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Beautiful evening and I was up with a mission to test a replacement VOR radio unit - ops check good. There's Lake Placid in the distance - site of the 1932 and 1980 winter olympics, as seen from 7500 ft almost right over my house. Its winter as you see by the white stuff everywhere. And lovely evening light. Severe clear today, still winds and bluebird gorgeous. We have 18-24'' of new snow coming during the next 48 hrs starting tonight. Good thing I like snow!

My wonderful co-pilot this morning was Chuck Gary [90 years young]. Chuck got his Single Engine Sea rating in May of 1957, out of Commodore Aviation based at Sausalito, California seaplane base, in Luscombe 8E, 2805K, s/n 5532. Chuck soloed at 11.50 hours. Over the next several months, Chuck accumulated a total of 60 hours in the Luscombe and a Piper Super Crusier PA-12S. Chuck began his short flying career at the suggestion of his brother, George Gary, who was Eastern Regional Director of the FAA during the 1960's. Upon Chuck's marriage, he and his bride made a decision whether it would be airplanes or horses..............they chose horses and lived happily ever after ! I will say, based on today's experience with Chuck at the controls once airborne, one never forgets the feel for flight, even after 63 years! A great time today with a fine gentleman!

My beautiful ride on this beautiful clear crisp California morning. I’m taking a 90 years young gentleman up for flight. He’s a former pilot that used to fly his Luscomb off of San Francisco Bay Area !

It's not the spar. Is a piece of angle alum. Nut is easiest. You have to grind one side of the nut a little to fit up against the backside of the angle alum. Take the inspection port off put the nut on and be done with it.

Friday I had my first cross country of the year and only second flight of 2020. Two friends and I flew down to Las Vegas for some playing and working on my house. All week it was forecasted to have 30+kt tailwinds but that didn’t happen. It was still a good flight. As always on my cross country flights I fly for max endurance and run a tank dry. I brief the passengers of the engine sputter to come. And show them it’s a non event and we keep flying onward. The three of us, 30lbs in baggage and 50lbs of flying equipment I only put on 50 gallons of fuel. It was a four hour flight down and still had almost 2 hours of fuel left in the plane after touch down. God I do love my Mooney!!!!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I got a flash flood outlook warning earlier today... Some of us are sharing the same weather pattern. I’m the blue dot. And the weather is moving in my direction... Scott D. Our weather guru is going to laugh at my weather description skills... Best regards, -a-

I fact checked Dr. Steingar and he appears to be correct: https://comb.io/MzCeQz

http://donmaxwell.com/ad-75-23-04-the-importance-of-checking-your-dukes-and-itt-electric-gear-actuators/

Folks, as one who just completed an IPC (I was still current by the way), it is actually easier to take an instructor up and do the IPC than it would be to cram in 6 approaches! Couple of reasons. 1 Every time I have renewed my insurance, the broker always asks when I had my last IPC. With the rates sliding up, the insurance co. might consider the recent IPC as part of the risk analysis. (or so I hope). 2. It is always good to shake off the rust on the rules with an instructor. There were more than a few subtilties that I had forgotten. One hour of ground and a couple of hours in the air helps restore confidence. (when was the last time you did unusual attitude training???) Personally, I am going to not sweat currency and plan on at least one IPC a year.

Ok. Well, you do you and I'll do me. Have a nice day.

Wooliest. I count 11 or 12 turns and we lost over 3,000 feet (from 10,000 MSL) in less than a minute. There was a point to this. The instructor put in several things to show that they had no positive effect on breaking the spin, they were, in order, power, elevator back, ailerons one way, then ailerons the other. Power just brings the nose up and flattens the spin. Back on the elevator, or ailerons the wrong way, accelerates the turn. The spin was stopped quickly with P.A.R.E. then rudder elevator. We flew level for a minute or so afterwards so our internal gyros would stop spinning. Wooly.m4v

Erin, You May want to edit the title with bold words... Chicago Area... MS has quite a wide group of members from Eastern Europe to Australia checking in daily... The tiny area of Chicago is about the halfway point. What Mooneys did you own? Just trying to help you out... Best regards, -a-

$299/yr for United States nav data. -Robert

Glad to see that someone is out flying. Been raining for 2 days, with at least one more to go. We're down tonthe last 24 hours of Flash Flood Watch, too!

https://fly.garmin.com/fly-garmin/support/pricing

Full thread creep but hey it's bumping the topic! From what I have gathered from MSers. As you can see it resolves a number of issues peculiar to the Rocket at the cost of engine out glide angle ie, range and energy required to flare. - ~34lbs lighter on the nose = CoG and payload improvements. Small improvement here have large percentage gain for the Rockets. Handling, trim drag, payload, stall speed, weight on nose wheel etc, etc. - Pumps more air through the cowling for better climb cooling due to airfoil shape at root. - Noticeably better air brake allowing faster approach speeds if needed for ATC separation, even steeper descents if needed, better short field landing performance due to better float control. Anyone been able to pull off a + 7 degrees landing flap field approval? (Dreaming) - Better climb and take off performance - Slightly improved high altitude cruise performance - Slightly reduced low altitude cruise performance - Meaningful negative impact on engine out glide performance. The Cirrus guys talk about going from 9.6:1 to < 8:1 which of course they don't care about but has a meaningful impact on landing options for that particular emergency in an aircraft without a parachute. I have spoken to MT and they will do a feathering hub for an extra 12lbs but this (re-)introduces another potential emergency on take off with the prop governor failure mode being to feather rather than go to fine pitch.

Yesterday I go the shit kicked out of me. Just a local flight to a watering hole to kick off the rust. Half hour out and ten minutes back. Turbulent as could be, my ground speed on the way out was about 80 knots. I had been thinking I ought not to do the flight, but the long period of inactivity (haven't flown since Christmas) and uncertainty of future VFR weather made me go for it. Got kicked around hard, and could barely keep the airplane lined up with the runway. Did manage a textbook crosswind landing, hurray me. Coming home I got way behind the airplane. Like I said, about ten minutes flight time, don't remember the groundspeed. On final I was hearing the stall horn chirp going 100 miles an hour. Landing had a bit of a side load, errant gust. All in all, I'm glad I went. Flying and landing those conditions are a real confidence builder, not that I'm i a hurry to do it again. And who knows when we'll have VFR weather again.

It amuses me that regular runways are black. Grass runways are green

Gliding distance into the wind is largely irrelevant IMO. Cruising low; especially at 1500’ agl gives you very little time to deal with an emergency let alone pick a suitable landing spot which will be limited to a very small area. Cruising high gives us a lot more time which comes with a much larger range of options. I would much much rather cruise in VMC above any weather in smooth air and take a few minutes longer than suffer continuously in less than smooth VMC conditions to save a couple minutes. I enjoy finding the smooth ride as well. Rarely, but it happens for one reason or another, I can’t get on top, not because of performance but sometimes it’s really bad turbulence in clouds from the really crazy winds up there or it may be icing. I guess I never fly what many here are referring to as low except when doing ground reference maneuvers with students and never x-ctry. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Subscribe and Fly Along! Dynon looks like the way to go for me! Everything you need in one system. E-mail - PilotFun101@gmail.com Dynon - https://www.dynoncertified.com/ Follow me - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PilotFun101/ ForeFlight - https://www.foreflight.com/ My Favorite Aviation App for Pilots Cameras - GoPro - https://gopro.com/en/us/ (Hero 5 & 7) Transponder - Lynx L3 - https://www.l-3lynx.com/ Best all-in-one transponder for pilots. Headsets - https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/h... GPS - Garmin - https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/cInTh... My Oil Outlet - https://aviationoiloutlet.com/ Best prices for Pilots (Free Shipping) Check out aviation fun stuff on Amazon https://www.amazon.com 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. #AvionicsUpgrade #PanelUpgrade #PilotFun101

One can always ask !

Jennifer and Eric ( GS Propeller) are there, just no longer on the field .

The CGR-30C can be purchased new from most of the larger dealers for $2648.00. The GI 275 EIS starts at $4895.00. Please see below for an example: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/display10-05754-9.php?clickkey=811070 https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/garmin_gi275eis.php?clickkey=6652784

Oh well if that's the case I should have been done weeks ago!!

You're killing me! As if 11 new donuts plus labor isn't an expensive fix . . . . .

Salt. Corrosion. Walk onto the ramp at FXE, PMP, or BCT and run your fingers across the wing of any airplane that's been sitting outside.

I'm sorry but believe it or not I did not take before and after numbers. I did post extensive reviews several times on here as the the specific changes of the prop change, and they are essentially all positive other than the glide no longer being full feather. Flow just made a pretty good list of the changes but I will add -much better ground clearance. -much smoother in cruise -sounds great. -looks great and I get compliments on it almost everywhere I go. -glide - still seems pretty good but clearly less than the full feather version, but as flow mentioned - I had the choice and I decided not to go full feather when I learned that full feather adds an extra failure mode which is if the governor fails the prop is designed to go to full feather - designed for twin use - which in a single is a disaster since then your engine is running but you are making zero thrust and possibly this at low altitude. So no free lunch after all - I decided that is worse than the possibility of less glide at altitude since there may be more time and more choices at altitude. No free lunch and knock on wood.

If you want to use a nut, you may need to get a hoist ring with longer threads. McMaster Carr has them.

Hello @Amelia! You can mail checks to me here: Craig McGregor 121 E Alicante Rd Santa Fe, NM 87505 Thanks for the support! Craig

BTW - I flew today. Test flight - my VOR receiver had died - KN53 and I availed myself of an inexpensive ebay unit - even with the papers. Yellow tag. First time I ever tried that - slide in replacement (mechanic) 5 min and off I went. Where was I...oh yeah - flew today. So I took pictures of my cowl flaps for this thread. Turns out my memory is wrong - the flaps like above are what mine look like OPEN vs closed. And since I rarely have them closed on the ground - I forgot how tight mine area already rigged. They are rigged pretty tight so Im not inclined to change anything.

Sure, we can just call it the "mooney Ballistic Bash" !

Spins. The first one is a full upright spin. The instructor put the aircraft into a developed spin and then had me recover. I tried the PUSH ROLL etc. first and that had no effect, so did Power (Idle) Ailerson (Neutral) Rudder (Opposite the spin) Elevator (Push), then rudder to neutral and elevator back to pull out of the dive. The second one is a full inverted spin, just for those who want something wooly. If you want more wooly than that, I have one other one I can put up if anyone wants to see it, about a ten turn spin or something like that. It is a demonstration of inputs that don't work. Power lifts the nose and increases the spin, ailerons one way will slow the spin a little, the other way will increase it, but they do not break it, elevator does not break it, it requires the P.A.R.E. at that point, and then a little level flight so pilot's gyros return. Turns your internal gyros pretty good. Let me know if you want to see it. Full Upright Spin.m4v Inverted Spin.m4v

one plane controlling two drones. That's 3X the PIC hours!

EA100 must have SW version 1.2 or later

Mine doesn’t do that. The KMA 24 has separate amplifiers for the speaker and headphones that should be powered by separate circuit breakers. Try pulling the one that powers the speaker and see if that resolves it. Skip

Congrats! Your landings should be greatly improved now!

Picked li'l sister up from her annual. She has freshly bead-blasted and painted landing gear, and is sporting new shock discs!

Had probably my worst this weekend coming back from Vegas heading north. At one time I saw my GS at 59kt in cruise. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Don, We can make the parts if needed or requested. I asked my shop to quote a quantity of 10 each of both up and down lock blocks to get an idea of cost to manufacture them. The final piece we need to determine for certain is the aluminum alloy. I’ll donate my old down lock block to the cause for alloy testing. I have used a testing lab near me in the past and could do so again but will need to find out the cost. I can work on that and report back. Thanks, David

I'm pretty sure I don't want to see Skip's browser history...

Sunrise over 03NC at an altitude of about 70' ASL:

The flight home from MHK several weeks back was pretty sustained 40 knots on the nose. It was the entire 3 hour or so flight. Landing at ABI late one night I turned final to find 50 knots on the nose straight down the runway. I made the first turn off. Saturday afternoon while returning from DRO to Denver (BJC), I landed on 30R. While turning Final, Tower reported "Wind 270@34G41" I'm certainly learning a lot more about wind after moving to Denver.

52 kts on the nose in a 172, could have drove the trip up faster in my truck. As luck would have it, winds died off that afternoon, so no FREE speed coming home

I pay $599/year for a full Garmin subscription to US and Caribbean. I don’t have much experience with Jepp unfortunately.

Almost 9 years ago, not sure you’ll get an answer... -Don

I was running my TKS system for its monthly run on my M20R when I noticed my prop system was not "wet". Pulled the cowling and found the copper nozzle tube gone. So I began hunting down a new one. I just got the latest Mooney parts manual and it said part "0111-08". I checked that against the CAV Systems parts list and it says the "0111-08" is only for the M20M. It said the correct part for the M20R is "4562". Indeed when I checked the logs on my airplane I find it is a 4562, replaced "early and often" from my view. I called CAV, they are great folks by the way and inquired. They confirmed it is indeed 4562 not 0111-08. However something piqued my interest in the CAV parts manual and it said, "08125-08 Optional". I inquired what the difference was. Turns out the 08125-08 is stainless steel and pre-formed as opposed to the malleable copper line. I was informed many operators preferred the stainless as it was more durable. I ordered the SS unit to give it a try, because the copper tube does not seem durable. Anyone have any experience?

Soooooo, I was talking to an Avidyne rep at Heli Expo 2020 today and told him how much I loved their product. The conversation shifted to my possible panel upgrade I’m considering. I told him I was considering getting a Dynon Skyview HDX. I jokingly asked if Avidyne was going to come out with anything and he suggested I wait until Oshkosh at which point they will be coming out with a new product but declined to provide any further details. I asked if it was worth waiting on my panel upgrade and he said I should wait. So take that for what its worth.

201QH got to visit @jetdriven and @Beccas 201EQ Sunday. Went up to pick up a tug I bought from Byron but missed its owners, unfortunately. Great flight up and back. I did pick up some light icing on the decent to the east of Dulles. There was an airmet over the mountains but no reports for the Dulles arrivals (total air temp differences between me at 150kts and the jets at 230-250). Picked up probably 1/8 in in 1000 ft of cloud in a few minutes. Outs were stay above the layer or descend below, just don’t hang out in it. Wouldn’t have been able to turn East (FRZ) if another exit was required, however. Reported to ATC. Airmet Zulu addended and a couple of other light GA reported as the soggy airmass moved East. 201EQ is absolutely gorgeous. Hopefully next time I’ll get to meet it’s caretakers. ... which brings up a good learning point - I turned pitot heat off after exiting clouds. Might have been a better idea to leave it on if any moisture had the potential to Re freeze.

When people ask me what kind of plane is a Mooney, I describe it as a Porsche with wings! I love Mooney’s and Porsche’s.

None of this seems to matter tho. There are still a disproportionate number of failures of Aspen boxes and EA100 adapters to warrant the FAA to issue an AD. I won’t turn this into a “this is better than that”, but one fact remains true: Rarely - if ever - does a G500/GADxx product have anywhere near these issues; nor do they fail to display anything for which they were intended. Appreciate this community is heavily slanted toward Aspen products, but you can’t ignore or dispute the Aspen high failure rate. For those in this group with them installed, I sincerely hope no one else is impacted; and for those who are or have been, that a solution is found...for your safety and peace of mind, if nothing else.