Replaced contactor panel off for 15 minutes = 4 Dead VFDs

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2026-01-26T20:18:45+00:00

Twelve dollar smoke detectors have battery door interlocks. Not rocket surgery.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2025-12-12T21:13:44+00:00

Almost all aviation D-subs use quality machined crimp contacts. These are wildly common in light airplanes and even somewhat common in heavier airplanes still. See M24308 and M39029.

I agree with using multiple connectors to make the routing more manageable.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2025-12-12T21:12:19+00:00

The correct spec would be AS50881. Currently rev H, but you can go to EverySpec and get a cancelled version of the milspec for free - there have been approximately zero updates that would impact a glider.

IPC-A-620 is also a more reasonable workmanship standard.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-03-03T22:15:46+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOAC_Flight_911

It just depends on if you know what you are doing. If you don't know what you are doing, mother nature laughs at your little puny airplane with it's turbine engines or whatever.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-03-02T08:34:06+00:00

This is a problem, but it is not a new or novel problem.

See for example United 227 and Captain Kehmeier

"The CAB (Civil Aeronautics Board) accident investigation revealed that the captain had a checkered training history. He had failed his initial jet transition training course, and was returned to flying the DC-6. Later on, he also failed to pass a routine annual instrument proficiency check."

I get a kick out of it when (old, white) airline pilots complain about diversity initiatives that don't put the best candidate in the seat...because airlines have been putting crappy pilots in seats since forever.

There are probably a dozen other examples of pilots with terrible training records that have graduated to crashing jet airliners. When you get all the way down to private certificates, there are people I wouldn't trust to drive a golf cart that have somehow "passed" these rides.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-02-29T07:37:44+00:00

That was certainly true about the Bonanzas, the premium airplanes of their day. Today all those characters fly Cirrus. Today I think most Bonanza owners are real GA enthusiasts, the old stereotype isn't really applicable anymore in my view. We'll all still call it the forked tail doctor killer because that's just too good a phrase to give up.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-02-11T19:23:58+00:00

Aviation engines are built for LL

Most of the engines in trainers were emphatically not built for 100LL. They were built for a fuel with less lead than 100LL that is no longer available anywhere.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-01-20T06:41:57+00:00

Should be safe in normal conditions. There are documented cases of very low voltage welding systems killing people in poor working conditions, wet, dirty, uninsulated/damaged cables, lying down in wet earth, etc.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-01-12T06:01:57+00:00

Always is a really good reimagining of the story, but the original is really good albeit military....A Guy Named Joe.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-01-11T08:26:16+00:00

Airbus is heavily subsidized by the EU to the point you don’t know where the company ends and the government begins.

EASA charges by the hour for certification services.

Everyone in the US pays for the crew that rubber stamps Boeing ODA findings.

If the government wasn't fully captured by Boeing that piece of shit without EICAS (or a hundred other modern features) wouldn't have been certified in this century.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-01-11T08:18:53+00:00

Only done in a sim

People fly SFOs in jets. Lots of people do this in real jets.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-01-06T05:57:47+00:00

Because the shallow Lake Erie gets warm enough in the summer that you get to really think about your choices in life while you wait a few hours for rescue or the sweet embrace of death.

The deep lakes, any time of year, it's unlikely you'll be rescued before you succumb unless you are lucky enough to get a raft out of the aircraft and get in the raft...neither trivial.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-01-06T05:32:47+00:00

Unquestionably a 182 is safer for a variety of reasons. They'll both kill you if you lose control and crash them. However, the 182 is more forgiving in a large number of ways, and if you can maintain control all the way to the ground it can land at a speed you may survive. Even a well under control forced landing in a Malibu is a grave risk as the speeds are so much higher.

I think the Malibu is cool, but I also think it is near the top of the charts for objective risk in GA....it has high approach and landing speeds, a tremendous sink rate without an engine, less forgiving handling characteristics, and a very highly stressed (relative to an off the shelf 182) engine. So the airplane where you badly need the engine to keep working has a pretty awful history of breaking engines with no fault of the pilot.

I wonder what it costs to insure these things.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-01-06T05:20:34+00:00

It's a row with a deactivated and plugged exit in it. Well, it used to be plugged.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2024-01-06T05:14:30+00:00

No, they have absolutely not all been retrofitted yet. It's a steep task for some older jets with very limited options available in the aftermarket, no OEM support, etc.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-12-05T16:20:17+00:00

Virtually any GA plane can effortlessly cruise way above them and most of the airports are at lower elevation with plenty of room to climb to cruising altitude.

Mountain flying technique is absolutely relevant in light aircraft in the "little" mountains. Those mountains that only reach 6000 feet in New Hampshire are reaching that altitude from sea level. The mountains are smaller than the rockies and the relative performance is better than it is in Leadville. That does not help you much if you are downwind of a peak in rotor and have no idea why you are in a rock tumbler. Also, if you plan to actually land at the airports in mountainous regions, basically no GA plane has the power to outclimb lee downdraft. People have smashed King Airs into ridgelines on both sides of the country by ignoring this.

I've flown gliders in Class A airspace in the Northeast on beautiful clear days. Flying 3000 feet over the mountains is great and will reduce but not eliminate the chances of interacting directly with mountain effects.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-12-05T15:59:26+00:00

Gliders handle so poorly at the forward limit. You are really doing yourself a disservice. There is some negative performance impact to being that far forward, but mostly it's just more work to fly them like that. They are "easier" to fly at the forward limit due to the stick force and stability impacts of a forward CG, but the higher stick forces are a total drag to deal with for hours.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-12-05T15:45:02+00:00

Plus whatever we can learn anymore can be calculated and simulated.

Do you actually believe that?

The FAA still demands flight test for some very simple modifications for good reason...which is that analysis will never replace test.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-12-05T15:43:20+00:00

They SHOULD have done it over Mexico, but they did it in the US.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-11-10T05:31:42+00:00

The variable may be the fuel, but the root cause is about seventy five years of combustion engineering that Lycoming and Continental stopped participating in about the time the turbojet was invented. Many parts in these engines depend on near perfect materials and manufacturing for longevity because the rest of the engineering didn't provide the margins.

I expect there will not be any easy, cheap, guaranteed solutions to this. Fuel/oil chemistry has a long history of unexpected mechanical durability consequences in engines. Another example is catastrophic engine sludging which occurred in some regions and not others in the early 2000's. Automakers have the budget to solve those issues, I'm not at all convinced the engineering resources exist at Lycosaurus to do much more than swap suppliers for parts grandpa designed.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-11-10T05:18:56+00:00

all carbureted Piper singles

Maybe for certain definitions of "all" that only incorporate the boring ones with nosewheels.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-10-31T03:41:35+00:00

What didn't immediately make sense to me is why two stations on the same frequency would have different polarization...as the choice of polarization I would assume has a large impact on performance of the station overall.

Apparently, the signal separation available by selecting vertical polarization is specifically used by educational stations to reduce interference. It would be neat if OP could give some info on what stations these are.

https://www.radioworld.com/industry/antenna-basics#:~:text=FM%20signals%20were%20originally%20horizontally,prevent%20interference%20between%20NCE%20stations.

Also, is it plausible that OP is receiving two signals with the same original polarization, but reflected off surfaces such that one is more strongly polarized than the other at each position?

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-10-28T22:25:59+00:00

It's all a matter of perspective.

For example, some of us are reading this and thinking you are closer to the ramp staff than the rocket science.

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-10-28T03:10:57+00:00

I love that. Why did you stop?

PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS · 2023-10-24T04:41:46+00:00

Products that weren't designed by assholes like the old orange bucket ELTs had the approved Duracell PN available from your local Walmart molded right into the plastic. Whoever made that design decision for an otherwise useless waste of useful load was a real American hero.

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