Ragsf15e

I love my F model, but there are 3-4 months out of the year when it's only useable 2-3 days per month. I understand the limitations on small airplanes and icing and don't intend to cruise in it. Around here, I could fly all winter if I could climb/descend through a 2-3000' layer with light to moderate ice. Cruise would be in the clear. The weather isn't really low, but low enough to stop you from going anywhere vfr below the clouds - especially with the mountains around. Lots of SR22s around flying all winter safely...although I prefer Mooney.

Sorry to bump this, but can someone tell me where the above w&b limits in cg came from? My graph for the 68F is in moment vs weight and dividing out the cg from the weight and moment doesn't seem to come up with the same limits. basically I'm just trying to build my cg envelope for a w&b app. thank, rags

Hello, I'm looking to partner on a FIKI airplane in the KGEG, KSFF, KCOE area. PM me if you might know anyone with an existing partnership or who may want to start one in the future. Drew

Anyone find a way to adjust/calibrate their gtx345 attitude ahrs data? Mine shows a slight bank/pitch in level flight, and unlike the stratus, you can't calibrate attitude in foreflight.

I have been reading about normalize mode and will definitely try it next time. Yeah, I got into both of those Lycoming documents in the last few days as I belatedly educated myself on exhaust valves...

Can I still get the 1100lb useful load and 150 kt upgrade?? I'd gladly trade my 1017lb useful and 140kts...

3,500 hours of flying and it finally happened. First "real" engine issue in 25 years of flying. Happened over big mountains just outside McCall, Idaho with the whole family on board too. Worst part was, I didn't even realize it happened until the next day! We went to KMYL (McCall) for a $100 hamburger lunch on a beautiful winter day. 1968, M20F with IO-360A1A. 800 hours SMOH (1998), top overhaul with rebuilt cylinders after prop strike (prev owner) in 2004. Flight down there was normal. Departed about 2pm so the kids (1 year old twins) were right at nap time for the way home. Chosen route was up the Little Salmon river valley over highway 95. There are dirt strips about 40 miles apart in the canyon, but there's basically nowhere to land northwest of KMYL for the first ~30 minutes of flight. Leveled off at 8,500' below a scattered deck and leaned for 20 LOP. Maybe a minute or two later I noticed my speed decreasing and autopilot telling me to trim up. I had lost ~10 knots from normal cruise. First thought was that I set the mixture too lean and was at too low a power setting. Rich mixture, surge forward pretty good, reset to 20 LOP and everything seemed fine. Then I decided to climb above the clouds, adjusted mixture, climbed, reset mixture and it happened again. Huh, interesting. By now we were 30 minutes from home and I didn't really think anything was wrong. Flew along ROP for a while, checked TAS and it was normal, JPI 930 showed normal engine indications. Reset LOP and noticed a very slight vibration. Actually thought about looking into balancing my prop. Landed uneventfully. Thought about the flight and didn't feel right... took off the cowl the next day and checked for leaks around the injectors. Everything seemed normal. Downloaded from EDM 930... didn't like that at all. Pictures below. Watch #3 EGT after leaning. The last picture is right before the decent to landing. They are at a different time scale, so they look a little different, but clearly #3 EGT was not behaving. It was going above it's leaning "peak" and then by the end of the flight, it was pretty unsteady. It had only climbed about 100 degrees from peak and was not noticeable on the EDM unless I had written down the peak values which I don't think anyone does. The fluctuating EGT wasn't noticeable without staring at the EDM which I didn't do. Sent the data to my mechanic and put it in the shop the next day. #3 exhaust valve was shot. The valve guide is worn excessively and the valve and guide have deposits causing it to stick and wobble. While he had that side of the engine apart, looked at #1 and it was not as bad but going down that road. Pulling 2 cylinders to send to an engine shop for new valves and redo the guides, etc. $$ Ouch. Oil samples done at each change and all normal (last one in December). Thankfully caught early enough that it didn't stick and fail catastrophically over the mountains. Any idea what causes this? Am I doing something to the engine to cause it? I guess I'd just feel better if I could see this coming a little before it starts affecting power. Don't want to have any power loss in the mountains, on takeoff, high DA, or all three! Appreciate your thoughts...

Yep, one small wingtip LED fixture contains both the red/green position light and a white strobe. Two switches in the cockpit to operate nav or strobe or both. Taillight is white pos/strobe. http://aeroleds.com/shop/pulsar-nsp-2/?val=aeroleds But wow, your pictures make that red rotator look good! I may put mine back!

I love my F, but honestly, if I could have afforded an equally maintained and outfitted J while keeping enough cash in my maintenance slush fund I would have done it. I always miss the extra 10-15 knots. I'm sure if i had a J, I'd rather have a K. Buy as much airplane as you can comfortably afford while keeping a reasonable slush fund for maintenance and first year gottchas. Operating costs for e, f, and j are roughly the same.

Slightly more $$, there's another/better option... remove the rotating beacon altogether and replace wingtip and tail lights with led strobe/position lights. Removing the beacon has to get like 5 knots, right! Mine came from AeroLed in Boise. Great customer service when I had to replace one due to water leaking into it (free). I don't know how much the whole setup cost as previous owner did it. Also mine got a field approval, but they have TSO units. Led light should never need replaced and draw very little power.

Im with marauder... i did the waas gps and adsb transponder recently. Super nice, but big hit to the wallet and i just did an upgrade to my 430 to make it waas. The gtx345 was another $6k installed. That being said, adsb in and out is very nice!

It depends... The ADSB cost could be fairly low to get one of the UAT units that comes with a gps and uses your current transponder. Still probably ~$2-3k minimum and that won't give you gps for navigating, only to meet adsb requirements. If you installed an ifr gps and adsb transponder, you're talking $10k+ On the low end. Does the airplane have autopilot and is that something you want? That's even more $$ to add than adsb. Good luck! I really enjoy my 1968 F.

Sold, thanks to Mooneyspace!

Sold it on Ebay. There seem to be a lot of used transponders out there with all the ADS-B updates going on... GTX 345 is really nice!

How about $350... anyone interested? Nice transponder...

Stratus 2 for sale. Works perfectly, long battery life. Gives, ADS-B in (All ADS-B weather and some Traffic) as well as GPS source and AHRS for Synthetic vision apps (Foreflight). Comes complete with original packaging, rubber anti-slip dash mount, and recharger. If you don't have synthetic vision, you should!! $500. (strong headwind in picture, trust me!!)

$250 at Felts in Spokane, shared with one other plane and 3-5 cars. Electricity, but no heat. Big, finicky sliding doors. Feeling lucky though as I only found this one hangar while looking at three close airports and the owner is awesome as well as the other guys around the airport. Most hangars seem to have actual planes in them too!

With your current avionics I'd put in the GTX345 regardless of desire to fly above 18k. I also had GTX327 and 430W, upgraded last week and couldn't be happier. Should cost about $6000 including the roughly 10-15 hours of install, programming, testing, & paperwork.

I fly a C172 with eis at work often, and it sure does start nice, run smooth, and it seems faster, but I haven't done any measurement for that. I like it so much, I was starting to think about eis on the Mooney, but the last thing I want to do is something that might shorten the life of my engine by increasing temps/pressures beyond reason. Typically I fly around 8-10,000, 60-70% power at peak or slightly lean of peak. She runs smoothly deep lop, but I find significant loss of speed as I go lop. The cht temps are always below 350 in cruise. Its well instrumented with JPI 930. Stupid questions that I don't have time to figure out right now... what timing is my io-360 a1a on the 1968 M20F supposed to have? 20 or 25 btdc? Does the eis change this timing at wot cruise or just during start and low power operations to keep it smooth?

Garmin GTX 327 removed for upgrade to ADS B. $500. Works perfectly, yellow tag from install. $500. Shipping included to US. PM me for more info. Rags.

Both models have enough gas for 6+ hours... You probably don't want to sit in them for more than 4. If your mission is less than ~550nm, an F would be fine. To be honest, at 3 hours into the flight you'll be wishing for a J so you can get there 10 minutes faster. I have an F, it's great, but we'll always want more speed. If you can afford the purchase price of a nice J, go for it. Maintenance between the two will be about the same.

Test flight today with the twins (~4 months old)! Success! Bought two cheap (and small-ish) car seats for semi-permanent installation in the airplane. Have to coordinate for car seats at the destination since they are tough to get in/out without pulling copilot seat. Orchestrating the logistics of getting in and out is the hardest part and bears serious consideration if you'll be on a ramp when it's warm outside. 9,500' over the northern Idaho Mtns! Very slow decent... Whoever said they'd be asleep by the time the gear was up lied to me. They were wide eyed for the first 15 minutes... then passed out and slept through everything (including my landing) until we pulled them out to shove them in the air conditioned car. Thanks for the help and ideas! Rags

I like the slow flight idea, but how about something a little more fun to help out your landings... Go find a taildragger and a good instructor to do your signoff. It's a lot of fun, a bit humbling, and it will really force you to land well. You think your Mooney swerved at touchdown? You ain't seen nothing! seriously, it's well worth it and fun.

Thanks. Looks like I've got a round valve on an arm. Hoping i just adjust the end stop as the cable slides freely over it's entire throw. Thanks for the insight!

I love Mooney pilots.