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I beg to disagree. A go around is not an automatic reflex and the scraping noise of the prop and belly on the runway are unmistakable. Another reason i wouldn’t attempt a go around is for not having enough runway left. That has also proven to be a killer. I’d rather take my chance with a slower slide into a fence or barrier. If we’re talking about a prop strike from a bounce on the runway- many won’t realize till after they land. But not the scraping on the runway. If this discussion changes one pilots mind that wanted to save their aircraft then it was worth it. After all If they have insurance they should be able to buy another aircraft with the same hull value. If they can’t that’s a whole other issue. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No, it doesn't mean that. Airframe approval is separate from engine approval. This is why the limitations in the aircraft POH and specs in the aircraft TCDS drive rather than what's in the engine TCDS.

Heck, that's just the new 'scimitar' prop

I have mixed feelings about lacing cord vs Ty-Raps. I used to work for the phone company and laced miles of wire. It makes for a very neat wire bundle. It is certainly easier to pull a bundle back that is laced vs Ty-Rapped. I have never cut my hand on lacing cord. It takes longer to lace wires than putting on a Ty-Rap. It is difficult to lace wires in tight places. I do both. Ty-Wraps were developed for Boeing to secure aircraft wire bundles. https://global.abb/group/en/technology/did-you-know/ty-rap--cable-ties#:~:text=The Ty-Rap™ cable,cable ties have been produced. The idea of the cable tie came to Logan while touring a Boeing aircraft manufacturing facility in 1956. Aircraft wiring was a cumbersome and detailed undertaking, involving thousands of feet of wire organized on sheets of 50-foot-long plywood and held in place with knotted, wax-coated, braided nylon cord. Each knot had to be pulled tight by wrapping the cord around one's finger which sometimes cut the operator's fingers until they developed thick calluses. Logan was convinced there had to be an easier, more forgiving, way to accomplish this critical task. For the next couple of years, Logan experimented with various tools and materials. On June 24, 1958, a patent for the Ty-Rap cable tie was submitted.[10]

I recommend using zip ties but when you cut them do it at a 45 degree angle and leave about 1/4” length. This provides maximum cutting potential.

They do, but just like in cars they can get unregistered and spin. Letting pressure off the bearings during cylinder removal seems to increase the likelihood of this, so it is recognized procedure to not let the case relax too much. Cars also have the benefit of main bearing caps and much more rigid blocks than we have. We have two essentially relatively floppy aluminum case halves to keep the bearings in place.

But lowering the RPM reduces horsepower more than the recovery from having the optimal cylinder pressure at the optimal crank angle.

My Ovation is flying amazing with a great Garmin platform for single IFR pilots. This Video is for entertainment purposes only and is not to be considered flight instruction in any way. Please contact your local CFI for flight instruction. This channel and it's content does not represent the views of the FAA.

Once, my roll servo quit during flight, triggering the servo warranty repair. I had a GPS degradation (from CMEs) turn off my autopilot uncommanded. I had a failure where the autopilot would repeatedly activate the TOGA setting in cruise flight, pitching the nose up. I had to pull the A/P breaker for that failure and didn’t have electric trim for the entire flight. I love the GFC 500, but it’s not perfect. I like being a competent back-up when it fails.

Leaner mixtures burn slower and reach peak pressure later after ignition than rich mixtures. Ignition timing is fixed and set to provide peak pressure at the crankshaft angle that produces maximum torque at full rich, maximum manifold pressure and max rpm to get rated power. LOP, the peak pressure occurs after of the optimum crankshaft angle. Since timing is fixed, your only remedy is to slow engine rotation to get closer to the optimum operating point.

I feel strongly that one MUST be able to hand-fly proficiently to step out into ifr (hard or light). Relying on the autopilot is dangerous and a dead autopilot while being a hassle, should never be an emergency. Autopilots fail. My GFC 500 has failed more than once. Single pilot IFR is hard, but practice makes it easy. If you feel you are “behind the airplane” every time you hand-fly, you need more practice. Scan, interpret, control, what do I need to do next? When I fly, I hand-fly the departures and approaches and use the autopilot for cruise. When I practice, I hand fly 90% of the approaches because when the automation quits, I want to be perfectly comfortable flying the airplane.

Since I’m not an A&P, I need to get someone to supervise and sign off work like this, so I just ask them how they would do it.

Not necessarily. Years ago, shortly after I transitioned to Mooney, I almost landed gear up in my E. Interesting chain of events that led to this almost mishap. Got cleared to land at a busy Class D airport with parallel runways, was on short final and heard the controller cleared another plane for takeoff on the same runway and saw the waiting plane moving. Went around, rather rattled, claned up the plane and had to fly large pattern for traffic. Got cleared to land, but in my rattled state of mind I did not put the gear down. Just as I flared few feet above ground, the gear warning horn blaring finally registered in my brain and I realized that the gear was still up. Poured coals on it and went around again for a decent landing. Notwithstanding the controller's screw-up, I can only blame myself for this as I failed to regain composure before coming back after the first goaround. Very valuable, and fortunately cheap lesson as no metal got bent and only my ego was bruised.

"Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets." -Kevin Kelly. Unless you are retired and have nothing better to do, I'd cut your losses and move on. Maybe spend the extra effort on building a relationship with a new shop you can trust. Sadly, your story is not uncommon. My previous trusted shop had done reliable and sometimes exceptional quality work for me for years. Then came the year of the ADSB mandate. An excellent younger A&P had just left, and the capable senior IA in the shop was instructed to rake in as much $$$ as possible by doing one ads-b install after another. That IA, who I had known for years and trusted, went out of his way to emphasize me when I brought in the plane that he wouldn't be signing off my annual this year - I later understood why and wished that I had taken his subtle hint to turn around and run. My annual was signed off by another IA I'd never met, and the work was complete garbage - worse than that described in this thread. The shop owner acted indifferent to the situation - I coerced whatever remediation I could out of him (which was painfully little), paid my bill, and moved on. You can forgive a shop that screws up but not an owner without integity.

Well! My kids mother wanted to go to the hangar tonight. Man!! Life is good!! Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there!

Has to be one of the nicest C models out there. Thanks for the nice flight O.

You are very right. I believe the vast majority of IFR accidents are exactly those pilots that take such a casual attitude towards their training and currency claiming they only need to be able to fly in "light IFR". Of course there is no such thing. The bottom line is that pilot that isn't current and proficient has no business filing IFR and launching on an IMC flight. They should get with an instructor (or safety pilot if able) and get IFR proficient before flying in IMC. What we see is that they are often only one unexpected event away from having an accident. Many of the accidents we see are pilots that are far from being IFR legally current and of course no where near IFR Proficient. Doing 6 approaches in the last 6 months, despite being IFR legally current, its no where near enough to be IFR proficient; especially for a low time IFR pilot. But we see instrument rated pilots try to keep their head in the game by filing IFR as much as they can - which is great practice but no where near enough. They may feel they can rely on their autopilot for some "light IFR" if needed but then for whatever reason the pilots finds conditions more challenging than expected, fall behind and have a loss of control. Take this twin accident for example which happened in my local area. The pilot was so confused by the circling maneuver at MYF, which is a common occurrence anytime a low moves through giving us a good surface wind out of the south. It really makes you wonder if he ever circled to 23 as a VFR maneuver without a ceiling before the tragic flight. Its clear though on the radio that his anxiety of how to circle to 23 and expecting he needed a clearance to land on 23 before he started the approach distracted him from getting established on the ILS for 28R. (only the tower can clear you to land after you've crossed the FAF and talking to them - not the controller). I have essentially the same panel he did and it should have been easy to get all that set up on the AP. It was after all an approach he had done many many times - but per his logbook he had never practiced a circling approach with his equipment even though its an IPC requirement. But the distraction allowed him to fall behind the aircraft. You'd think the conditions shouldn't have been that challenging because it was mostly broken ceilings in the accident area, (he had already done the hard flying over the mountains). But going in and out of the clouds and be very distracting and allow a low time pilot to forget the need to go back to basics and focus on the instruments to level wings and hold heading. It can sucker you into looking out the window wondering if you might be able to get down VFR. While he was losing control unable to heed the controller instructions he never thought to use his Blue Level button on his Garmin AP to level the wings; especially right after the controller just instructed to level the wings and climb (he had terrain higher than him very close). The more recent accident in Simi Valley is an example of an another pilot that appears wasn't even IFR legally current from reviewing his flight aware history. Since January, the pilot had done 7 IFR flights but only 2 of them included approaches, with two each totaling 4 approaches in the last 5 months. But we have no idea if any actually counted or whether they involved any actual past the FAF or if he was under the hood with a safety pilot. Of course we don't know if he may have logged some approaches on a sim to be legal, all we know is that he wasn't proficient enough to get established on the approach; somewhat similar to the Doctor flying the twin. Instrument flying is the fastest pilot skill to perish. The shorter the experience level of the pilot the faster the skills are lost and harder it is to get them back since the basic instrument skills are not as well engrained. Getting an instrument rating is very large undertaking, but its just a license to learn since keeping current is then a life long endeavor of constant practice. The FAA places virtually all of the requirements for maintaining currency on the honor system. No one will care or even notice if a pilot is not maintaining currency until the accident investigation, and then it will mean nothing if the pilot perished except for your heirs being sued. If we're going to fly in IMC conditions we need to take our proficiency seriously; not just currency.

I wouldn't recommend putting MMO in the fuel tank, although some do that. It may increase the likelihood of a tank leak. It's more often an oil additive, especially just before an oil change.

I am flying my 21st airplane now, an RV8A. I have done a pre-buy on maybe ¼ of them. For the most part, I "prebuy" the seller. If I trust them, I trust their airplane. If I'm not familiar with a type or have a "meh" opinion of the seller, there is a greater chance I'll do a pre-buy. If I don't trust the seller, regardless of how good things look otherwise, I'll walk away early in the process. That said, I don't believe I've ever had a prebuy of greater than four hours done. I review the logs as the first step in the process, and a half day will turn up any deal breakers. AN ANNUAL INSPECTION DOES NOT SUBSTITUTE FOR A PREBUY! They are different things for different reasons.

But will it slice up your hands while you do it?

And unless it’s listed in a FAA Approved Limitations section it’s not a limitation but a suggestion. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, I still have my day job.

Talked to shop this morning. Said altitude is coming from the GTN to the xpdr so whatever source the GTN is using sends it to the transponder = altitude from the G500, but if that were to stop working the G5 would still be feeding the GTN and it would pass the altitude to the XPDR. “I do get all the A/C information at the test set however the power level is about half of what is acceptable to pass the test. I am thinking that most likely you have a bad GTX330ES, however, without another unit to swap out I cannot completely confirm that.” Sounds like repair vs exchange is most economical option. GTX335 would need to tap into HSDB, remote mount GTX345 could adopt GDL88 HSDB in tail. But both of these would be more install costs plus at least double equipment cost. Any difference between an exchange vs repair from Garmin? Any other potential causes of intermittent reception likely caused by low output signal besides faulty unit? Update: Garmin’s flat rate repair $1125, exchange $1350 for the GTX330ES. Still cheaper than 335/345 + install.

Have you considered looking at the PMA8000G? It is less expensive, and IMHO, easier to use. Finally, the PMA8000G provides music distribution. Why might that be important? If the pilot wants to be the only one to hear audio alerts from the BT connected iPad, that is a selection. To the best of my knowledge, the GMA345 only allows the selection of what everyone will be hearing. Thanks for letting me chime in. Mark

With a client with a M20J have a porpoised bad landing, and then she did a go around and it did curl both prop tips, similar to the same kind of damage that occurred here. But when we took the prop off the airplane, it actually flexed the prop blades in the hub enough to dislodge the snap ring out of it, and the prop blade was loose in the hub. She could’ve been killed.

It sounds like the elevators are misaligned and the shop compensated by tweaking the aileron and/or flap rigging. I’d get the elevators right and then repeat the rigging procedure.

The Government of El Salvador has made aviation and general aviation in particular a policy priority. As part of that effort it has repopened and opened several airports. This is a video about a flight to one of these new airports. Hope you enjoy.

A brass wire brush on a drill takes about 30 min to clean off the old glue. Make sure you tape off the cabin for this because it flings debris everywhere , a mask and goggles are highly recommended. This is the most time consuming and difficult part of the job. While taking off the interior door panel is good for removing the old seal, in my experience, you need the panel in place during install to prevent your seal from interfering with the panel. The door does not need to be removed. It is very difficult, on most planes, to properly seat the seal so that it contacts the jamb all the way around. What I have done is use strips of blue tape every 6-10” to hold the seal in place while I open and close the door. Then use a lead pencil to mark the edges of the seal prior to applying the gluing. It’s best to try to do the entire seal in one shot so that you can open and close the door with a flashlight and move the seal around for best fit. Once it’s attained, close the door and let the glue dry. I have changed this seal in 6 Mooney doors, and I have never gotten a factory seal to contact all the way around the door. The inflatable seal is foolproof and works better than anyone would believe without riding in the plane. I tried the first generation of geebee’s silicone door seal, it worked great on the baggage door but no matter where I placed it on the main door, it bound the door hinge. They have since reworked the seal and I dont believe this is an issue any longer. This would be my second choice behind the inflatable. The factory seal is just inadequate in my opinion. Disclaimer, my entire focus is on noise. My understanding is that the inflatable seal can be problematic on the ramp for water intrusion so if you don’t have a hangar it may not be a good idea. I hangar my plane 95% of the time and when I’m traveling and staying on a ramp I use blue tape to cover the gap.

I've had the trim servo go out twice on my GFC500 since it was installed in 2020. Replaced both times by Garmin under warranty, the last time with all the rest of the servos too. Supposedly new part design fixed it. Last week I was shooting a night approach, coupled. Got a trim flag warning from the AP, and then when I deployed the third notch of flaps, the plane started to drop below glideslope. Kicked the autopilot off, found the plane out of trim nose down. When to turn the trim wheel, found the loose passenger seatbelt had wedged itself in there and made it hard to turn. Could still spin it but the resistance was apparently enough to overcome the autopilot servos. Note to self - secure the passenger seatbelt when flying solo. The autopilot is a great tool but I would not be happy flying around uncertain if I could hand fly any approach. If I ever felt that way I would seek more training.

The problem is that by definition you’ve forgotten your pre-landing brief if you’re scraping the prop on the ground with the wheels in the wells. If you would remember to do a pre-landing brief, you wouldn’t need the pre-landing brief

Did you try removing the interior plastic trim and disconnecting the hold open arm at the bottom of the door? That’s how I installed mine and there was plenty of access.

That is not correct at all, and I’m surprised an AP would tell you that. While it would absolutely be easier off the airplane, the difficulty of removing the door is more hassle than the extra difficulty with the door seal. removing the door guide/limiter makes the job a lot easier. I have never heard of anyone removing the door for this. Not saying it hasn’t happened, just that I have never heard of it done. although the instructions for the inflatable door seal said to remove the door as well.

I’ve found that Tri-Flow works well to lubricate lock cylinders. It’s really easy to break into the standard Mooney cabinet locks without a lock pick set if you have a key that fits the slot even if it won’t open the lock. Just twist it a bit to tension the pins against the cylinder and rake the key in and out until the pins line up.

Disagreeing is fine, but don’t get personal. I know what I would NOT do.

Having this discussion in advance, making your choice, and ground flying how you would handle it might help avoid the "reflex" and go with the most recent/most trained decision. Not for certain, but a much better chance than making the choice in a split moment on the spot when it happens.

Strangely, my gtx345 was using a G5 as the encoder and (after several conversations), garmin admitted there is an issue with that setup that can cause intermittent mode c loss. They even offered to send me a gae-12 encoder. Now I doubt the same issue exists with the g500txi, but I guess my thought is that it might not necessarily be an issue with the transponder itself. Maybe a wiring issue from the g500? It will need reasonable troubleshooting.

i don’t understand the concern. Mooney builds up the airframe with pre-drilled seat rails. When i replaced my 4 seat rails the pre-drilled seat rails fit perfectly. After all they were identical copies to the ones i removed. As for buying them, your not going to find them on the shelf ready to ship but Mooney is still producing parts and one should be able to put an order in and get them in 6 weeks to 3 months and in my experience Mooney almost always ships them sooner than originally promised for the parts they make. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

On my 1970 E, the motor does not stall. It continues to turn, just that it sounds as if a winch-like mechanism is engaged which allows the motor to spin without moving the flaps. It is some sort of mechanical limiting device: while the flaps are in travel the motor runs with a smooth sound, and when they reach the limit the system starts making a "clack-clack-clack" sound, as if the motor axle is spinning but it does not engage the flap mechanism. It sounds like this is how it was designed to work, and everyone I talked to said the system is quite reliable.

The "sacrificial blocl" is made from bakelite type material and is quite abrasive in and of itself. When I rebuilt my plane I made new nylon blocks with DER signoff. Much less abrasive and have not had issues. John Breda

G500TXi with integrated AHRS/ADC.

Exactly right and improper torquing, the real concern, comes from not lubricating the threads/nut for a wet torque, not torquing in stages , not the correct order as outlined by TCM, not using new nuts to get proper torque, not cleaning the mating surface to be free of paint, sealant, dirt etc (that might have been used to treat a leaky bolt), and a big one is not torquing thru-bolts from both sides which is often missed because it requires a lot more disassembly from the opposite side to gain access. This is why Mike says Be Afraid, paying attention to the details is critical but when a mechanic who’s boss tells him he only has X hours to complete the job can have him/her hurrying to get it done. Me on the other hand i could never afford because i am slowest mechanic ever, triple checking because i have no one to do so for me. but I’ve never had an issue or failure to start right up because i can afford to take my time before i am ready for that return to service flight to verify all is good. But time is a luxury in the real world and virtually every one is over $100 an hour yet the vast majority are still under what a car dealership charges. And try finding a dealership that can actually fix a broken part that easily fixable but is only willing to replace it! It’s pretty amazing what a good GA mechanic can do. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quoting from the Plane & Pilot article above: We do know for a fact that performance can be really bad when you have a damaged prop. A survivor of a prop strike accident told us so. A Cessna 172RG was on an instructional flight out of the Washington Memorial Airport in Marthasville, Missouri, on April 23, 2002. The private pilot was killed, and the instructor received serious injuries. During a touch-and-go, as the plane was in ground effect, the nose suddenly pitched down, and the prop hit the runway. The airplane started vibrating badly, and the flying pilot turned the plane over to the instructor, who was unable to control it. The instructor told investigators that the airplane made a sharp turn to the left and went nose down into the ground. On May 19, 2016, the propeller of a Beech D35 that was landing struck Runway 10 at the Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport in Sevierville, Tennessee. A witness said the landing gear had been up and, after the propeller blades struck the runway numerous times, the airplane skidded along until the engine speed increased and the airplane lifted off. The witness said the airplane appeared to be very unstable in ground effect, its performance dramatically deteriorated. It was observed to pitch up, roll to the left, and crash to the ground. The pilot, who was the only occupant, was killed. ******** Please don't try to "save" an already damaged airplane. Ride the slide and live to tell the tale, even if you don't fly again afterwards. How damaged is the propeller? What was damaged in the engine? Did your flaps drag down the runway, more on one wing than the other? How much power will the engine produce? What is your new propeller efficiency? You don't know. Maybe your controllable pitch propeller won't fully adjust, because the impact changed it's angle; maybe a tip broke off of one blade; maybe the crank shaft is cracked, and going for full power may break it. Land the plane and live.

That’s awfully nice of you trying to save the insurance money but how do you know the front of the plane doesn’t look like this?

Since you have different Keys for the baggage and door, that's something your locksmith can fix for you by re-keying one them so both baggage and door use the same key. I should add a cautionary reminder for all on their ignition key. Folks need to be careful duplicating their ignition key. Its not legal or airworthy to use a generic HomeDepot/Lowes/Etc key blank, it should be done only with a Bendix key blank for a Bendix ignition lock. This has actually led to some fatal accidents over the years including one at my home field with a flight school, which is how I learned about this. The issue is that some of these duplicated keys may allow removing the key without it being in the Off/Locked position. If so, eventually the key will be removed without turning the ignition off and then you or someone moves to the nose and moves the prop before pushing or pulling the plane with the p-leads still ungrounded and the engine fires with prop causing lethal injuries. Be sure to check your duplicated keys for this danger and discard any that allow that.

I think we can all agree that single pilot IFR in IMC is a challenge, and it takes more than a casual approach to be actually proficient. Given the equipment can vary from one aircraft to another, proficiency definitely isn't universal either. I know that the CFII's on the forum have their typical flow, and an IPC has criteria. But curious to see everyone's "list" of the tasks and proficiency items they routinely train... Hand flying: if you're not good at handflying, then IFR (especially without an autopilot) will be difficult even on a good day. Exercising your ability to hold heading and altitudes with precision is a foundation of flight and basic requirement of IFR. Automation: knobology and fluid use of the equipment in your aircraft using GPS with autopilot; understanding "gotchas" and quick recognition of issues; understanding failure points and what those do/look like. Navigation: knobology and fluid use of the GPS to load approaches, sequence flight director, and ensure your GPS is directing what you think it should. Communication: frequent flights utilizing ATC efficiently; filing IFR routinely, getting flight following; following ATC direction quickly and efficiently, and developing the language/vocabulary to communicate effectively. Approaches: not all approaches are the same and it's easy to be lulled into a common flow that doesn't reflect approaches seen IRL. HILPT, procedure turns, short FAF segments, high angles of descent required, TAAs...lots of "quirks" that may not be found at your 'home drome'. Weather: HUGE aspect of IFR is the potential for icing, convection, unforecast deterioration, delays, etc. all the way to the big "Go-No Go" question at the beginning of the flight; how to effectively use inflight resources for weather, ABS-b, XM, ATC input; formulating contingency plans and strategies for success. Emergency procedures: having a firm grasp of what systems can fail, what that effects, and how it appears to the pilot; having effective contingency plans when equipment fails or issues arise. Safety practices: learning from the mistakes of others; rehearsing procedures (both routine and emergency) frequently to minimize hesitation, maximize outcome, and work effectively. Deliberate practice: excellence in aviation isn't a mistake and doesn't occur casually. Flight "muscles" atrophy with disuse, whether this is a maintenance downtime vs you've flown enough you don't "train" with the same intent and intensity that you once did... I don't think you can even come close to "working" all of these with just a simple IPC, and we all could probably benefit from working the groups that we don't work routinely. It also makes me realize the HUGE potential for working these through SIMULATION that emulates real world flying. ESPECIALLY when it comes to emergency procedures. There are many failures that you shouldn't perform in a real aircraft that would be super helpful to perform with simulation! I'd love to see a simulation center for GA that could be set up to mirror different aircraft both in flight profile as well as equipment, that would allow a more realistic experience for sim training. I'm surprised that some of the companies like Real Sim Gear don't have a demo center where they can set up modular examples of your aircraft, sell you training and sim time, and offer a discount to encourage you to take their equipment home with you. Garmin has their own OnSite training as well as online modules. For me, this is one of the "fun" aspects of flying...training the mental just as much as the tactile.

This is a no-no for me. Never ever leave something halfway done. Period. Hand-tightening things that are supposed to be torqued, whether it is an oil filter, nut, or whatever, and leaving it like this, is asking for disaster.

I don’t know why this is triggering some so much. I would think you all would welcome the opportunity to test your skills in a safe and controlled environment. The guys I have flown with since the beginning of my flying life did this stuff to each other all the time. If your approaches were too easy, a cover was put on your AI, DG, or both. Autopilots were never reliable. Nav systems were never reliable. The point was that this guy was incapable of handling an autopilot failure. That seems like a much bigger deal.

It’s dangerous in front of the plane that is where the chopper/cutter thing is. It’s safer being behind the airplane.

Attend a Mooney Safety Foundation Pilot Proficiency Program. https://www.mooneysafety.com/proficiency-programs/