Leaderboard

I called Anthony tonight , and all is well... He has put down the keyboard and ventured out to smell the roses for a little while.... No problems , or issues , just didnt want to commit the huge amount of time , that he has been for all these years.... He will be back , e v e n t u a l l y ..... Carry on....

“It’s an old story, one you’ve probably heard before” - Naven Johnson August marks 1 year of ownership of our J. It’s a fantastic plane. During the purchase process the seller was terrific, we completed a thorough pre-buy that we converted to an annual. Flew the plane from Maryland to Oregon trouble-free and we’re able to enjoy the general aviation culture tremendously! We put 27 hours on the clock from checkout through arrive at home. Since arriving home, we have only been able to put 2.3 hours on the clock. Do to a non-movement prop strike (entirely my fault) that caused enough damage to the prop to require a tear down inspection (prop had to be removed for repair, necessitating the tear down) the plane has now been down since October of last year. The delay is primarily due to the scarcity of parts. Prop came back repaired and overhauled without a hitch. Engine was removed and delivered to the engine builder. Due to workload, the disassembly didn’t take place for a 8 weeks. Once disassembled, the case was found to be fretted so it was sent off for repair. Turns out the fretting was beyond spec for repair so a new case is needed. Calendar continues to march forward and we wait for a case. Finally in June a case comes available (A3B6D cases are hard to come by these days). We actually ended up going with a roller case jetdriver Byron had after all the waiting. Once the case issue was handled, the engine shop notified me the cylinders were out of spec due to corrosion, the oil pump had something go through it that scored it up precipitating the need for replacement, one of the oil back lines had been cut by something, the crank is fine but the gear and 1 idler are pitted to the point of replacement, cam has to be replaced (was a part of the decision to go with the roller case), accessory cover has issues needing replacement. Not sure if this is everything yet. Needless to say, this has turned nearly into the worst case scenario for a new owner. With a mid-time engine showing reasonably regular use, we expected to have some time to prepared for additional investment -guess not. Those who know me well, know I always look for the silver lining. I believe in nearly every circumstance there is a silver lining - sometimes you gotta look damn hard, but there is always one to be found. For us, the silver lining is we weren’t in the air when something broke loose. And, once through this, we should have a safer airplane for a while (fingers crossed!). I write this post as an example of what can happen and to, unfortunately, prove what many here say about being prepared to put significantly more money into a plane the first few years of ownership. Sometimes it’s the luck of the draw, you can do everything possible to eliminate the “big” issues via thorough inspections. Sometimes you do all that and still get bit. One thing I want to make sure is clear - no “blame” falls on anyone - it just is, what it is. For everyone looking to get into plane ownership - don’t let this scare you away, rather keep it in the back of your mind that it CAN happen and prepare accordingly. Not sure when we’ll be back in the air but dreaming of it every day. Even with this setback, our passion for general aviation has not waned one bit!

^^ This. If you have a weight-and-balance sheet showing this configuration (seat removed) then you're golden. This is the same as removing the rear seat for cargo space, you just need a W&B sheet showing that configuration. They're not hard to do, and it'll cover any potential issues.

I have a feeling it is the world at large, not just Mooneyspace….

Waxed her tonight. She looks purdy...

Well one very expensive solution for paint chipping on leading edges - put a titanium shield there - that's a side benefit of TKS is there is no chipping paint issue.

I don’t care where the thermocouple is mounted; if your take off EGTs are 1450, your engine is not rich enough. Have you ever seen an O360 that would generate a peak EGT of 1700? Regardless of thermocouple position, certain things are obvious from raw numbers.

Yea, SAL-70 is the guy. Pros: it's worth it. Good power even at idle RPM, so good for prolonged taxis. Cons: it's a very extensive job. Both field and output wiring need to be re-routed. Fishing for the field wire in the cross-firewall bundle on its way to the master switch (it's a double-pole switch) without removing avionics from the panel was not easy. I reused that same wire between the Alt switch circuit breaker and regulator. I had an unused switch next to the avionics switch on the bottom row of switches on the left side of the panel, so used that slot. I recommend installing the alternator indicator lamp, which requires laying down another cross-firewall wire. I didn't use the supplied lamp, because it doesn't match my panel, so I re-used the MS25041 that I had saved from the removal of the vacuum system as it's the same as those for gear up and down. But, the regulator port can only sink 100mA, so I had to get an LED bulb from Aerolights. I installed the 70A circuit breaker, because why not. While I was at it, I re-did the busbar, because previous guys/their mechanics added jumper wires over the years instead of metal across different CBs on the bus bar, which my IA had confirmed that was not unairworthy, but I like a clean, single bar, i.e. one-single piece of metal. I also replaced all of the old style Tyco CBs with new style Klixons. As regards the installation, the generator is slim and deep, whereas alternator is fat and shallow, which requires re-doing the front baffle. You get to see your injector/throttle body from both sides and I think it improves down air flow from the cylinders. Alternator cooling slits make it hard to seal the baffle around the alternator itself. Another thing is the belt. There is only one part number on their STC, which refers to a Piper, and that belt would actually be too long for my installation (I dry-fit the system with a a rope to find the acceptable range of belt lengths while I moved the alternator all the way up and down on the adjustment bar). I called Hartzell about it and they were pretty cool about it. They said to follow AC43.13. I managed to re-use the existing alternator belt but another guy with a C model here had to get a longer belt. That means prop off&on... Good luck. PS: if you can wait, wait till one of those unflyable months. It really takes a lot of time...

@FlyingDude just changed his generator for that alternator. (I recommended he keep the generator.) Hopefully he will give a report?

First step is to check that the flap release cable (#67 in diagram below) is correctly adjusted and properly secured at the pump (red arrow under #51). The release cable is attached to an arm (red arrow) that rotates a cam shaft that unseats the check valve for the return circuit. You and your mx need to ensure that the valve is off the cam with the cable in the down position. If this does not solve your problem, then you likely have a valve leaking back to the reservoir.

You might be a red neck pilot if you have flown a plane sitting on a Home Depot bucket….

The leading edge of the wings are painted black and I've had more than one person ask me why. It *looks* like deice boots, but it's just painted on. Maybe the reason is now becoming self-evident- only the leading edge need be repainted vs the entire wing. Thanks for all the tips!

Swave and deboner. From the book ChickenHawk which is a pretty good read, mostly for Army helicopter pilots, but it is an aviation novel. https://www.amazon.com/Chickenhawk-Robert-Mason/dp/0143035711 I’ve probably been called Redneck, Cracker, Whitey and a few others, but think of my self as “Southern Gentleman”

1967 M20F....using Aspen 2500 ProMax.....No Vac pump. Installed STC electric step kit actuator also.

These are old aircraft, with anything of this age you take your chances. It’s just part of the game. If we were buying 40 yr old cars probably similar results, difference being cost of the parts. I bought a 19 yr old house, I’ve had to replace the pool heat pump, had to have the house replumbed this year and the roof isn’t going to last much longer. Roof 40K, pool heat pump 4K, replumbing, 10K. Flip side to that is I’d guess average Mooney sells for 100 -200K, new similar airplane 1Mil. As a mechanic my guess is that likely the majority of flying engines if torn down will require parts as there will be some out of limits, now they continue to operate fine, but once a Certified mechanic disassemblies anything and finds non airworthy items they can’t put those parts back into an engine or airframe. I’ve had arguments with a few on this forum saying there is no requirement to inspect, they expect me to put beer googles on and not look at anything, but there is no way that I or any other competent mechanic would do that. If I were you I would have a talk to the engine builder of how much more would it cost to call it an overhaul, and reset the overhaul clock. But this is the exact scenario I try to get people to listen to that have to borrow money to purchase a 40 yr old airplane.

I flew without the copilot seat a couple of times while I was working on the interior of my plane, and once mentioned this to the main pilot at our field, an old weathered guy who always does everything by the book. He said that if I wanted to continue this way, I should calculate a new Weight and Balance for the situation without the seat, and keep that document in the plane. He said that would look very well to an inspector, show that I thought about the issue and was careful about it.

Yeah, they're pretty bad! War Eagle!!

I'm firmly in the camp of if it ain't broke, don't mess with it. I've looked into this a lot. Eaton never had a recommendation about maintenance on these as far as I can tell until they had a failure of a no-back spring that was probably due to a bad manufacturing lot of springs. That was many years ago. The 1000 hours seems to have come from Mooney and was due to the failure of two springs in Plessey actuators (different design) at a little under 1000 hours each. The 1000 hours is really meaningless. It's cycles that are important. Don Maxwell told me that the Eaton actuator is rated for 20,000 cycles. If you cycled the gear once per hour of flight time, that would be 20,000 hours. So, figuring that any bad springs have worked their way out of the installed base by now, I see no value in messing with it. I think about it this way: The only reason to mess with it is fear of failure. After I had it serviced, I would have to worry about a maintenance induced failure. Same difference -- I'd still have something to worry about and there is no objective means to tell which is better. By the way, when I asked Don about it he said not to mess with it unless it was making an unusual noise. Skip

I've got around 900 hours in my Rocket over 5 years. A couple operational things really stand out with those numbers. Firstly, I don't fly with gear down and less than prop full forward. If my gear's down, it means I'm on approach to landing, which means I need to be ready for a go around so my prop will be full forward. I also fly my instrument approaches at around 120kts. If it's a GPS approach, MDAs are generally a bit higher and if it's an ILS, I'll have at least a couple thousand feet of runway as airports with ILS approaches tend to have at least 5000ft of runway and I can get rid of that airspeed once I've got the runway in sight. My approach power configuration is prop full forward and 15" of mp. I usually land with the speed brakes extended. Home airport is 2800ft runway with high DA and I have single piston brake calipers and she likes to roll a few hundred feet after touching down. I often will use a little rudder before the touch so I can set one wheel down first to cushion the landing and if it feels like I'm about to plop down, I'll take the rudder out and/or add a touch of power for a smooth touch. When coming in to land with four people and bags from a short flight, when she gets below around 100kts, it sometimes requires full power to arrest a descent with the gear down in a banked turn. Don't be afraid to add as much power as it takes. I climb at 100% power until I reach altitude, even if it's FL240; it needs low boost at around FL180 and I need to climb at over 120kias around that altitude for cooling. The book for the TSIO520-NB variant has the performance shown as rated at 100% power continuous; other variants of the engine are limited to 5 minutes or so. https://www.n57825.com/docs/TCM_TSIO520NB.pdf . I do have an EDM900 that shows all CHTs and I climb to keep them under 400 and I keep TIT under 1600. Here in Florida, I cannot comfortably fly at 105kts in cruise. It feels like slow flight, efficiency drops and temps go up. I'm running a SureFly emag and fine wires, but no gamijectors yet, and it's tough to run LOP smoothly at higher power settings. The SureFly gives what amounts to an effective timing advance by not having the condenser delay and running at lower RPM helps to facility LOP ops, but I don't really have the discipline to go slow. I typically cruise at 2400/32" except in cases where it can mean avoiding a fuel stop, and I'll go 2300/29" or 2200/26" if I absolutely have to. Down low, I get around 16gph at 2300/29 and that goes closer to 19/20gph up high because of the additional work the turbo has to do, which means higher IAT, which translates to higher EGT/TIT.

I didn't find this posted (and it's not new) but there are quite a few good ones on the list. The flea market is one of my favorites, I can remember as a student picking stupid checkpoints and when asked by my CFI to point them out from the air I couldn't find them... you might be a redneck pilot if... … your stall warning plays “Dixie.” … your cross-country flight plan uses flea markets as check points. … you think sectionals charts should show trailer parks. … you’ve ever used moonshine as avgas. … you have mud flaps on your wheel pants. … you think GPS stands for going perfectly straight. … your toothpick keeps poking your mike. … you constantly confuse Beechcraft with Beechnut. … just before impact, you are heard saying, “Hey y’all, watch this!” … you have a black airplane with a big #3 on the side. … you’ve ever just taxied around the airport drinking beer. … you use a Purina feed bag for a windsock. … you fuel your wizzbang 140 from a Mason jar. … you wouldn’t be caught dead flyin’ a Grumman “Yankee.” … you refer to flying in formation as “We got ourselves a convoy!” … there is a sign on the side of your aircraft advertising your septic tank service. … when you are the owner of Red Neck Airlines and pilot of Redneck One. … you subscribe to The Southern Aviator because of the soft paper! … you have ever incorporated sheetrock into the repair of your aircraft. … you have ever responded to ATC with the phrase “That’s a big 10-4!” … you typically answer female controllers with titles like “sugar” or “little darlin’.” … she responds with the words “Honey” or “Big guy” then she may be a redneck. … you have ever used a relief tube as a spitoon. … you glance down at your belt buckle to help you remember your N-number. … you have ever tried to impress your girlfriend by buzzing her doublewide. … the preprinted portion of your weight and balance sheet contains “Case of Bud.” … your go/no-go checklist includes the words “Skoal” or “Redman.”

Attached is the after photo. That is, after a certain somebody's hanger elves saved me and not after a glue job.

Doesn't work in a Mooney, good for a Cessna. The Mooney needs the end of a railroad tie sawed off with a chainsaw.

I think your attitude is what makes the difference. preparing by having the right expectations makes all the difference. This may make you feel better…. I bought an Aerostar in august of 2022 and flew it directly to the shop for for avionic upgrades. It still is not complete and insurance has become a real problem for this plane and me. An entire year… and they told me it would be four months. Here is the best part, no real surprises or problems, just people not caring about how it affects the customer. I prepared myself for this mentally, and know I will enjoy it when it finally makes it home..

As mentioned @AH-1 Cobra Pilot is producing switch caps for both Klixon (he has been doing this for years) and now ETA Switches. I had a friend do the ETA print file, and AH-1 Cobra Pilot fine tuned it. He prints them, sands them, painted them white, then laser etches the logo, then clear coats them.

It also means you can see if you start getting ice. And if you can get to sunlight, it will melt the ice quicker.

I discovered a new one the other day. You might be a redneck if you are pushing a shopping cart at Buc-ee's

Usually their face when they face plant on the wing. The only thing holding them up is a spring and they will go down when stepped on. Mark

There seems to be a lot of this going on in the federal justice system these days. If they want to get you, they will get you.

@av8or99 Just had the Plane Power SAL12-70 put in last week. Nice unit and it's 2 &1/2 pounds lighter.

That is a sad commentary on FAA ignorance and abuse of power.

Thanks. The part number you gave is what I need. Sent from my N1374DL using Tapatalk

@Bobaran I'd think p/n 158-01000 is your best bet. I had mine replaced at annual in April due the cotter pin scoring the inside of them. I bought a pair of salvaged ones for $170 from Wentworthaircraft.com Brand new price was $500 for just one from a source I can't remember anymore. Fifteen dollars is way better than $170 but metal is way better than plastic. Just my .02 cents.

this is why I say engines are a crapshoot. and pulling cylinders on a pre buy is silly. It does not sound as if anything was found that would have made it come apart in the air. The good news is that you will have a mostly new engine to fly behind for a good while.

A quick google search shows that part number as an ETA switch.

Close the hangar door on it, or tow it into something, hit it with your car, tug whatever. The definition of prop strike is surprisingly minor, if for example your a float plane and a wave comes over the float and the engine RPM sags with no visible damage, that’s a prop strike, or Anything that requires the prop to be removed for repair. But some aren’t done, been years ago but I saw a 172 at Sun-N-Fun taxing in rough ground at high taxi power, nose wheel dropped into a hole, prop hit the ground sand and grass went flying, engine stopped immediately. I started walking over there to talk to the pilot, but before I got there people had drug the nose gear out of the hole, pilot jumped in, started it and off they went. I’m assuming a rental. I didn’t run the N number, but was shocked to see that

Case fretting is when the two crank case halves move independently (oscillation) of one another. This can cause friction at the the parting flange eroding the mating surfaces. Improper torque of the case bolts is a typical cause. It will eventually cause leaks and create drag on the crank as bore misalignment worsens.

Does your gear have the hubcaps? Do you have the under wing fairings for the main gear? I am about to head to the field to do some work, will probably fly afterwords... I'll report what MP I need to be at 105 with gear down flaps up.

I have never flown a Rocket or a big engine long tail, so I have no idea. Just sharing my experience in a M20K 231 with a TSIO-360-MB installed via STC. I would probably experiment with different power settings and use the ones that result in lowest temperatures using modern engine instrumentation. As far as I know, most now agree that high heat is bad for engines, and the cooler you can keep things, the better. I believe some of the early recommendations from the 80's to decrease power for the climb were based on the idea of "reducing engine wear," "taking it easy on the engine," and "fuel efficiency", and that many of those ideas have been disproven. Remember these machines left the factory in the 80's with an analog single probe CHT gauge and no fuel flow meter. They were also designed to just replace a cylinder after it gets fried. But it's also airframe dependent. New or worn out baffling could change how your engine responds. I don't know what cowl flaps your Rocket has. My 262 has the infinitely adjustable ones controlled by an electric motor that were installed as part of the STC. 231's with different cowl flaps might do better at different power settings. Some do believe that RPM = wear, and that lowering RPM increases engine life. The idea is that the fewer revolutions the crankshaft makes, the less all the parts inside rub on each other. That makes sense to me. But in my plane, reducing RPM to 2500 for the climb results in significantly higher internal temperatures, so I usually do not do it.

After reading this I have concluded,I must be a redneck lol.

Just another thing to add, TIT seems to reflect in CHTs; my guess is that higher TIT means higher turbo housing temp, which means higher discharge temp and higher IAT from the air that gets BTUs added to it from the turbocharger. And likely why the rocket manual says to climb at 1450 TIT at 100% power and you can cruise at 1600-1650 at low power settings. I’ve heard that the redline temp limitation is about the cast housing of the turbo, but without adequate cooling airflow from slower speeds in the climb, CHTs can’t be maintained — and I suspect it’s a combination of cooling air over the jugs and airflow through the intercoolers.

Only wear the shoe if it fits If I had thought ahead, I could have made up a roll tide example

How you fix this depends on how picky you are. The way the pros do it is get some paint to match and then take a very fine tipped artist brush and carefully fill in the chip with primer and then with paint being careful to not paint outside the edge of the chip. Then buff it out when the paint has cured. It's pretty tedious, but if done correctly, the result will be nearly impossible to detect. There are videos on Youtube. Getting a good color match is the first step, but you will need to decide what kind of paint to use. Enamel is the easiest, but since the chips are on the leading edges you might want tougher paint in which case you would get a 2K polyurethane. This paint is mixed with a catalyst and dries very hard. It is the type of paint originally used on the airplane and on modern automobiles. Once mixed it has a working time or several hours, so you only mix a small amount at a time.

Find the top automotive paint store. They can match color from an inspection cover (don't use one from the bottom of the wing or horizontal) and put it in a rattle can for you. No matter how faded your color, it will match. There is a lot more to it, but starting with the correct color helps.

CHTs below 380. Easy to maintain even in climb if you climb full power and about 120 KIAS. Plenty of air and fuel to cool the cylinders. If one creeps up, I have an alert set in the panel at 380, and just level off for a moment. Climbs in the teens on warm days do sometimes result in temperatures creeping up towards 400. Open and close the cowl flaps as required to maintain CHTs under 380 in cruise. My plane's TIT runs hotter than most seem to post here, and it does not run smooth LOP. I keep it under 1625 TIT, as close to 1600 as I can get, which varies with ambient temperatures. Usually flying 27-28 MP, 2500 RPM, 12-13 GPH. Gives me 135-140 KIAS, which is 150-185 KTAS, depending on altitude. Somehow that's always 5-10 knots slower and 2 GPH higher than all the other posters with the same engines and airframes but I think the internet adds 10 knots and subtracts 2 GPH. Your experience may vary. Keep in mind also some are using the old factory TIT and CHT gauges, some are using modern glass panels and sensors of different varieties, and some are more sensitive to feeling or noticing LOP "roughness" than others. I think we each pick our own comfort zone and hope for the best.

The internal timing sets the breaker cam so the points open at the E-Gap. The E-Gap is where the magnetic field is strongest during the rotation. The cam on the dual mag controls both points and therefore both mags. So both are right or both are wrong. You can adjust it quite a bit with the point gap, but sometimes the point gap gets very small trying to get the e-gap right. If you adjust the cam, you have to buy a new screw. They are only allowed to be torqued once. If the E-Gap is off by more than a few degrees, the mag output drops a lot. The mag output should be tested on a spark gap tester. It should make a spark across a specified gap (3/8 inch or so) at a specified RPM (500 or so), so it should have been functionally tested before it was sent to you.

There are two M-22 Mooney Mustangs in North Dakota and both belong to Warren Pietsch. https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/MMSResult?Statetxt=ND&Mmstxt=5870402&Countrytxt=US

I was flying IFR at 10K today near KHKY when ATL center called traffic crossing right to left in front of me a 9,500. I lit up the airplane with all the lights and sure enough a Bonanza crossed in front of me about 2 miles ahead. He said, "Those lights on the Mooney are really bright". I said, "Thanks I just installed them." He says, "Money well spent, those really work!"

Based on my research, I personally would not replace the NBS. 1. The 1000 hour recommendation seems to be based on a couple of failures of Plessey actuators and carried over to Eaton. This has never been a serious enough problem to warrant an AD. 2. The failure of an Eaton actuator (and recall of a particular range of serial numbers by Eaton) appears to be due to a particular lot of springs years ago. Those have likely been replaced or have failed by now if they are going to fail. 3. Most of the very few documented failures have been Plessey actuators, the most recent only a few hundred hours after spring replacement. If I had a Plessey actuator, I would consider spending the $10K or whatever the going rate is to replace it with an Eaton if I could find one. 4. Hours isn't really important -- it's cycles. But cycles are not tracked in single engine piston airplanes. According to Don Maxwell, the spring is rated for something like 20,000 cycles. So if you cycled the gear once an hour on average, that would be 20X the recommended replacement interval. 5. A new spring would have some risk because they are not in current production. People are going to have to dig out a 50 year old drawing and make a part that they likely have never made before. Maybe they are simple to manufacture and maybe there is some technique to it. Processes were often not as precisely documented in the age before everything was done on CAD. Who knows? There was some post to the effect that Mooney rejected a batch that didn't fit correctly. I have no first hand knowledge of that. Skip

Applicable Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk