Meow Meow LLC

This change has taken effect July 1, 2024.

The new N-# will be phonetically noticeably shorter, making it easier and faster to communicate.

Note that the stripes will also change, from blue and yellow to just blue – something to be present to when it comes to filing flight plans.

For your electronic logbooks we recommend creating a renamed copy of the aircraft, and use that one for W&B and logging time.

If you ever flew Twin Star 9ES and wonder about its whereabouts… after the sale earlier this year it was handed over to the buyer in Tracy, CA (KTCY), and after a number of registration-related hurdles were taken the plane has been flown to India.

The most direct way would go NW-bound through Russia, which is obviously not a good idea anymore for a number of reasons.
Instead, with an extra 10%, the resulting ~65 hour/~10,000 nm flight took a much safer route from California via Goose Bay, South Greenland, Iceland, Belgium, Italy, Crete, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia and Oman to India (click on the map to see a larger version).

We salute 9ES and hope she will help mint many multi-engine pilots going forward!

We’ve had yet another tire blowout in a DA42 on a runway after landing… and because the other main tire (a pretty new one) also ended up with a flat spot, both main tires had to be replaced – don’t be that guy!

This is a gentle reminder that the DA42 brakes are very effective, and need to be applied gently.

After touchdown, apply aerodynamic breaking first (once the nose wheel is on the ground, hold the stick back) while gently breaking until you’re at or below 50 KTS – only then should the brakes be applied with a little bit more force.

Max breaking upon short field landing practice should generally be simulated (you announce it, but brake normally), unless of course it actually is a short field (though it’s generally not recommended to land on runways less than 3,000′ in the Twin Stars).

If TWR assigns you a certain exit that you cannot comfortably make with three wheels on the ground then just say that it will be the next one.

Please be advised that costs caused by unnecessary tire abuse will have to be billed back to the PIC – two new tires + work ain’t cheap..!

This is an older post, but appears to be in need to be recommunicated:

• Fuel: If an FBO asks you if you want Jet-A Negative or – the slightly more expensive – Positive, you should always ask for Jet-A Negative.
  • Positive means that an anti-freeze agent is added to to the fuel, which is unnecessary in a light twin unless you fly at -40°C or even colder flight levels – which is extremely unlikely, even in the deepest winter
  • At some FBOs only positive is available – in those situations, if you do need fuel then of course that is what you need to order
    
• Oil: When you measure oil, before the necessary second oil dip for the reading you must screw the oil dip all the way back in (and of course wipe the dip stick!)
  • Yes, it’ll cost you valuable milliseconds – but you will get a correct reading. Not screwing it back in will show too low an oil level, which typically results in subsequently overfilling the oil tank, which is not economical and can easily lead to unnecessary MX to figure out where oil drippings are coming from
  • If you end up adding oil from a bottle you found in the nose compartment, please note that that bottle is already paid for, and don’t log it again as ‘Oil used’ in the post-flight form (as that will assume you grabbed a bottle from the oil room).

Thank you very much for your continued business!

The gearbox oil level of the CD-135 engines of our Twin Stars is inspected through a small round glass at the prop end of the engine.
We have newer gearboxes on both DA42s: the oil level does not need to be at the top of the glass, but the level is correct when the oil covers (at least) half of the inspection window:

So if you see it at just about half, you’re good to fly!