Conrad

@jamesmI like your setup! Looks very clean. The only thing I'd point out is that those annunciator lights are supposed to be on the pilot side. The 30-P and 30-C displays will have red numbers and other visual indications of out-of-range readings if you happen to be looking over there. I find that's not always true. For example once established in cruise sometimes other things take my attention completely away from the engine monitor for an extended period. Also in certain critical phases of flight you may not be watching the monitor closely. It's only because I have my annunciator front and center on the pilot side that I know that I sometimes experience load spikes that risk popping the alternator circuit breaker during taxi or potentially takeoff.

Just realized that I can install an CGR-30P without getting a new Engine Data Converter. I can't find a price without an EDC listed anywhere, but hopefully it'd be a significant savings, especially in install cost. It was a real pain to find a good spot to mount that thing, and required fabrication of a custom mounting bracket. That would leave me some empty panel space down where the original cluster gauge was. What would be useful in that space I wonder? If I could I'd put J style flap and trim indicators there. Flaps aren't a big deal since I can just look out the window, but I'd love to see what my trim setting is without looking at my ankles.

Well whatever you do, take care... and get yourself some flaps back!

I'm glad I can provide entertainment. At the moment I seem to have money to spend and nothing to spend it on... @gsxrpilot Interesting suggestion RE audio. I'll think about that one. If I don't choose that option quite yet I could still run the aux input cable over the top of the panel instead of through in order to, as you say, avoid drilling holes which may become useless. The dual CGR setup would likewise be interesting. By condensing another two copilot instruments into once spot I'd open up another space. Not sure if there's anything I'd want to put there though. At the moment I think I want to prioritize upgrades though. High priority are LED landing and wingtip lights, because with all these digital goodies I'm quite close to the alternator's load limit at times, and that's without doing any flying that would require pitot heat. After that comes work on the interior which is, at present, a bit ratty.

I think the tablet mount should be one of these. That way I can drill the standard AMPS holes into the panel (for addl. future proofing). It's not very thick, but hopefully just thick enough to get the minor amount of pilot-facing tilt I'd want.

Haha thanks @carusoam. I should look into that. Not sure I need it though since this part is already milled to specs. What old mechanical gauge? The CGR-30C is a certified replacement for the original cluster gauge. The JPI bar graph gives me all four CHTs and EGTs. New switches would be a good idea if I'm replacing that plate already. Some of mine have gotten rather floppy. I like the idea of some lighting, although it would be more useful I think to illuminate the lettering around the switches. Afaik on the big iron they do that by mounting in plexiglass, which they matte coat and then CNC mill the letters into. However, assuming that is not practical, there are some very attractive designs available here. (EDIT: oh right, not dipole, no good) I could just find a very small LED strip to mount down there and paint the letters in white. I think USB A is a safe bet. You wouldn't want anything smaller (read: less sturdy). USB A to C cables will be produced for a very, very long time yet. I chose a USB-C tablet since micro-usb is so notoriously easy to damage. Will definitely leave some extra CB holes I don't plan to get rid of the six pack or vacuum pump. Call it nostalgia, but I love those analog instruments. It's any number of things for me - non-digital technology, their subtle and smooth movements, and just the elegant pattern of the layout. Also I need to to keep the stair functional.

I think it may make sense to move the USB power over to the right of the tablet so that there would be the option of replacing the smaller JPI with a full size instrument if I or someone else desires it in the future.

Well, I'm shut up at home without much to do. Fortunately, in a moment of inspiration, I bought an aluminum copilot panel blank last time I was at LASAR. My current copilot panel is a mess of chopped up plastic and holes made for things that are not longer present. While I can't have the panel machined yet, I can decide where I want everything to go. Here's what I'm thinking about: First, out with the GPSmap 496. It was great back when it was the only device in the cockpit with full color, WAAS, and terrain alerting, but now the IFD440 has taken over those responsibilities. My plan is to toss in a Galaxy Tab A 8.4", mounted above the copilot yoke and tilted (or tilt-able) for optimal viewing from the pilot seat. It would run Droid EFB, connected via Bluetooth to the IFD 440, hopefully giving it access to the certified WAAS position source and ADS-B products, as relayed by the GTX 345. As I understand I can legally do a semipermanent mounting fixture for the device, so long as the device is easy to remove from that fixture. I'd like to take out the cigarette lighter 12v power source. I wonder if that would be a certification challenge. I'd replace it with TSOd USB charging ports. I'd optimize the placement of some more important instrumentation, including moving suction pilot side top center. I'd really like to move the circuit breakers up onto the panel where there's enough space for them all, hopefully resulting in a setup similar to what you might see on a J. This is another major worry in this little project, because that gold strip seems like it would be very tricky to extricate from the engine controls. I don't know, I still really dislike the idea of just leaving it full of circuit breaker sized holes, and it's already quite a mess, with peeling lacquer and lots of taped over labels. I want to get a proper panel mount minijack audio input to the intercom. It supports aux, but there needs to be a resistor in that circuit somewhere. A normal minijack outputs way too much power, and when you use minimum volume you just end up with awful signal to noise ratio. Another tricky thing, I'd love to move the rheostat for the cabin lighting to the panel, and supplement it with a dim bus control for my avionics that support it. I suspect this is the kind of change for which I'd be getting to know my local FSDO though... Has anyone done it? Anyway, here's what I have and what I've laid out so far. The best copilot panel shot is from before I redid the center stack.

We befit from doing something that harms other people. I don't see how trying to avoid the ethical quandry makes anyone a chump. Certainly it would be important to ensure that the money goes where it's supposed to, but it's silly to say that money can't help slow or stop climate change. As to 201MK's response, I find it rather cynical. We're all here because we think that flying is worth the costs, which are high. To take the most simplistic view possible, if we ran the earth out of fossil fuels what do you think we'll put in our engines? But at that point the sea levels will have risen so many feet that I think many of us will have bigger problems.

I was just thinking to myself about the environmental impacts of my aviation activities, and I ended up writing a post over on FlightAware's forums. In short, I think it would be really cool if there were a way to automatically make carbon offset donations when you fly, and also to show off those donations publicly or as forum flair. If this sounds interesting, here's the link to what I wrote: https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/ga-green-flights/57492. If it gets some activity, maybe the right people will see and consider it! Does this sound like the sort of thing people here might want or use?

I’m going to continue to investigate. The battery still seems to read low, but the behavior has gotten markedly better since I flew the plane to Denver and then today to Waterloo Regional in Iowa, so I’m pretty sure there’s some battery involvement. I’ll hopefully be rolling into Vintage camping tomorrow morning. Seems like perhaps I could have made it in tonight, but unfortunately the text message updates failed to include the fact that Vintage camping opened at 6:30 today. Looking forward to meeting some more Mooneys and associated pilots at Wittman!

Thanks for your help!

It started! I didn’t whack it or anything. I have no idea what was or is going on. I’m gonna buy a new starter at OSH.

Yeah low battery would seem to me enough to spin the prop a little. A tiny bit. I’m seeing no movement at all.

I’ve never had this happen before. I’m at KOAK, hoping to leave for KOSH (or more precisely for the leg to KBMC). I turn the key to start, hear the normal grumbling whine from behind the panel. Then when push, i can hear the click of the starter gear being pushed forwards, but then nothing else happens. Nothing like this has ever happened before. I have a Sky Tec lightweight starter, currently trying to figure out which model. Battery seems fine, i’m reading 12.0 volts on my digital engine monitor. Does this just sound like a dead starter?

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Report-1-dead-after-plane-crashes-on-Mount-Diablo-13604292.php Rest in Peace At first glance it would appear to be classic CFIT. I remember the first time I was in the dark looking for mountains I knew were there and how impressed I was that they were complete invisible blackness. Stay safe up there!

I love watching the pace pick up on these! This is one mod that I don't think will evaporate from lack of demand. When (if?) you get around to us 65'ers, you'll have a customer here.

After a little (not much) soul searching I asked them to take a look at my plane so that I'd have full confidence in it when I do my checkride (soon). They found a bolt in one of the main gear linkages working it's way out of the joint, which could have prevented a side from locking down. They also fixed my master switch, which I had just discovered did not actually turn anything off in flight. And every time I called for an update, Robert had not just the papers but all the details of the relevant systems available to him seemingly off the top of his head! I'm in for the meet and greet.

Fortunately mine is not intermittent. On the ground it always goes off when you move the switch. It's easy enough to feel for the buffet in training, but I need my stall warning to work reliably. I'm not going to leave an intentional hole in the swiss cheese. It's good to get confirmation that weight and balance definitely play a role in exactly when (and maybe if) you'll hear the warning.

There exists documentation of a minor modification to allow the rear seats to fold down. You definitely want to look into it! Look here: You want to be the caretaker of a true piece of engineering, so I predict you will definitely end up buying a J bar Mooney. There's no alternative!

@takair I would not say I felt buffet "well before" the wing dropped. Nor did the wing drop very aggressively. I went back out to the airport today to inspect the switch. It is utterly normal in every way. It has the correct angle, it's clear that its mounting position has not migrated, and it definitely engages the horn a bit before it reaches full travel. What I did find is that when I pushed the tab against either limit of its travel with just a little force, it had a bit of stickiness. Most of the time for example it would fall right back down from the upper stop, but in once instance it stayed there for perhaps a quarter of a second before falling. Though it's harder to quantify stickiness in the down position with no constant force like gravity to calibrate, I imagine it was similar. The cause of the stickiness was a thin layer of CorrosionX mixed with dirt coating the tab. Through creative use of fingernails and wiggling the tab around, I was able to remove enough of the coating that there was no longer any detectable sticking. It still seems a little bit unlikely to me that this would cause the tab to stick under normal circumstances, but perhaps circumstances were not entirely normal on the day in question -- temperature or water could have been present on the tab causing extra stickiness or adding surface tension, and the plane was definitely quite light meaning there was less airflow over the tab at the critical AoA. I'll report back once I'm able to do another test under similar circumstances, and assuming the horn goes off I'll also pay close attention to how much a margin over stall it's actually giving me.

Yesterday was the first time I've ever practiced a power off stall without an instructor in the plane. Gear was down, full flaps. I had about half fuel in the tanks and I'm not a particularly large person, so the plane was light. I tested the stall warning horn both before and after the flight and it definitely works (the horn engages when the tab is fully up), but I heard nary a chirrup before a wing started to drop around 55 - 57 mph (visibly below the white arc on my ASI). I'm pretty sure I've heard the horn on landing relatively recently (when more heavily loaded). I assume that when the plane is approaching stall AoA at a higher airspeed there's enough shove on that tab to trigger the horn, but I don't think the scenario I've just reproduced will be unusual in my flying so it worries me. Should the horn trigger before the switch reaches full travel? Should I lubricate it and see if that helps before I go having it adjusted? The tab isn't bent. It hasn't been adjusted since times when I know it was working as expected. I didn't feel any resistance to pushing on it, but a finger is a rather coarse tool for that evaluation.

Nooo I loved this plane. I'm so sad.

Why would you need to remember ANDS in a Mooney anyway? ...unless like me you're soon to be doing a checkride. Just sync the DG and turn with that. While technically legal my compass deviation card has such large and varying values that it's not possible to use it to know when to roll out of a turn anyway.

@bonal I just put it on youtube and embedded it in place of the earlier MOV link. I think you should be able to see that!