model several years ago before I bought it. No leaks so far.

I don't think we're disagreeing at all; I was, umm, elaborating on things a bit to highlight shortcomings and using your post as a prompt. As I said, I've seen my Dynon do strange things and I'm working with them at the moment in trying to diagnose the cause. Even with certified instruments, I've had two vacuum pumps fail in the past couple years. I wonder if that CFIT video of the Bonanza where the guy was flying with the 696 was the result of bad GPS data. This one: http://www.flight.org/blog/2009/09/30/bonanza-cfit-video/

From the Xavion website: http://www.x-avionics.com/xavion/development-and-testing/ My point is not in the quality of the sensors, or that of the software in itself. The complexity of what's going on within the iPhone is significantly greater and it was designed with goal of performance and versatility. Even Xavion's website suggests using an external sensor such as the Levil AHRS module. How long does it take Xavion to launch on your iPad? And how long does it take to reboot your iPad if it locks up? Your confidence in the company is your confidence in one guy, Austin Meyer, the guy who wrote the product. There was an article about him in Popular Science years ago. He came home drunk one night and accidentally posted the source code to X-Plane. While there's a little ad-hominem in that argument of mine, and I'll be the first in line to defend a product developed by a single person or a small, highly talented group, but I would not want it to be anything but something that can enhance my own situational awareness.

Get a Bonanza?