wombat

You have an airgas store 6 miles from the airport and they do provide ABO.

I recommend that you use non-conductive oxygen hose so your aircraft doesn't suffer the same fate. I don't have any idea where you would find conductive oxygen hose, but apparently Boeing found a supplier. "The hoses in SU-GBP were composed of two layers of silicone with the spring embedded in the outer layer"

I wouldn't call the 121.5 ELT worthless; as far as I can tell, nearly every airline monitors 121.5 almost all the time. When I have the capability, I do as well. Sure, it's very primitive compared to the 406MHz ELT with it's data transmission, but it's better than nothing. I'm pretty surprised that you'd need to send the whole ELT in to get the battery replaced. That's super weird.

I recommend finding a different supplier. I've been using owner tanks (mostly for argon, but also C02 and some acetylene and industrial O2) for decades and have never been charged a fee for hydro testing. It's always the same fee for an exchange regardless of the condition of the tank or recency of it's hydro testing. Who do you use?

For $25, even if it's cheap Chinese amazon garbage, it's worth it for the slight additional protection.

I've got an oxy-acetylene rig at home already and am considering just exchanging that O2 cylinder for ABO, and using it for whatever I need on a given day. ABO will combine with acetylene just fine. And the pressure differences are enough to make sure that there is never any back contamination of the Oxygen bottle. I mean, I suppose if I totally emptied out the O2 bottle and then hooked it back to the torch, opened it up, it would backflow, and if I *THEN* went back to my plane, completely emptied it, and *THEN* tried to refill it from the now-contaminated bottle, that would be bad. But yeah, Craigslist or FB Marketplace or whatever is going to be my best bet for having a dedicated tank. I know I can get one for maybe $200 or $300, and I'll keep my eyes out for something cheaper.

Called a local branch of, Norco (in Wenatchee, WA) and talked to Chris They have S size bottles for sale at $459.29 or rental @ $13/month K bottles are for sale at $757.97 For doing the exchanges: S bottles cost $28.70 and K bottles cost: $53.64 I can go to them with any S or K bottle (as long as it's not marked as owned by another company) and they'll count it as mine and I can exchange it at the direct exchange cost. Alternately, I can just turn in multiple smaller bottles for a discount on the larger ones. So now I'm on the hunt for any compressed gas cylinders.

I'm really happy about this thread; I've got a portable bottle that is nearing empty (900 PSI) and while the built-in bottle on my rocket is at about 1,500 PSI. Since many of my flights are at relatively high altitude (> 10,000 MSL) and between places that don't have oxygen service or at times when O2 won't be available, this is a great thing for me. I've been wanting to do this for a while, so thanks for the pointers and tips on what I need to buy. One note though, I think the price you mentioned for buying the bottle is maybe way low. I don't think you can get any bottle of any size for oxygen for $120, let alone one of that size.

I think that's exactly enough space.

Based on the other readings I get from my engine monitor like fuel level and % power...... Not at all sure. I might be able to fly 24" and 100 KT with the gear down.

Your plane the came config as mine with the fairings and no hubcaps?

Crazy? Nope. Is it potentially cheaper? Yup. Is it potentially more expensive? Yup. Which one will it be? Time will tell. Personally I'd recommend finishing your PPL in the rentals. You might end up spending an extra $3k or $5k in rentals Vs. owning, but probably it'll be a wash. But with rentals you can move to a different one in a heartbeat if a major maintenance issue comes up. I really like Mooneys (That's why I am on here!) but every aircraft has things it does well and things it does poorly. And Cessna 172's are GREAT training planes. Go ahead and buy the M20B now, and get it all washed up and vacuumed so you can go fly it as soon as your PPL is done. (With a CFI so you can your complex endorsement)

Is that 15 years from the factory or other full reseal, or 15 years since the first patch or 15 years since you got the plane? My tanks made it about 38 years on patches before a full reseal.

"Once and for all" is maybe 20-40 years, but depending on your age, that might be good enough!

Great minds think alike? Did that on Monday.

I don't think you'll get a full reseal for $10k these days. . But as long as the base sealant is less than maybe 30 years old and/or you only have a small number of seeps, patching is probably the way to go.

@Fly Boomer No, it had not been long. I picked the plane up after reseal in early July. And while I noted the problem immediately (Edison came in on the 4th just to let me pick up the plane) and told Edison before we parted ways, he said that usually these just pop up after the first landing. I'm not sure what kind of landings all you other Mooney pilots do but after 40+ hours and maybe 20 landings (and crossing the entire lower 48) it hadn't come unstuck on its own so I finally got in there and got it free.

I've been consistently cruising at 31/2300 and ~20 GPH from between 10,000 and 18,000 MSL

No hubcaps, but yes to under-wing fairing. As an aside, I have not had an autopilot at all for 6+ years, and the one I had before this was an S-Tec system 30 that didn't have electric trim for its altitude hold, and I'm super happy with having a full autopilot. I can just hit the altitude hold button and adjust power for the airspeed I want. Amazing!!!

I went flying solo yesterday and tried to match the "IFR by the Numbers" performance. The "Approach Level" was about right and with the gear and flaps up I achieved about 120KT at 20" with 2200 RPM, burning 12.9 GPH. The "IFR/ILS Descent" was about right and with gear down and flaps up I achieved about 105KT at 15" with 2200 RPM burning about 11 GPH. The "IFR/MDA Level" was not anywhere close to right, and with the gear down and flaps up, in order to maintain 105KT in level flight I had to have about 27 " of manifold pressure burning about 17 GPH. See the pictures below. (Ignore the 200 FPM climb, that was just a gust of wind.) If you are REALLY curious, you can verify this by looking at my position on the G500 and comparing that to the ADS-B data from Flightaware, that section was in the 13 min to 14 min time frame on the ADS-B track. The clean level flight and clean climb performance numbers I see very closely match the POH and the IFR sheet. Since the IFR sheet's descent with gear extended performance numbers match my plane I conclude that the gear is not causing significant additional drag compared to how much it should produce. My conclusion on this is that the sheet is likely wrong.

I don't think I've used an overhead speaker in my last 10 years of flying even when I wanted to get ATIS or something before starting the engine (Why? Don't you want your engine to warm up before you take off?) I just listened over the headset. You can hear it without putting it on if the engine is off. As long as what he wants to do is legal, then he's good to go. @LANCECASPER Personally, I'd never live in Texas and advise anyone considering it to reconsider. But if someone in Texas asks if the Arctic Cool system works, I'll give them advice on the Arctic Cool system instead of telling them to move away from that place. And regarding re-installing the speaker as a down-side to selling the aircraft? WTF? No. I'd prefer one that had the speaker already removed so I don't have to tear the plane apart just to take it out. So any plane that has not removed the speaker now has a $1,500 penalty on price because the former owner obviously doesn't care about efficiency.

Either they put the panel with the float on it in last, and when tightening it into place it got pressed against that nub, or they put the bottom panel on last and the same thing happened. They *could* have prevented this from happening by putting those two panels on first so they could still see inside easily though other access panels. But it probably doesn't happen often.

A speaker is a not-large expense, but it provides a not-large value. Priceless? Not hardly. Useless? Closer, but not quite. The failure mode that it protects against is extremely rare (I'm making that assertion, feel free to prove me wrong with data) and we have procedures in place (Lost comms) that will work as well. The equipment required for IFR flight can be found in 91.205(d) and a speaker and/or microphone is not listed other than as part of "Two-way radio communication... equipment suitable for the route to be flown". And if you want to claim that requires a speaker and microphone... Well, just don't. The aircraft's certification might require, but removing it is not a major alteration (as defined by part 43 appendix A, section (a)). So I assert that there is no legal requirement to keep it and welcome anyone who is willing to show me a regulation that says otherwise. As @bcg says, the ounces add up. On my 182 my mechanic and I pulled out 29 pounds worth of old wire and avionics. The heaviest single item was about 6 pounds. The plane is way better because of it. Interesting idea about the speaker button being marked 'INOP' if you remove it. I've seen a ton of planes flying around with Garmin GMA 340's that don't have DMEs, ADF's, or a COM3. Why would we need to mark the speaker as INOP but those others would not need to be marked INOP? The same for KMA-24 audio panels. Reminds me of the people who say you *MUST* placard your plane saying that the nav lights need to be on at all times because of the wingtip or tailbeacon ADS-B. Where is the placard requirement for the transponder, which must be on during all the same operations?

Finally got into the copilot side tank with a borescope and found the float was jammed tight up against one of the screw covers. Got another piece of wire in there with a *almost* 90 degree bend at the very end and was able to pull the float off. It was actually kind of scary how hard I had to pull to get it free. I could see it moving, but the arm the float is on was flexing a lot. Anyway, both tanks now report levels from both senders. So it's time to move on and fix other issues with the plane!

I deal with and have dealt with a lot more dangerous stuff. Avgas is not scary. While some of the panels are obvious which ones they are before looking too close, but some are not.