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I don't have those airplanes any more so cannot now verify if there was an equipment problem, so it's a good point. I haven't ventured above 19K in my current 252 and either the cannula or mask works fine, both at the flow rate much less than indicated for the altitude, yet with acceptable O2 sats. Living in the intermountain west @ 5,300 ft elevation I use O2 on every cross country flight because of all the mountains surrounding my home airport and have to be over 12,500 for safe altitude operations. I can use a cannula in the teens but prefer the mask for comfort with the O2 flow setting at the lowest. Interesting point about flying on top in the flight levels. Here in the mountains that's nearly impossible because of the regular icing forecasts when there is IFR conditions.

@toomany Only the riveted v-band is approved for installation, P/N NH1009399-10 (Aeroquip) or 40D23255-340M (Textron-Lycoming). Here's the SB from 2004 that established the requirement. SB 283a - exhaust v-band and deflection shield.pdf And here's the Lycoming Service Instruction that explains how the v-bands are to be installed. Assembly and Torque Procedures for V-Band Couplings.pdf

I had my left eye done a week ago and my right eye done Tuesday. I was afraid I couldn’t pass my flight physical with my eyes the way they were. My vision was 20/50 with glasses. I’m sitting here on my IPad without glasses and it is easy to read. The best surgery I ever had! They checked my vision on my left eye before they did my right eye. It was 20/20 without glasses. I was able to read the smallest line they showed me, so it was probably better than that. I got the standard lenses. I didn’t have any sedation during the procedure, (I had work to do when I got home) It was easy.

There ya go! Just add a seat belt, and your plane will be wifeproof!

i know this had been discussed ad nauseam before but i couldnt seem to locate prior posts. regarding the bravo turbo clamps - do both the welded and riveted need to be replaced after 2 torques or is one able to be used past the 2 torque limit? i need to replace the tailpiece section of the exhaust due to heat erosion at the tailpipe bend but want to make sure about the v-clamps before i venture into it. last price i got was 2k per, which is ludicrous in my opinion. i got the entire exhaust section from plane exhaust in fl for $1200 - they did a fantastic job on the bends and welds, we'll see how it mates up. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Assuming as you say that they have deep pockets, then it’s likely that they have legal teams on retainer. Not saying that makes them invulnerable, but does make it real tough. Remember the Ford Pinto? The lawsuit? As I understand it the Jury awarded over 100 million, but Ford Lawyers had it reduced to 3 Mil and a new trial etc. Now I wasn’t there of course but I was told by someone who knew this kind of stuff that years later the Plaintiffs still hadn’t gotten much, Lawyers fees etc pretty much ate up what they had received and Ford had tied it up in courts etc for years. If you read about how complicit Ford was in the Pinto design, it was criminal, then later along came the Explorer, read about that too and you may not be pleased.

Helluva relief tube going to be needed for that installation

Don’t know about the short bodies but my mid body doesn’t yaw much in moderate turbulence, anything more than that I start thinking of landing.

If/when lawsuits are filed ragarding this brew on the product liability theory, the targets will likely be the manufacturer(s) and distributor(s). Although the plaintiff's lawyers will porbably name everybody who was involved, including GAMI and the poor sap who signed the 337, the real targets will be the companies with the most money and their respective insurers.

Ditto

Many years ago there were auto fuel STC’s granted and I think that set a precedent, that and the Political pressure to get rid of the lead pressured the FAA. What is different in my opinion is the Auto fuel STC’s approved an existing fuel, but the Gami stuff is a mixture of chemicals, that was never a fuel. Who is going to pay I think that @MikeOH has it pretty correct, if I understand George Braly was first a Laywer, so one would expect that he is pretty well protected from Lawsuits. I suspect that the individual aircraft owner is who will pay, as it may be that there are no deep pockets on the other side no Lawyer will take this on commission and even if someone were to take it upon themselves to fund it, it would likely take years to get a judgement, and about all I suspect you could do with that is frame it and hang it on the wall, because I think George may be “judgement proof”

I think if you press the pg button when the probs are up it shows the settings.

My wife has always wanted a plane with a toilet.

Please remove your copilot seat, put it there, and take a picture.

Now that this thread has wound down to 3, maybe 4 people circle talking the same thing repeatedly, surely the FAA will take notice and make change.

Should be no problem to fit a two piece toilet in a short body, I can check the door measurements tonight when I get to the hangar. That’s a two piece toilet with separate bowl and tank

Maybe you need to get the altitude compensating stage of your O2 regulator function tested the next time you change out the bottle or have it hydro tested. Never had any of those problems. Agree about the sweet spot but sometime you may want the capability to top weather. My wife, a retired high altitude mountaineer, can keep her pulse sat in the low 90’s just using the cannula, but i can’t and need the mask at 17K and up so it also could be a personal thing rather than equipment. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Amen. Fuel should have Never been an STC. It’s only a matter of time before someone becomes that smoking hole if this stuff is continued to be used and sold as a complete drop in replacement. I will not be that IA in that mess.

Having flown my K models into the fight levels on a couple of occasions (once to get on top and a couple of times to see what the performance is like @ max HP), I learned a few things. I discovered that to keep my O2 sat's above 90% I had to use two oxygen ports - one for nose cannula and another for the big blue mask with the mike over the cannula. Also, I tried to hand fly at 23-25K and it was nearly impossible to trim for level flight. A functional autopilot was needed to maintain altitude. On one flight the grease froze on the elevator drive, and after descending to warmer weather with reduced power, it defrosted. I do not plan on repeating these types of flights. I wholeheartedly agree that flights in a K model between 15-18K are the sweet spot for efficient performance, safety and less turbulence.

@EricJ You're the A&P/IA, not me, so I'll take your word on how much theoretical responsibility falls to each individual IA based on your points. Practically speaking, I still believe there's no real financial liability risk to the IA. My argument is based on exactly what you said, "so a judge may have to decide at some point". What the judge is actually deciding is WHO has the money to pay! Out of everyone involved the IA is the LEAST likely able to pay! It's going to be the manufacturer and the fuel distributors. And, my guess is that GAMI is, in the scheme of things, VERY small in terms of assets...and furthermore, is structured to NOT hold many in the first place (very little net worth and retained earnings...all the profit is 'pulled out')! IMHO, the FAA should be accountable as they issued the blanket STC...but good luck successfully suing, winning, and collecting from the FEDS! The fuel disty's are going to get stuck. Especially ironic in that, if the Consent Decree is upheld, they will be FORCED to sell the fuel in the first place...and then have to pay for damages it causes!

My airplane had FCIIIs on it when I bought it, and one had a huge flat spot. I had noticed that unless you looked at the tire, you wouldn't have known there was a flat spot, since it still rolled smooth and didn't vibrate at all on takeoff or landing. I only recently replaced that tire, so now I've replaced both the MLG tires with new FCIIIs since the old ones behaved so well.

It's always the IA's job to make sure that the STC is compatible with the aircraft being altered, in its current state, even if the aircraft is on the AML for the STC. This includes checking what other STCs are installed, and whether there could be compatibility issues with those installations, since compatibility with those STCs may not have been considered during development of the current STC being considered. Since we now know that there were a lot of material compatibility issues that were not adequately considered (IMHO, anyway) for the G100UL STC, and GAMI says that they think all o-rings should be flourosilicone by now, anyway, if an IA knows (or, IMHO, suspects), that a particular aircraft still requires nitrile o-rings according to the IPC, or still has nitril o-rings installed, then that's an issue that the IA could be expected to deal with. We also know that that's just one dimension of the potential safety or maintenance issues that should be reviewed for an owner considering this STC. Many say, as you suggest, that an IA is just installing the STC and the burdens for safety compliance are elsewhere. So where are they? Everybody points fingers somewhere else, so a judge may have to decide at some point. I think the point being raised here is that the IA is a safety gatekeeper to some degree, and is often the aircraft owner's last chance for such a safety review, regardless of how much somebody might trust the STC process. One of the fallouts from this whole saga is that some, including myself, have lost a lot of confidence in the efficacy of the STC process to produce safe alternatives or modifications for GA aircraft.

All excellent info Lance and I’ll add i never understood how the FAA let Mooney certify the ceiling at 28K when the installed O2 system is certified and approved only to 25K. We’re suppose to have the much more expensive diluter-demand O2 system above 25K! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes and no, every country charges fees for services including the US. In the US we pay with each gallon on gas. Canada does it through quarterly flat rate fees. Mexico does it in 2 ways - either a permit, currently an AIU, or when you don’t land and get a permit aircraft are subject to Overflight fees. The AIU you pay ~120US every 6 months. In the old days, rather than pay Cliffy’s commandante bandito we had go to the local bank so that the fee went directly to Mexico City (CDMX) to avoid corruption. But these days virtually all public mexican airports have the infrastructure to make a direct credit card payment to CDMX - only then do we get the receipt necessary to go with our AIU permit. There are still a few private airports that can’t process the credit card payment directly to CDMX, including the very popular San Felipe airport. So there we have to give the very honest inspectors a cash payment plus a small convenience fee and they will take it to the bank in a few days, stand in line and process several payments. but again only after the banks issues the receipt do they get our receipt that they can email a copy to us for future use or hold it till our next visit. But until a pilot has the receipt to go with the AIU the AIU isn’t entirely valid and any other airport will have to call San Felipe (or issuing airport) to confirm it’s been paid for before they will process your flight plan. As much as i like the guys at MMSF, i prefer to get my AIU at an airport that i can get my receipt at time of purchase. Now if you really wanted to get your receipt immediately at San Felipe, you could pay the $20+ taxi fee each way to visit the bank in town and get it. Flight following or radar services are very limited in Mexico; essentially only available when in an airports class D airspace; yet their class D are huge and can go out as much as 50-60nm over victor airways. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You really don't want to go up to FL280 in a Mooney. Although it was legal once it was certified, it would never be certified that way today and it just isn't smart. It's a very inhospitable environment up there. You have 10 minutes of useful consciousness at FL220 and only 2.5 minutes at FL280. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_useful_consciousness Foolishly, 30 some years ago in a 231 and then a couple years later in my first Bravo I used to go up FL250 all the time with the onboard oxygen with no backup and pulse oximeters weren't a thing back then. Then in 1999 the Payne Stewart accident turned the spotlight on the challenges and risks of flying in the flight levels and I began to re-evaluate on whether what I had been doing was a good idea. From that point on I had always had backup oxygen. Realistically, flying the the teens gives you a great place to fly very little traffic and your options to get down safely are greater. Higher can be done but you really have to be aware of all of the risks and take it very seriously.