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Had one of those moments only a Johnson bar owner can appreciate….ALWAYS check the floor before raising the gear! I relearn this about once a year. Today could have been ugly, gear wouldn’t go up…..WTF?? Look down and realized I had smashed an errant port-a-john. LUCKILY it was empty!!!! Quick gear cycle verified bar was fine and time for a new urinal. Johnson Bars and Port-a-John’s are not compatible, despite their names.

Affirmative. Negative. Have WAAS GPS.

Short for variometer another name for VSI, but the type used in gliders is more sensitive. An IVSI is a VSI aided by a mechanical accelerometer to reduce instrument lag.

You have a IVS?! Do you have a INS?

I thought you said large aircraft

antenna length = wavelength = speed of light / frequency. So a UAT antenna: 299792000 / 978000000 = .3065 meters or 306.5 mm or 12.068 inches. quarter wave is then 3.017 inches. That's why those transponder antennas are so short. Apparently quarter wave antennas perform well omnidirectionally and are easy to make.

Before you start tearing into things, try getting a large Gats jar and push up all the way to fully open the valve and get lots of fuel out. Do it several times. There may be some gunk under the seal which will clear out with a substantial draw. I've found most people don't pull enough fuel out to fully flush the valve on a regular basis. Do it several times to see if you can clear any gunk under the valve seat.

Fantastic write-up. Thank you!

I just flew 25 hours over 2 weeks. My EDM 830 started to alarm "DIF" at low RPM (i.e. not in cruise) with #6 cylinder EGT being the hottest. I am thinking either a manifold inlet leak or an injector issue. Anyone else had a similar experience? The aircraft had it's 50 hourly last week and compressions were fine.

Don’t be surprised if the new valve doesn’t stop the leaks. On my J, replacing the valve didn’t fix it. I had to remove the nut plate it screws into, clean the tank where it attached and re-rivet it in with new sealant.

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I would say, someone at some time disconnected your trim drive shaft and got it out of sync.

Turbine or turbofan fuels don't have lot of odd aromatics? Maybe the new stuff like SAF or bio-ethanol would have required careful compatibility teste and monitoring. Anyway for their tank or rivet reseal, they send someone inside to inspect, scratch and patch every year

What's a vario? My Mooney has an Instantaneous Vertical Speed Indicator, which will tell me that I'm climbing, since just pointing the nose upwards doesn't guarantee a climb (i.e., heavy weight, high DA, slow speed behind the power curve, etc.). Before I raise the gear, I want to know that I'm getting further away from the ground and not still sinking.

Here are some insights of go arounds with larger airplanes: If you fly an Airbus 320 or a Boeing 737, during a go around, always the flaps are retracted first by one step or to a certain position. Then the gear is retracted after the positive climb is confirmed. With the Airbus A320, the call of the pilot flying would be "go around, flaps". Then the pilot monitoring checks the speed and retracts the flaps by one step and confirms the action. Then the pilot monitoring checks the attitude and the climb rate + rising radar altimeter and calls for "positive climb". Then the pilot flying calls for "gear up". For example, if we land an Airbus with full extended flaps, it is a flap setting which is never be used for a takeoff. Retracting the flaps by one step brings the plane in the same configuration which may be used for a normal takeoff. So, retracting the flaps first brings the Airbus into a known takeoff configuration. My Mooney M20F manual does not say anything about go arounds. It looks like that 1967 no go arounds were flown.

@dc0341 Go with the Saf-air ones. They're cheaper, you can change the o-rings in the future if they wear out, and currently come with fluorocarbon o-rings. The spring isn't that stiff and I don't find them much harder than my old ones. SAF-AIR SA53S (F-391-53S) - Mains SAF-AIR SA72 (F-391-72D) - Aux Monroy outboards if you have them Torque value 40-65 in-lbs max; use EZ Turn lightly applied and not on last two threads. You don't need much torque to seal and these are MAX, not recommended torque. Replacement o-rings: M83248/1-006, -012 (SA72), -015 (SA53S)

This drain takes fuel from the very bottom of the tank, along the surface of the bottom aluminum wing skin. Any debris, flakes, rust, contamination can work its way into the valve and settle onto the valve seat. Repeatedly poking at it with a fuel cup wire often flushes it clean. While I haven't tried it, in stubborn cases where it continues to leak, I thought gently blowing air into the valve with an inflation stem for sports balls might blow it clean.

What a coincidence. Just today I sumped the fuel in my J and the valve would not close. I had to drain the full tank and order a new part from Aircraft Spruce. I needed the same part numbers detailed by others in this link.

They have their pluses and minuses like any design They also have a team of full time mechanics

sure as it does to go to max lift flaps and positive rate go gear up. Even in the jet world rotate is not a command as much as situational awareness

This makes accelerating in ground effect straight and level more useful in under-powered piston. As example, in takeoff or go-around in high density, it takes ages to accelerate straight and level in ground effect, you may even need to retract gear in ground effect to get to your target climb speed. One can't simply pitch up and hope it will climb? For "gear up", this comes naturally on takeoff or go-around: I don't think one need to pitch for climb or and check vario like in Jets. I know few instructors who insist on +8deg pitch (or +15deg) for go-around, immediate power, drag flaps, positive rate for gear up, clean flaps... These techniques seems like an overkill in Mooney, we just go slowly, 1/2 power, get level, breath or trim, raise gear, full power accelerate level, raise flap... It's doable without vario? Mooney is small, it climbs by itself during takeoff or go-aroud: if the nose climbs 20ft, the tail climbs 20ft. In Jets, one can have aircraft nose at 50ft with wheels still on the ground, so after rotation, they check vario > 0 before raising gear.

Aren't all airliners wet wing designs? Are those flawed designs as well?

The argument that wet wings are "bad" is not one we should fall for. Wet wings are used in other airframes and, to me, are the best choice. Nothing last forever, I've see metal tanks and fuel cells fail -- at some point everything fails due to age. When Mr. Braly states that there is an inherent design flaw in our wet tank, what I'm hearing is that our airplanes should never have been certificated with wet wings. He's just wrong. G100UL and proseal or its equivalents just don't happen to play well together, which means G100UL is not a drop in fuel. Composites don't seem to do well either, there was a photo of an SR22 that looked like it was eaten by the fuel.

Those are aftermarket seal shown. left to right are the versions in silicone. I was going to offer BST foam seal , same as we mfg for late Textron aircraft . The mooney market will not pay the cost of this material extrusion.

The baggage door seal needs to be place away from the edge. So you apply the seal with the BULB out / TAIL inside. But you need to place the tail following the raised profile so that essentially the tail of the seal ends at the edge of the trim panel. This places the bulb essentially not extended much past the rivet line/riding the groove. The tail rides the inside profile and this allows the seal to easily turn the corner smoothly as well. You also want to hug the interior panel on the hinge side.