mooniac15u

Mine was definitely an unusual case but there is a known issue with the J-bar.

Maintenance induced failure. One of the mains got wedged in the gear bay and wasn't going to move. You can apparently put a lot of force into the system with the J-bar because one of the pushrods broke when I tried to put the gear down. At that point I had one main and the nose gear down and one main still retracted but no way to know that. A pilot on the ground notified me of my problem and I ultimately retracted the gear and landed on the belly. There are also other failure modes such as cracking at the bottom of the J-bar and the bar not getting fully locked into the block. My incident didn't actually lower my opinion of the manual gear overall. I still like manual gear Mooneys and I know the system is very reliable.

I had a mechanical failure in my manual gear M20D that prevented my gear from coming down. So, I don't think I'm going to develop that bond.

I certainly didn't mind having the manual gear. I also don't miss it. It seems like a lot of folks on MS have some kind of emotional attachment to the manual system that I don't really understand. Of course they also seem to have odd obsessions with British sports cars and large women. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do you have stats to back that claim about California?

I liked the manual gear on my M20D but there is no doubt that the electric gear on my M20J is easier. There is less physical movement which can be hazardous in instrument conditions. You don't have to make sure the floor area around the bar is clear. You don't have to worry about accidentally unbuckling seatbelts. Even with the preload set perfectly there is more energy expended moving the bar than moving a lever. There's nothing wrong with the manual gear and it's not difficult to operate but the electric gear is easier.

You have to register every other kind of vehicle in Ohio including boats, ATVs, cars, motorcycles, etc. Paying the Ohio registration fee is probably the cheapest aviation related expense of the year for me.

Siphoning is a specific process where fluid is pulled through an inverted u-shaped tube. The fluid travels up initially but ultimately flows down to a location that is lower than the starting point. I'm not sure if that's what the OP's friend really meant and whether he thinks that happened through the tank vent. For all of the gas to get siphoned out that way the tank vent would have to be connected to the bottom of the tank on the inside. Sucking all the fuel out the top is also not realistic.

It is actually a combination of a SFRA (Special Flight Rules Area) and a FRZ (Flight Restricted Zone).

We used a Sigtronics headset for two kids and then passed it on to a friend. It still seems to be holding up well. We only used the Sigtronics until they could wear something bigger and then they each got a D.C noise canceling headset. I think they were about 4 or 5 when they switched to the D.C.

The Garmin and L3 transponder pictures are nice but I really like the six different types of switch covers. Where can I get a set like that?

It looks like the manifold pressure gauge goes to 70. Is that normal for an A or B?

That all sounds pretty awful. How tall are you? At 6'5" I'm more worried about hitting my head on the ceiling and my knees on the bottom of the panel in a crash. With my shoulder harness on I don't think I could get my head down to yoke level if I tried.

Even UL listed power strips aren't generally designed to handle high-load devices like heaters. Heaters should be plugged directly into wall outlets.

I don't take parts to my auto mechanic but they also bill hours very differently. When I get my car repaired I get a very accurate estimate based upon a published table of how many hours that repair should take. For aviation maintenance the estimates are usually ballpark and I pay for actual hours.

The mechanics I use upcharge for new parts but not for sending out an existing part for repair.

Yes. They have a page specific to engraving rocker switches. http://www.engravers.net/rocker-sw.html

AT&T shut down their 2G network. I don't think your switch is going to work with an AT&T sim card.

The maintenance manual specifies 60 +/- 5 KIAS for the airspeed switch.

With a clogged injector it is usually impossible to run anywhere near lean of peak. You typically see elevated EGT on the affected cylinder when running full rich and that cylinder peaks very quickly when leaning. I have had two partially clogged injectors and both showed EGTs higher than normal. I don't recall exact numbers but I do remember it was obvious from the graph on the engine monitor.

A partially clogged injector will usually give a high EGT because the cylinder is running lean.

I'm not aware of a reliability issue related to the underlying technology. Do the cavity tubes in the KT-76C have a high failure rate? It's a slide-in replacement that has similar functionality to the GTX-327. If the cavity tube does fail you could buy 10 more of them for the price of installing the one GTX-327.

Why not a KT-76C as a replacement transponder?

Again, I think we have different definitions of marginally better. There are things that an LOP mag check will find that a regular runup check won't. There's a big gap between that and marginal value. You seem to be convinced otherwise so I won't waste anymore time debating it with you.

Your definition of little value and mine must be very different. All kinds of problems can be identified during a runup. You might also consider that the OP's runup and mag check did exactly what was needed. It verified that the mags were functioning during takeoff conditions. It did not identify the ultimate problem which was revealed while leaning at a safe altitude. It might help to think of the value of a runup with respect to what it is intended to accomplish rather than trying to compare it to some other test. Will it substitute for an in-flight LOP mag check? Nope. Does it provide valuable information? Yep. Is it better than not doing one? Yep.