kmyfm20s

Holly smokes! NA gets you there in theory, enough time, eventually? I'm lucky to alive today and flying my NA engine up in the teens. Flying an airplane takes airmanship and flight planning, not power. Power in the hands are a good airman is great. If flying over the Rockies at night, ice, IMC, and being pushed down by mountain waves is the argument for single engine piston turbo, have at it! That is not in my comfort zone but that is determined by my personal minimums. Again looking at many peoples tail number on flight aware these flights are not happening. Paul is the exception and I bet he wouldn't fly with most of those conditions. I think the best argument for a turbo is taking off at high DA airports. This is were a Turbo make a lot if since!

I looked your flight up on flight aware and you truly utilize and benefit from having a turbo!

Awesome! 1 XL and 3 S

Buy a plane that fit 80% of your mission profile, fly commercial for the other 20%. I don’t fly in ice and I won’t fly IMC over the Rockies. Not to say I haven’t in the past, I just won’t now. In a single engine piston plane I want a fighting chance to glide to a survivable landing which means no mountain obscurations and ceilings high enough to spot a landing site. I know turbo are safe and I do have turbo envy but I don’t have one because most of the people I know that have had real in Air problems and crashes were a result of the turbo system failing in one way or another. Its the only system on the plane that is not redundant. My personal observation only, I have no facts or statistics to back it up. Turbo normalized is a different story for me I’ll take one of those, if it fails you have a normally aspirated engine. Go on flight aware for a week and look up all Mooney’s flying in the air each day by putting M20* in the aircraft type and see how people are flying them and what altitudes. Then go to every turbo thread on this forum and look up tail numbers of the pro turbo and non turbo people. You will see most do not do the amount on IFR flying they say they do and the altitudes will rarley be above 12,000’. Just remember the hardest turn in aviation is the 180 and it needs to be practiced! Just food for thought from this NA pilot.

Looking at the maintenance you listed I would suspect a bad magneto. Did you do a mag check on the ground? If you take it back up in the air do an in Air mag check.

Congratulations on an amazing journey! I’m still trying to determine if I have the Huevos to cross that much open water. TBD!

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2018/04/mooney-m20-fatal-accident-occurred.html

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8197786-181/1-person-dead-in-crash?sba=AAS So unfortunate! RIP

I don’t have a problem with oil consumption but I think I'll try the 9 quart trick out and see how it works. Funny, I usually change the oil myself but when I had it change for me it was overfilled similar to the post above. I never put 2 and 2 together but it took forever to loose the oil. I burn a quart every 10-14 hours with out a separator and it does go straight to the belly. Before I removed my separator I needed a quart every 8-10 hours.

The separator needs to be the highest point in the vent line. In the Mooney’s it is very difficult to do this with the cowl and baffling. What your seeing on the floor is the condensation not being collected in the separator but collecting past it and exiting on to the floor. FWIW I removed my separator because I didn’t want the condensation to drain back into the engine. Regardless you shouldn’t have that much condensation with or with out the separator. Which as mentioned above is caused excessive blow by.

I haven't seen a lube yet that doesn't attract dirt. I've sprayed all the lubes listed above on the bumper of my Jeep and have never seen one look better than the other.

All magnetos fail. The slick magneto from my understanding are not worth overhauling because the cost is close enough to buying a new that it’s not worth it. The new ones are more reliable than the rebuilt, so I hear. The Slicks are also generally smaller and not as good for higher altitude operation and tend to arch internally, unless pressurized. With the Bendix you are able to get a higher quality overhaul and the cost for new is much higher. I think that’s why the term “throw away mag” came about for Slick magnetos. To sumerize my understanding, comparing new Slick’s vs either overhauled or new Bendix you will have comparable reliability but Bendix will generally perform better.

I’m not sure what type magneto was in the first 172 I trained in. The second one was in my old M20J which have the Bendix D series. The third one was in my current M20S which is the Bendix 1200 series.

I do but his statement about people not thinking to shut down their bad mag resonated with me and I thought it was worth sharing. I hope it helps someone else.

Yes. The first one was when I was a student pilot in a 172. I was doing pattern work on a hot summer day and I was turning Cross wind still climbing and it went out. It started running really rough and wouldn't climb anymore. I finished the pattern at about 300" AGL and landed. The 2nd was in my 201 when I was flying it from San Diego to All American Aircraft in San Antonio to sell my plane. I stopped in Glendale AZ to visit a friend for the night. When I did my run up in the morning it was running rough so a taxied over to the MSC on the field. The Mechanic convinced me it was a bad ignition key and that was OK to fly so I took off and finished my flight. It actually ran smooth in flight under power so I didn't think anything about it with exception of slightly higher EGT's. The amazing thing was I was getting great airspeed. When i pulled back the power to descend was when it caught my attention, backfiring and sputtered all the way in. It was really embarrassing when I taxied into Landmark being directed by the lineman and all people where boarding their private jets as I was sputtering and backfiring into my spot. The last one was when I took off from Mammoth which is at 7300' MSL and was climbing out. The engine started to run really rough, enough that my girlfriend who fly's a lot with me looked over and you could tell she was nervous. This is the flight I really wish I had turned off the bad magneto. Not only to make her more comfortable but because I had 1 CHT climbing fast at it got hot. It could have been a serious issue if left the way it was. I immediately pulled back the MP and enriched the mixture, which helped, then turned back to the field and landed safely but it spooked me. All 3 of these the plane would have ran smoother and have protected the engine better if the bad magneto was turned off. Regardless thank god for redundancy!

I recently had a magneto failure. After my last one I watched the Mike Busch webinar on magneto's. In his webinar talked about 25 people that he consulted that had magneto failures. They where a mix of pilot experience levels from I believe military, Airline, CFI,ect. He asked them all if they did a magneto check to select and run on the good magneto only. All of them did not and continued to run on both magnetos when it was only one causing the problems. I have to admit that I was guilty of this in all 3 of my failures and in my last one in particular I wish I did. I must of had some internal arching because 1 of my CHT's climbing sky high and could have been a serious emergency if I hadn't been close to the airport to land. After hearing this I went and checked my POH and sure enough in the emergency procedures for rough running engines it was there.

Easy now, let’s not get carried away!

When you pull a cylinder you will have a good idea whether topping it is a good idea. I’ve top 1500 hr engines with no regrets. As long as the cam and lifters look good I think it’s worth while.

I’m sure an oil analysis would show high silica on that one:) Regardless you found it and that’s good! That’s why I like doing my own oil changes. No one cares more about your plane/saftey than yourself. How did you find it?

Pretty impressive!

Take out the Charlie weight and carry a 5 gallon jug of water in the baggage compartment. The water can be taken or poured out and replaced with baggage when needed, effectively increasing your useful load.

Are you sure someone wasn’t shooting at you?

Yes I have about 1600 hours in 182’s I’ve owned. A lot of fun for what I used them for, camping and dirt strips. I always loved Mooney’s and now they fit my mission. About 900 hours and couldn’t be happier. I even camp and land on dirt/grass strips with it. Just not the smaller ones I used to.

The fisherman was already taken and the low wing was not available so the alternative was being the groom on the beach. So I will answer your question with a question. Would you be happy in a high wing?