Leaderboard

Good evening folks – I thought I’d post some notes related to my first annual on my 2008 Ovation completed a couple of weeks ago. Might be useful for somebody. The backstory is that I purchased and imported this airplane a year ago from Canada. Some of you may know that the import process essentially requires an annual inspection be done at the time of import so that the DAR (inspector) will agree to give the plane a new US airworthiness certificate. In my case, this was done right after a pre-buy occurred and I agreed to buy the plane. So, I guess technically this is my second annual. Early on, I found a shop on my home field at Pontiac, Michigan and began working with them on some squawks and improvements. This shop is locally known to be thorough. My better decisions were to add the LHS landing system (love it) and GAMI injectors (can lean now to 100 LOP with no roughness). My new Whelen LED taxi and landing lights are fabulous. My mistakes included switching to CIES fuel senders when simply overhauling a troublesome factory sender would have done the job and factory accuracy was fine. That cost me $8k in parts and (lots of) labor. Fortunately, we have the CIES calibration dialed in well enough finally. I also had the shop do a couple of oil changes and had them troubleshoot (and IRAN) much of the fuel system to chase down some fuel flow anomalies. After all that, I figured the official annual would be “a walk in the park”. My report to the shop when I dropped off the plane for annual was mainly “just sort out the fuel senders”. Well, maybe I had a couple of additional items: 1) the EGT prob in the collector driving the EGT gage on the engine summary display was inop. This M20R chooses this 7th probe for the engine summary, whereas the detailed engine page shows the standard 6 EGT probes. The SAVVY data analysis calls this the TIT probe (M20R is normally aspirated). 2) Landing gear feels wobbly at high speed on landing. 3) The B/C standby alternator seems to be not charging as strongly as it once did (voltage at a given RPM, flashing low volts stays on) and it shows 29.9V at 2,500 rpm in flight (seems high). 4) The main alternator emits a distinct whine on the ground, not audible in the air. 5) The Stormscope displays spurious signals at the 12 o-clock and 6 o-clock positions. 6) Check the fluids and top off… (O2 and TKS) I like to hang out at the shop when my plane is there to watch and learn. I bring enough doughnuts to buy that access. The morning after I dropped off the plane, I got the bad news from the assigned A/P: “Hey Ed, we found something on the engine mount. It almost certainly means we’ll have to pull the engine and send the mount out for repair.” Boy, that sounded expensive and time consuming. Sure enough, the engine isolator on the front left side had a heat shield that was contacting one of the mount tubes and had rubbed a slot into the tube. Evidently, there’s a certain amount of section reduction allowed, and this exceeded that. The shop owner explained to me that the 3 options were to a) find a new mount, b) send the mount to a turn-key repair shop, 3) use the services of his local certified welder to patch the spot. I looked at the mount and the groove and said “I’m a recovering mechanical engineer. That structure there is plenty over-built to handle the loads. A patch weld is more than fine.” Well, the estimate for even that was $8k. One guy sand blasts the paint off, another welds the patch, a 3rd paints it. Then 40 hours of labor to take everything off and put it back on again. Sadly, my pre-buy photos showed this problem existed at least as far back as the pre-buy a year ago. Likely it was an installation error on the part of the shop that installed the overhauled engine 2 years ago. I also noted another weld on the engine mount done some time in the past. Seems this is not an uncommon occurrence. Lesson to all of us: have your pre-buy A/P check the engine mount carefully. Fortunately, the engine went back on with no glitches and 8 hours of flying indicate it has never run better. Lesson: pre-buys catch a lot, but they don’t catch everything. The rest of the annual involved a fairly long list of minor squawks and paperwork. All told, it came in at $20k, or about 5% of the purchase price of the airplane. It took 7 weeks. All agree that this 2008 Ovation specimen is very clean, a testament to the Canadian climate and quality of prior maintenance. It could have been worse. The lesson here oft-repeated: your first annual is painful. The SAVVY tech advised me through the process that the quote and invoice were reasonable for the work performed. Regarding my original squawks above, we solved the EGT problem with a new probe. Strangely, 2 of the other probes proved inop on the runup, but cured themselves later during a test flight. The wobbly landing gear was addressed with new bolts in the nose gear assembly. The B/C alternator was actually performing normally at 30V according to the service manual (and by that point I was fine to “defer”.) We left the main alternator whine alone for now. The Stormscope was deferred since I realized I needed to do some of my own troubleshooting (turns out the screen is clear when the strobes are turned off, so that’s where we’ll focus at some point.) The TKS panels all wetted out normally. Now, the plane is just about squawk free. I get an intermittent “GPS1 needs service” alert on the G1000, and I still have the alternator whine and stormscope noise to address. We’ll de-cowl at the next oil change and make sure all is good in the engine compartment. Best, Ed

The higher the temperature, the more potential for corrosion, and the more water the air in the engine can hold. Just plug it in a few hours before you go fly otherwise, leave it cold.

When you have to resort to craigslist to sell your airplane, you know it's a tough airplane to sell

Each PIC gets to make their own judgement calls, and I don't know anything about you personally, so don't take this the wrong way. That said, most of the unofficial line-up-and-wait I observe at my local non-towered field does essentially nothing to help with spacing. It is instead - intended or not - merely a way for an airplane on the ground to bully their way in front of an aircraft approaching to land, by establishing a dominant position on the runway. Most of the time things works out fine, but on the occasions they don't - which is not that uncommon - the approaching aircraft is forced to go around, while the departing aircraft still gets to depart as desired. There is then sometimes a fight on the radio where the departing aircraft insists the go-around aircraft should have stayed on the approach and that there was plenty of room. Even setting aside the immediate safety implications of the go-around, that makes line-up-and-wait sort of a jerk move by the departing aircraft, that occasionally creates a secondary safety problem while people fight on the radio about what just happened. When people ask me about this in an instructor capacity, I suggest they time how long it takes for them to taxi from the hold short line to the runway center line. Some airports have strange configurations with hold-short lines that are a long way from the actual runway, and it takes 30+ seconds to taxi the distance. I think reasonable people can agree that maybe there is a place for "unofficial LUAW" in that environment. In contrast, at my home airport, a competent pilot can taxi from the hold short line to the runway center line in about 10 seconds. An airplane approaching at 65 knots covers about 1100 feet in 10 seconds. It's my assertion that if you're trying to insert yourself into a slot where an extra 1100 feet of distance is the difference between going and not going, you are probably missing the bigger risk management picture.

It says a lot about the ability for your average Mooney owner to manage maintainence on these airplanes when the only two M22s which will probably ever be flown somewhat reliably are owned by the Pietsch family who have been a Mooney Service Center in North Dakota for over 70 years (https://minotaerocenter.com/about-us/) and the Maxwell family who have had a Mooney Service Center for decades. (It's my understanding that Pietsch has owned the airplane since new and Maxwells took on their project just because they can.) Much of the rest of the small M22 fleet are rotting away on the ramp or are endless projects in hangars with little hope of ever flying again. Support for the engines is virtually non-existent. The parts to keep the airframe pressurized didn't work very well to begin with and have been out of production for decades. There is a reason this airplane didn't make it. Although it was FAA approved it was really more of a prototype which got shelved by the many changes in Mooney ownership in the late 60's-early 70's. The lessons learned called for a completely new design in the 80's with the M30 301 prototype, which still never got produced. Some of the lessons learned in the M30 301 ended up in the TBM 700, mainly the wing. If you want a pressurized piston airplane, save a ton of money, and actually have an airplane you can fly - buy a Piper Malibu, Mirage or M350. It's a proven design and has support. Be prepared for $10,000-$15,000 annuals regularly and some more expensive ones once in awhile.

Maybe look at a 252 converted to Encore spec. I am at 1061 UL. That includes the built in O2 system. Oh, and I cruise at 10 GPH (175 KTAS at altitude) so the UL goes further.

You can, you just need to make sure it's actually fully empty, maybe by removing the sump drains and shaking it a lot. You can also weigh it full and subtract it down to unusable, which is usually the easiest path.

We patched a small leak in one of my tanks at annual last week and when we were in there, it became pretty apparent that a reseal was on order. The sealant is starting to bubble up and will be pulling away before much longer, it looked bad. Since I'm flying a C with the small tanks, I thought I'd attempt this myself on one side instead of taking it somewhere. I've read mixed reviews on that idea, some people said they wish they'd never started it and others said it wasn't all that bad. For those of you that have done this and didn't think it was all that bad, what process or chemical did you use to strip the old sealant off? Did you just scrape it off manually or is there something I can put on it to soften it up first? Any tips are appreciated.

Sadly, you'll be waiting a long time!

I just saw the offer below from a company affiliated with Amazon, so presumably it is not a flaky one. I was wondering if this appliance could easily be adapted to push/pull a Mooney in/out of a hangar. What do you guys think? https://tools.woot.com/offers/superhandy-electric-trailer-dolly-14?ref=cnt_wp_0_27&fbclid=IwY2xjawG8BKNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHdiXibls7qtKarO_TRA6sBnI_Z4_F-ZGlGwzFAoSvkDhfg0abvYzF7quqQ_aem__gttZBtgh2uMc7lFdyfaoQ

I did this around a year ago. Bought it from Woot as well. It works well but I would prefer the full speed pace slightly quicker. I use it frequently to pull my Mooney approx 100yds to or from the fuel pump before/after flights which prevents unnecessary startup and run for only that short time. I welded a generic trailer tongue to a universal clamping tow bar. I posted a short 6 sec clip on one of the Mooney Facebook groups yesterday. Seems I can't post the video clip here. -David

Another option other than the scotch pad is a brass brush. Its softer than the stainless so should do much to stainless steel but is harder than rust or carbon. To me it looks like maybe it’s oil that got on the exhaust and then got cooked into some carbon deposits but hard to say from a picture. If it is rust then I would expect power flow to do something with it since stainless shouldn’t rust like that. My standard stainless exhaust is 20+ years old and exhibits zero corrosion that looks like that. It has turned a brass color which is I’m sure an oxidation reaction but no “rust”. long story short I would just go at it with something that isn’t going to hurt the stainless steel and see what happens. That’s really the only way to determine what’s going on.

I thought the Beech engine was a close match. Given that the certified engine is unsupported, the swap should have a better chance of being approved. Seeing what they are doing to those old Navions.... Speaking of which, we have maybe 15 Navions at Culpeper. They are in the air all the time down here in Virginia. I really am considering getting one. Just having a hard time justifying higher fuel burn for slower speed, but it has different charms (like room, handling, and aero properties no Mooney can match), just not speed and efficiency! LOL!!!

The Mooney tail is backward, I am sure there is an optical illusion: tower can’t figure out if you are 45deg or 0deg or -45deg What ATC says something like “maintain heading, cleared for takeoff”?

I am happy to put as much elbow grease into polishing/buffing the plane as I can, but every time I tried to do it the results have been disappointing. I don't know if it is my technique, the materials I use, or the fact that maybe my paint is shot. One option of course will be to just go to the guys that quoted me 5 AMU and let them do a small patch, observe what they do and how they do it, and see if I can do it myself (or if not, have them do it). One thing I was trying to gauge on the list here is if the 5 AMU price was within the normal range (given that someone said 2 AMU it seems to have gone up a lot, or that this place is really pricey), and what people thought, if 5 AMU was worth it or not.

And for the folks who are suited to do some polishing/buffing/prep themselves, applying the ceramic (or whatever) is the easy part. If you can do a decent polish or correction job yourself, you're 80% there. I did a significant repolish/refinish job on my airplane about a year after I got it, then did ceramic on it, and it's held up nicely for the last six years. It's not a showpiece, and it's nearly always hangared, so that helps. It is kinda getting due for another pass at it, though, so I've got that in my future somewhere along the way. The step-kid and I have been experimenting with various coatings on our cars and trucks, etc., and the available coatings just get cheaper and better and easier to use with time. The modern stuff is pretty amazing and pretty easy to use. It's only as good as your prepwork and patience, though. They're not hard to apply, but you need to take your time, and they won't cover up any flaws underneath. The paint on my airplane is garbage compared to the cars, but it still responds nicely to decent treatment. It makes it practical to sustain a very good 30 ft appearance.

CB opinion here: Save your money and polish/buff/wax yourself. My plane was painted with Imron back in the mid '90s and still shines nicely after buffing and waxing. Does it have the 'mirror look' of @exM20K's? NO. But, I'm only out 0.2 AMU (including the cost of the Home Depot buffer).

In your case it sounds like you experienced a partial J-bar gear-up. I suspect that your gear was mostly closed and everything closed (folded in) and J bar slammed down as you touched down. This was a K with electric gear. The incident report implies (may be in error) that the gear was in the process of extension when the plane touched down on the runway. That would forcefully fold the main gear in and the nose gear in while the Eaton gear motor was extending trying to push them out. Everything will be bent or broken - turnbuckles, the tubular rods, the gear motor, the mounting brackets.

Thank you for your thoughts on this. My experience with mechanically induced partial gear extension gear up landing in my Mooney way back in 1988 on hard surface runway...............upon touchdown, gear folded back up into wheel wells. Yes, the usual damage resulted. Skins, beacon, replace one flap hinge, engine tear down, one propeller blade repair. Fast stopping[approximately 150 feet] on runway in a straight trajectory.

I’d check this diode for leakage.

Gear up most likely takes out the engine and prop ($60K), but the plane slides on it's belly, so most likely the skins, antenna and patch work if it was otherwise a good landing Gear itself is protected as is the wing and most of the fuselage (not too bad). Partially deployed gear could cause gear damage running up into the wing, leading to a total loss of aircraft. Could also spin the aircraft, damaging wing and the whole fuselage.

I paid somewhat less than that, and I am glad to have done it. Painting a plane is not only expensive, it involves significant downtime, so putting that off for several years with a touch-up worked very well for me. my paint was generally in good shape, but it was coming off some rivets and edges. If the shop says your paint can be restored, I’d do it. -dan

OK, I talked to my avionics shop. The locking toggle switches are a Honeywell MILSPEC part. Part of the TL series. He says he gets them from Newark Electonics, but DigiKey and some others carry them.

“I am asking $135,000 at this time Make Me an offer or Trade I can’t refuse” Send Tony @carusoam from Jersey down there, I’m sure he knows a lot about offers you can’t refuse

I have only a sump heater, but I am hangared and have an insulated cowl cover. Also put in cowl plugs. It has worked to have oil over 80F in temps in the single digits. I put a remote reading thermometer under the cowl (through the oil door with remove before flight streamer outside) and read temps in the 80s. So I figure the whole engine is being warmed.

I think this depends on hangar vs ramp and how low your temps are. Ideally you should heat the entire engine but with a blanket in a hangar with mild temps you can do that with a sump heater. But for low temps on a ramp much more efficient with sump plus cylinder heat. Of course if you read reports from Reiff or Tanis they recommend sump plus cylinder heat to make sure all the engine is above the dew point so that moisture in the oil doesn’t condense in the cylinders. Sump heater is much lower than heat generation from combustion so absolute no concerns that preheat will cause issues with “differential expansion.”

I had almost the exact same issue earlier this year(see thread I posted). I was having intermittent trouble starting until one day it wouldn’t start at all. Checked continuity to all wiring to/from the ignition, shower of sparks, and the left mag. All checked out great, however my left mag was approaching overhaul/IRAN 500hr and in checking it we found the retard breaker not working. I figured the $500+ for the mag service was better put toward a new mag so I put on a Surefly electronic mag and it starts fantastic and so easy now.

I had the Tanis system installed 8 years ago with the sump and intake bolt adapters, works great and warms the entire engine.

Unfortunate. If it was a clean gear- up landing, that is usually a straightforward, albeit expensive, repair. If, as the Incident Report implies, the landing gear were in some degree of extension when he geared it into the runway, that will be much more expensive. Fairly new owner - registered April 25, 2024. Recent Ad shows that the Annual was completed March 2024 so the plane was definitely sold after March. Although FAA registration updates lagged during Covid they seem to be timely now. https://www.aircraft.com/aircraft/232373995/n1167y-1982-mooney-m20k-231 Database does not show that the new (incident) owner owned any other plane prior to this K. Owner may be newly minted or low time pilot - FAA Airman shows recent Private issuance date in May 2023. No Instrument. Some of his earlier flights seem to look like training/practice flights/approaches, etc. Example: https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N1167Y/history/20240928/0251Z/KEQA/KEQA Certificate: PRIVATE PILOT Date of Issue: 5/21/2023 Ratings: PRIVATE PILOT AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND

The biggest hiccup you’ll find, and maybe @kortopates can elaborate, is that in Canada, there is no such thing as a 337 form. Many “field installs” that you’ll find on N registered aircraft need to have those mods either removed, or re-done to Canadian standard. I know one guy who had to completely strip the wiring out of his import aircraft and have it all replaced, despite the fact it was less than a year old, because it wasn’t labelled to transport Canada’s liking when the avionics were installed. This all to the tune of about $15,000 after the aircraft was purchased. The pre-purchase inspection did not reveal this, and Transport wouldn’t issue a C of A until it was up to snuff. Perfectly legal modifications in the USA, are forbidden here unless the paper trail is valid. Because the USA is so much less stringent, exports from Canada often go very smoothly. The other kicker is that Transport Canada won’t even come to inspect the aircraft for its C of A until you have already imported it and are the owner, since they can’t issue a C of A for an aircraft under foreign ownership. It can become a real mess, really quickly. Having that “C-“ registration already on the side of the airplane you purchase it worth its weight in gold.

Mine was shipped yesterday from LASAR. Will post a pic when it’s received. Ordered 09 Apr. Received in 7 Dec. The estimated 35 week lead time was about right.

Some I find on websites, some word of mouth from brokers or people that I know. But when I shop I am vigilant and being the first guy through the door making a fair offer with a quick close seems to be very attractive to sellers. A lot of guys scanned the FAA registry and send out letters. I did that when looking for my Aerostar. I have found that there are two “general routes” to go to buy a plane. The more common is a prebuy, thorough inspection etc. this is a protracted process that certainly has its benefits. The other method, which I prefer, is a lower offer, but for cash with a quick close. I do a thorough logbook review, personal inspection and then a thumbs up or down and quick closing. I have found that this method is very enticing to people who are actually ready to sell because it’s fast. I have purchased more than a couple of planes this way and have been fortunate to not have anything big come up. But if the seller doesn’t really want to sell, it isn’t always going to be well received. The reality is that even in a prebuy, the time a shop spends on a plane is pretty minimal, and while it may catch a big ticket item, or some things, it can also miss 30 $1,000 items.. This is not to suggest a prebuy doesn’t have value, I just think it’s a little less important on a newer plane with good history. l”ve also heard some horror stories of issues when people did a prebuy and it was missed, so there is no magic bullet.

Beautiful she is Mitch, I’ll say it still looks as good as it did in those pictures, I keep it impeccably clean. It’s been a wonderful first plane and I’ve put roughly 35 hours on it since I got it in October, and it has given many people their first “general aviation/small plane” experience. I’m working on my IFR rating now so it’s gotten to take a break but I still fly it at least once a week.

Nice! I hope you continue to hang around here and share some wisdom. And I hope we all have enough of that wisdom to know when to stop, too.

Sounds like they are receiving/shipping small batches at a time

I know this is an old thread, but just saw this link which may be of interest to anyone still following. Looks like serial 001 of M22 line is for sale, https://cleveland.craigslist.org/avo/d/edgewood-mooney-mustang-222-kts/7800854001.html

I've always wondered why cigars have to be bigger than cigarettes! Because 2x voltage!

I am totally against Line Up and Wait (Position and Hold for old timers ) at Uncontrolled fields. If there is a non-radio aircraft, or you miss the call, you can create a mess at a minimum and a major incident at worst.

https://www.npr.org/2024/11/29/nx-s1-5204455/opinion-the-life-and-work-of-seuk-kim-pilot-and-animal-rescuer

I believe the monkey wrench is also often referred to as a Ford wrench because they were supplied with model Ts and perhaps others back when drivers were expected to know how to maintain their vehicles. I have one that belonged to my grandfather. It’s the best wrench for wheel nuts.

In short, they do not. For controlled airfields it's in the ATC procedures guide. There's no limitation at uncontrolled fields as far as I know. As a personal practice, I'd never commence with a takeoff until the runway is completely clear. Position & hold is a-ok, but never press the go lever until that runway is 100% clear. SO many scenarios where two a/c on an active runway will end in a disaster. Flats, uncalled taxi backs, engine sputter on takeoff - all scenarios where the two planes collide.

Call PowerFlow.

If McFarland doesn't have your cable in p/n stock they will make one with YOUR participation in the design process as the owner of the airplane. THIS IS THE OPP (owner produced part) PROCESS. You fill out their :design" sheet that they supply and then you have them make the part using their "approved" manufacturing methods. You then sign the airframe log as owner and having participated in the design and supply of the part after which your A&P will sign off on the installation of the OPP part - IF he likes the process and the part. Keep a copy of the design sheet in your logs just in case BTDT

We had a sensor with an intermittent issue. Ring’d perfectly on the ground. Finally, found a cannon plug (100+ pins) on a pressure bulkhead with one pin that was reversed, the crimp end was on the female side and the female end was crimped. Pressurizing the bulkhead in flight created enough flex that the connection was intermittent. A Lockmart tech rep found it. Those guys were mostly ancient (compared to the blue suiters) but they knew their shit.

That's pretty normal, and is sometimes just oil that was spilled during the last oil change making it's way out the bottom of the cowl. If it ever suddenly gets worse than normal, then that's something to pay attention to.

Got a little revenge today on the return flight- Santa Fe to Tuscaloosa (938 NM) non-stop in 5:25. 173 knots average groundspeed at 11,500. Landed with 18 gallons of fuel left in the tanks. Fun! As the plot shows, the further east we traveled, the tailwinds increased. Just before TOD we were up around 195 knots. At the beginning of the cruise descent the groundspeed hit 210 knots. Did not see a single cloud anywhere, all day.

This might be an assumption on my part, but I’m guessing you’re looking for temp and dew point data? I’m a daily user of Windy. The app is fabulous and easy to use. Set the crosshairs on your interest location, adjust the time slider at the bottom, then press ‘sounding’. You can zoom in the chart based upon your altitude interest. I use this app to find altitudes I can reasonably predict I won’t be stuck in a layer my entire flight. I’ve found their data and models to be spot on.

I just added IPA to my tanks and the engine is running terribly. I think it's those new West Coast IPA's with the unreasonable amount of hops and weird aromatic fermentation by-products...

While my destination was nothing special, the picture came out pretty cool bc the camera happened to sync with the beacon.

No one ever really gets to that number… I paid more than I should have, but timing was a factor, and most of the big ticket neglected items would have been changed anyway. I knew I was going to get a project for this one, so I’m not going to let this spoil my joy. I would have preferred the seller to be a good guy, but he turned out to be kind of a jerk, which makes the transaction less happy than one would hope. He promised to tank it up for me, I got there and it was less than half full, so he called the FBO and topped off. Then after we closed he said he changed his mind and it was “my problem to pay the FBO”. it wasn’t the $400 that upset me, it was just a crappy move. Oh well, I only had to see him for a few hours, but tomorrow he wakes up and he is still him…. Other than that, I’m very happy to be back in a Mooney, and I’m looking forward to making it better than new.