First 100 hours

Yep, you are exactly correct. I hope Santa cough's up a Shadin to interface
with our KLN94.

Jim

That is because the "fuel flow" guage in a Piper is really measuring fuel
pressure and displaying it in GPH. It is not a true fuel flow system.
On
my Turbo Lance, I had a Shadin fuel flow system and it was dead accurate
while the stock guage always showed much higher numbers.

Mike
MU-2




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No doubt about it, there are a LOT of real beaters out there. but shhhhh on
the Aerostar... my wife saw one this summer (nooooo not the van!!) and
thinks that we'd look good in it...
Jim

"Newps" wrote in message
...


Jim Burns wrote:

We've put our first 100 hours on our Aztec since buying it mid-August
and
this weekend we had the 50hr and 100hour AD's complied with. Fuel leak
inspection (50hrs, pilot can do this one), Fuel valve/cable inspection,
Engine mount inspection, Exhaust system inspection. Everything looked
good.

Since we bought it, we've upgraded the KLN 89B to a KLN 94 and had it
IFR
certified, replaced one vacuum pump and installed vacuum pump cooling
shrouds via a FAA field approval, braced the oil coolers and fixed the
leaky
baffles, re-insulated the nose and heater compartments, installed the
Piper
elevator bungee kit, replaced the occasional old vent or drain hose,
replaced a bad pitot heat switch, replaced the cabin door lock, and
bought a
set of new 8 ply main gear tires.

We had to pull the pitch control computer from our STec 60-2 due to run
away
trim in altitude hold mode, it's still out for repairs.

The next project on our list is a new one piece windshield, maybe a
vertical
card compass and electric OAT.

On short hops of 1 hour or less we're seeing fuel burns of 20 gallons
per
hour, longer hops we see 24 gallons at 24 squared and 155kts true. Push
everything forward and we see 175 knots true at around 6000 ft and fuel
burns of 27 gallons per hour. Surprisingly close to book numbers for a
38
year old airplane.

So far we're pretty happy with our bird.

I have a friend who until a month ago had a turbo Aztec. Biggest toilet
I have ever seen. Numerous engine failures in icing conditions, turbos
that break down with regularity, heaters that don't work, gear that
won't go down, or up; the list is endless. I asked him why he didn't
buy a Baron in the first place and he said he couldn't afford it. I
told him you've already bought a new Baron that came in the shape of an
Aztec. He finally did the math and came home with an Aerostar the other
day. Now some poor sap has this Aztec to deal with.



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Matt Whiting wrote in message ...
.........
No, the 20 GPH was on short hops and no speed is given. 24 GPH is
listed along with the 155 speed vs. 27 for 175. I'm with Elliott, this
defies physics. This is almost exactly a linear increase, but we all
know that drag is not linear with airspeed.


Matt

My guess is that the 24/155 was at a lower altitude and the 27/175 is
the "true" speed at the higher 6000ft altitude where the air is thinner
and less drag per "true" speed. If you could shoot yourself into space
you could turn off the engines and get zillion knots for 0 gph.
The basic problem is engine aspiration at higher alt. With turbos
that is less of a problem.

Jim Burns wrote:

You're right. I guess it is my eyes which are out of whack.


You're right. I guess my numbers are out of whack!
I ran though them from memory, which is normally good, but sometimes very
short.


They saw
20GPH which is the "short hop" number.


This is what we are seeing on 1 hour flights with only one take off and
landing. Multiple take offs and landings, then numbers get lower due to
more time at reduced power. We've actually seen numbers down around 16 for
pattern only work.

I looked up a round robin flight of 2.1 hours each way, power settings I
recorded were 24/24 and fuel tickets showed 90 gallons, so I had one too
many 24's in my head, that figures out to 21.4 gallons at 155 True.

Longer trips we've been flight planning at 25gph and it's hardly ever that
high at normal cruise settings. Speed runs at 175 kts burns 27.

So, I believe that we are getting a 13% increase in speed for a 26% increase
in fuel burn.

That sounds much more reasonable ... and restores my faith in physics! :-)

Matt