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I think you will be hard pressed to find an ILS at a non-towered airport. There used to be some LOC approaches at non-towered airports in my region, but even those seemed to have been decommissioned.

The POH is your friend. The numbers are there to allow you to fly safely. If you fly final approach too fast, you can run off the end of the runway. (I flew right seat with someone who tried that, flying a C172 at 80 kt down final instead of 60-65. Throw in one bad brake on top of that and we...

The optimal fixed propeller pitch depends on several factors, including engine power, acceptable climb rates, and being able to allow for near maximal rpm at cruise. The high-compression STC available for the Traveler (AA-5) and Cheetah (AA-5A) is illustrative. While the STC allows the engine...

I'm in the same boat. Already have an STEC-20 hooked up to the G5s, so as long as an IFD-440 gets along with the G5s, I'm golden. As a bonus, the IFD-440 will work better with my NGT-9000.

I forgot one other feature of iFlyEFB: it can sync ALL your settings (including aircraft W&B and flight performance data, flight plans, menus and default display) across all devices.

The sooner you charge a depleted battery, the better chance of avoiding irreversible sulfation. For a flooded-cell battery, you have more time. For an AGM battery, you really need to get to it within 24-48 hours to have a chance. Charging a dead battery should typically not exceed an initial...

The moving map feature of EFBs requires your tablet to be GPS-capable. Virtually all smartphones and most Android tablets have GPS built-in (the new Google Pixel tablet being a notable exception). The iPads may not have GPS on-board unless you have a cellular model. I have FltPlanGo, iFlyEFB...

Absolutely. Terrain clearance beyond below the DA is not assured when using advisory vertical guidance. The magic box will let you fly the vertical guidance right into the ground. This is one reason I "dive and drive" on LNAV approaches. (It also gets you out of the bases quicker if conditions...

I had the luxury of having three different pieces of equipment in our various chemistry laboratories (Atomic Absorption, Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission, Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence), and a raft of eager undergraduate students who needed real samples to analyze for training...

A GNX-375 checks the ADS-B box plus WAAS GPS for IFR work. Keep your current NAV-COM as backup if operable and legal. G5s might be overkill, but they are great, and with them you can pull your vac system and remove the need for an external CDI for the GPS.

I think you will be very happy with the G5 HSI. The lack of precession with the accompanying GMU-11 is worth the price alone, plus it can do GNSS roll steering with applicable autopilots, which is automagical for enroute and initial approach flying. Once you install the second G5, you can get...

Excessive is the great enemy of avionics. If you keep a plane outdoors, you need a canopy/cockpit cover to keep greenhouse heating from baking your electronics. Excess heat destroys certain capacitors and when they go usually something shorts. When I was keeping my AA-1A outside it was going...

Make sure you are taking into account the massive amount of energy and fossil fuel feedstock required to manufacture ammonia (fertilizer) to grow the plants to produce the sugar to power the fermentation to produce the alcohol. Corn is among the worst in this regard, as it can't fix nitrogen...

The economic vitality of an airport is not determined by who is based there, but rather who flies into it. Our small airport has a few dozen based aircraft, and they do provide some income, but the majority of income comes from significant piston and turbine traffic that regularly comes for...

And which physician is more likely to be aware of a potentially problematic health condition? An AME you see once every 2 years, or your personal physician?

One of the things I taught my undergrads in my Energy classes is that modern agriculture is how we turn petroleum into food. Bio-ethanol takes this one step further, turning petroleum into food into petroleum. This is right up there with using electricity for heating when the electrical grid is...

Basically, if the display goes now, you are done. But otherwise Garmin is committed to supporting database updates for the foreseeable future, as long as there are operable units out there. Garmin estimates that only 1% of the remaining users are expected to have display failures. If my 430W...

In 30ish years of post-GPS flying, I've had a bucketload of VOR/LOC/ILS failures, and only one (partial) panel GPS/NAV/COM failure. And I carry a second (bracket mounted portable GPS), third (EFB GPS map), and fourth (phone) emergency GPS units, so a second panel mount GPS seems redundant. I...

Engine replacement should be in the logs somewhere. Might be in a new book, but it should be noted as newly installed and with what new or reused accessories.

Your engine is speaking to you. This sounds like classic oil fouling, and you can easily confirm by pulling plugs to find the offender. If you have one or more wet plugs (usually a bottom plug) the mostly likely cause is progressive failure of oil control rings. At some point the only way to fix...