Checked out in a Cardinal - Fun!

[BigBadLou]

My carbureted Mooney is ~40% faster

Not fair. It's a Mooney. You can't compare it to other airplanes in its class, you will always win the speed competition.

If it was up to me, I would be flying a Mooney. But wife said she wanted something with 2 doors and something easy to get into and out of. (she hates climbing on wings and crouching to get behind a cannon in a tank)
So we ended up with not-a-Mooney.

Mooney, Tiger, Cardinal, Bo or Cirrus, doesn't matter to me. Most important thing (IMHO) is that we get to fly and have fun!

 

[azure]

Hank, the 177RG has a pretty good gear system, and it got better every year. It's the only Cessna retract that has never had an AD on the gear. Not sure how it stacks up against other retract airplanes, but when it comes to RGs of any species, the weak link is usually the gear handle that prefers to stay in the "up" position.

Well, that's true, but it isn't bulletproof and it is prone to glitches, sometimes irreproducible glitches. See my recent thread in Maintenance Bay. There is also a strong recommendation to periodically replace all the hydraulic system hoses.

I once flew a friend's Cardinal RG for over a year and a half, and the whole time I was noticing a small trickle of fluid on the upper part of one of the main gear legs. I reported it to her and her mechanic, but neither thought much of it. Finally she sold it, and a month later the buyer reported finding all the hydraulic fluid in the system in a puddle on the hangar floor one morning after testing the manual gear extension system.

So yeah it's a good system, and I haven't had MANY problems with mine, but I cross my fingers every time I pull that gear handle before landing. It's probably one reason I've never (yet) had a gear-up.

 

[BigBadLou]

I once flew a friend's Cardinal RG for over a year and a half, and the whole time I was noticing a small trickle of fluid on the upper part of one of the main gear legs. I reported it to her and her mechanic, but neither thought much of it. Finally she sold it, and a month later the buyer reported finding all the hydraulic fluid in the system in a puddle on the hangar floor one morning after testing the manual gear extension system.

Out of curiosity, was it red hydraulic fluid from the gear extension system or red brake fluid? The difference in color is minute but in functionality it is much worse.
RG Cardinals have swivel hydraulic fittings in the gear legs for brake fluid. Those get a lot of wear and once they start leaking, you will find evidence on the gear leg.
The gear system hydraulic fluid should not be found on the gar legs since it does not run around the legs, it operates a single hydraulic cylinder behind the gear and both legs are connected to the cylinder.

 

[azure]

Out of curiosity, was it red hydraulic fluid from the gear extension system or red brake fluid? The difference in color is minute but in functionality it is much worse.
RG Cardinals have swivel hydraulic fittings in the gear legs for brake fluid. Those get a lot of wear and once they start leaking, you will find evidence on the gear leg.
The gear system hydraulic fluid should not be found on the gar legs since it does not run around the legs, it operates a single hydraulic cylinder behind the gear and both legs are connected to the cylinder.

It may well have been brake system fluid - very hard to tell from the trickle I saw on the leg.