Make it your practice to never turn off your strobe, beacon, or position lights. When the master goes on, lights go on. Serves two purposes - if you see the lights on after you leave, you know the master is on. Second, anyone else walking around will see the lights and know the prop might be turning soon.
Alternately, leave your strobes on continually. You'll notice when you leave the master on.
This is what I do, but I can tell you from experience it's not 100%.
I teach students the "3M" rule at shutdown. Mixture/Mags/Masters. Hard to miss one if you're always doing all three at once.
That's why I like an audible warning. They make chips with different db levels you can mount behind the panel to clue you in. Won't help if there is a GV starting up 100' away, but if you do it right, it'll be loud enough to notice with the engine off and quiet enough you won't notice with the engine running.
Here are some 80 db units:
https://www.amazon.com/tatoko-3-24V...9Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
So would this buzz all the time including during flight?
I think it will annoy the heck out of me when I am upgrading avionics or do any other work on the ground that needs the master on.
I have a big red Low Oil Pressure light next to the master switch. When the engine shuts down and the oil pressure drops the light glows bright red until the master is switched off. If I remember that was in the plans or manual somewhere. Typical Van - simple and effective.
Jim Sharkey
RV6 - flying since 2009
I have a big red Low Oil Pressure light next to the master switch. When the engine shuts down and the oil pressure drops the light glows bright red until the master is switched off. If I remember that was in the plans or manual somewhere. Typical Van - simple and effective.
Jim Sharkey
RV6 - flying since 2009