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Seth, I recommend you look at AeroLed's offerings, which were the #1 choice of Aviation Consumer on their last comparison test. I have four of their SunSpot 36 series in my Husky and they are most impressive. Aviat is installing them on most all new Huskys now. If you want the wig-wag feature go with the HX. If you already have a PulseLight, or similar,installed, then the cheaper LX series has the same light output as the HX . . . (which, BTW, is something like 2.5 times brighter than Whelen's Parmetheus). http://www.aeroleds.com/products/landing-lights/faa-certified.aspx bumper

It may be "portable" but it's still going to require installation, as any air conditioner that uses a compressor will need to vent heated air to the outside, either directly or via the tailcone etc. bumper

GPS horizontal positioning will always be more accurate than altitude due to sat geometry. This from Garmin's website: "The main source of error has to do with the arrangement of the satellite configurations during fix determinations. The earth blocks out satellites needed to get a good quality vertical measurement. Once the vertical datum is taken into account, the accuracy permitted by geometry considerations remains less than that of horizontal positions. It is not uncommon for satellite heights to be off from map elevations by +/- 400 ft. Use these values with caution when navigating." This is why some GPS devices also include a pressure sensor for "massaging" or smoothing altitude data when that's important - - the GPS on my bicycle and the data logger in my glider are examples of this. bumper

Not knowing what the original deleted post was, it looks like I'll be confused in perpetuity . . . bumper

Doesn't look like they are complying with Mooney Service Instruction 20-114 see http://www.mooney.com/servicepdf/2.html which says, "-WARNING- DO NOT use propeller jacks to lift aircraft." (Emphasis thiers). Unless there's something I am missunderstanding. I used to use a cherry picker and nylon slings to lift and support the nose. Even though I'm not aware of any damage done by supporting the prop as shown in your picture, being a chicken, I now use the engine lift eye or straps on the engine mount per the SI. Any thoughts on this?? Slings on the prop or a prop stand is more convenient . . . bumper

If money is no object, recommend you look at Mountain High's EDS system (electronic demand system) that's designed for aviation and mountain climbing etc. It's altitude compensated and is available with dual outputs and more. EDS is in wide use by soaring pilots where space is limited and extended flights at altitude are not uncommon. bumper

Having had 100LL run down into my arm pit, which feels similar to having a lit charcoal briquette tucked in there, I heartily second your mechanic's suggestion. Buna-N or Viton would be the O-rings compatible with fuel. What's on there originally is doubtless Buna-N.

There are several good options. I am using a Sennheiser S1 ANR headset w/ bluetooth for both cell phone and music. Besides being an excellent noise cancelling headset, and the only one I tested that works well in a very noisy Pawnee tow plane, it provides very good fidelity for music. I have not upgraded the panel on my Mooney yet, so the headset is switched to mono. This doesn't affect the bluetooth input, which is still stereo. An inexpensive bluetooth dongle (available on-line for less than $20 w/ a 3.5mm plug) will allow any music source (cell phone, MP3 player etc), even if it does not have it's own bluetooth transmitter, to send music to the S1. bumper

+1 After Champions sparkplug debacle (I had to throw away a whole set of fine wires due to their crappy resistors), I switched to Tempest for both plugs and filters. Champion lost my business. bumper (with 8 Tempest filters on the shelf - - Mooney and Husky)

Poor choice of words on my part. Should have said rear cover with blast tube . . . Looking at the parts diagram on the Plane Power AL12-P70, they show a blast tube with bracket rather than a "cover", the bracket having stand offs so it shouldn't restrict cooling if the blast tube is unused (as is the case on my 201 installation). This is unlike the alternator installed on my ship (don't know the mfg) which had a tightly fitting rear cover with blast tube that was intended for an installation with cooling air forced forward through the alternator with a centrifugal flow fan mounted on the front behind the pulley. On my Mooney, this more tightly fitting rear cover was left in place and this restricted the front to rear air flow that then caused the alt. to fail prematurely.

Did you remove the plenum on the rear of the alternator? When I had my 87 201 re-engined, the shop screwed up and didn't remove the plenum. Took a few hundred hours, but the restricted cooling finally destroyed the alternator. bumper

Not the blulink, but the Sennheiser S1 has blue tooth for both cell and music built in. I compared S1 to my old Bose-X, the A20, and Zulu-2. Bose-X wasn't close, the S1 bested the A20 in music and voice fidelity, the noise cancelling was excellent on both. Very happy with the S1.

Worth watching . . .

I respectfully disagree. Not saying the PPL is adequate as is, there's room for imporvement no doubt. For one I'd include spin training again. But if you want to thin the herd and keep more people from from earning a pilot's license, requiring full-on instrument training as part of the PPL would certainly raise the price of admission. I have an instrument training, though I'm not current. For me instrument was by far the most difficult rating to get, lots of study, work, and not all that intuitive (some of that may be a basic lack of apptitude for instrument flight on my part). Much more work than the PPL and glider rating both of which I really enjoyed, especially the glider rating. I agree the instrument rating makes one a better pilot. Earning it, more than the other ratings, gave me a huge sense of accomplishment. I read the report in your link. And through it I was a bit suspicious of the numbers . . . for one thing, there are more VFR pilots than IFR, so that should skew the numbers. Sure 'nuff, toward the end they account for that in the following paragraph . . . and guess what, the IFR pilots seem to have a slightly worse record in fatals per 100,000 hours than do VFR pilots in most areas *except* stall spin related accidents. Quote: "In total (both VMC and IMC accidents), there were 67 and 58 fatal accidents involving VFR-rated and IFR-rated pilots respectively. However, in general aviation, VFR-rated pilots (258,749) outnumber their IFR-rated peers (171,309) (source: AOPA, www.aopa.org/whatsnew/stats/). Correcting for this increased presence of VFR-rated pilots, we calculated 26 fatal accidents per 100,000 VFR-rated and 34 fatal accidents per 100,000 IFR-rated pilots. The slightly higher rate for the IFR-trained pilots did not represent skewing of the data under the more strenuous demands of IMC, since a similar trend was evident under VMC conditions (16 and 21 fatal accidents per 100,000 VFR- and IFR-rated pilots respectively). Likewise, increased exposure of IFR-rated pilots, who generally have higher flight times than their VFR-rated counterparts, is unlikely to be the cause of the increased accident rate for the former group. Thus, for pilots with 200-1000 logged hours, the fatality rate was 9 VFR-rated pilots and 10 IFR-rated pilots per 100,000 pilots with the corresponding rating. Taken together, our findings, albeit with these aircraft, would suggest that while IFR-rated pilots do indeed have a greater control of the aircraft, this rating does not confer a lower fatal accident rate." As an aside, I accidentally spun my Mooney during my PPL training. My instructor wanted to hear the stall warning horn on steady during MCA flight and asked for a 30 degree bank left turn (later I found the stall horn vane was misadjusted too close to stall). I was not coordinated and the ship went over the top, nose straight down at 3,000 feet over San Pablo bay (I swear a saw a death's head in the brown water below). I yelled, "Take the plane!", Pete did, and after about 3 turns we finally stopped rotating and gingerly pulled out of a very high speed dive. I'm guessing we lost the better part of 2000 feet.Scared the holy crap out of me. So scared I didn't want to fly my own plane, so asked for spin training right then. Rented a Cessna and sorted things out. There's a real good reason spins are prohibited in the Mooney. Lesson learned, it's most important to keep the ball centered approaching a Mooney stall. These 3 things together, low, slow, and uncoordinated will often be fatal. .

OR75 said: the " on the ground decision making" part is what worries me. Me too. About 6 years ago, I remarked to the wife that it sure was a nice night to be on the ground, pitch black, embedded thunderstorms, low freezing level, freezing rain - - just nasty. In front of the fireplace was nice though. Next day I heard about a Cirrus pilot that iced up and augered in near SugarBowl trying to get from Reno to the Bay Area - - AOPA did a training film on that one.

Dynamic prop balance?? I have an Aces 2020 balancer, so I know mine is spot on. I can't imagine putting up with a prop that puts bubbles in the compass (but then I have a vertical card with no fluid). When a prop is out of balance, all the energy that is used to shake things up and fatigue the airframe is wasted energy that could better be used to make things move through the air faster or consume less fuel. Vibration is not free!

Near term, I agree with Antares . . . and for my spare parts kit there's a couple of new massive. But for long term, I think fine wires more than pay for themselves in longer life, less maintenance (including far fewer lead balls to pick out), and maybe a tiny bit of improved engine effeciency.

Higher RPM means more explosions per minute and thus more power available - ignoring everything else. Some of that "else" is prop effeciency, and this may be important to you in cruise. Turning the prop slower, especially with some prop designs, really boosts effeciency, lowering fuel consumption while having a minimal effect on speed. Over square and LOP is a good place to be.

Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause, Boogey Man, Obama Care, MAPA Okay, I get it . . .

"If you want to get rid of your plug fouling issures buy a set of Tempest fine wire plugs. Not cheap, but worth it IMO." +2 And don't get the Champion fine wires. While Champ's non-sealed resistors may hold up long enough to see a set of massive plugs through their expected lifetime, the same cannot be said their fine wires. The Champion resistor design will fail the fine wire plugs long before the electrodes are worn. Just replaced an otherwise good set of Champion fine wires due to failed resistors - - and they arced and corroded the contacts inside the plug too, so stealing good resistors from a set of Champ massives wouldn't work either (I tried). Tempest fine wires are the better deal. Less expensive too. bumper

I agree, that's true, though it doesn't tell the whole story. . . My Husky has a landing light and taxi light on each wing. The original incandescent lamps were 100 watts each and the electric system is designed to operate either both landing or both taxi, but not at the same time. The new LEDs are 45 watts each, so no overload running all four together. Using 4 isolation diodes, I have them wired so that all landing and taxi lights come on when landing lights are selected (same for wig-wag). When taxi lights are selected, only the taxi lights come on - - so as not to blind other traffic during ground ops. With all four LED lamps lit, there's far more light for both distance and spread than there was with two halogen bulbs. It's doable to land with no runway lighting on a pitch black night - - I tried it to see what it would be like, though I wouldn't want to do it in unfamiliar territory.

Not trying to be coy, but why would any aspiring MSC go by a perhaps previously tainted name? Whouldn't it be better to start afresh and build one's own good reputation on their own merits? Especially so with the internet makng word of mouth so much faster and more effective.

Prior to installing AeroLeds landing and taxi lights on my Husky, I did a comparison test: This is the halogen Q4509 sealed beam on the left, the AerLed 36 on the right . . . Q4509 on the left, 55 watt HID on the right . . . This is the AeroLed taxi light (wider beam than landing light) . . . I also compared my AeroLed installation to another Husky with Whelen Parthmeus LEDs at the Root Ranch Husky fly-in in Idaho (across a large dark meadow). The AeroLed totally trounced the Whelen (not surprising as AeroLeds is double the wattage). Aviat provides the option for full AeroLed LED lighting (landing, taxi, nav, and strobes) on new Huskys. LEDs have a number of advantages over other types of lighting, longevity, effeciency, fast rise and fall time (i.e. instant on and off for flashing, wig-wag - - more attention getting). HID can often be flashed too, though you typically have to turn it on steady first, let it warm up, then turn on the Pulselight (or other flasher). Incandescent bulbs have a slower rise time - - not nearly as good at being seen with peripheral vision. Hope the photos work . . . haven't tried posting them here before,

Was his Texas drawl tinged with a Nigerian accent?

Thin wallet leanings?? Footing the bill for the G500 install might have one totally upside down. Does the Garmin have a switch to invert that parallax free disply? bumper