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Happy Update. The Shop called me this morning with total transparency and owned up to it being an unsupervised intern. He was removing the lower plugs and the Plug wire was slightly seized and rotated the plug out. Instead of grabbing experienced help with a better solution he used a crow's foot with an extension wedged it against the pushrod tube and commenced to torqueing the other 7/8 wrench. I guess he banged it several times. The shop is sending DOM and IA who completed the annual up with all new parts, fixing it , performing an engine oil flush with new filters a few times after the fix and then fly it back down to them after 3-4 hours and once again change oil and filter. After each flush send to blackstone for analysis and determine if any further maintenance is required. I wish more shops had this stance and leadership when things go wrong and its their fault. Hopefully crisis averted but they assured me if further engine damage was done , IE bearings, lifters , etc. they would handle the repairs with no expense to me. Thanks for listening.

Some nice Lenticularis clouds over the Swiss Alps at today's flight from LIMG to EDKA at F160.

My ForeFlight can piss further than your GP. And I dare you to say otherwise.

That wouldn’t come from sitting the engine down - the engine probably never came off the crane. My guess it’s from the wrench torquing the spark plug. Dented tubes are not uncommon but denting one to the point it cracks is! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Damn, yall kicked out of the CB club for sure! When i changed companies and had to give my ipad back that they had FF on it. i only took 1 day to realize flight plan go for Zero dollars, although clunky, functionally works and i pay nothing for it securing me in the CB club in the efb department.

I always wait for "the other shoe to drop" when maintenance is performed by an unfamiliar shop,,,,and it usually does. You just hope it does not kill you. Recently I had some tank work performed and the shop emptied the tank with the electric pump. I told them not to let it run dry but I am sure they did because I arrived at the hangar the other day, one day before a fly out to find fuel leaking from the tell tale fitting on the belly. Fed-Ex'd a new pump out from AirPower but of course despite paying for first in the morning delivery it did not arrive until noon. That made it impossible to depart on time. My personal mechanic the one I trust implicitly, dropped everything to get me going but I still ended up departing a day late which is not really too bad. My wallet is 2500 dollars lighter for the experience. Anyway it is a long way of saying it seems these days, there is a lot of maintenance induced failures that really are unnecessary if people were more conscientious in their work and inspection habits. I don't know why that is so hard.

We went to visit Xmas market in Amiens LFAY, the flight was the opportunity to see the sun “on-top”. The return flight was at night down to system minima (I discussed our options with wife in case we could not land back in Rouen LFOP: with Starlink booking taxi & hotel at alternates is stress free, however, we did not need it this time as co-pilot spotted runway on 1st approach)

1. There are very few wires going to your co-pilot yoke. Remove it - play around with it - cover it with leather. 2. Have an avionics shop de-solder all of the wires and remove the pilot's side yoke. Immediately have them install the one you just covered on the pilot's side and re-solder everything. 3. Take the pilot's yoke that they removed, cover it with leather and connect the wires re-install it on the co-pilot's side. 4. You're done.

The type of soil matters too. The Claw's nails didn't do well in sandy Florida soil

Flew my Mooney for my 3rd flight without transition CFI (takair). Brought my wife up with me. We just did a short flight, for her to get used to the plane, and weather was looming so we went back and landed. Probably my best landing ever. I could barely feel my mains touch and rode them all the way out, gently touching the nose wheel down. "Are you feeling this awesome wheelie?!?" I was laughing out loud and so excited. My wife just shook her head. A landing that would've made my instructor proud. But alas, he was not there, as he has kicked me out of the transition training nest. I guess I should start instrument training soon then

Many are not going to be happy, but the reality is that the discount was probably always ultimately about CFI referrals. Now it's just a not to the group but a potential benefit to those who are training primary students. Still only potential since I'm sure many learn about FF even before they start lessons.

After some "birthing" issues, the WiFi updates have worked perfectly for me for many months. I let the update process proceed as I do my preflight. By the time I've finished the preflight the updates have completed.

Set it to record flight time. That agrees with FAR part 1 “Time in Service” for maintenance records and will give you lower total time than any “engine running time” setting.

I guess they weren’t a repair station for the trim motors.

That is only because the cessna is so slow there is not enough wind to blow the cowl flaps closed. Superior cowl flap control does not offset crappy speed performance in my book.

@Parker_Woodruff could help you with a strategy.

Since FltPlanGO is now a Garmin product, it also interfaces with Garmin panel units - so you can get ADS-B traffic and weather from a GTX etc.

Once you get new pins in there, I would definitely be checking those limit switches before trusting them to stop the motor!

They have a long history of doing so without any help from just wear but of course you want to make sure the limit switches are working properly. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My guess is that under the new company they lost their FAA Repair Station Certificate. They were never able to sell us new motors as they are proprietary to Mooney; even though that’s exactly what they were doing as overhauled units. But it’s a relief to hear Lasar will be able to order them - but there goes the steep discount we got “overhauling” them through Globe! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nah, just an April thunderstorm that spun off several small tornadoes at Lakeland during SnF. Google it, there are even YouTube videos of the aftermath.

But I agree completely with what you posted.

Once upon a time, the FAA would approve things, but they decided they didn’t have the time or expertise to do it, so they created designated engineers. Now they don’t have the time or expertise to supervise the designated engineers. So what does the FAA have any expertise in these days?

" More than once I had a client grow to the point that they were constantly calling or just booking me for a new project that was starting as soon as the current one ended. Eventually someone would realize they should have a staff doing either what I was doing or what the people I was bringing in were doing." The second article states that there are thousands of DER's which are currently managed by the FAA. Organization Delegate of Authorities (ODAs)program is a means by which the FAA grants designee authority to organizations or companies. DER's typically worked for small companies, startups and individuals. There are hundreds of posts on Mooneyspace about "go hire a DER" - for wing structural repairs, recently on the 40:1 gears, etc. DER's handled the one off and unicorn engineering review. No DER's means NO small projects. ODA's are authorities within "qualified organizations" - think Boeing, Garmin, Cirrus. Textron, Piper, maybe Hartzell, Continental, etc - that have someone on their staff that handle their company internal projects for/on behalf of the FAA. In the future the only STC's you will see will be coming from the OEM's. No DER's means no small and non-company sponsored engineering support - period. Getting rid of DER's gets rid of a lot of oversight cost for the FAA. And the mantra is to reduce cost and increase efficiency at the FAA. Small General Aviation, old General Aviation - the world we live in - is inherently inefficient. The Mooney fleet becomes more and more bespoke every day with every modification. The FAA and the Government does not want to support the time and effort to deal with individual owners with unique problems like repairing wing spar corrosion. And I think it naive to believe that it will end there. Supporting small GA in the air (as well as on the ground) is also inherently "inefficient". Managing a GA plane in crowded airspace requires basically the same resources as a commercial plane - it is just slower and can be prioritized lower. I think the subject of ATC User Fees will come back into the picture. Just wait - the "ATC Modernization" cost will horribly overrun estimates, and the knee jerk reaction will be to kill something else in the FAA universe like free support for GA. Historically, everyone said "look at the benefit that GA brings to communities". That benefit vs cost will not play in the future. Communities (i.e. the vast majority of taxpayers), increasingly with city/county tax shortfalls, don't buy it. The young punks at DOGE didn't buy it - I bet they were thinking "why do we need to provide funds for all these little airports for all these ancient small planes". The push for "efficiency" will steamroll past support relationships, statements and "promises". When pilots/owners hear that the current Administration supports General Aviation, I think both groups are talking past each other. Cirrus, with its "only Millionaires need apply" marketing strategy (i.e. "Next" program to "move you up to a jet"..) will do just fine in the future environment. There will be no STC's, no tweaks, other than what Cirrus wants. Besides, Cirrus owners don't want to get their hands dirty. Jet owners will do just fine. Air taxis for the wealthy in Miami will get support. For the majority of small GA, it will be make do with less.

There seems to be some robustness there. It's reporting a fault, telling you what to do, and continuing to perform the primary function of attitude, altitude and airspeed.

It seems strange that all four tanks would run dry at the same time. Maybe his AUX tanks were empty when he took off. Both engines will rarely run out at the same time. He was never more that about 20 miles from the airport. If he ran one side dry, he could cross feed or fly on one engine. He would only need a couple of minutes. If he did have one side on cross feed, he could have had both quit at the same time. The NTSB is saying fuel starvation, not fuel exhaustion. That suggests the pilot didn’t know how to work the fuel system.

Local flight school leaves planes plugged in any time they are not flying from fall to spring. Their thinking is like mentioned, once above condensation temp, it doesn't matter if it stays warm. I use a remote switch, so I can turn on the night before.

I got it done and it was relatively easy, although it took two people. I combined the advice from MikeOH and N201MKTurbo. I got a heat gun (Home Depot) and a skin wedge (Amazon) and [from the outside] had my son use the heat gun while I used the skin wedge to separate the plexi from the metal skin. It went pretty quickly once we got a rhythm. I then used the heat gun again on the inside to scrape off [using a putty knife] the residual sealant. Thank you for the advice everyone - I appreciate it! - Matt

I went with Bruce's covers, for fuselage from the engine all the way to the vertical stabilizer. Full fuselage cover eliminates intake inserts, just a pitot cover that was bought from Amazon.

Hi Yariv, Thank you for your input. I called Garmin and I formatted FAT and it worked. I had to use a 2GB card (must be max 2GB they said) and it worked like a charm. I pulled CB for NAV2 and COM2 both. They whole update completed in less than 4 min. Hope you are well! Davide

I wonder if it’s not a combination of things. As a flat lander (I live at 524msl) who occasionally travels to high altitude destinations and spends several days above 8000’ doing strenuous activity with no acclimation, its hard for me to get my head around someone feeling “off” over 4 or 5 hours sitting at >8k. Do you feel off after sitting in an airline cabin pressured to 9 K? I suspect that most GA pilots are moderately dehydrated after an extended flight. None of us want to deal with peeing in the plane, so we avoid hydrating in flight.

The last several F models that came from the factory had the 1pc rear windows already installed, so in essence you are using Mooney parts from a later F(or J/K) to upgrade a older F model. Some IA's I talked to told me the would require a 337 which they though would be easy to get, others thought that it was a logbook entry after I showed them the e-mail from Mooney. The later mooney manuals also state that all the structural loads in the cabin area are carried by the steel tubing and the skins are to "keep the wind out" Here are the pn's for the stiffeners that have to be riveted above the windows. Left Side 340285-007 Right Side 340285-008. You will also have to cut the center strip out of the interior panels and join them back together. For those who wanted a copy of the e-mail from Mooney pm me with your e-mail address.

Recently got the Mooney out of an extensive annual. Fixed a bunch of small issues and 3 Major ones. Engine Mount Assembly Repair that required engine removal, New Front Gear assembly from Laser and new push/pull main landing gear tubes. Mooney Service Center completed the work and she flies great. Unfortunately after 5 hours , on what seemed to be a normal runup and takeoff, Tower states I am trailing smoke on departure and even before I had retracted the gear, the tower states it is grey in color and coming from the lower cowling. So I immediately do a 180 tight pattern and safely land. No engine oil pressure lose or high temps. I taxi back to my ramp/hangar and shut down. Exit the aircraft to be greeted with a very large oil leak covering the belly, exhaust and front landing gear. Thank God Above no fire occurred. Push into the hangar and let it cool down. Pull the upper cowling not much to see but definitely oil coming from below an area under Cylinder 3. Upon lower cowling removal I find a severely dented and cracked #3 Intake Pushrod tube. I then find #1 Cylinder Intake tube has the same impression dent nearly identical to #3. Pictures attached. Suspect the Pushrods are also hurt my local mechanic removes both rocker covers and pushrods. Both are heavily damaged and bent. Extremely fortunate I didn't have catastrophic engine failure due to fractured pushrods etc. Now moving on to how this happened. It didn't go into annual with this damage and it has flown fine for five hours until the tube fractured. Based on the impression on the tubes it is suspect when the shop removed the engine they either dropped it or rested it improperly and the weight of the engine leaning on poor supports crushed into the tubes. Regardless waiting for the shop to respond !

Here's the answer to what's happening with the NAFI/SAFE Foreflight discounts. I cut and pasted from the email I just received this morning. TLDR: Basic discount is reduced from 33% to 15%. If you want to market Foreflight to your students you can increase your CFI discount all the way up to 100% if you refer enough students; 20% for the first "eligible" referral and 5% for each additional referral (that's 4 referrals to get about the equivalent discount to the current 33%, 17 referrals to get to 100%). But you can't add the referral discount on top of the basic discount, they are mutually exclusive. The only "eligible" referrals are for people who have never had a paid subscription to Foreflight. Details below. From the email: Greetings Pilot, We wanted to let you know about some changes to the ForeFlight subscription discounts offered to members of the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) and National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI). What’s changing? As of today, the SAFE/NAFI discounts now provide 15% off the price of your ForeFlight subscription plan (excluding any add-on products or regions). Additionally, these discounts may no longer be applied to purchases of the Starter subscription plan and can only be used with the Essential or Premium plans for first-time purchases, upgrades, and renewals. How can I increase my discount? Our recently-announced ForeFlight CFI Referral Program allows you to earn up to 100% off the price of your subscription plan simply by introducing eligible* students to ForeFlight, with 20% off for just the first referral and an additional 5% off for each subsequent one. Note that discounts earned through the CFI Referral Program are mutually exclusive with your SAFE/NAFI discount, so both cannot be applied to the same purchase. What do I need to do? No immediate action is required. Your ForeFlight account will continue to be eligible for the SAFE/NAFI discount (15% off) as long as you remain a member of either organization. You can also refer eligible* students to ForeFlight to build your discount as part of the CFI Referral Program, then follow the in-app instructions to apply these discounts to a purchase in lieu of your SAFE/NAFI discount. Visit foreflight.com/cfi-referral to learn how to get started with the ForeFlight CFI Referral Program. Blue skies, Team ForeFlight *Only students who have never had a paid ForeFlight subscription before are eligible for the CFI Referral Program.