I am a member of BeechTalk and it is my second favorite aviation community. A great group of really knowledgable pilots. The Bonanza and Baron were on my list when I bought the DA42. It is amazing what you can buy a Baron for right now. A guy at KSMO got a turbo-charged model that looks brand new fo...

I believe Antoine is correct. And it does not need to be a FIKI solution. I would have paid $15k to add the system to my DA40 when I was flying it, without blinking. I encountered ice twice, a surprise both times. I would have just flicked the switch before hitting the clouds and dumped a little sug...

I update my list of what I carry in the plane.

What do you carry in yours? I think I am adding a couple blankets this morning. It's brutally cold (for Southern California). Might even be below freezing at 10k.

Bad cold, but he was intent on getting to the annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biologists. (I'm not even qualified to write the name of the conference, I had it wrong for the month or so leading up to it.)

You can't do it to the DA40, actually, the STC only covers the DA42. Yes, I did it. It was not inexpensive (still waiting for that thing related to the plane where I say, 'THAT was cheaper than I though it would be...'), but totally worth it. Flew KSMO to KNEW with my younger son and he was sacked o...

I had a $5,000 deposit down on the DA50. When they split it into two different models I was allowed to get my deposit back, which I did. I would have *loved* a FADEC, low-pressurized single. The right stick was removable, too.

I would think that since it is already approved in the airframe it would be a 337. or maybe you just show them the existing STC? I guess that's a question for the factory. But, again, I think that the work necessary is stuff that only the factory is authorized to do. They have to remove the mounting...

I forgot to mention the yaw damper. That was an eye-opener.

I think it was something like $70k, but it was done with a whole bunch of other stuff so if you said it was $60k or $80k I would believe you. Is it worth it? I am not sure how to answer that. As far as I can tell, aviation is a very expensive hobby. The number of trips where it made monetary sense t...

As far as I could tell, it was something only the factory could do.

It involves a bunch of composite work to remove the old servos and mount the new ones. It is not an insignificant amount of work. Three months, in my case, although they were doing other things at the same time.