IFR Certification

It's that time again, IFR Certification time. Yes, that biennial event that we hope goes without a hitch since avionics seem to cost so much.  Red Eagle had 08Romeo in the shop and called to say she was finished up, but, Yikes I hate but, give a call to discuss the Altimeter.

Gulp.....funny how just dialing that number makes it hard to swallow.  I talked with the tech and he said 08Romeo was good to go but he wanted to give me a heads up on the altimeter. He explained it as being "slow" and inquired if I noticed it was slow to respond or if it had a tendency to jump, as if catching up to my altitude.  I really hadn't noticed that but I did ask if the "slow" condition would cause the barometric needle adjustment to hop around as I dial it in, needing to move back and forth to get the needle to sit on the correct elevation,the answer was yes.  He said the unit passed every test but he advised thinking about a replacement.

I went through the store room with the owner and he had a recently removed unit from a Beechcraft Baron that was not an encoding unit and would let it go very cheap. I recently added the Trans-Cal Nano blind encoder. Encoders may be either a separate unit, blind encoder or integrated into the aircraft altimeter encoding altimeter.

The replacement altimeter was very clean, numbers were bright white no yellowing and it was recently tagged from an inspection. I gave the go ahead to make the swap and update my IFR Cert and Adlog sticker to reflect the avionics change.

08Romeo will be good to go for our Saturday flight to Cape May, NJ for the Wine festival and Lima Bean Festival.