AndyFromCB

So how much fuel does a 1990 Bravo hold when filled past the filler necks to the fuel caps? I'm just wondering if I downloaded enough. I assumed 95 gallons of usable but it might be 102? Anybody knows?

So, I get back to the airport (KAPA) sunday afternoon after spending the weekend at Grand Lake, CO. Go out to check my fuel, I'm loaded way past the tabs, run some numbers, calculated to be about about 200lb over gross. I go back to the desk at Tac Air and inform them of the situation. I guess they thought since the fuel is a dollar off on Sundays, I wanted full tanks. Anyways, I decided that taking off over gross from Denver is asking for trouble, so I rented a car and next morning their mechanic downloaded 30 gallons. They were really great about it including paying for my rental car Sunday night and taking off 30 gallons of the bill. Hats off to Tac Air for fixing the problem. Well, as I am walking out Monday afternoon for the flight home, I see another Bravo just came in to land, 4 big guys and more luggage than I though was possible to fit in a Mooney. You know they were over gross on landing, who knows how much on take off. Then I see a J taxing to take off, same story, 4 big guys filling up the airplane. I guess some people have more balls than I do. The amazing thing about the Bravo, we took right at gross, density altitude right around 7000, climb at 105 was still over 1000fpm. Also, Managed 5 go arounds this weekend for a total of 2 landings, including one bounce, bounce, bounce go around, yes, I was that "idiot" at KAPA on Friday afternoon;-) Wasn't my best day. With the turbulence there, I couldn't hold airspeed within 20 knots on final. Once a Mooney is behind the power curve, it ain't pretty, especially at high altitude. My XM must have died because all the time I was expecting 3 knots variable and when I finally pulled up ATIS, it was 15 gusting to 30. Went around 3 times, finally approached at about 95knots with the boards out and put her down. Airspeed indicator went from about 85 to 60 in two second in flare. Got to love the mountains on a windy day. The usual speed of 75knots plus gust factor just would not work, the bottom simply dropped out every time, big time. On the final landing, I still had some power in flare.

Time for me to take some remedial training ;-) This was great speed control. I chewed up good portion of 5500 feet coming down the ILS yesterday, granted I was doing 90 over the fence to keep up with the traffic in the pattern at KCBF yesterday. Managed 5 go arounds this weekend for a total of 2 landings, including one bounce, bounce, bounce go around, yes, I was that "idiot" at KAPA on Friday afternoon;-) Wasn't my best day. With the turbulence there, I couldn't hold airspeed within 20 knots on final. Once a Mooney is behind the power curve, it ain't pretty, especially at high altitude. My XM must have died because all the time I was expecting 3 knots variable and when I finally pulled up ATIS, it was 15 gusting to 30. Went around 3 times, finally approached at about 95knots with the boards out and put her down. Airspeed indicator went from about 85 to 60 in two second in flare. Got to love the mountains on a windy day.

I've done my share of stupid pilot tricks...

I have always found the so called scud running in the midwest to be as safe as anything else (sometimes safer than IFR in the summer with potential for embedded thunderstorms or winter with icing potential), with proper planning and 100% commitment to do a 180 at the first sign of deteriorating conditions. My conditions have always been a ceiling of 2000, being able to stay 1000AGL and sticking to a preplanned route at all cost, a route that was analyzed for obstacle clearance and terrain which usually meant sticking on an airway. Not a big fan in the mountains, but sometimes required to land at Alpine, WY by first shooting an approach into Afton and then following the highway. Once again, need a 2000 ceiling. To me a 2000 foot ceiling is not an issue as long as visiblity is there. The second visibility or clouds drop, I find a place to land.

I was exactly there 2 years ago and I wouldn't even think for second about departing into those conditions and letting shit deteriorate to that point. Yes, before my IFR and TKS, I did a lot of scud running at 1000agl, but never with a ceiling of less than 2000, always on a carefully chosen route, usually airways and still I've landed short quite a few times. Even after I got my IFR, I've cancelled quite a few flights even when others would launch with no problems because they were below my minimums which to this day, with 400 hours and about 40 of actual are 600/2 and day time. I do 200/1 for practice, but only at my home airport and only with a second IFR rate pilot on board. Idiots like this fellow is exactly why the insurance rates what they are.

Hank, There are major differences between the consumer versions, with all the junk installed plus add some spyware and viruses vs the embedded and server platforms that run the world. We have quite a few Windows 2008 servers in our company that have never been shut down since they were installed and run just peachy ;-) But when it comes to consumer grade products, MS just does not seem to be able to execute anymore vs the competition.

Actually, Windows XP embedded is a very stable platform and you'd be surprised how much avionics out there run on it, for example, Garmin GMX200 and almost all of Avidyne's gear.

You know the pilot had no idea when he said "if we're going to be available for landing". I'm very surprised chicago didn't declare emergency for him. I also want to know how exactly one kills themselves having two giant screens in front of them. I can see freaking out with just an AI but essentially he had TV in from of him. I'm going to sound like the a-hole that I am, but oh well, Darwin wins every time. Plus on top of everything the idiot had a parachute. There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who panic and those who don't. The former should stay at home and play video games, and latter, with careful consideration should be allowed to venture every know and then. People like him just piss me off. If I had a dollar for every time I landed short of destination, departed late or not at all or argued with a controller about altitude, I would be a wealthy man.

Maybe I've been lucky, flying from controlled airspace most of my life, but at 5 hours here pilots have better communication skills than this fellow.

Like I said, have fun running out of battery every 2 hours or so. I have a pre-release surface for development testing and it sucks power down at a rapid pace...

Surface sucks, plain and simple. It's like running the latest version of Foreflight on iPad 1, everything has that annoying delay. Also, you can't run regular windows apps on surface tablet, sorry. Different processor. You'd have to buy Surface Pro, not out yet and I bet you the battery on that will last an hour running regular app. The reason why tables last so long on a single charge is that the OS and apps are specifically designed to sleep between processor cycles. I do a lot of tablet development for agriculture so I've been playing with the surface for a while.

Same way here in Iowa, wide open prairie, and airport on top of the hill, too, so a big downdraft about 1/4 mile on final. It's funny watching pilots lands. At KCBF, I always fly my final 1 notch above the glide slope and it works out perfect every time. I land better when it's windy and or gusty. The only time I ever had the dreaded, bounce, bounce, bounce, go around was on a perfectly calm day. I just could not get the picture in my head figured out. Long body speeds seem to be identical to lower weight mooneys, just in knots instead of mph. My short final at full landing weight, 3200 is best flown at 75knots, when it's just me and quarter fuel, 70 works much better.

Whenever I fly over mountains like this upcoming weekend to Granby, I have a backpack, ready to go for two: -warm wool socks -warm wool gloves -warm wool hats -warm wool sweaters -warm down jackets -rain suits -thin sleeping bag liners -emergency bivvy bags -tarp -candles -flash lights -matches -jet boil, two carnisters and a little stove that can burn avgas -knives -rope -noodles, lots of noodles and sugar and salt and tea -water tablets -plastic, collapsable water bag -full blown backcountry medical kit including burn kits, lydocaine, pain pills, antibiotics, stiches, and a little medical book, etc, etc. I've used that kit before on a backpacking trip when a friend had a crampon go thru his calf and tear it wide open and it made all the difference, ER guys didn't even restitch it 2 days later, just left them alone. -trash bags, don't forget the trash bags, come in really handy for a bunch of reasons, duct tape and a few drink straws. All and all, it weights in at 20 or lbs. If I was in real back country, I'd toss in some boots, real sleeping bags and a tent adding another 20lb. But it's amazing how warm you can stay with just a bag liner with arms cut out, a silver bivy with arms cut out a wool sweater underneath and a down jack over it all. Probably good down to -20 for a few days if need be.

It's for fixing my Ducati, I swear ;-) The only thing less reliable than an airplane. If I ever wanted to truly create a maintenance nightmare, I would have Ferrari design the engine, Ducati build the electronics and especially the autopilot and Fiat build the airframe. BTW, I really miss my S-TEC 30. Never a hick up in 2 years of flying vs my KFC-150 which is still not exactly perfect. Going to autopilots central on the 28th of February. Now it runs fine for about 30 minutes and then quits holding pitch.

I have not done the bulb, but I have fixed the internals of the knob shaft to switch connection. I'm just saying it takes about 10 minutes to take the unit out and slip it out of its case to take a peek inside.

You've got 3 screws holding the autopilot head in the panel, plus a little one holding the knob. Plus 4 more screws holding the cover once you get it out to get to the innards. Rather uncomplicated procedure. Or you can send it in to S-TEC and pay them a grand ;-)

12 hours is insane. I did it myself and had my A&P sign on on it, all under 3 hours. Take out old rack, disconnect the plug, connect the plug to new rack and install new rack, all and all, 3 hours total including paperwork and updating the settings.

XM will not let you know about building stages, and some CBs even 2000 feet tall are scary inside and will show on stormscope. On the other hand some 30,000 feet tall are a smooth ride even though red on XM after they are finished dumping most of the rain. Stormscope is the ultimate confirmation tool short of dopler radar. I really like having both, by observing trends on XM, I can confirm stormscope readings. By having stormscopes I can confirm approach radar guiding me into red on XM. I has happened on multiple times: red on XM, nothing on stormscope, Omaha approach telling me others are reporting good rides. So far so good every time. I've had the opposite too where I refused a clearance based on stormscope. I really comes down to what you do with your airplane, if all you ever do is VFR, there is no need for stormscope, if you fly summer time IFR, like I do, in IMC with potential for embedded thrunderstorm or bumps, I'd keep my stormscope. You can always get the WX-500 to save space. The reason why I like my WX1000E is it's right next to my HSI and displays the flight plan so I never have to think twice which direction to turn next on approach, kind of like having a Sandel.

http://www.safepilots.org/library/contributed/Weather_Stormscope&Radar(NEXRAD)-ACompariativeAnalysis_08-23-10.pdf Depends what kind of flying you do, to me, if I had to pick one, I'd take stormscope, but I like both, actually, I do have both, WX-500, WX-1000E, XM on GMX200 and ADS-B on 796 ;-)

I had the same problem with my Arrow as well. Even the motor would have a hard time moving it until I pressed the switch up and down a few times in cold weather. The Bravo doesn't seem to have that problem, but I assume the king servo motor must be stronger. Honestly, I haven't touched the trim wheel with my hands in years.

I'm not buying into the whole unsafe ICP with our little engines. My Bravo engine is a IO540 that normally produced 250hp and without any changes to the engine, they turned it into 270hp engine running 38 inches of manifold pressure on take off (I actually have mine dialed down to 36 for better cooling and not having to have to touch anything for a while after take off), still making better than book numbers. Granted, most fell apart after 500 hours or so before the introduction of the "wet head" (the best thing lycoming has ever done) so I wouldn't be too much concerned about pulling 220hp out of the engine designed for 200hp every now and then as long as cylinders stay cool. If you're truly concerned, don't pull full power off on take off in negative density altitude situations.

I didn't buy my plane from Tim but I did talk to him a few times and met him once. Seemed like a straight shooter. He used to work for Bruce and then they split the shop up after Bruce retired with Tim taking over sales, Bruce training, Brian maintenance and Paul fuel tanks.

Chicago approach once asked me to maintain 165 to the marker. I did, then chopped the power, popup speed brakes, dropped the gear and landed KMDW 4R about 90 over the fence. 33knot headwind helped in no using much runway.

My Bravo has 3500 hours on it or so, 150 of it under my command. After writing some major checks for firewall forward overhaul and then the first annual that came to a tune of $21,000 and going over the logs and invoices, I can honestly say that all and all, a Bravo costs $80 an hour for maintenance, $114 for fuel (19gph at $6 per gallon, that includes climb, I cruise around 16-17gph), my fixed costs are the following: -1560 for hangar -1800 for insurance -1400 for subscriptions to data, plates and XM -2500 for annual inspection $7260 and I fly this airplane around 150 hours a year so a grand total of $240 dollars per hour not including capital costs or about $1.20 per NM. I'd say $115 per hour is too low for a M20J.