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In over 40 years of flying Mooneys I don’t think I have ever landed with takeoff flaps, but this makes a lot of sense to me for the reasons you stated. I’m go to play around with this. Thanks.

have Brian call Zephyr, they seemed reasonable when i called a few weeks back

Incidentally… anyone who can recommend an engine shop somewhat near South Dakota, would love to have some other options

And smarter and better looking also,

pop that gear with the speed brakes and the descent rate gets narly!

More of the impulse internals

tl;dr - I have had two impulse couplings destroy themselves in less than 200 flying hours, resulting in 1 and now more than likely 2 engine IRANs. Background: I had my Mooney M20J's IO-360-A3B6, equipped w/ Slick 4372 and 4370 magnetos sent for major overhaul in January 2024. It returned to service in March 2024 and had 110 trouble-free flying hours, with no adverse symptoms. In fact, we flew to Alaska and back, and everything performed perfectly. Engine ran like a top and barely used any oil and leaked not a drop for 110 hours. In July 2024, when starting up the engine at my home field self-serve pump, I heard a strange (very loud) whirring sound that I thought was an electric fuel pump sound at first (which should have been and was off, as in a normal start). The engine ran very poorly so I shut it down. After some simple investigation, we found pulling the prop through revealed the impulse coupling was very messed up. Rather than click-180-click, it was click-click-click. My home shop removed the left magneto and discovered that the impulse coupling had destructively let go, destroying the magneto drive gear, damaging the accessory drive gear(s), and rained metal debris into my accessory case, resulting in the engine being removed for IRAN and sent back to my engine shop for a warranty claim. The engine shop dutifully performed an IRAN under warranty... and apparently the magneto shop (QAA), paid for this labor, since they were the provider of the magnetos during the major overhaul. After some delays, I was back flying in October 2024 with a freshly IRAN engine and a replacement (still QAA) Slick 4372. Due to some electrical issues (unrelated to this), I have only been able fly around 80 hours since. Fast forward to this week. As I write this, I am in South Dakota and my Mooney is at KRAP. I started up the aircraft, and it ran fairly poorly. (Although without the loud whirring sound as before). A quick magneto check revealed that the left magneto was DEAD. Engine totally dies. Shut it down and inspected. On a hunch, pulled the prop around by hand. NO impulse clicks at all. Shop on field took a look and we quickly removed the magneto to find... utter carnage, again. Photos attached. It appears that the rivets failed in the impulse coupling and the pawls became stuck at high speed and the whole unit destroyed itself, breaking off large, thick metal chunks and again damaging the gears. I am at an utter loss. How could this happen again in so few flying hours. Is there anything on the engine side that could be causing this? Could a drive gear be misaligned or wrongly-sized or putting side load on the magneto drive gear or something? Looking at the accessory drive gears I see absolutely no way this should affect the impulse coupling but again I have no idea. This is getting into serious money now and nobody has any ideas what the hell might be going on here.

and isn't oklahoma a sales tax free state on aviation parts and installation? that right there is worth a few thousand dollar discount compared to other states.

Everything began to shift after HCAA “acquired” what was then Vandenberg for $4.8 million back in 1985. At first, there seemed to be some support for growth and development, but over the years—especially as new generations of career government staff cycled in—the direction changed. Historical details are difficult to find, but the turning point appeared to be when Skyport took over and the current HCAA leadership came on the scene. Since then, the decline has been gradual but steady. Many of you know Hawk, who originally started his paint shop at Tampa Executive. Over the years, the airport hosted a number of maintenance operations, but one by one they left as bureaucracy tightened its grip. Running a maintenance shop is challenging enough when dealing with the FAA; add in an overreaching FBO manager and an ambitious county administrator, and the environment becomes anti business and ga fast.

Looks good

First post. Due your due diligence. Caviot emptor.

Not a Mooney, but quite concerning. I hope there is a formal investigation and probable cause.

I pay $5700/year for 1 million coverage for product liability and premises insurance. That's a lot for a mobile or part time mechanic

The insurance on my M20J decreased by 12% this year. I am in Canada. I turn 70 next year so am wondering if I will get hit with an increase because of that.

It’s worth every penny, as long as the pennies don’t add up to more than $425

Joey Cole is fantastic (KDNN)

I’ll just leave this here:

The footwell tubes (foot warmer vents) originally came with butterfly valves actuated by a simple thumb lever. I don’t have a picture of that specifically, but I can take some the next time I’m out at my hanger. My ‘67 E has the big fresh air vent and it’s glorious: (You can just see part of the thumb lever for the left footwell heat vent on the left side of this picture - the zip tie is to reduce stress at the tube seam)

I'm allowed to do my own maintenance but it has to be done at the designated spot; thankfully, it's a shade hangar. I've actually done a couple annual there 15+ years ago. Interestingly enough, back then, they didn't even care whether the airplane was based on the field. I know at least one airport that has issues with "owners" that are not the true owner. Whether the 10% partner is there because he has a hangar, can do the maintenance, etc... I think policing that is going to create more issues than it solves.

I have an actuator, just yellow tagged from Lasar last week. Anyone interested, please text me 9102648213. Ryan

Depends what you are starting with. If you have no GPS you will need a GPS antenna and RG400 cable to go with it. If you have an older GPS you may need a new GPS antenna and maybe cable. It's not hard to find a list of approved antennas and then in your logbook to see what you have already. You probably already have a reasonable transponder antenna, but more than likely have old cable. In the overall scheme of things, I would budget for new cables and new antennas. Aerodon

Pilots are the best obviously! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Those certified at the Factory at 2900 lbs GW are 2900. I see you are talking about those J’s that were delivered at 2740 lb GW, upgraded to 2900 lbs by paperwork, rudder weight check (noted in the Airframe Log), new Weight and Balance & Useful Load calculation/page in Section VI in your POH. I suppose you could undo all that, remove the AFM, run new W&B and reduced UL which you add to the POH Section VI and make a log entry in your Airframe log.

Could you just get rid of the 2900 lb flight manual supplement? Or hide it until you sell the plane, then give it to the purchaser so they can use the greater loading flexibility if desired?

The STC installation manual should have a list of approved antennas.