wombat

@GeeBee That's a "No" More seriously, it seems that you believe that the speaker is a valid backup for a failure mode that doesn't apply to a modern audio panel. That's fine, you can be wrong. It also seems like you believe that a speaker is a worthwhile piece of safety/redundancy gear. That's an opinion, and you're entitled to that.

@GeeBeeDo you have a point here?

@GeeBee You are clearly missing the point here. For every backup or safety system there is some amount of cost and there is some amount of benefit. Regarding the speaker specifically, the weight penalty is not 'nil'. It's small, but not 'nil'. For that small penalty it provides some amount of additional functionality. The FAA does not mandate speakers in certified aircraft. It doesn't even mandate radios or an electrical system. It does mandate that if you install equipment, you do so in accordance with the approved installation manual, and in the case of the PS Engineering PS8000 mentioned above, the manufacturer has chosen to require a speaker. But if you install a Flightcom IIsx instead (a much less capable intercom system) you will not need a speaker. For the PS8000, the pilot headset is not connected in parallel with the passenger headsets (See page 3.4 of the install manual) therefore a short in the passenger headsets will not disable the pilot headset. The reverse is then also true. Why they chose to require a speaker is not stated but it is not because a short in one headset wiring will disable all headsets. You personally are welcome to require that all aircraft you fly in have speakers for any logical or illogical reason that you desire. The FAA does not mandate them and while some equipment manufacturers do, this is not universal. I don't know what other hardware Mooney5 has in their airplane, so I can't make any statements about if there is a speaker requirement. The FAA provides rules that require some backups or safety systems for certified aircraft. e.g. dual ignition systems. They provide different rules for different types of operations or different types of aircraft. e.g. ditching emergency exits or as you pointed out, performance requirements for single engine operations in transport category airplanes. For backup or safety systems that are not required by the FAA it's up to each pilot, owner, or operator to determine if the benefit outweighs the cost or not.

Yes. So maybe be prepared to put some tape over the rivet lines to isolate where they shouldn't strip chemically? Or have a conversation with the paint shop and discuss the issue? Or do like one of the planes I saw there... Do the stripping part of the paint work, then the tank reseal, then apply the new paint.

And the plane's cover! (Since you mentioned that in another thread.)

From my conversation with Edison: When he is done, he fills the tanks up to the top and then leaves them outside for at least 24 hours. If no leaks are found, he calls the owner and they can come get it any time after that. I would expect the plane to remain outside until it's picked up. He only works on 2 planes at a time, and while they are in progress, they are both in the hangar. I suspect that Banyan FBO will happily come get your plane for you and put it in one of their hangars if you call them. I also suspect that will not be cheap. I was the only piston plane on their ramp, they had only one single-engine turboprop, half a dozen twin turboprops but most were multi-engine jets. I think at least half the cars in their parking lot were more expensive than my Rocket. I'm afraid of the bill they will send me for keeping the plane overnight.

Yes, it is. A speaker here, a backup battery and second alternator, and a spare alternator and magneto in the luggage area, plus a tire and a tube of course. And an oil filter and a few quarts of oil. And a jack, and some wrenches. Oh, and a sleeping bag, and food. And don't forget water! And something to start fires with! And an axe and a knife, and signal mirror, and some fishing line and hooks! and some pills for pain. And an extra headset. And tiedowns. And batteries for your headset. Don't forget a flashlight! Oh, a funnel for the oil. And a fire extinguisher, can't forget that one! A pulse oximeter! A mask for the O2 in case I need to go over 18,000'. Life jacket. Personal Locator Beacon with two-way messaging.... Do we have a backup attitude indicator yet? What about a second GPS? Second nav/com radio? Plus a handheld. The headset adapter for the handheld radio. Did you get one of the emergency portable O2 bottles just in case yet? Toss that in. Don't forget to check all the batteries in all the things before you go fly. And the pressure levels in the fire extinguisher and emergency O2, and the expiration dates on the pills, food, and water. Each and every one of these things are items that I've talked to pilots and they will not go flying without that in the plane with them. But nobody (yet) that I've talked to has all of them at once. If I had more time and motivation, I could keep adding more stuff to the list until it's truly unwieldy. My point on all of this is that each of us as owners/pilots should make informed decisions on each of these items, considering the (not just dollar) cost vs. the benefit that it provides for each person's individual risk tolerance and expected flight path, with the FAA regulations as an absolute minimum standard. Personally, I choose to include a fire extinguisher on all flights despite it's dubious effectiveness at potential applications and not-absolutely-trivial weight, and I choose not to carry a spare tire, tube, alternator or magneto.

I will assert that you *CAN* have too many backups. The utility to you vs. the cost (in terms of dollar cost, weight, volume, maintenance, additional labor to preflight, mental load to manage, and so on) and legal requirements such as FAA regulations and certification requirements which drive install manuals determine if a given backup is a good idea for you. I'll illustrate this with a joke.... A Cessna 152 taxis up to the hold short line and calls the tower... "Tower, Cessna 12345 holding short of runway 37, ready to take off and I'm declaring an emergency." "Cessna 12345, Tower..... Why in the world would you say you are ready to take off and also declare an emergency?" "Well, I'm down to a single engine, all the rest of my crew is gone, I've got less than 1,000 pounds of fuel, automatic fire suppression systems are inop, no redundant control routing, and my climb performance is less than 2,000 feet per minute. If that's not an emergency, I don't know what is!" So in my opinion what is a 'required' redundancy depends on the operation, conditions, and the person/persons conducting the operation.

Dropped my plane off with Edison this morning for a full tank reseal, main and long range tanks. Should be ready to go the first week of July. Got some pictures of an in-progress plane, locally famous... See thread titled "TFR Violation Beaufort, SC 4/23/2023 Blue Angles Air Show"... Edison seems very knowledgeable and very hard working. But I'll let you all know more as I fly with tanks he's resealed. Some tips he gave me: When you repaint, don't use chemical stripper on any of the areas where there is sealer on the inside, the stripper will eat its way all the way through. Even through rivets that should be airtight. Use mechanical paint removal only there. Some pilots get confused by corrosion-X stains and think those are fuel stains. So when you apply it, do so sparingly and don't completely soak the inside leaving puddles. There are a number of planes flying around with 'fake' Monroy long-range tanks where someone just made a photocopy of the STC and did it themselves. This causes a problem in particular with the pneumatic speed brakes as there is a tube that goes through the long-range tanks for the actuator cable that people other than Jose Monroy often don't get right. Tank seal first, then paint. (I already knew that one) There are two fuel level senders in each of the main tanks, one inboard and one outboard. The outboard one is sealed with the same sealant as the rest of the tank, but the inoard one is sealed with a rubber gasket only. 3 if you have the sight gauges. Everybody probably knows this already, but surface prep is key on making the sealer last. Even after stripping the old sealant successfully you need to do a bunch more pre-sealant preparation. Pictures below or at this link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/d9PxzTiS6DQM1Rj99

All that's true. And I'll still say that I'll call anything that requires a 337 'damage history' and other stuff isn't. Yes, that makes my definition highly uneven too.

On my 182 the speaker pushes the headliner down, so if I removed the speaker, I'd gain some space. I didn't know what the headliner situation in a M20C is regarding the speaker. If you took it out you might be able to shove the headliner up into that newly-empty space? Or maybe the speaker is mounted behind a piece of sheet metal? I don't know. But the comment about the space it takes up was really a stand-in for any factor that makes a thing less desirable. Maybe it takes up space, maybe it takes time to preflight or maintain, maybe it just adds weight or expense.

@A64Pilot I'm right there with you on the questions regarding what to keep and what to toss... On my new to me plane, I've got manuals for equipment that was removed to be replaced by something that was then later removed to make way for the current generation of equipment, which happened 11 years ago. What I've decided is that I'll keep all that old junk (aforementioned avionics manuals, engine logbooks for engines that were replaced, etc) but keep it separated from the maintenance records. It doesn't hurt me to have a giant box of old stuff, and maybe someone who ends up buying the plane will want this old paperwork. But I'm not even bothering to put it in chronological order. It's just all jumbled together. @Mcstealth There is also the question of what makes something 'damage history'.... If as a completely random example, someone were to run my plane off the side of a runway and a bush tears one of the gear doors off, does that count? What about if the damage is exclusively on the gear door itself and they replace it? There is no damaged part on the plane. What about if the plane regularly lands on grass and after 5 years of this the A&P says "The gear door attach holes are worn out, we need to get a new gear door."... Is that damage history? Personally I'd call any single event that requires a 337 to repair 'damage history', but that's just me personally.

Everything can fail. What the cost of and success rate is of a backup or convenience of having the thing compared to your personal budget for cost (Including weight and complexity) and risk of the various outcomes plus any legal requirements dictate if you need a backup of a thing. Do you personally value the extra 3/4" (or whatever it is) of cabin height that the speaker consumes, and/or the weight penalty and extra wiring and potential for failure a lot? Or do you place a higher value on the convenience of being able to listen to the radio prior to putting your headset on, or having a different way to listen to radios if your audio system has some relatively specific types of failures? If there is no legal requirement, then you get to decide! What fun! When I'm feeling risk-averse, I won't fly anything with less than 17 engines where each engine has it's own parachute plus a backup parachute. But sometimes I am willing to accept risk and I'll just go fly with only the left wing and one prop blade, because I just can't deal with the performance hit of all that drag. More seriously, if there is no requirement one way or the other, then do whatever you think is best!

I don't know how all of the rest of you are filling the tanks, but when I've filled the plane with long range tanks, (I've done it twice now total in my life!! hahaha) I take both fuel caps off of one side, fill one of them, then immediately go and fill the other, then go back to the first. I don't see how that could possibly leave room for 4.5 gallons per side more because of fuel moving between the tanks. There is maybe 15 seconds between filling one and then the other. The second time I did this, after filling both tanks fully (going A->B->A) I then set the fuel nozzle down and gave the plane a good shake and was able to get roughly another gallon in, but I couldn't see the fuel meter from the plane so I don't know exactly how much more I got. But when I shook the plane again after that, the fuel level didn't seem to change in either tank.

Yum, Nutella!!!! I have nothing worthwhile to add to the conversation. But I do like nutella.

I'd love to go, but I'm too busy for pretty much everything this spring.

I'm considering replacing the fuel senders in the plane. Does anyone know if this should be done before having the fuel tanks resealed? i.e. Is there any fuel tank sealant over the fuel senders? If I'm spending the money to have the 'best' tank sealers do their work, I don't want to break through that seal shortly after.

@Fly Boomer Yes, that was intended to be part of my "In a perfect world" statement about how I wish it worked.

Just got off the phone with EI. For fuel gauge calibration the MVP-50 has 4 or 5 calibration points with what I'm assuming is linear interpolation between them. They are user-settable, so I can set them to whatever I want. I will probably set them to read however much is in the tanks when the travel is at the full upper limit, and of course empty, and pick two spots in the middle where the it will have good linear interpolation between them. The engine percentage power is configurable too, so I can fix that too. @midlifeflyer I can set my fuel totalizer to be 105 gallons, even though the gauges will only read a maximum of 72 gallons total, so it's not quite the same problem you have on the Diamond. EI sells the EI P-300M magnetic float sensor. Much cheaper than the CIES ones (< $500 each instead of $1,100 each). So I wonder if I should do this now since the fuel tanks will be getting resealed next month anyway.... But the current ones seem to work just fine. Hmm.... If it was just the $1,000 I'd probably do it, but it's also going to be a bunch of labor to drain, remove, then re-install the sensors. Hmmm....

I'm going to call EI today and ask about this.

Yes, those are my questions too. Additionally, since the fuel senders are in the main tanks, I think there will be significant fuel added after they are full but before the monroy long range tanks are full. After the last fill-up, I set the MVP-50 to 104 gallons. The official 'book' capacity is 105. At this point after one flight since then, the 'fuel remaining' and the fuel gauges are significantly different. 41 Gallons for fuel remaining (from the fuel totalizer) vs 25 for the gauges. In a perfect world, the gauges would read correct on empty, and for all fuel added until the fuel senders reach their 'full' limit, even though that is not actually full fuel. However much they read when they hit their limit of travel is what they would read for any actual quantity of fuel above that. Or if there is a way to make it say "At least XX gallons" If I fill the tanks to completely full, the gauges would start by reading a value less than 105 total and would stay there until I consume enough fuel to let the senders start moving. Then they would be accurate down to 0 gallons. So right now I don't know how much fuel I have. If I lost a lot of fuel that didn't go into the engine, the fuel gauges might be right. But I won't know until I fill the plane all the way back up. And I don't want to do that because I'll be dripping fuel.

That makes a bunch of sense.... Occasionally having the prop creating drag instead of thrust, and having the torque be backwards as the air is driving the engine speed faster than the engine power would actually make it go is probably OK but it wears the bearings (and maybe other parts) quickly. So if you regularly do this on a descent from FL230 it'll cause the engine to need maintenance early but if you only do it on final the bearings will outlast the normal expected life of the engine before overhaul.

I'm only 4 flights into my Rocket ownership and am finding that I sometimes want to fly at much lower power settings than even the lowest cruise setting in the manual. The manual does say not to go below 25" & 2,200 RPM on the descent so I've been using that as my minimum power for everything other than final approach. This results in being way too fast in the pattern of course. The "IFR By The Numbers" configuration sheet includes a 15" and a 20" power setting so I assume those are relatively safe. My specific questions are: What is the purpose of the 'minimum descent power' and if I go below that (as long as I reduce power by no more than 1" per minute), will that cause any damage? What do other pilots use for power settings in the traffic pattern and on final?

On the new-to-me Mooney Rocket, I'm noticing that the fuel gauges show gallons, and read about 36 Gallons per side when completely full. I've got the Monroy long range tanks, so I'd expect full to be 52.5. When I was flying, they seemed to decrease at about the rate of fuel burn (20 GPH). But they are starting at a total of 72 Gallons, so when the fuel burn shows I should have 41 Gallons left, the gauges are showing I've only got about 25. I don't know if the fuel is leaking out that fast or if the gauges are miscalibrated. Guess I'll know more the next time I fuel it up, since I now have a record of what the gauges and the 'fuel remaining' from the flow meter say after having it topped off to start.

These things were not present until after I bought the plane. Bad luck for me. The tire was fine during the prebuy. I even went in a flight in the plane. But when I went to fly it on Saturday, the air came out immediately, it wouldn't even start to lift the nose. And the bird nest and eggs were all from the last week that it sat outside; all of the grass and stuff that made up the nest was brand new. Stupid busy bird.