Category: Twin Star

Posted on

DA42 Fuel & Oil

As a gentle reminder,

  • Fuel: If an FBO asks you if you want Jet-A Negative or Positive, it should always be Negative.
    • Positive means that anti-freeze is added to to the fuel, which is totally 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
  • 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

Thank you for your business!

Posted on

Twin churn…

By mid October we will likely have onboarded a beautiful, new-to-us DA42 with WAAS (LPVs here we come..!) and GFC700 with yaw damper and a flight director supporting constant airspeed climbs and vertical navigation!

No more constant altitude disARM surprises, and no more intercept overshoots and AP-initiated Dutch rolls on the localizer 🙂

Synthetic Vision will continue to be available and come in very handy on night and IFR flights as well as XM Satellite WX and Radio and USB charging ports (even in the luggage area for passengers in the back!).

It will also feature upgraded brakes (Beringer) to help avoid producing flat spots or even flat tires (braking gently above 50 KTS is still a good idea!), and reclining seats (please handle gently!).

At that point our current two twins (or at least one of them) may have moved on from BFI – we will see.

Stay tuned...!

PS Please please please treat this plane like it was your own, and like it was new. Some DA42 features are notoriously fragile and can be easily broken if not handled with care, e.g. all of the locks on canopy doors and aux tank lids or the seat recliner.