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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.

Assuming the pilot is healthy and able to meet Airman Certification Standards, I say 1 hour per year, minimum, for every year of pilot age.

Its not only unsupervised interns- a local shop hired a newly minted A&P who promptly twisted the nose gear of a Comanche so hard it actually split the entire oleo strut housing open. Your shop sounds like a worthy shop with the way they have stepped up to fix the issue. I would even use them after seeing their professionalism on this issue. The mark of a good shop is how they recover from a problem because every shop will have a problem at some time or another.

This post is aimed at those of you new to Mooneyspace who are still flying birds with a little passive dot CO detector. You can have a gazillion dollar panel that looks like a sports bar because of all the screens- but if you don't have an active CO detector, you might as well be flying a covered wagon. CO is a silent killer that short circuits the brain's error detection capability while making people feel satisfied, sleepy, or both. I have no interest in the company. Hell, I don't even know anyone who works at the company. All I know is that when CO builds up in the cabin of my J model the Sensorcon CO detector flashes/beeps and gets my attention. They are offering: 15% Off Inspector Portable Carbon Monoxide Detectors and Kits at sensorcon.com when you use promo code: 12DAYS For those of you haven't read the tale- here's a link of a very lucky pilot (and MS member @DanM20C) who survived a dance with CO and woke up in a frozen pasture in Minnesota- living to tell the tale: This perhaps the best threads EVER on MS. Read it if you haven't. If after reading it if you don't own one and if you don't immediately order a CO detector, I hope you haven't had kids yet so you can be a Darwin award nominee. Fred

@Phil123- try the usual places for KA-134 overhaul like Sarasota Avionics, Gulf Coast Avionics, and Bevan ( @Jake@BevanAviation). I bet a good cleaning will probably fix 90% of your issues. Those audio panels are fairly bulletproof.

I'm in my late late 70s and just got renewed but with a $200 kicker over last year Full coverage but bear in mind I fly 60+ hrs a year and have 19,000+ hrs retract. I've been with the same company for years. I kind of feel (no empirical data ) that advanced licenses (ATP, ME, Type ratings ) and lots of hrs helps along with currency beyond 10 hrs a year. Quite frankly, if you're not flying more than 50 hrs a year when over 70 you need to rethink doing it. Not only is flying ability a fragile commodity that dies away from low use but the thought process doesn't recover as fast after a layoff. Cognitive processes start to slide after 60 or so. You can't avoid it. Set your own reasonable limits (for me its now day VFR only) and stick to them. One might look around at some of us "older" pilots and our "personal limits" and see a trend in limiting our liability after decades of experience. There is a reason. Ya' all be safe out there.

I’m a huge fan of Jepp FD, but it’s much more geared towards airline style flying than GA. For GA, ForeFlight is awesome. The time I spent using Garmin SmartCharts, was almost as if I was using “Fisher Price: My First Approach Plate”. The lack of information is annoying, it’s far too dumbed down, and only leads to more fumbling around in their clunky interface if ATC suddenly changes your approach or transition. Having everything displayed on a chart in the traditional manner means everything you need is always right in front of you. YMMV but I’ll stick to ForeFlight.

I dunno. My plane will do 150-165 knots true above 7500' burning 10-11gph. Mine and this plane are about identical regarding mods, but this plane has better paint, interior and avionics. This plane is my favorite short body all time. I don't need/want (cost) the most wizz-bang avionics. I just wish I had this Stek with altitude hold in my plane. Unfortunately that is not doable for a reasonable cost. If only you could retrofit Stek from one vintage plane to another...Liability/lawyers and a litigous society prevent this. Sad. That said, when my plane is trimmed with Accu-Flite set it is pretty hands off in cruise.

Short answer. Yes. I kinda liked that total instruction by model one, so I took a few seconds to pull it up. And yes, I can also pull it down as a csv and manipulate and format it any way I want to. I can also click on a bar and pull up all the entries that are included. “And lots more.” I began using MFB in 2006. I had been using a DIY database since the mid-1990s where I did all that too. It was the robust feature, data, and reporting capabilities that attracted me, even in its infancy (the joke is that my user number is lower than the developer’s).

M20J isn't a problem. Need a good strategy to ensure you'll be with the best insurance companies. Can likely have smooth limits for the entire duration. The market is soft...get with the ideal carrier prior to your renewal where you are 69 years old. Of course, insurance company underwriting preferences can change, but a few carriers have been very predictable over the past many years that we can make some educated decisions.

I arrived at my plane today and it was 18 degrees. So I put in the plate. I liked the way the airplane warmed up with it. Obviously it warmed faster but it stabilized quickly. Oil got right up to 180 and stayed there. Takeoff routine and after an hour or so at -10 oil went as low as 177 and as high as 183, but it was stable. It was too cold to run LOP. Landing temp was 37 but the oil stayed stable at around 177 to 180. I will use the plate again in cold temps, I think the engine is more stable thermally.

SmartCharts is miles ahead of Dynamic Procedures. As a non-FF user, I spent a little time with DP trying to see what it could do, and I couldn’t shake the fact that it was just augmenting the paper charts rather than fundamentally rethinking the data and workflows. I’m definitely sold on SmartCharts as a 21st century solution to a 20th century problem. The killer app for me with a similar panel to yours is the streaming EIS to Garmin Pilot. It’s fantastic to have the EIS data automatically included as part of my flight logs, and I don’t have to bother pulling SD cards etc. to get the engine data. Not to mention - it’s streamed to GP in real time, so you have a secondary EIS display if you need it.

I use the yoke clock. Wind and Set time, overlap non-moving red hands, start engine; after landing and taxi, shut down and write elapsed time between the red and white hand pairs.

Yes, but there are a large number of stories how the Auto Start/Stop messed people up. And then it matters if you care how accurate your Logbook entry is. Remember the Start is +60ish Kts and the Stop is when you slow below 60 Kts. So all the Taxi and Hold time before Takeoff is an ESTIMATE by FF. Sure, it's a fun toy that may save you... Or just royally mess with your time. Start engine, Start Track Log Stop engine, Stop Track Log Or... Just use Hobbs Time!

The inspector could have inspected the engine before it was removed. The inspector could list the discrepancies in their inspection report. After that all the engine work could have been done by an A&P or supervised non A&P mechanics. There is no requirement for a re-inspection. In that scenario, there should be a seperate logbook entry by the A&P who did the engine work.

I use a complete set of Bruce’s covers for my plane (cabin, wings, full tail, and prop). Yeah, they’re expensive and a pain to put on and take off - but with no hangar option available at my field yet, I get near 100% coverage and sun/rain protection for 1/10 the cost of a new paint job. I store everything in a dock box planeside when I’m out flying. Turns out I don’t actually have pics of the plane with covers on but can go take some if there’s interest. For travel I just bring cowl plugs and a pitot cover - and remember to hide headsets (etc.) and lock the doors. Should probably look into a lightweight cabin cover too, through my bigger concern while traveling is keeping frost and other debris off the flying surfaces…

Brilliant! Thank you!

Some electrical components are listed in the IPC but the most reliable way to find them is to look at the end of the Service Manual for the electrical equipment chart that matches your serial number and schematic and locate the reference designator from the schematic in the chart to determine the component part number. In this case the reference designator is D1.

The F2 terminal should be grounded. The F1 terminal goes to the voltage regulator. The diode should be connected between F1 and ground with the cathode (the end with the band) connected to F1. (The Mooney schematic is incorrect). This is a flyback diode that absorbs EMF from the field when the current is suddenly removed which sometimes causes the field CB to pop when the ALT switch is turned off. I'm not sure why you would have two diodes.

I strongly doubt it. My avionics shop said the switches in these units are not serviceable, so probably they would need to find new ones and solder them back out/in. Doubt that is worth the effort, even if the switches can be found (which is highly doubtful).

Garmin has owned it since August 2018 They haven't added anything to the app, but they have kept it supported and it is still able to transfer flight plan data to Garmin panel avionics. At least they haven't killed it off.

I think it's going to stay pat. Actually, I think it's more likely to go away entirely than require payment. That's because of its origins - tied to the fltplan.com user base. It really hasn't seen a heck of a lot of updates. My sense is that, if the paying fltplan.com user base moves to GP or FF, there's not much reason to continue offering it.

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.

I use SlideDown. Very happy with the product. https://slidedown.com/shop/

The company I used to work for made 16 10 million dollar air bag inflater production lines. Although I did very little work on this project, I learned a lot about airbags. You might want to think twice about keeping expired airbags in your plane. We made all those production lines to make replacements for the recalled Takata air bags. The way they used to make airbags, they had “energetic” in them. It was the consistency of dry cat food. There was an exploding bridge wire initiator (blasting cap) at one end of the inflator to light off the energetic. At the other end of the inflator was a septum (sticker) covering the exhaust port. It then went through a small baffle (muffler) and to the air bag. The problem was the sticker covering the exit port. Humidity would degrade the adhesive on the sticker and it would fall off. Then the humidity would degrade the energetic so the chunks would turn into crumbs. When the airbags are set off, the crumbs would clog the baffle and the gas could not escape. The inflater became a pipe bomb. They killed a few people and severely injured quite a few more. The replacement inflaters are what are known as hybrid inflaters. They don’t use energetic to produce the gas. They have a high pressure chamber with 7000 PSI of nitrogen with welded on stainless septum on one end of the pressure chamber. The initiator is still an exploding bridge wire with a small amount of high explosive on it. When it is set off the tiny amount of high explosive would send a small shock wave to burst the septum releasing the nitrogen. One advantage of the hybrid inflator is the gas is cold. The old inflators emitted very hot gas that would burn you. So, If you are going to keep expired airbags in your plane, you might ask AmSafe if the inflaters are hybrid or if they use energetic. They will probably tell you that is proprietary and they must be removed.

plexi also blocks most uv. purchased a pair prescription Aviator eye glasses with those nice transition lenses, figured they'd be great for flying except they would never darken in the plane. outside, immediate -- great, inside, nada. eye doctor explained it's the windows blocking the uv and also he wasn't gonna give me my money back

she's in she's in the shop now,no idea when she'll be ready, hopefully soon

I went on a tower tour in DTW about 25 years ago. Similar to GeeBee, the tower supe said that if you’re in line with a bunch of other airplanes and you’re cleared for the approach, please just land and don’t worry if you had a clearance. A few years later it happened to me and we landed without a landing clearance. The tower controller told us “turn right, contact ground, cleared to land.” Thank God for common sense.

Hmm, doesn't work so well when you only have a landing light. Which I have on from takeoff to landing. I've never had an issue with a simple, "Confirm Mooney XXX cleared to land runway YY" request if I'm a bit unsure.

A guy named Hobbs invented an hour meter widely used in aircraft manufactured by a company he founded using the same name. Because the face of the meter had the company name on it, everyone called it a Hobbs meter. Mechanical 3-1/8" diameter recording tachometers have an hour meter built in that records 1:1 at some rpm (depends on the tach). Because most all airplanes used to have one of these, it was commonly used for tracking maintenance time. And, since the meter is part of the tachometer, it became commonly referred to as tach time. The smaller 2-1/4" electric tachometers didn't have space for an hour meter. The B&D tachs used by Mooney used a meter that looked like a standard Hobbs meter, but actually is different electrically, to record tach time in the same manner as a recording mechanical tachometer. According to Wikipedia, the Hobbs product line was purchased by Honeywell at some point and discontinued in 2022. Skip