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HI MS, We just closed on N9150V and would like to publicly thank the forum for all your wonderful support!!!!! I am sure the new owners will pop up here somewhere and can look forward to participating in the extremely high-value community. My software deal fell through ("Time kills all deals") so my wife and I are aiming some of our proceeds at some recently occurring medical expenses (our youngest son was in a very serious car wreck but is now out of the woods and healing quickly ) ....and on the lighter side learning to sail! We are looking for an entry level trailer sailboat (Catalina? O'Day etc??? 22-27 ft) that we can use to have fun and learn as a step to eventually becoming semi-full time catamaran cruisers in a few years. To supplement that activity, I am planning on taking sailing classes and looking for daysail/passage crew opportunities in the coming year or two. Anyway, thank you again for all your contributions, encouragement and support and I'm off to those blue-er pastures, although being water not skies (for now). That said, BLUE SKIES and Tailwinds to you all! Kind regards, Stephen Holcomb Formerly KHAE

I've not used that specific mount but have mounted many, many GoPros on the outside of my Mooney in lots of different locations with different types of mounts. That one should be just fine and is probably overkill for the application. The forces on the camera mounted out on the wing or anywhere outside, are really not that great. Just snug everything down and you'll be fine. After trying almost every mount in the book, I've settled on the sticky mounts as the best option for mounting on the airplane.

I second glbtrottr's recommendation to just use a mobile power brick. Problems with cigarette-lighter chargers are ubiquitous on Mooneyspace and other aviation forums: some chargers don't push enough current, others generate noise in the audio system, sometimes the lighter or the wire connection to it gets really hot because it's carrying more constant current than it was designed for, etc. For about $30 you can buy a power brick that will keep your iPad fully charged for an entire day. Spend 0.1 AMU and buy two or three - keep one in your flight bag, one on charge at the hangar, one on charge at home, etc. No worries about routing charging cables from the cigarette lighter past yoke shafts and across the panel, just put the brick on your lap or in a side pocket. I haven't used a cigarette charger in an airplane in several years, and haven't missed it.

Well I was up on my CFI’s property clearing a tree that burned in the valley fire some years ago. Has been a great source of firewood. intended to start the new today’s flight thread when I got home and Doc beat me to it. Was really my only thing that I felt I could contribute to the forum. Just as well. Hoping all have a safe year in 2021. Audios amigos. Remember to get the gear down above all else.

I retrofitted an Ovation interior into my F model. I have attached some pictures. The center ceiling panel that has the switches is held in the ceiling with only two screws in the center portion of the long panel. I would not buy the factory electroluminescent panel as it is too expensive and is made with a plastic backing. You can use the factory switches and mounting box. I made an aluminum backplate and sent it out to make a more durable electroluminescent panel which is a functional copy of the Mooney panel (I'll send a picture of this new panel). The switches only need to be rocker switches approved for aircraft use (used in any certified aircraft). Wentworth aircraft or other salvage yards could be a good source. The center ceiling console can be gotten from Mooney, from a salvage yard, or you can do a hand lay-up with fiberglass which would be cheaper and can be custom fitted to your ceiling. I have the right and left Ovation fiberglass roof panels which I would be willing to sell. I purchased them from Mooney, and started to fit them into my F. (I then ended up with two sets as I obtained a full Ovation interior from a salvage yard.) They can be retrofitted to your aircraft in a similar manner as what I did. John Breda

Some airlines are not approved. You can't use an iPad on the flight deck unless it is in your operations specifications. Then there is a whole other issue of managing it, both by the company and the pilot. The update downloads have to come from the company and usually you are verboten from loading on any personal applications to the iPad. It is a closely managed process via Ops Specs and Flight Operations Manuals. Apple has a very nice enterprise manager that allows the company to control the iPads and what updates they receive. I can also tell you the story of one airline that decided to go MS Surface over iPads. You see the iPad already has blanket FAA approval as a hardware item. You just need Ops specs to put it into service. However, said airline wanted the Surface because it was cheaper per unit. They spent months testing and getting FAA approval for the Surface and setting up a management of the units which was difficult because the security of them did not meet FAA specs out of the box like iPad does. They were finally distributed. They had a hardware failure rate of about 20%. Other airlines that had iPads had a failure rate of about .03%. The airline after a year scrapped the Surfaces and went to iPads. The support lines went silent, well 80% drop in support calls, and out of 15,000 iPads they ordered, 3 went bad. Simply put, it is not as easy to use iPads in airline ops because you have issues of security, management, pilot performance, training etc. You would think Jeppesen charting costs would go down, but Jeppesen has made sure they are not going to see a decline in revenue on electronic charts vs paper.

Yep, most vintage Mooney's are totaled by insurance from a gear up despite no structural damage. Make sure you also consider that the maximum payout for repairs that an insurance company will pay is around 70% of your hull value. That's based on the recognition that the insurance company will get back the salvage value of you bird when they auction it for salvage. I've been told on average they get back around 30% of the aircraft. So any repair that exceeds your hull coverage minus their estimated salvage value its going to be cheaper for them to cut a check for your insured hull value. That becomes even more likely when the aircraft is underinsured. Say for example it has some nice high value avionics and the insurance company recognizes they'll do much better than average in salvage value when they auction it. If the aircraft is over insured it works the opposite way and the insurance company may well want to pay for repairs when the owner feels they may well prefer to go shopping for another airplane.

May the wind always be at your back and the sun upon your face.

I immediately thought of this from a different angle. Have you checked the iPad charging port? The only time I've had problems with mine not charging well was when it got some debris in the port. A wooden toothpick pulled out a surprising amount of junk from that tiny port. After that, no more problems. FWIW, I use an Anker brick charger in flight once my iPad gives me the low battery warning. It will easily recharge the iPad with the screen on full bright.

On a long flight, especially if you have a panel mount moving map, consider simply turning your iPad off for a large % of the flight. When I would fly a long xc, I had weather and traffic on my panel. I found that nothing was lost as far as awareness if I turned off my iPad for a significant portion of the cruise. I'd flip it on occasionally if I wanted to check ADSB weather or other info. My experience was that XM weather on my Garmin was way more accurate that the iPad ADSB feed anyway.

https://www.cablescience.com/coils/electronic-1/ec-series/shielded-ecs/22-awg-gauge.html try this site

A leather belt works as well.

I have a handle with both washers , 40 shipped domestically

I bought this one from Amazon: Car Charger RAVPower 24W 4.8A Mini Dual USB Car Adapter, Compatible with iPhone XS Max XR X 8 7 Plus, iPad Pro Air Mini and Galaxy S9 S8 Plus It will charge both an iPad Mini 4 (slowly) and a Stratus 2S simultaneously. I have not detected any RF noise when it is plugged in and charging. It was $7.99 when I bought it in 2019, so it was fully CB-compliant.

The sonalert circuit is activated when the AP grounds the negative leg of the sonalert device. The positive leg is fed by one of the breakers. So if the the sonalert is making noise when it shouldn't then it means either the AP computer has a fault (current leakage through the driving transistor) or there is a high-resistance short to ground somewhere between the Sonalert negative terminal and the AP controller. But, since you say it goes away when you hold down the AP disconnect button I would doubt a short in the wiring. So it is most likely an issue with the AP controller. That would be my guess as an EE but not an avionics tech. I would still check it out by putting a voltmeter on both the positive and negative legs of the sonalert.

First flight of new year today. Perfect weather meeting MS folks at Paso airport Joe’s One-Niner Diner. A terrific flight for all with wonderful conversations over breakfast/lunch. Happy times ahead for everyone.

I don't know, I am sure I am not alone in feeling there are already to many sections here as it is and most of the these well meaning sections are more often miss-used. For example, very few Bravo post are actually Bravo specific; especially when they are about the airframe. Beechtalk does a section on Engine Talk - that seems like a better approach to me.

Not that I would necessarily recommend it for others but if Jimmy has the airplane listed and Maxwell has been maintaining it, I just write the check.

Closing out 2020 with some shots of my flight yesterday. They include proof that it does snow in SOCAL and its hard to beat the sunsets here... Enjoy! San Vicente reservoir on my way to Gillespie Field (KSEE) in El Cajon, CA... Taking off from KSEE... Lake Henshaw to the left, Julian, CA to the right and Warner Springs directly ahead. Snow... Had to turn back for the sunset... My Favorite... but it was blinding... Snow on Palomar and San Gabriel mountain ranges. Base to French Valley - F70... Final, 18, French Valley (F70), full stop. Colors in the sky were truly distracting. I have a video crafted for my Mom and the sky was so amazing I over flew base to final--good thing the pictures don't show it. Wishing Y'all a Happy New Year!!!

Thank you to those that took the time to share flights and other stories for the year 2020. A year that many would like to get a Muligan and perhaps a free drop with no penalty. Even with all the restrictions many were able to get some great flying done. Hopefully next year will be better for all. We shall see said the zen master. See you on the flip side. Bonal

I made this right after joining MooneySpace, so it's a little more than 7 years old and I use the stick in my tanks probably 20 times a year x 2 tanks = about 280 times. It still looks like I made it last week. I used a Lowes paint stick and a standard (free) ball point pen I got from a hotel. Its very easy to read, and by the time you get to the other tank it's evaporated.

3/4 pvc and a dremel 66m20e

Just a quick note to say Happy New Year and to say a BIG thank you to the folks on the board that have recommended me and our business over the years and those that we have sold Mooneys TO and FOR. You guys are great and I appreciate the referrals you guys post. While I know it is impossible to have a completely painless transaction every time (with the experience of the 1,000 Mooneys we have sold I can't tell you how many little things can go wrong on and plane and or its sale), I do work hard to make each transaction a smooth one and the support from the Mooney community is greatly appreciated. We closed the books on 2020 with 67 Mooneys sales closed (72 total sales including a few stragglers I sold for friends), which is by far our best year ever. 25 of those Mooney sales never hit the Controller site and were sold to our 'New Inventory' email blast list. I remember a guy on the forum early in 2020 that said he was waiting for the prices to plummet before he purchased a plane and I pointed out to him that I did not expect that to happen, that my phone volume and discussion with others in the industry told me something different. As it turned out, 2020 and the challenges that we have faced as a country and a planet did not seem to befall the small GA market. My contacts in the title, banking and insurance business have told me that they have never been busier. Prices are holding and in some cases have risen in the last 12 months. I have a theory on it, but just suffice it to say, at this time, I don't see the same issues in this market that I saw in the previous three market corrections since I started in 1995 (Tech Bubble Burst, 9/11 and Real Estate Bubble/Recession). I could be wrong, but it just feels different. So again, Happy New Year to all the MSers and here is wishing everyone a safe and healthy 2021 and beyond! If you are every in the area, let me know and I will buy you a Dr. Pepper. Jimmy

I made a simple mount out of plastic for the tie-down and used it for a cheap camera. Shows all of the landing gear perfectly so I can see how bad my landings are. Pointed down a bit, I'm sure it'd just be an eagle eye's view. And no, I never ground it off upon landing, but there's still time.....

Not a pro pilot, not even a Jepp user, but I understand that the primary benefit of Jepp charts is their consistency around the world. Imagine if approach charts for each state looked different, sometimes significantly so. Welcome to Europe. Fun fact - Germany only publishes IFR airport charts for free, the VFR ones you have to purchase. That said, there are other providers that cater to airlines, I think Lufthansa owns one, but they don't cater to the individual private pilot.

Hence, why I put 'explode' in quotes; although, if it starts to 'burn baby, burn' while in your Mooney I suspect the distinction may be a bit moot

We will miss you Stephen.

You can try to contact Michael Ritterbush. I think he's your only option to answer your question. He has the test equipment. I think you're going to have to adjust your autopilot on patherfinder bench equipment. It's been awhile since I've been in contact with Michael. He's email is michael@ritterbush.us In the past I've had to be consistent in trying to contact him. Good luck.

Stephen, Best of luck to you and your family. If you are looking for an affordable entry level trailerable sailboat, check out the MacGregor 26. There are lots of them on the used market. I have had one for ten years and love it. Water ballast makes it light for trailering but still stable on the water. Big outboard means you can run for home at 20 knots if a big storm pops up and you don’t want to scare the wife. Two can comfortably overnight on it. 4 gets cozy. Happy to share more details if you are interested. Just like Mooneyspace, there is a large community that share their expertise. https://www.macgregorsailors.com

My PMA450b audio panel has a USB-C port pushing 15 watts of power. It does a respectable job of keeping my iPad going.

Solid, not bonded leather. A piece of an old belt is perfect for this. Looks good and lasts for years. As for the aluminum cover piece, that's probably the easiest Mooney part to fabricate yourself. Worth a try.

Or take it to a local, upholstery shop.

There was a thread on here recently about someone having extra

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/director-my-favorite-bob-hoover-story

I'm in full agreement with the good Doctor, @KLRDMD. If Maxwell's name is in the last page or two of the log book or if he did the last annual or two, just call him on the phone. Don will talk to you for an hour or two and tell you everything he KNOWS about the plane and everything he DOESN'T know. He'll tell you if it was an annual or a pre-buy or just an oil change. He'll tell you if he flew the plane and tested the autopilot or not. In fact, he'll tell you a heap of stuff that you don't even know to ask about. He'll also tell you if his son Paul, or one of his guys did all the work and he, Don, didn't even look at it. The bottom line is that if Don tells you he checked it out thoroughly, flew it, (one of the few guys to still flies the Mooneys that come out of his shop) etc. and tells you it's a good Mooney, you can absolutely just write the check and move forward. Don is a straight arrow. If he knows, he'll tell you, and if he doesn't know, he'll tell you that as well. You don't even have to ask. Just get on the phone, say "Hi" and give him the N number. Then be ready to take good notes. You're gonna get an education! And the same goes for JD at SWTA.

Guys, The above conversations dealt with the alpha version of my visors. I have since redesigned them and use machined articulating joints. And yes, the washers make all the difference. I have used both nylon and fiber washers with good results.

This is not specifically on point, but I am in the Boston area and there are some great locations for a day or weekend fly-in. Nantucket, MA, Martha's Vinyard, MA, Block Island, RI, East Hampton, NY, other NE airports along the coast, Rockport, ME, Chatham, MA etc... Once the Covid thing passes, it would be good to arrange something. John Breda

Can't really compare a 4 cyl Lyc to a 6 cyl Cont - the cylinders aren't even numbered the same.

Southwest Texas Aviation or Don Maxwell only.

Patching, done correctly is inarguably worth it. Otherwise those like Maxwell wouldn’t be doing it. I survive 20 years on occasional patches. In the wet wing world patching is just expected maintenance.

This a similar solinoid Have to look up what is positive and negative, The problem is the big lugs are direct connected with a big wire to the Master solenoid Which kind of looks like this: there is no fuse in the big wires. So until either the two solenoids failed or the battery completely shorted out with a large poof there is no good outcome. This is all just one lucky gravity drop away from a NTSB report.

I have the Aspen 2000, GTN-650 and STEC 60-2. You didn't provide us much context, so I can't tell if you are dealing with a new installation or an old installation with a new problem. I am going to assume this is a new installation, that it was done correctly and you are learning the new hardware. 1) If you have the 430's CDI set to LOC, you will need to make sure it is switched to GPS. 2) If step one is correct, make sure the Aspen is set to GPS. The center button cycles between the various nav signals. See picture below. 3) If you have it set to a valid GPS signal and have an RNAV approach loaded, verify on the GPS that you are seeing either an LPV or LNAV/VNAV. You won't get a glideslope with the other approaches.

Go to overhead switches if you have no other panel options. It may make you feel like Roger Ramjet to throw some switches on the overhead but they are a PIA. I hate having to look up as I taxi clear to adjust my lights. There is a reason why transport jets have panel annunciations of overheads and dark panel concepts. Sure they put light switches on the overhead but much more forward and lower than the Mooney switches. An easier and more efficient way to gain panel real estate is to go to a glass panel. Keep as much as you can forward of you.

I'm just showing off now... https://www.rapidrivet.com/category/16/Pop.html

Anything is possible with enough money

I just wanted to say I think it is a real service to keep this thread going. Frankly, the thing mostly likely to prevent gear ups is not alerts, or technology, or even checklists and flows, it is having a deathly fear of ever gearing up so you never take gear deployment for granted. Having this thread around reminds us constantly, which is needed.

Hey all, late to the party but a friend just sent this to me. I was the PIC (also, instructor with student) of this flight. Feel free to reach out with any questions

Fly commercial to and from training clients without a mask on, you know, like back in the old days.

Turn 30. 30,000 hours that is. Should be able to do it in 2021 unless I die, health fails or aliens abduct me. I pinch myself everyday at the aviation career I have had and that I own a beautiful M20R.

Shouldn’t the higher numbers at the top of the stic?