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It's a wrap. I believe we had a very successful clinic thanks to Ned and many others, particularly Sausage and Slim who crossed multiple time zones to serve as safety pilots. 24 Mooney owners who participated are qualified to fly the MSN-OSH formation into AirVenture! 4 days of perfect weather. The Hickory Regional Airport FBO really wanted us there and treated us very well - no ramp charges, $.50 fuel discount, provided our conference room, water and ice and lunch for 40 both Friday and Saturday as well as their 15 passenger van and drivers for 4 days. They hope we'll come back next year. Our local MSC @AGL Aviation, provided breakfast 2 days as well as drinks and snacks. Lynn loaded a tool box on his pickup and was available all weekend "just in case". And the Crosswinds Cafe who catered 6 meals did a great job - the food was delicious, timely, and plentiful.

CUSTOMIZE AND MAKE YOUR OWN.... ATTACHED IS MINE FOR M20J ONCE YOU PRINT IT, TAKE IT TO STAPLES AND HAVE IT LAMINATED...I REALLY LIKE HAVE ONE SHEET FOR EVERYTHING mooney_m20j_N1144W.doc

Yep, it's a non-event. In fact, the carb O360 restarts quicker then my TSIO360 does. I like to watch the fuel meter and anticipate when it will run dry. One of the benefits of this. exercise is to validate that you KNOW exactly how much fuel you have at all times and therefore should be able to predict when the engine starts to stumble. Quickly switch tanks and you're back and running. On landing, immediately top that tank off to verify and note the ACTUAL useable fuel. I then switch to that tank so the next start is on that tank ensuring the lines are filled.

Went to CRQ for Father’s Day weekend and shot the ILS behind our very own @kortopates providing instruction to some lucky Mooney pilot. Little Dude said he finally approves of his in-flight entertainment and snack options

Good. Now is not the time for him to be placating our curiosity. He is full of pain medication I’ll bet. There will come a time he will share with us his observations. The NTSB will be hounding him to recant the accident well before he is mentally prepared to as it is. Let’s let Mark heal and let’s help him heal. I guarantee you it is a real hero who pulls you from a burning plane. This person I hope becomes known to us, we all owe him a round or two. Bobby, thanks for being there for me.

This simple mod must be good for at least 30 KNOTS, maybe more.

Hey everyone. I just made myself a set of custom fit sun shades and thought I'd make a post to help consolidate some of the other information on the topic I've found on this site. First, I have to thank gsxrpilot & Skates97 for their helpful posts. As far as materials you need the following: - Aluminum bubble insulation (available at most hardware stores, lumber yards, and amazon) - Aluminum tape (for banding the edges of the shades) - Blue painters tape - Scissors Process: 1. Unroll the insulation over the exterior of the window 2. Tape in place with painters tape 3. Cut out sun shade following window edge (re-tape as necessary while cutting) 4. Trim edges/fine tune shape once cut out from main sheet 5. Cut slit down middle of front windscreen and overlap or cut out extra material to accommodate compound window curve 6. Tape seams with aluminum tape 7. Fold aluminum tape over/around edges to add rigidity and prevent tears. I also made a step by step how to video: Thanks again everyone for making this project possible.

We all have to find our happy medium between risk of death and spice of life. Most people would say we are crazy to get in a little plane and that we've placed the balance far too far toward the "spice of life". With few exceptions you can get where you need to in a Volvo station wagon. I feel fortunate I live in a time we can make that choice though. -Robert

Flying at single digits low level is stupid, especially in a single engine airplane. And the hours this guy had were too few to go about this. I have 1000s of hours low level and I've done some stupid things over the Pacific Ocean in a B-52G at 390 KIAS, but never 10 feet! Either act is stupid. But a Buff at 10 feet AGL going 390 KIAS would attract attention and make noise. A little bitty Mooney at 10 feet is 'meh'. Therefore, he gets no cool points from anywhere. RIP. This is my first post. I love flying my M20C. But I like cruising at 10,000 feet. More time to make decisions.

PTK is right and “unloading the wing” is one of the tools taught in essentially any unusual attitude recovery course (which I would HIGHLY recommend everyone take). A wing stalls when you exceed the critical AOA. If you bank the plane and pull back on the yoke to compensate for the lost vertical component of lift then you will increase stall speed. What PTK wrote in his post is that if you unload the wing (lower the AOA) then you won’t necessarily increase your stall speed. Hammerhead turn is a good example of thinking about things in terms of AOA. Near the top of the turn you’re pointing straight up and are very slow but you are NOT stalled because the relative wind is coming from above and your AOA is small.

Thank you for all the help and encouragement this weekend! I will admit it was nice flying home and not hearing you tell me more rudder!

I always liked the autopilot from the movie Airplane. 1:20 into the clip!

Lycoming shipped my A3B6 with Slick mags: 4372 (impulse coupling) on the left and 4370 (no impulse coupling) on the right. That is the condition that SHOULD have the strap installed as the purpose of the strap is to ground out the right mag so it doesn't operate during starting. Since the right mag doesn't have the impulse coupling, the spark will not be retarded during start and it will fire the plugs too early at the low cranking rpm without the strap. You only remove the strap if you have two impulse mags installed or if you have the dual mag on the A3B6D. Check with your A&P. Skip

Called Jewell and they said around $17k parts and labor, not including mags since I just IRAN'ed them... seems cheap when the shop down the street wants $34k and a factory reman is $42k. I think I'ma CB this one and get my prop overhauled too.

If you are not increasing load (by maintaining altitude) I think PTK's statement is correct.

Np. Profile now updated. I have previously owned quite a few aircraft including a J. The J I was looking at over the weekend is not suitable - too much corrosion and body work. I kitesurf and work remotely, want a clean J or R that I can leave at various fields in the Carribean, Brazil or Italy. And upgrade the avionics with the new Garmin G3X, GFC500, GNX375 and GNC255. 

How to catch roadrunners?

Indeed, we were being vectored on from the south and then I heard him call out traffic to a much faster mover to the north. Then when I heard him tell you to alter heading for the traffic I recognized your voice and checked the full call sign on my Ads-b traffic and sure enough it was you. Approach asked us to keep our speed up for you. I checked again and you had 60 kts on us! Meanwhile I am telling my client he just has to keep our speed up till CIDRU, then slow to normal approach speed. We were in a J model - no match for the fire breathing 310HP Ovation on our tail! Meanwhile my client did an excellent job on the approach till we went missed into the IMC layer for our next one at Oceanside. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have a short body C. We were climbing out in IMC. Everything normal. As we reached an intermediate altitude and levelled off, the speed started to increase and I heard a slapping sound. Turned out the sleeve of my wife's sweater was hanging out the door. Great. Since we were IMC, we just left it. I knew the tops were pretty low, so I told her when we got cleared higher, once we broke out, I would pitch up pretty good, slow it down, open the storm window, then the door, pull the sweater inside, and see if we could close the door. If not, there was an airport 20 miles away that was sky clear, and we would just divert. Turned out no big deal. Door closed easy peasy!

I left my door open once after taxiing out holding it open. Runup blew it closed and off I went. Real quick noticed it open an inch or two, and noisy. Tried to pull it closed, decided not to. Climbed out at 100 MPHI. At about 3000msl, decided I was several mistakes high and could try it one time. Leaned over, made sure to move the handle and pull real hard after releasing the yoke with my left hand. It closed, and i reached over and moved the handle with my left hand. Had it not closed, I'd have made the flight with it open. But it was worth one try.

Vegas in the summer is a tricky one. There can be thunderstorms. There is often windshear. If something causes multiple arrivals to go around or hold, they all are up there burning fuel and need to get in.... It is often a fool's errand to go into LAS in the summer without a bunch of extra fuel, assuming you aren't going in first thing in the morning when things are calm. That is because the divert airports for an airliner are all somewhat far away.. PSP, LAX, ONT, PHX. If you have planned one of those as an alternate and want that option, the go/no-go fuel to divert cannot dip below that plus IFR reserve. IF he went below that, deciding on another approach to Vegas an it did not work out, guess what option is left? Nellis, and then you're on the news. A320 driver that goes into LAS from time to time... Edit to also add, for our planning purposes in our own adventures: The whole alternate 1-2-3 thing. You can head to Vegas and be very sad without a good alternate, but the weather and reports and forecasts do not require an alternate at all..... after all, you won't find low ceiling/viz in Vegas very often. Just more food for thought, no matter whether you're flying a Mooney or an airliner.

Great clinic. First one and I have flown six Caravans already. They let me help qualify two pilots - one first timer and one coming back after a hiatus. Made my day!!! I had forgotten how getting close to another aircraft in flight (something the veteran Caravaners do all the time) would make a non-Caravan-trained pilot feel so uncomfortable. Total time for a pilot is not the issue. Mooney time is not the issue. It is breaking the paradigm to accept that we can actually do such a thing safely, consistently, and repeatedly. We scare those who have not done this before. But......watching non-trained pilots get the training, practice the skill, gain the confidence, and look forward to the execution - that is priceless. Bob "Breakdown" Belville @Bob_Belville did a great job organising it. Cue Queen - "And another one Bites the Dust..." Queen-Another-One-Bites-The-Dust.mp3

There is absolutely no way I believe you are getting 140-145 knots in a fixed gear Piper Archer unless you are turbocharged at FL200 or in a dive. But yes, a 201 will nicely cruise at 155-160 knots which is about 40 knots faster than any Piper Archer that I've ever flown.

Congrats on a successful clinic! I'm looking forward to the Caravan after missing last year. 74 ships are registered! Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

It seems like most of us all began with a commercial solution like the Checkmate card since they offered an immediate solution. But its essential to have a very good understanding of your emergency checklist. Just having them at your disposal, or even pulling out the POH in an emergency isn't going to cut if if you haven't spent considerable time really learning to understand what they do and why. For example, the Continental has 2 fuel pumps for entirely different purposes. We really need to understand what they're for. One of important ways to learn this is going through the POH and creating your own Emergency checklist as Larry @Larrynimmo did - its really the only way to go. Turbo's are far more complicated than the NA engines and thus a Turbo pilot has a much greater responsibility to understand the different failure modes and many more procedures that come into play with a more complicated engine and the additional challenges that come with flying in the flight levels. Make the time to produce your own checklist, from the POH, in a form that you understand them and can put them to immediate use when the time comes. Its also just as critical that we all understand the different failure modes of the equipment avionics that we fly so we know for example what will and won't affect the autopilot. We all owe it to the precious cargo we carry with us at times.

If you were flying the other way it would be downhill and you could go faster.

If you need any help, I'm not far from NW SC--down in Thomson just outside Augusta. I like burgers from Greenville downtown:)

Does that mean you can now fly in the carpool lane?

The longest flight I did in a 63C with 48 gallon tanks was 528 NM. It was comfortable and there was plenty of reserve. My standard procedure was to run 2500 rpm and lean until rough and then just enrich until smooth. That was usually about 9.5 gph at 8500 feet average fuel flow. I would run on one tank for an hour, then switch tanks and run that tank until dry. You would have a pretty good idea how long you had left on the first tank from the second tank time minus one hour. With my F, I have a Fuel Scan 450 which make me much more confident of how much fuel I have on board. With 54 gallons I have closer to 5:45 minutes fuel or about 695 nm range with reserve. A 52 gallon C at average of 9.5 gph and 135 knots with 45 minute reserve should be good for a no wind 640 nm flight of 4:45 minutes. The flight you planned should take 4:00 hours, so you should have 1:30 reserve. Looks very doable, but as always have alternates planed and make sure your reserve can reach an airport with fuel and good weather. One last thought, why not fuel up at the closest airport rather than plan from Seattle area? I assume you can get closer to 510 nm from some of the airports near the boarder.

I did the same thing. Works awesome and cost $20. Except the one mod I did was to put some transparent velcro in the corners of the window so I could easily pop the shades on and off.

Argh, I was just flying yesterday. I'll try to remember this weekend

Airflow through the fins... easy to get crud stuck in there. flush out the oil cooler... easy to get crud stuck in there. Make sure the thermal (vernatherm) control valve is working. Hot water test... check the temp when it activates... Check the valve seat... easy for the valve seat to get worn or cruddy... Check the age of the hoses... old cruddy hoses might not be flowing very well... (stretching some on this one, but a kink would be bad) PP thoughts that I have read about, not my own aviation experience... I have had a thermistor/oilT sensor fail... it failed cold though... Best regards, -a-

As a PP, I beg to differ... (most PPs have solid chemistry backgrounds right?) Dispersing would be more good... than solely displacing. But their wiki claims the D comes from displacing... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40#History Wikis Are core to the accuracy of web info... Dispersing would be interesting on another level... unfortunately WD40 doesn’t displace very well at all, and disperses even less... Those dang hydrogen bonds bind all that water together... PP thoughts only, trying to make some chemistry fun... almost as good as discussing the Mooney-Rivlin equation... but that is more ChE than chemistry... Best regards, -a-

Mine were removed last year for the same reason. The Loran antenna particularly generates some stress on the mount area that isn't doing anything for you. They sure ain't helping in either the weight or drag departments. Kept my DME antenna for the ADS-B-in, but got rid of everything else.

I didn’t think FF was optional on the 900, it’s certified equipment, I thought everything was standardized. Maybe carburetor engines are different? If you didn’t connect it to the GPS then you won’t get fuel to next waypoint, fuel mileage readouts. Wow, those cylinder temperatures are high, I have my prealarm set to 395°, and will only occasionally reach that on climb out. Maybe you should consider flying in the early morning hours, that’s what I do. Tom

I agree with Jim about the FF sensor which should have been included with the kit. It might be a programming oversight as to why it’s not displaying. Please keep an eye on the max RPM as you fly the plane in the near future. You might need to lower the governor setting slightly.

It’s been a while since I posted any progress on my 1964 M20D. I haven’t been to the hangar in over a month! School is out, so I’m diving back in.... spent the day getting the two top access panels off and the trying out a different approach to sealant removal. I’m stripping the left fuel tank now. Things I learned during the right tank stripping: 1. Mechanically remove as much sealant as you can before you pour Polygone in the tank and turn everything into “Satan’s Chewing Gum.” Whatever you can’t remove- at least score it up. 2. Don’t introduce water into the tank until you are absolutely sure that you are finished with the Polygone. 3. Try something new. And I did. On the first tank I used phenolic and plastic scrapers. They were kind of thick and could not be made very sharp. So I tried this: I bought a cheap flexible angle drive for my cheapo HF drill ( I can’t get enough air CFM in my hangar to run an angle grinder), a threaded bit adapter and a pack of 3M sealant remover cutters on Amazon (not cheap). Also, I tried two different kinds of plastic razor blades... The 3M cutters are designed to remove fuel tank sealant without scratching the aluminum. They work amazing well.....at least until they hit a rivet. They are very brittle, so they start shedding chunks of plastic. If you are careful, you can make one last for maybe 20 minutes- which allows you to tear up a good amount of sealant. The plastic razor blades are good for removing thin strips of sealant that the 3M cutter can’t reach....but the plastic blades are kinda fragile. Probably why they sell them in 50 packs? The yellow blades were softer and not quite as sharp as the orange blades. I’ll find out soon just how bad the snot is going to get this time around, with less sealant in the tank. Also, it’s scary to note that if the two tiny half moon holes in the base of the sump drain are clogged, water is going to rise to a level very close to the pickup screen. I believe that the corrosion on my sump drain fitting might indicate that was it was sitting in water for a while.

What bank angle is not prudent? It’s ok to bank the airplane! In fact being afraid to bank and instead rudder the nose around trying to hold level flight is what kills pilots in the infamous base to final turn. It’s about time we put away these myths and teach pilots how to fly. Bank the airplane all you want and unload the wings with your elevator into a descending turn. Stall speed will not increase. It will only increase if trying to hold level flight.

Haven’t thought about this before but since you brought it up, that’s a great way to put it! Exactly how I do it. This is yet another reason I opted to keep the TC and add an AI.

I’m sorry for his loved ones. I don’t know the pilot, his motives, or his state of mental health. If his attitude toward flying was all about thrill seeking and careless low speed flying, then he never belonged in that airplane. Aerobatics training with a responsible CFI may have been a better option for him although those of us who fly aerobatics regularly know that the fun involved isn’t about risk taking, danger or adrenaline. I’m glad he didn’t directly harm anyone else if indeed he was just being reckless.

My pops caught dozing off on the short hop from GPM to 00R (Livingston, TX) **edit -- photo in Livingston just prior to my left main going flat while taxiing onto runway after run up (at the furthest point from the ramp possible)

This weekend, made a quick trip down to Lakeland to meet with the company doing the next thing to the new house - pool. Beautiful flight down for this one exception, which I first saw about 130 nm away. ATC started moving me about 50 nm from it, and was glad they did.

I’ll translate it differently. If I didn’t own my planes for the 28 years I have owned her, I would have been able to retire 3 years ago. Instead, I get to hang out with you fine folks. Which has been priceless. [emoji16] Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Any time Glen- that’s what this forum is great for. Imagine trying to own / work on / upgrade one of these old birds without this community- would be pretty difficult. Here’s the GPSS working on the G5 while I’m getting vectored around to join an ILS approach at ILM. Sorry about the bumps...

Yup, you are right. I went back through a bunch of old Fight trackers and the most It gets is 140 mph.

How are you getting 145KTAS out of an Archer? That's the same speed as my Mooney, same engine, I've got constant speed, lighter, smaller frontal area, and retractable gear. The 180hp Cherokees' I've flown will barely crack 120, on a good day