Bob - S50

Here's another article from AOPA about flying into rule airspace after 1/1/20 AOPA

That money next year is NOT tax free. If it comes from a traditional IRA or 401(k) it will be 100% taxable. The only difference is that next year you'll HAVE to take it whether you need it or not. However, you might consider your tax bracket. Will a withdrawal this year be taxed at a lower rate than next year? I'm thinking probably yes. Taking the money out this year will reduce the amount that will be the basis for a RMD next year. That will only be about a 4% reduction though so it really won't make much savings next year. You could also start a Roth IRA if you don't already have one, then transfer as much as income tax/medicare premiums considerations dictate. You'll have to pay tax on the money that is transferred, but the money in the Roth IRA will NEVER be taxed and you'll NEVER be required to take an RMD. Now that could save you some money. At the same time you do the transfer, take out enough to pay for the transponder. You could get a short term HELOC and use it to pay for the transponder. Then next January when you take out the RMD, or at least enough to pay for the transponder, pay off the HELOC. You'll only pay interest for one month. If you took out a loan for $6000 at say 5%, and paid it off in a month, your total interest would only be about $25. There are always options. You just have to be creative.

No. If I remember right it happened in August, the only 'hot' month in Seattle.

I think your premiums only go up for one year. I'm pretty sure that your premiums are based on your Medicare Adjusted Income from two years ago. That is, your 2020 premiums will be based on how much income you had in 2018. They have to do that since they won't know how much income you had in 2019 until you file your tax return in 2020. Too late at that point.

Here's one article about clearance after January first: General Aviation News And here is the FAA policy they put out in 2019. 2019 FAA Policy It's long but it essentially says they will only grant permission if they aren't busy so don't count on approval. As for the RMD, I agree that if I wait until the year after I turn 70.5 (2024) I will have to make withdrawals for 2023 and 2024 and get a big spike in taxes and increased Medicare cost. That's especially true since my wife and I will both be taking Social Security by then. Since we are both retired we are currently taking money from our IRA's for living expenses. In order to minimize taxes 10 or more years down the road, each year I try to move money from my IRA to my Roth IRA. Pay taxes now to avoid taxes later. I try to manage our withdrawals so that the money we use to live on plus the money I transfer to my Roth IRA keeps us under the point at which we would have to pay increased Medicare premiums. That's about $174,000 for a married couple. I try to keep it under $165,000 just in case we have unexpected extra income.

That's the guy. We had the spring replaced almost 1000 hours ago by the MSC at Troutdale (TTD). We'll probably have to have him do it again some time this coming year.

We had one instance of the gear failing to extend electrically. Our mechanic put it on jacks and cycled the gear numerous times. Could not duplicate. No problems since. Our guess is that there is a dead spot on the armature and the motor just happened to stop on that spot during retraction prior to the extension problem. We are pulling the motor during annual (next week). Our mechanic is sending it to a place in Sacramento for OH. Don't know the name of the place but I can find out if you need it.

Might be on to something there Don. Our J is perfect. Some of the Bonanza people are seeing problems similar to yours and from what I hear Garmin is close to knowing what the issue is. Sounded like a software update may eventually fix the problem for them and hopefully for you too.

Yes that's normal. It's also normal in the heavy iron. You can use the configuration settings to adjust the pitch. We did that so that it shows nose on the horizon at cruise and about 3 degrees nose high on the ground.

On the other hand... We park the plane with 30 to 35 gallons because once you fill it, it's time consuming to take it out if you need the payload. The airlines learned long ago that it takes fuel to carry fuel. Granted, not much in a Mooney, but it does burn a little extra fuel (maybe half a gallon on a three hour flight?).

Why is he taking his parents for a ride when it's raining? Take them sightseeing when the weather is nice. I have a neighbor with a Cessna 177RG and I've thought about the advantages and disadvantages of each. C177RG: Wider cabin by a few inches, better for sightseeing, shelter from rain as mentioned by the OP, two big doors allowing the pilot to be the last person in and the first person out, shade from the sun during the summer, easier to sump the tanks, probably better on grass strips. My M20J: Better forward CG capability, 10% faster with the same engine, 10% less fuel burn for a given flight ($$), 10% less engine time for a given flight ($$), easier to refuel, longer range, a door that doesn't leak, more reliable landing gear that doesn't look like it broke during retraction. It essentially comes down to comfort and convenience vs speed and efficiency. I considered both and ended up with the Mooney.

On the other hand there are lots of times when weather is below minimums so you can't even start the approach and ATC asks what weather you need. Magically about a minute or two later the official weather is changed to exactly what we need. Been there, done that.

As we climb and available excess power is reduced, even the flat part of the curve becomes more important. The closer we get to the service ceiling the closer we have to be to Vy in order to keep climbing.

That's true, but since power is constant at any given altitude, maximum excess power will also occur at minimum drag. And I believe best glide speed is actually a bit faster than Vy. Vy will give you minimum sink rate or maximum TIME aloft. Best glide DISTANCE will require a bit more speed. Here's another good article to read: See How It Flies

Here's a good place to start: Professor Rogers

This kind of came up in another thread, and rather than continue to drift further off topic I thought I'd start a new one. This is a discussion starter with my take as the starting point. I'm talking about normal climb to cruise, not an obstacle clearance climb. No trees or hills off the end of the runway. Just a normal everyday climb to cruise altitude but trying to do so in minimal time (best rate). My hypothesis is that faster than Vy is better than Vy for several reasons: 1. As speed increases the prop becomes more efficient and at least partially offsets the increase in drag. 2. If I keep my speed up a bit (over 100 KIAS) I can close the cowl flaps to trailing and still keep the CHT's reasonable. This actually decreases drag. 3. Theoretical best climb speed happens at minimum drag so that we have maximum excess power for climb. The drag curve is pretty flat near that speed (Vy). Go a little slower or a little faster and you'll have less excess power which means a lower sustained climb rate. Now let me use some completely made up numbers to illustrate why I think it is almost always better to climb at a speed faster than Vy Let's assume Vy is 90 KIAS and I can get 1000 FPM climb at that speed. Since the drag curve is pretty flat, let's pretend that if I climb at 80 KIAS or 100 KIAS, I can get 950 FPM. In a perfect world, ignoring items 1 and 2 above, my best climb will happen at Vy. However, I don't live in a perfect world. Let's say I'm climbing at 90 KIAS and either due to a wind shift, a downdraft, or a moment of inattention my speed drops to 80 KIAS. My climb rate capability has dropped from 1000 to 950 FPM. If I try to maintain the previous climb rate my speed will continue to decay. In order to get back up to 90 KIAS, I have to lower the nose to accelerate (this will happen automatically if the plane is trimmed for 90 KIAS). Just lowering the nose to maintain 950 FPM won't work, I'd be stuck at 950 FPM and 80 KIAS. I'll have to go even lower, say to 900 FPM. And since the further I am from 90, the steeper the drag curve is, my speed will come back slowly at first, and then quicker as I approach 90. On the other hand, If my moment of inattention caused my speed to increase, lucky me, I can simply zoom back to 90 KIAS and trade airspeed for altitude. Now let's say I'm climbing at 100 KIAS and I once again get a speed decrease for one of the same reasons as above. I'm now down to 90 KIAS which gives me the ability to climb better than I was. I can just lower my nose to the same climb rate I had, and the plane will slowly accelerate back to my 100 KIAS. And since my speed excursion put me closer to the flat part of the curve, my speed will come back more quickly at first and then more slowly as I approach 100 KIAS. I haven't lost any average climb rate. And as earlier, if my speed increased, I can trade airspeed for altitude. It may turn out that my average climb rate is the same for both cases. In the case of trying to fly Vy (90), I may spend time climbing at 1000 FPM and time at 900 FPM averaging out to 950 FPM. In the case of flying at 100 I was able to maintain a steady 950 FPM. Same time to altitude. However, if my average speed was 85 in the first case and 95 in the second case, that's 10 knots faster for the climb. If it took me 15 minutes to get to cruise altitude, I'd be a full 2.5 miles closer to my destination climbing at a target of 100 than I would be climbing at a target of 90. Remember this was a theoretical, imaginary set of numbers used for thought only. Your mileage may vary.

My guess is that is for a variety of reasons. 1. The drag curve is pretty flat around Vy so small changes in speed make little difference in power required. 2. As your speed picks up I suspect that the propeller becomes more efficient which offsets any increase in drag. 3. I've found that if I keep my speed above 100 KIAS (in my J) that I only need trailing cowl flaps, not fully opened cowl flaps, which actually reduces my drag. Therefore, I climb at 100 KIAS to 1000 AGL then accelerate to 110 - 120 KIAS depending on terrain and airspace requirements.

Since you said the problem happens during the climb, it might be your RPM. Mine is also a '78J. It has the IO-360-A3B6D engine. That's timed at 25 BTDC. That puts peak pressure closer to TDC than planes with two mags timed at 20 BTDC. By using 2500 RPM in the climb you are pushing peak pressure even closer to TDC. When you level off and pull the throttle back that reduces MP which moves peak pressure away from TDC. It also reduces the amount of pressure generated which further reduces stress on the engine. Try doing a few climbs at 2700 RPM and see if that helps. Use full rich (unless you live significantly above sea level) and full throttle for takeoff. Without an engine monitor, leave it that way for at leave a few thousand feet of climb. On the ground, set 1000 RPM then lean until the engine starts to stumble just a little, then enrichen just enough to make it run smoothly. If you did it right you won't be able to do a magneto check without enriching the mixture.

We had a similar problem with our plane when we got it. Engine had about 400 hours on it. It turned out to be two problems. 1. Morning sickness. 2. Red/orange junk in the fuel lines. Just about plugged up the fuel pump intake filter screen. Occasionally some of it would get past the filter and plug an injector. Took about 100 hours of flying to work all that crap out of the system. We had the valve guides reamed and we now religiously taxi with the engine leaned until it will barely run smoothly, and cruise LOP. The engine now has 1600 hours on it and we haven't had any more problems.

Have you had the plane for awhile or is it new to you? If it usually only happens during climbs, that could be due to either the pitch attitude or high power setting. Is it always the same tank or does it happen on either tank? If just one tank, maybe there is something loose in the tank that partially covers the fuel intake line at high pitch attitudes. Morning sickness? Do you always taxi around at full rich? Do you use ROP settings at cruise? What power settings (MP & RPM) do you use and what fuel use rate do you use for fuel consumption calculations? Is it pretty accurate? Does the problem only happen during the first 20 minutes or so of flight?

Yes I am. We communicated via message and email. Thanks for watching out for me though.

Ours is a '78 and the the low voltage is part of the annunciator. If I remember right, there is a trim pot inside the annunciator to adjust the voltage at which it comes on.

It's been over 4 years since I retired, but I don't remember having to turn on the yaw damper. Either that or it was such a part of the normal flow that I didn't really have to think about it. Never noticed any yawing in the DC9. Worked pretty well in the 757-200 but not so much in the 757-300. That plane was so long that the pilots could be feeling light turbulence up front and the back end would be whipping around so much that the flight attendants were experiencing moderate turbulence. Sitting in the back and looking forward you could even see the fuselage bending and twisting.

I did some more thinking about VNAV and the point to which it is calculated. I've decided that for the way ... I ... fly the plane, it doesn't matter. Your mileage may vary, but here's why: If the approach requires a descent of about 300'/mile during the segment terminating at the FAF, I'm going to need gear down anyway so I don't care to which point VNAV is calculated. In either case, the point to which it is calculated won't matter because the descent gradient is steeper than my default gradient and it will make me cross the fix prior to the FAF at that fix's altitude constraint. If there is a long relatively level segment leading up to the FAF such as the RNAV 4L at SFF or RNAV 34 at FHR I won't care either. If it is taking me to the fix prior to the FAF, that's not what I want so I'll probably set an along track waypoint 2 miles prior to the FAF and set a hard altitude equal to the FAF altitude. If it is taking me to the FAF, that's not what I want either because I want some time to slow down, configure, and get my act together prior to the FAF so I'll probably set an along track waypoint 2 miles prior to the FAF just like before. Same thing. So bottom line, I'll either need to configure one or more fixes prior to the FAF or I'll set an along track waypoint 2 miles prior to the FAF. I'll make that determination based on approach plate study. However, I do still have academic curiosity so if I'm looking for an excuse to go flying some day I may still go out and do some testing to try and determine how it decides which fix to use for VNAV calculations.

Yes, we did the yaw damper. I haven't flown enough yet in turbulent air to see how much difference it makes. If I subtract the approximately $2000 for KFC200 removal and new blind altitude encoder, our final cost was about $28,500 for dual G5's and 4 servos.