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National Aircraft Parts Association has many parts for our Vintage birds!

Nice trip. Thanks for sharing.

@cliffy ruddervator skins are now available for V-tail Bonanzas from SRS Aviation. They are also selling them for LESS than when they were last available from Beechcraft. Hmmm?? What? Less? How can that be?

Nice description! This will help someone else with less experience.

UNTIL you realize that that 30% increase DOESN'T include LASAR's 500% markup..

Did you buy the airplane from a person with no name or phone number?

d&b is not reliable for much. They publish alof of speculation. The owners have to answer questions for reliable data and many do not. Also, you could not run a company with 18 employees on 1.2 million in revenue. The facility in kerville cost to maintain is more than that per year alone. But you are still correct, lazar and Mooney are both small company. typically, anything under 500 employees is considered a “small business. personally I find that to be silly, considered probably 80-90 percent of small businesses have less than 50…. Nothing wrong with using AI, but proofreading and editing for personal style is a must. Kinda like seeing your doctors shirt had a button skipped and are all off by one. Bottom line is that anything that keeps parts moving is good for the fleet and a 30% across the board rails in prices, is barely even keeping up with the inflation we have seen the last several years.

Thanks for the tip on BAS. I run a die casting business with CNC machining. I offered to quote making them. Apparently many people on the waiting list.

Mine backfires doing that

But then there is no aviation markup

You can still get it at the NAPA.

probably true, but, it works within 5 or 6 blades every time. Guess you could just crank with the pump on till it starts.

Not needed Can be removed Probably can't get the shock itself anyway.

I have a question- WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE? Here we have a company that can produce any part we need for an orphaned line of airplanes-Mooney There are only about 7,000 of them left (and we kill dozens every year shrinking that field) We have another company stepping in to help US get the parts WE need from the sole supplier And all we do is bitch about it! SO, JUST WHAT IS THE ALTERNATIVE? Provide a viable LEGAL solution Don't just bitch about it! What if we CAN'T ever get any more parts? What do we do then????? Its a very small consumer base needing parts whose construction is tightly controlled by an outside agency- the FAA That equals $$$$$$$$$$ To make every part for every Mooney ever made TAKES THE ENTIRE ACTORY less the assembly line That takes money to support- more $$$$$$$ Have any of you actually seen the production facility in production? Minus the assembly line? Either you make parts there or you move it somewhere else - at what cost? More $$$$$$$ ALL airplane parts are priced at today's cost to produce a new airplane - NOT 50 years ago. Priced any new Beech parts lately? How many Bonanzas are sitting because of bad ruddervator skins? They can't get them. Our Mooneys will be paper weights or boat anchors if we can't get the parts we need The days of being Cheap Bastards is over. You want to fly a Mooney (or any other airplane) pony up to the bar and pay the bill. As I have said several times- we are flying antiques! They will eventually die a lingering death But without parts it becomes genocide!!! Suck it up folks - there is no alternative except to buy a different make airplane that is in production Sorry for the attitude but this bitching does nothing constructive for the situation we are in.

Wrapped up the 2025 Commemorative Air Reliability Tour and was joined by 2 other Mooneys. Met in Kansas City on Wednesday, Sept 24, made the loop and got back to KC Sunday, Sept 25. Flew formation in route for most of the tour, which turned out to be an excellent way to get up, get down and stay together. Had overnight stays in Kansas City, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Chicago. Highlights included a stop at Garmin in Olathe, KS for a tour of the aviation factory hosted by Jarrett Haffner; a tour of the Wright Brothers National Museum in Carillon Park in Dayton, OH; a quick trip out to Portage Lake in Pinckney, MI for evening air tours in a '46 Piper J3 Cub, and a trip to Wrigley Field to see the Chicago Cubs best St. Louis 7-3. Airports Visited: KMKC Charles B. Wheeler Downtown – Kansas City, MO; KSUS Spirit of St. Louis – St. Louis, MO; KHUF – Terre Haute Regional Airport – Terre Haute, IN; KEYE Eagle Creek – Indianapolis, IN; KMGY – Dayton/Wright Brothers Airport – Dayton, OH (not on original tour but a worthy stop for us); KOSU Ohio State University – Columbus, OH; KBKL Burke Lakefront Airport – Cleveland, OH; KARB Ann Arbor Municipal – Ann Arbor, MI; KSMD Smith Field Airport – Fort Wayne, IN; KMDW Chicago Midway International – Chicago, IL; KDVN Davenport Municipal – Davenport, IA; KIKV Ankeny Regional Airport – Ankeny, IA; KCBF Council Bluffs Municipal – Council Bluffs, IA; KSTJ Rosecrans Memorial Airport – St. Joseph, MO. Airports in bold were overnight stops. Around 2000 miles total from home and about 24 hours of flight time x 3 Mooneys = 6000 miles of reliability without any issues, mechanicals or wx difficulties. So much fun in the Mooney!! https://fordairtour.org/

You can just draw lines on ForeFlight map. They stay with the map till you erase them and zoom with the map. After you draw the picture you like, you just follow the lines. I bet if you put in a feature request to turn the lines into waypoints for drawing pictures in the sky, they may do it. Sometimes you just want to waste some avgas boring holes in the sky, might as well make a picture.

Yeah, that method is why I just can't get to enthusiastic about these 'sky images'. Sorry to be the 'wet blanket' but I just don't see how there is much skill involved; hell, just let the AP fly it if you go to the work to load the waypoints into your panel GPS.

It may not be the prettiest result, but I’m pretty sure it will be much stronger than what I had. Thank you to Byron for chronicling your 2013 rebuild, and for the updated information and photos you added. After removing all of the vacuum bagging materials I’ll post a picture of the final result.

Progress report. I did much of the preparation at home and today I brought the cowl and all of my supplies back to the airport and began the finishing work. I prepared and cut all of the supplies before mixing the MGS 285L epoxy. The first thing was to add the sealing tape and cover with painters tape which provided a barrier and keep resin out of that area. I also chose to leave the existing honeycomb in place, and that turned out to be a good decision. Since part of the honeycomb was exposed, I covered these areas with 2 layers of fiberglass cloth to provide a barrier to the carbon fiber and to prevent galvanic corrosion. Since one area was lateral, I had to extend my strips of carbon fiber to cover that. I used the same mix on the epoxy as Byron. 50:50 of slow and fast hardener added to the epoxy and the 5% Antimony trioxide powder turned it a milky color. After covering the aluminum with fiberglass I laid 4 strips of unidirectional carbon fiber to cover each of the existing honeycomb ribs and the fiberglass base. I intended to use the blue foam to make a stiffening ridge, but it was not stable as I added the layers and it kept falling over so I abandoned that part. If I had done individual ribs it probably would have worked, but I needed to compete this in one bagging. Then I added 3 layers of the 19oz weaved carbon fiber cloth to cover the fiberglass and carbon fiber strips, and this layer was much heavier than the unidirectional strips. Since I already had the peel ply, the fiber, and the vacuum bag ready, all I had to do was add the layers on top of the epoxy and strips. Instead of using a fitting, I just made a wrinkle in the bagging film and used the sealing tape to seal the hose itself. I bought a cheap 3cfm vacuum pump a Harbor Freight and it worked well. The existing cracks cause excessive leaking so I added some painters tape on the outside to cover the cracks. That worked well and I achieved a good seal.

Need help identifying the part # for an Air Speed Indicator on a 1961 M20B

Thanks for sharing the pictures! My plane is fresh out of the annual. I am guessing the flap screws must have been lubricated during the annual so the A&P should have accessed that part. That may have introduced some instability to the switch. I will check those. Thanks!

For sure. When I replaced my up limit switch, it still worked ok when i bench tested it but there was a slight dead spot in its actuation that was causing it to stop retraction but not allow them back down. I could easily see how a vibrating airplane or shaking the flaps could alleviate this. Note though, when mine stuck up the first time I tried this and it didn’t do anything, so maybe not always going to help. Or maybe I needed to shake harder.

After ordering various edge seals, the one that works best is from Amazon. The color will match the seats so it all looks intentional. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8RRPVZT?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1