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Annual signed off! Just got it washed and waxed and ready to fly. Looking forward to some fun flying this summer and then updating avionics, interior, and maybe paint down the line!

BEFORE (NOVEMBER 2015) AFTER (AUGUST 2018) Getting rid of the primary and backup vacuum systems, 3 strobe power supplies. the KCS-55A System plus some miscellaneous things, N134JF lost 28 pounds. I am now up to 1012 pounds useful load.

Sorry for the delay but I was hosting a corn/pig roast at home this weekend and had my hands full. Here is the financial results for the social: Financial report for MooneySpace Social held on Monday July 23rd, 2018 in Oshkosh, WI Income: Donations: $1096 Sponsor #1: $ 250 Payment received by Mooney Caravan Sponsor #2: $ 250 Invoiced by Mooney Caravan, expecting payment soon (pending) Total: $1596 Expenses: Pizza: $ 696 Nametags: $ 28 Drinks + ice:$ 320 (Paid by Mooney Caravan) Total: $1044 Results: Income: $1596 Expenses: $1044 Net (over): $ 532 $532 / 2 = $276 (It was understood that any remaining amount from donations would be split evenly between Mooney Caravan and MooneySpace) Mooney Caravan received $250 + $250 (pending) - $320 + $96 (cash, taken from donations) = $276 MooneySpace will receive $276 via Paypall by Yves Grenier as soon as the pending sponsor #2 Payment is received by Mooney Caravan. If the payment does not get received within 30 days of invoicing, a new statement will be produced to re-balance things between Mooney Caravan and MooneySpace. Cash amount were counted and verified by MooneySpace Members Ned Gravel and Alan Millet. Accounting was verified by Robert Davis, CPA, Mooney Caravan accountant. I would like to thanks the following persons / sponsors who allowed this event to happen: David and Cindy Staffeldt from GDS aero Barry Leblanc from Genesys Aerosystems Ned Gravel (volunteer) Alan Millet (volunteer) Ute Gravel (volunteer) Brenda Millet (volunteer) Dolores Davis (volunteer) Diane Barbeau (volunteer) Robert Davis (accounting) Debbie Shopperly (access to vehicle to carry stuff around) All Mooney Caravan Safety foundation executive for providing access to the tent for the event and publicizing the event on their web site. Thanks to all attendees who were quite generous with their donations. Yves "Olaf" Grenier

After many months of searching, learning, scouring posts, talking to many people and making a couple offers ... I can PROUDLY say, I am now, finally, a Mooney owner. I ended up going with a 1965 M20C that was marketed by Jimmy at All American Aircraft Sales. Thanks, Jimmy for being patient with all my questions since it was my first aircraft purchase. I pick it up next week, so will post pictures and update my avatar once I have it. THANK YOU to so many people on this site that provided invaluable information that helped me narrow down what my mission was and how to match that mission with an aircraft equipped to support the mission. I hang out and read almost everything because I know I have a big learning curve. So although I won't mention the twenty regular posters that I have learned a lot from, I do appreciate you providing your knowledge daily. @AaronDC8402 and Wayne, thanks for going out of your way to look at a great Mooney for me in Tennessee. I believe that Mooney will be a nice purchase for the person that decides on it. A special thank you to my fellow Arizonan, Ken Reed, @KLRDMD for being a sounding board and spending a lot of time looking at data that I sent, hoping for solid feedback (by the way, I always got feedback). I guess 63 emails back and forth constitutes a lot of help. Now the real learning must begin ...

This is November 3's personal Caravan Airventure. This year Ute and I enjoyed the best Caravan we have ever had, my own gaffs notwithstanding. I took all of our videos and put them together for this retelling. Just us Canadians enjoying ourselves.

hmmm note to self - "spare key in flight bag"

Hi Mike, You can put away that harness of yours when you upgrade to a 3100AP. The 3100 AP runs the servos for 5 seconds in each direction once powered up. This will clean the servos motors. We have over 140 thousand of these units in the field today. I welcome you to tour the factory when you are in the Mineral Wells area and see our repair section. We have 1 person working on servos. From Polar to Polar these servos have a proven history. The 3100 uses a Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) signal to drive the servo motors rather than a ramped voltage signal used with previous S-TEC autopilot systems. This allows the servo always receive maximum voltage and avoids high startup voltage problems. The speed is controlled more accurately by the frequency of the PWM signal. With over 140,000 servos in the field this allows customers to upgrade existing S-TEC autopilot systems without swapping out expensive servo motors

Chatted with my IA tonight. He said it was checked out and lubricated

I'm sure no pun was intended for the flamed comment but was actually kind of funny. As for climate change, nope it's called summer and it's always hot as hell in Lake county. The problem is too much fuel because there is no controlled burns and deforestation. And yes no fun at all.

I got the following email from Dan in parts. It sounds like all is ok at the airport. Lake County has seen three major fires over the last 5 (or so) years - lots of loss, terrible. "it has been one hell of a ride. Still not over on the north end of the lake. The west side we are on is basically burnt up just outside the city limits. Firecrews saved almost all the houses. Today is the first day we are allowed back at the airport. Hope to be back up and running on Monday. No damage here at the airport."

We are finding that Smokey Bear was wrong. There is lots of loading that has been building up for years. Fire is part of nature and we have been stopping it. This was a good read. https://www.outsideonline.com/2320206/prescribed-wildfire-solution-florida The problem is that people have put homes in the middle of what needs to burn. The best thing people can do is make their homes fire safe.

So, face palm moment yesterday. Landed at CID and taxied up to Self Serve pump. I fly with a single ignition key on a round retainer that I hang from my flight bag when not in use. I usually hang the key on the DG knob, but set it up on the glare screen and “gone” in an instant. What just happened? There is an opening into the panel abyss that “ate” the key. It was like 90 on ramp so I used back up key (one of two carried) and taxied back to hanger. Don’t be “that guy”...

MSFSX... List of included aircraft: Airbus A321 Air Creation 582-SL Trike Ultralight AgustaWestland AW101 Beechcraft Baron 58 Beechcraft Baron 58 G1000 Beechcraft King Air 350 Bell 206B JetRanger Boeing 737-800 Boeing 747-400 Boeing F/A-18 Hornet Bombardier CRJ-700 Bombardier Learjet LJ-45 Cessna 208-B Grand Caravan Cessna 172S SkyhawkSP Cessna 172S Skyhawk SP G1000 de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver floatplane De Havilland Canada DHC-8 DG-808-S Competition Sailplane Douglas DC-3 Extra EA-300-S Grumman G-21-A Goose Maule Orion M-7-260-C Super Rocket on skis Maule Orion M-7-260-C Super Rocket Mooney M-20-M Bravo Mooney M-20-M Bravo G1000 North American P-51D Racer Piper J-3C-65 Cub Robinson R-22 Beta II Source... MS website... -a-

Any Mooney Service Center can order the parts. SWTA, DMax, LASAR, etc...

I have a spare ignition key on my non-airplane key ring (house, car, garage, etc.), that I keep thinking I should take off as I would never hang the 2 lb. weight it is attached to from the ignition. After Scott's "adventure", maybe I'll just leave it there as a safety backup. Thanks for sharing.

I thought I posted this earlier but i couldn't find it! There is a Wheels and Wings event being held at Quakertown on Saturday starting at 3PM we would love to get a good showing of aircraft to help support this event. this event supports Aubrie's fund A Cystic Fibrosis charity that provides support and funding to families with members who have cystic fibrosis. ALL funds raised by this charity gets used to help families! the event is funded by volunteers and donations and the group that runs the charity are all volunteers. This event will go till dark with a Movie being show after Dark, the Airplanes will be positioned so they may leave at anytime. this started out as a car show but since moving to Quakertown airport it has slowly morphed into a wheels and wings type event. The founders and attendees love the mix and have asked for more participation from the aviation community. Would love to see all of you (weather permitting) Brian

What about calling ahead and spending the afternoon with a Mooney factory tour in Kerrville? Not a significant mileage adder to your route.

To answer your question about engine value on selling... I agree with @Bob - S50 that I'd rather buy a runout engine and do the overhaul/replace/breakin/etc myself. But if that's not the option... I'm a lot more interested in an engine with between 500 and 1000 hour since... rather than a new 0 hour or low hour engine. If the engine's got 500 hours in the last 3 to 5 years, I don't care who, how, or what the engine is. I'm happy to buy the plane as having a fresh engine. If' it's got 100 hours or less on it, then I'm more concerned and would probably pass it up and look for a plane with either a runout engine or a 500 hour plus engine. To me factory fresh or overhaul by an engine shop (not your local A&P) doesn't make a difference.

Actually, there are 4 options. Factory New (0 time). Factory Rebuilt (0 time). Factory Overhaul (not 0 time). Field Overhaul (not 0 time). Personally, if I was looking for an airplane I'd be looking for one with about 500 hours on the engine. It wouldn't matter to me where it was done as long as a pre-purchase inspection looked good (compressions, borescope, leak check, oil sample, oil burn rate). If I see an airplane with 0 time on the engine, I wonder what they did that made them decide to pay for an overhaul and then sell it immediately. If it only has a few hours on the engine, I'd be concerned that they may not have properly seated the rings. I'd rather have a run out engine with a discounted price so I could have it overhauled and then break it in myself. Just me of course.

The FBO there has a nice mechanic, my son used to go to school in Stephensville. Changing the tire should be easy, just use an engine hoist to take the weight off the tire.

Ha sorry - I got a last minute late start and barely made it. I actually remember peering down through a hole in the scattered-overcast layer, seeing your field, and feeling bad that I didn't offer to pick you up. Then again, as a new IR pilot, I might not have seemed like the ideal ride that day either

I think most would agree with you that the 90% of the difference is due to the 5° nose-up attitude with the nosewheel on the ground, but having sat in other longbodies, the high panel in the early Ovation will contribute to it for some. BTW, how's my old stomping ground, 7B2, doing?

Yes, it’s mostly at CMA now (the mags are in Van Nuys getting IRAN’d). With all the attention it’s getting, and all the work done under sub-optimum conditions on the ramp at NBVC, I’m having an early annual done, too. Will feel much more comfortable with a tip-to-tail inspection.

Great! Look forward to seeing you around!

Recently, Mooney eluded to having a refurbishment program for older Mooneys coming soon, which would make such pieces available from them. It might not hurt to email them and see where they are with it, Peter.

Actually, one of the biggest problems we face here regarding fires is people setting them on purpose. Sure it's dry and yes there is a lot of fuel, but the ignition spark is now more caused by media fame than natural, or accidental. Where I live, we have had a disproportionate number of grass fires and that's because people have been running around setting them. They caught one of these douche bags recently using road flares.

Interested. May also be in the market

I’m not sure we are on the same page here. I’m 6 feet 7 and my partner 6 feet 5. With the seat all the way down I have about 1,5 cm left before my head touches the ceiling. We really need no cushion. What we’d like is more outside view when we look forward. I thought that lowering the panel might give us more of a J-ish forward visibility. But if I understand correctly, the cowling is the limiting factor here.

I got a set of used mechanical gauges a few years ago. I installed one in the right tank last year when I was doing some tank repair. It is dead nuts on! Much easier then a dip stick! My left tank refuses to leak, so I guess I will have to just pull the cover to install the other gauge before my sealant expires.

Aircraft spruce and Dresser are the two tire companies to get the tires from. As noted. You want a 5.00 x 5. Two weeks ago I purchased a Goodyear Flight Special II for the Nose. Last year I put Goodyear Flgiht Custom III’s on the mains. My precious flgiht custom III’s lasted over 6 years and 600+ hours on the mains. The nose gear was at 7 and 700+. With no braking action on the nose, I decided to save a bit on the nosewheel tire but still decent quality, 1 lb lighter, and half the price. If it lasts anywhere close to the last one I’ll be happy. Plus the mains already gave 120 more hours on them. I purchased it at Oshkosh. Dresser normally has better prices and ships for free. But aircraft spruce really had great discounts at Oshkosh so I purchased there. I second Van Bortel if you are near them - in my limited dealings with them they’ve been great. I am rarely in Texas so locals know better. Good luck! -Seth

Those that have followed the progress of this mod know that I have experienced a 4-6 KT gain in TAS (depending on altitude and weight of course.) Also, there appears to be a "ram-air" effect since the intake is in the left nostril. Near as I can tell, it seems to be roughly equivalent to what I saw with the "Ram Air" open in flight. With a DA of 9900ft, I was seeing 22"MP Unfortunately, along with the increased speed, we also experienced an increase in CHT numbers to what I would consider unacceptable (390-400). There has been a period of silence on the progress as we were working the CHT problem. During this time, we came up with the idea to install side vents in the cheek cowls. Today David got the side vents installed. The position of the vents was determined with the "oil test " where I smeared oil on the airplane and went flying. We then determined where the high-speed air (thin oil streaks) was and installed the vents in the low pressure air. This is not unlike the Cessna 180 STC for cooling. I am happy to report I experienced a 20 degree drop in CHT while running 100 degrees leaner on the test flight today. This was done with roughly the same atmospheric conditions. Previously, I would have to operate 200 ROP to achieve <400 degrees CHT. I am now running ~375 Degrees in cruise 100 ROP, and below 400 in a hard climb. It was 85 degrees OAT today. Not only have the temps decreased, but it looks cool too! #winning Although the CHT's are what I would consider acceptable, we want to see 360 or less in cruise. David is now looking at opening the inlets a bit to create some more pressure in the top of the cowl. It's been a long project, but it is coming to a close soon. I have gained speed, aesthetics and a great friend @Sabremech through this!!

I hope you can get some local help. But if you're stuck, give me a shout tomorrow (Monday) I might be able to help.

Maybe a little thread creep, but a good contractor friend of mine was up visiting to go out boating and we got to talking and told me the story of the time he was contracted to install a fire suppression system for the outside of the house. A rich guy in So Cal had built this big fancy house up in the hills amongst all the trees like so many do and he was understandably concerned with it burning down someday, so had a the system installed to protect his home. It started with a fire proof roof. There are several materials for roofing that work pretty well for fire proofing. Then they installed a manifold/piping system around the entire perimeter of the house under the eves of the roof. It was plumbed underground to a high volume gasoline powered water pump. The pump was installed in it's own underground concrete bunker, completely sealed to the outside. It's water supply was the house's swimming pool with thousands of gallons. The swimming pool was actually installed as part of the fire suppression system with the added benefit that you could swim in it! The system was completely self sufficient and off the grid. It created a mist/spray of water around the entire house until the swimming pool ran out, or the gas ran out. I'm not sure how big the gas tank was, or the run time. Anyhow, many years later the system was tested when a forest fire came to the neighborhood. It worked and the house was one of the survivors.

How does the wastegate look? You shouldn't be able to slip a dollar bill between the gate and the outer exhaust. When you pressurized the system with a shop vac, were there any leaks at all? Any leak will degrade the boost. How about the vernier cable? Is it activating the wastegate fully? Send me an email at support@rajay.aero or give me a call tomorrow and we can go over in more detail. 888rajayparts Tom

My interpretation and experience with the FAA is that you comply with AD as written, thus, the original version of the S/L. At work, we are often playing hopscotch with ADs, and it can be frustrating. The problem is the long lag time for an AD to catch up...they are typically a year behind the OEM. Of course, and I don’t doubt you did this, it is worth looking at the new SLand making a judgement call as to the intent. It may be a correction or change that has safety benefits and the AD is just not yet caught up.

You didn’t even wave when you flew by! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I have the DX2 Ovation. It is approx. 2.5 inches lower.

Gorgeous paint job! Nothing like new paint to cause you to fall in love with your airplane again! Did you do the interior as well?

I am now two weeks into the project. Time to actually do wiring - about two hours. Time to remove about a pound of what appears to be plumbers putty from the antenna/plenum, to fix the seat belt installation which was done horribly, time to fix all the Tandy/Realistic/Radio Shack speakers/buzzers, clean at least two handfuls of old zip ties, remove the duct tape from the plenum/ceiling, correctly wrap all the wiring, replace incorrect hardware with correct, etc. - 1.99 weeks. Taking apart the plane is like a box of chocolates, never know what you're going to get.

Already on a first name basis... they just need some J models.

I suspect you’ll really enjoy flying your M20C. There isn’t a greater value in all of GA. No other airplane can go so fast on so little. Pics or it didn’t happen.

My guess is that it's hard to get pictures when you refuse to exit the cockpit! The first time I took home my first Mooney, I was asking strangers if they had anywhere they wanted to go. "Just give me a reason, any reason!!!"

Dang, you guys are good! -a-

If I had to stare at my tank for 15 minutes to figure out how much fuel I had, I'd probably buy the dip stick :)

Did you have a good pre-buy inspection on both of these aircraft? Because you have had more problems with airplanes in the past month than I've had in over 20 years and 12,000 hours of flying, including 3 years full time as a ferry pilot and 8 years of aircraft ownership. And working 6 years in a shop. All of it. An alternator failure is not an emergency in VFR conditions. Going through the POH or the checklist will direct you to check the circuit breakers and if necessary, pull and reset the field breaker to reset the crowbar circuit in the voltage regulator. I've only had to say this 3 times in my entire career, but I think some sort of safety stand-down is in order for you. The other two pilots are dead. i think you are next. Luck and hope are not strategies. You need to get a handle on this, and its not all the machine here. You have had two outright complete power loss events and both, for one thing, have dubious fuel states. And neither was solved. So nothing can be applied here to learn from.

The big difference between Florida and California... bugs. The weather is great in Florida, but the bugs will keep you inside instead of out enjoying it.

remind me not to book on your airline....

Concider spruce creek airport Florida. Over 500 airplanes, no state income tax, less expensive gas and palm trees. House purchase price half off California. A beach that you can actually swim in. Airplane noise is welcomed. An occasional hurricane but my friends who have been there for over 20 years have never had major damage.

Hey Bob I got to GB on Sunday and Osh on Monday, I’m fighting off another back operation (7), and my back couldn’t take any more, I left around 3:00, bummer. Flew to Windsor Ca, still there. Wanted to make the pizza party but not in the cards. I went a long way for 5 hours.

My understanding is that we can acclimatize to just under 18000', but above that we're in the death zone since we're in a state of slowly dying till we get back down. Of course Sherpa have proven to do exceptionally well at altitude since as you say they were born and raised at higher than any one else. But we all adapt to altitude in differing degrees. And naturally high altitude mountaineering has favored those that are well adapted to altitude. My wife and I are both long time climbers, and she did quite well at altitude having summitted some rather technical ice routes to just under 23000' including South America's highest peak Aconcagua (22837') - all without Oxygen or being guided. For real climbers, climbing is all about the challenge and style by which you get to the top, not just getting to the summit but the style in which you got there. Purist consider use of aides like O2 as cheating. For them O2 is only for emergency use to get down . Taking Everest as an example, Oxygen was considered essential to survive and it was widely believed it would be impossible to survive without it. Also at the same time summitting a mountain like Everest required siege tactics with lots of people and sherpas that ferried supplies higher and higher till the summit was in reach for a small well stocked party from a high camp. The same siege tactics were used originally to climb El Capitain sheer rock face in Yosemite and many other first ascents of tall rock faces. But the tactics were never endorsed by the climbing world as a whole with many believing such ascents should wait till they can be first climbed in good style. Then in the 70's, the game was turned upside down when gifted and purist climbers Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler, whom had been making very quick and light ascents of the major Alps climbs, applied the same fast and light tactics to big mountains, a style referred to as Apline Style in contrast to Siege or Expedition style, and went on to climb Everest in '78 and K2 in '79 without O2. He even went back to climb Everest solo in '80 without O2. Reinhold became the first to climb all fourteen 8000 meter peaks without O2, mostly all alpine style in small parties; through the 1980's. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner) Over the following decades climbers, (real climbers that spent decades of working up through increasingly challenging climbs), continued to climb the high peaks without O2 until Everest had been climbed by a few hundred climbers and many paid the price trying as well. (http://adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/21/how-climbing-everest-without-oxygen-can-go-very-wrong/) But all of that changed, not really out of safety, but commercial climbing came into being to capitalize on a growing number of wealthy and essentially want to be climbers that had the cash to pay the ~$30K to be guided up Everest's rather non technical route with O2 to greatly improve odds of success. Of course getting up Everest by any means other than helicopter is a huge challenge, but being guided with O2 up a mountain is only fraction of the challenge taken on by a small team of climber that are all sharing in the leading up the mountain. But during those years of ascents without oxygen, we learned a lot of about our ability to survive and adapt without O2 as well as the issues that accompany O2 deprivation or hypoxia and a lot of myths were squashed. One popular one you still hear in the pilot community is that as you get older your ability to function without O2 decreases. Yet the climbing community demonstrated that high altitude climbers were actually improving with age to some point in near middle age compared to younger 20's that proved to be less tolerant. Judging by the number of climbers we still have doing it in their 50's and even 60's, its appear to not drastically decline off in later years either. I never did any of the high altitude mountains with my wife. I learned early on my thing was rock climbing and rock'aneering. I climbed all the major walls in Yosemite valley in the 80's (El Capitan, Half Dome etc). My highest rock wall was Mt Whitney's vertical to overhanging Keeler Needle climbed in a day (13 pitches (rope lengths) at over 14000'; not very high but plenty high enough to feel hypoxic when working really hard. Back to drying paint ..... which is looking very nice!