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Originally Posted by sam.basye
I’m currently right at about 630TT with about 335 hours of that as dual given in the 172.
I don’t think I’ve ever had 4 people in one either. Lol The only real way to get 4 is if you stick two kids back there, otherwise you’d be running on fumes just to take off under max weight. Haha
They’re nice, we have a fleet of about 20 Skyhawks and the oldest one is a 2010. All have the g1000 glass cockpit too.
Fun story - recently I went to Dulles with a student and on the way back we went to hot springs airport KHSP which is about 4,000’ up on the top of a little mountain in a mountainous area. It was dark right after departing Dulles and about halfway there ATC told us there was a V22 (Osprey) doing something low altitude over the airport. When we got closer, we started talking to them on the radios and they were doing pattern work with no exterior lights and all the airport lights off practicing pattern work with vertical takeoff and landings in the grass next to the runway! They let us turn the runway lights on and we landed while they were in the grass with engines running and you couldn’t see anything. I assume they were practicing flying with night vision goggles. One of the coolest things I’ve seen so far.
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Yeah, I think a 3 seat option is long overdue. I just didn't know they had it. Even a Bonanza is marginal for 4 people if you all bring a bag and top off the tanks.
Just wait, if you stay in the business long enough one day you'll say, "look a Skyhawk, did you know those come with 3 seats now?"
Not to hijack your thread, but I also made a tank (40B) with an integrated back wall.
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I also made my own led light.
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I made a box out of oak that is cable suspended from above. I bought 10 watt led chips off of ebay in 390nm, 440nm, and 10knm. I then used a 1/4" piece of aluminum as a heat sink and mounting plate. It's covered with a cheap thin piece of acrylic for salt/water protection.
I use a $25 tc420 led controller that you can program to infinite time and intensity settings. I have mine set to with 1% moon lights and at 10:00 it starts to ramp up the colors and intensity to peak at 13:00 and then ramp back down from 17:00 to 22:00. It also controls some red leds I have on an algae scrubber & refugium section. You can learn more about the controller at tc420.net and youtube. I'm also happy to answer any questions I can.
I also added 1 24 watt t5 coral plus bulb to cover any light spectrum the leds might miss that runs for 5 hours a day.
The t5 fixture and bulb was $40 and I have about $60 into the led setup for chips, controller, aluminum, wire, and acrylic.
I've been running that setup for 2 years, and I'm going to do the exact same thing on my next build that's in progress.
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Again, apologies for the thread hijack. I promise I'll make my own thread when the build is done, but I do know how much work you're putting into that build. It looks great, I really like it.