moosebreath

I left a shiny penny on each wingtip and the hanger elves installed LED recognition lights. They are certainly much brighter than the old halogen projection bulbs. Each draws .16 amps at 28 volts exactly as expected. They were a bit fiddly to construct however the total cost, say the elves, was $20 total. They don't generate any heat either

One more thought. I do not, sadly, own an Ovation. Perhaps the bulb to lens distance or the lens material/thickness is different than my J. There are none on my home field for me to examine and it is a bit hard to compare from pictures.

I was going to give up on this and go down to the shop and make some LED replacements for Covid fun. But ... I ... HAD ... to reply one more time. What started this tread was my leaving my recognition lights on while on the ground for 15 minutes. I did only a slow taxi for a short distance but was mostly stationary during that time. My lenses are perfectly fine. Therefore mine will not melt the lenses between the end of the runway and my hanger (which is only 5 minutes away at home). They were not damaged in 15 minutes. My lenses are the 1997 factory originals. If replacements are thinner perhaps they are more effected by the bulb heat. In need of fun during isolation I went to the hanger this morning. I turned on the recognition lights and put my hand over the face of the lens ... and waited. It gets a little warm but it didn't melt in my hand or burn my hand either. Interestingly the sheet metal lens shield on the edge of the lens gets pretty hot. That is not where the burned lens pictures show damage though. I have read all I can find on the forum concerning this issue. One comment that made sense is that the voltage dividing resistor on 28v airplanes can become open. If that happens the bulb receives not 14v but 28v. Double the voltage is four times the energy output while the bulb lasts. I can believe that would be enough to damage the lens. I should have simply done the hand test in the first place I suppose ... As they say, your experience may (does in this case) vary. Why I have no idea but the above thoughts.

I left mine activated for about 15 minutes while taxing for departure today. I worried all the way home that I had damaged my wingtip lenses. There is not a hint of damage and both lights still function. Is wingtip lens damage from ground operation a myth? Has anyone here caused damage by running them on the ground or seen damage from such operation? For this question “I heard that can happen ..” or “My buddy said ...” does not count. A picture of a melted wingtip lens would be convincing. Where my wingtip strobe bulbs are very close / touch the lenses there is a small damaged spot. I just can not see the little projector bulbs being a problem. They are a long way from the surface of the tip lens.

If you are above the glide slope and on runway heading you must fly down THROUGH the glide slope to capture it for an approach. When you are above the glide slope the marker will indeed be at the bottom of the VDI. As soon as you descend sufficiently so that the glideslope needle crosses the center of the VDI the autopilot will capture the glideslope. The same applies if you are below the glideslope initially. However in that case as you fly level at runway heading you will eventually fly through the glideslope and capture. If you fly level ABOVE the glideslope it will never capture as the electronics will never see a zero crossing. I am not aware of any General Aviation autopilot that will fly down from above the glideslope and then follow it down.

Item 2 above is incorrect. The KFC 150 will capture from above or below the glideslope. The manual states this, I have tested it on the bench, and demonstrated it in the airplane. What catches many people is that you must fly through the glideslope slightly, from above or below, for it to capture. The electronics use the change from above to below, or the reverse, i.e. a “zero crossing” to initiate the capture. If you can carefully fly exactly to the glideslope and never cross it the unit will not capture from above or below. I believe this is the source of the “only from below” myth as the most common way to capture is by flying through the glideslope slightly in level flight. Coming from above you are likely to be sensitive to not going below the glideslope and never capture. The best way to prove this is either believe the clear statement in the manual or demonstrate it with the autopilot on the bench. It is easy to show in flight on a calm day too.

It is not too costly to have the local print shop make you one. The manual is available online. Take the file on a USB stick to your local print shop. I got mine printed, punched, and put in a binder for around $100. There are a lot of pages. You can select the electrical drawings that are for your serial number and have them printed out in a large size too.

Well ... I was over Puget Sound once during severe convergence zone turbulence. The smash your head on the ceiling, uncommanded 60 deg bank, no way to maintain an attitude actual real variety. Boeing Field had 35 knot direct crosswinds but was RIGHT THERE. I figured anything was better than what I was experiencing and at least I would be on the ground. Hence I can tell you, from experience, that you can land on the upwind side of a wide runway with a 35 knot direct crosswind, and barely maintain control as you drift across the runway with full crossed controls and slide into a turn off and stop. So as far as I am concerned 35 knots is the limit. There are strong crosswinds at my home airport almost every day. The gust severity, stability of the crosswind direction, and turbulence from trees and buildings are all major factors. A plain old steady 20 knot crosswind on a big runway with no obstructions (a big airport out west in the summer ) is not a big deal with practice. I use half flaps or none in those conditions.

My 97 J is full of goodies including bladder tanks. UL is 900 but only due to the 2900 max gross allowable. I always consider that cheating in these discussions. The paperwork does not help lift that extra 160 pounds. I primarily fly solo so a 740 UL is fine. The extra 160 does help a lot when my wife and I go on the occasional long trip.

I spoke to my mechanic yesterday. He states that you can also remove the mounting screws on the face of the panel and “fish” the gauge out of the hole if there is enough vacuum line attached. Why didn’t I think of that?

The real mechanics (not my usually reliable hanger elves) noted you can remove just the portion of the console with the vacuum gauge. I replaced it with a new surplus gauge I found online for around $100. I attempted to repair the old gauge and only succeeded in ruining it by bending the pointer shaft whilst removing the pointer.

Hmmm ... working after recycling the breaker the next day is not a good sign. It sounds like the beginning of the self test failure due to bad computer power supply capacitors to me. Look at my posts about that problem in a thread from a couple of years ago. The sure sign of the capacitors being at fault is if the problem reoccurs and can be cleared after the alternator has been running for a few minutes after start. I hope this is not it ... Your basic hanger elf can not replace those caps and it is $1000 or so to get it done if I recall correctly.

The box is quite simple to open once you get it out of the panel. The static hose on the back can be difficult to remove if it is not long enough to slide the computer out of the panel with it attached. It is very tight behind there ... Once it is on the bench you can easily remove the top cover. There is a helpful sticker glued inside that cover that shows exactly how to proceed from there. BTW $750 to replace the bulbs is ridiculous. They are standard grain of wheat bulbs that fit into sockets. You can find the part number on this forum in another post. They cost around $1 each and are available from Mouser electronics. One poster suggested replacing all of them while you were in the box. That way they will all be new at the same time and equally bright. Sorry I cannot remember how the lens was configured. It is easily accessible once you get down to the bulbs however. Good luck with that hose!

I ignored the stamped, labeled, and previously calibrated numbers on mine. I calibrated it by adjusting the K factor until the total fuel usage matched what I had to put back in the tanks. You of course must take care how you fill the tanks each time. I parked in exactly the same spot and filled to exactly the same place in each tank by eye for each trial. It is now accurate to approximately .5 gallons out of 40 repeatedly. That is 1.25%. I am not at home just now but I think the Shadin sensor spec is 2% so job done. I normally run between 10 and 11 gph in cruise and my flow numbers are very close to book figures. As I recall, my final K value was significantly different than the “calibrated” number also. It took only two or three trials to calculate the final K value for my installation. It is a very simple system and responds linearly to changing the K value. Note to the usual lurkers: No I am not an authorized instrument shop or have a note from my Mom or the FAA. I just know how to calibrate the instrument in my installation. I also put a piece of tape on the top of the Shadin box recording the current K value in case I had to reset it in the future. It has kept the same accuracy for four years.

The question was where to go for an accelerated instrument rating, not whether such training was a good idea. The answer is Gatts. I was there this summer for a refresher in my J. It was by far the best instrument training I have experienced in 50 years of flying. They have a unique system, it works, and so far as I know no where else uses their method. I have incorporated a lot of their system in my instrument flying which has become hugely simpler and less stressful. They are not cheap, they are booked up way in advance, and they are professionals who specialize in instrument instruction for GA pilots not guys who passed for CFII last month. Go there ...

Sold.

I don't think Lopresti made nose wheel hubcaps. In any case I have two, one for each main.

A pair of the first generation Lopresti hubcaps painted black in good condition for $50 shipped. I purchased these on eBay and prefer the look of my Lake Aero caps. They are STC for all models of M20 and many others.

Be prepared for an exciting ride if you open the alternate static source while the autopilot altitude hold is engaged. Try it in VFR to see what happens.

I had the same problem with the same solution. We finally double clamped the most troublesome interconnect tubes and that has been a long term fix.

I had the same intermittent startup self test failure with my KC192. It is a common problem caused by faulty capacitors in the computer power supply. The colder they are and/or the longer the unit sits unused the more likely the problem is to occur. This explains why it usually happens on the first flight of the day. A work around solution is to postpone the self test until after the engine has run for a while to allow the capacitors to charge. Eventually the unit will fail without a self test sounding the warning tone as soon as the unit is powered on. You can still get around the problem by pulling and resetting the autopilot breaker a few times but this is clearly not a long term fix. Autopillots Central is very familiar with the problem and can quickly repair it for you if you pull and send them the KC192. The disconnect switch and trim servos can cause similar problems. The clue that it is the power supply capacitors is the occurance of the failure being correlated to the time since the computer was powered up.

For my GTN 750 the cost is $995 yearly for full US Jepps with a full set of paper enroute and area charts. Two computer installs are included, I use one on my PC and the other in ForeFlight. I think this is very close to the cost of Garmin data and the graphics are MUCH better. I agree the unlock is way too costly.

I do not.

This was removed during my panel upgrade several years ago. I suspect it is an item that perhaps one person in the world might really want. I that is you, it is yours for $50 delivered payment via PayPal. I will simultaneously advertise for sale to non Mooneyspace folks on eBay at a higher price.

It almost certainly is the problem. The contacts in the switch are known to degrade with use causing either partial contact or a high resistance in the closed portion of the switch. The full power for all the servos is routed through that switch it does not operate a relay. Hence when it gets a bit worn the slightly lower voltage at startup causes a fault in the KFC computer. A lot of other folks have has similar faults corrected by switch replacement. It IS easy to change if one gets the cover off!