PaulB

VOR antenna is in the the tail. You can see it just above the Mooney logo in the attached picture. It's symmetrical on both sides. As far as radios go, I have a 530w and a Bendix King Nav/Com. I believe both nav radios use the tail antenna and the two coms have separate antennas on the top of the fuselage. When I bought the plane it had a Loran and an ADF, both of which I had removed. I suspect the mystery antenna belongs to one of those.

Any idea what this antenna is? I'm wondering if it is from the ADF I had removed a few years ago.

Yep. Forgot to update. Turned out to be a short in a wire behind the panel. Replaced the switch and the wire all the way out to the wingtip. Still didn't work. Replaced the wire behind the panel and it was cured. No issues since then.

I had this same thing happen one time. Ended up killing it by turning the fuel off on the fuel selector. Couldn't replicate it again but ended up having my throttle and mixture linkages changed as they were the "old" style and apparently less reliable. Haven't had an issue with it since then.

Did the same thing last year. I think it lights up and starts buzzing when you bring the gear handle up on the ground. It extinguishes when the gear is fully retracted.

that's a good thought. I'll do both. Electrical tape is cheap.

175.9 hours for 2015 for me including my first 0.6 of turbine time in a Meridian. Plan on finally getting serious about my commercial this year.

I was thinking about putting a small piece of black electrical tape on the leading edge to make it more visible. Might go ahead and do this just in case. This topic is very relevant to me. I scrubbed my flight back home from christmas due to concerns over icing. Ceiling was 800 ft and ground was freezing. Tops were around 5-6k and I'm not FIKI. I waited it out as much as I could but ended up having to rent a car and endure the 6 hour ride home. Those of you with non-FIKI TKS and FIKI TKS, how do you approach flight planning differently? Will you still launch into areas where there's an AIRMET or possible icing? To me planning from a non icing equipped plane is very simple: temps below 2 and visible moisture and I'm not going. When I eventually upgrade to something with a turbocharger and TKS I wonder how that will change.

That's a Kelvin-helmholtz wave cloud. Indicates a zone of wind shear. I think it's just an illusion that makes it look like two twisted clouds. I believe it's just one with the top layer moving faster than the bottom. Pretty cool cloud.

My experience removing the bottom cowling of my J has been that it is doable by myself but usually takes 5 minutes of holding it up in place with one of my knees while i dance back and forth around the prop getting the side lined up. Once this is done the rest is easy. Best tip I have for a dripless change is to hook up the drain and come back the next day to take the filter off.

Anyone else notice they include Flight Watch as a source of in flight weather? I thought this thing was supposed to be up to date.

I have an STEC 55x and saw the benefit of a rate based AP 2 weeks ago flying back from Florida. With about 4 hours to go the vacuum pump went out. Instead of having to hand fly the remainder of the trip and plane didn't even notice. I like knowing that if I loose the vacuum pump that it just keeps on going. An attitude based AP has two modes of failure: electrical and vacuum.

I had a similar problem with my nav lights about a year ago. Ended up being a short in a wire somewhere behind the panel and it fixed the problem.

Thanks guys. I figured it was a little excessive to do the annual now.

On my flight yesterday my vacuum pump gave up the ghost. No big deal as I have an electric backup, was in VMC, and have an STEC rate based AP. I have been planning on putting it in the shop for several small things but now I've got to put it in if I want to use it. I need to IRAN the mags, upgrade my engine monitor, and probably overhaul the alternator. I foresee about 3-4 weeks of down time for maintenance given past experiences. Here's my issue. My annual is due in December. Any thoughts on putting it in for all of this stuff and the annual now or am I wasting money doing it early?

Do Bravos not have issues with early top overhauls?

Is tapatalk working for you all? I can see top posts but the sub forums still aren't showing up for me.

I suspect this is what I'm going to find when I get my oil temp on my JPI which raises the question of the legality of an inaccurate oil temp gauge. Is it like the fuel indicators and that they only have to be accurate when empty? Or in the case of oil temp too hot?

The video reminds me of my Chinese friend Ho Lee Fuc.

http://www.avweb.com/news/pelican/182079-1.html This is a good read on the topic by John Deakin

Just an update if anyone else ends up with a similar problem. I disconnected #2 and switched it with #4 and then back again. Seems to have solved the problem. I believe it was as mentioned above: a bad connection.

I've got the same problem but my oil temp also wiggles. I've tried cleaning the master switch with no change. I get a buzzing in the headsets that changed with electrical load and RMP. Occasionally on the ground under a high electrical load the alternator drops offline putting the buss voltage at 12 and will suddenly pop back up to 14 after 30 seconds or so. I checked the field wire with then engine off and it shows 10v while everything else in the system is 12v. I suspect either the field wire or voltage regulator is the culprit.

I've put it on my windows. Looks pretty good and was easy to install. Cheap too. $11 a roll and 2 rolls is all it takes.

Take a look at this: http://csobeech.com/windowtint.html They seem to have good results with the vinyl tint. I bet this product is very similar and probably just as safe.

Well acquainted with him. I'm based at KGGG. Just trying to see if I can fix it myself as he's super busy right now. You should see his ramp. It's out of control. If not, it's going across the field to his shop in a few weeks anyway.