wombat

Yes, this is getting wild. A couple of you are fixated on one extreme proposed solution to a made-up extreme example and acting as if the whole concept of taking some sort of action to prevent risky behavior has all of the downsides of that extreme proposed solution. Yes, what I proposed is a crime. But if I see someone who is about to kill a bunch of other innocent people, or have an extremely high likelihood of killing a bunch of other innocent people, I'm going to do my best to stop them, even if it means committing a crime to do so. I'd like to live in a society where most people would do the same. But if we can move off of the most extreme example for a bit, I was actually trying to get feedback on some ideas for at what level of risky behavior people think it's worth getting at least a little involved, and what are some actions they think that might be appropriate for different levels of risky behavior? (I'm not so grown-up that I won't take a little jab at my detractors here...) Some of us are clearly on the 'never take action' side and if they see someone loading 29 beautiful babies and a puppy and a kitten into a plane full of dynamite and matches while drinking from a bottle of Jack Daniels and talking about how they are going to crash into the "Best and most beautiful newly married couples" pageant, they'd politely back their car out of the way and give the pilot a clear path to the runway.

@natdm "Ok fine let's not but in order for you to say we shouldn't sabotage it, you need to have a better idea." is not the same as " Feel free to criticize my solution but if you do, please propose an better solution."

@natdm Not sure how you got from What I said "We should do something other than trash talk other pilots on here." To "I should be forced to accept that sabotaging a plane is the best reasonable idea."

@1980Mooney Agreed that my proposal isn't easy to implement. And that some pilots are going to be harder to influence. But it's better than just wringing our hands and complaining about how other people are making our insurance rates go up. It's clear I don't have all the answers, but another string of "A new mooney pilot just landed gear up! Seee!! Here is everything I could find about them! They are so horrible, they are making my insurance rates go up!" isn't going to make anything better. So I proposed doing something. It's a half-baked plan but I'm not helpless, I can make a difference. Maybe my earlier posts were not clear about this but the intent here is soliciting feedback on what we can and should do. Feel free to criticize my solution but if you do, please propose an better solution. Regarding the "you can't tell me what to do" and "Get out of my hangar" pilots... If many other pilots regularly offered unsolicited negative feedback, even if that feedback is aggressively rejected, they are likely to perceive everyone else in aviation as a bunch of jerks. Maybe that will encourage them to go find another hobby, so a good solution all around. Regarding the feedback needing to come from someone in authority... Well, I'm a CFI so my perception is a bit weird, and maybe people listen to my advice a lot more than they would from someone who isn't a CFI. I take advice from lots of non-CFI pilots. Just because someone hasn't had some specific set of official training doesn't mean they don't have good knowledge. There are many ways to try to inform or influence others without having authority. Example 1: Express interest in how their ways of doing things that differ from yours and a curiosity about which is better. Then if you can't come to an agreement between the two of you, offer to do some research. Then come back with an analysis and references. Example 2: Ask them to teach you the 'right way' and ask for references. If what they are doing is bad, they probably can't provide references. If you can provide references for the opposite, maybe they'll modify their behavior. Maybe find out what CFI the person uses and contact them, and say "Hey, so and so said he has you do their BFRs. I saw them doing X and I think it's dangerous. What do you think?" A lot of people will refuse to admit to being wrong in the moment but will be willing to silently change their attitudes and behaviors if they can do so without admitting they made a mistake. So if you let the other person leave the conversation without having to admit that they were wrong you might have a better chance of success. Not sure I'm doing a great job in this particular conversation though! hahaha. @PT20J True. I didn't really think about that when I was writing it. So maybe just parking my car in front of the plane is a better solution than trying to pop a tire. Maybe a wheel lock? Or a chain/lock on the prop? For the kind of pilot I'm talking about they might start the engine without looking to see if there is anything on it.

I'm serious about the question. Is it ever reasonable? As an extreme made-up example, if I see some dude that is obviously drunk loading 6 kids into his Mooney in low IFR conditions at night saying "We're going to go for a super fun airplane ride!! Wheee!!!" I'm going to take his keys or pop his tires or block the plane in with my car so he can't take off. I'd deal with the fallout from that and be satisfied I made the right decision. I understand that there are people who are going to continue to make riskier decisions than we think are safe no matter how often we talk to them politely. When should we escalate beyond a friendly conversation? How far should we go? In what situations? For some level of risky behavior, it's appropriate to just shake our head and move on. For some level we should probably chat with them.... Where is the right level for each? What steps are there that we can take? Have a subtle, polite conversation. Have a non-subtle direct but polite conversation. Have a direct and accusatory conversation, maybe described as an argument. Talk to people who might be impacted like passengers or have other interests like the local CFI or A&P. (example: If you see a person who might get into the bad pilot's plane you shout across the taxiway at them "Hey, I wouldn't get into the plane with that guy. You are putting your life at risk!") Talk to the FSDO. ???

My suggestion here is not a recipe for absolute safety, but maybe it's something that can help a little, some of the time. I'd like to do something to help. Hand wringing and finger pointing doesn't seem to me to be helpful so I tried to make a suggestion that would help at least a little. What you are saying sounds a little like the hazardous attitude of Resignation. I think we can make a difference even if we don't have absolute control over it. https://www.faasafety.gov/gslac/ALC/course_content.aspx?cID=723&sID=1448&preview=true The antidote for that is "I’m not helpless. ?I can make a difference. You do bring up a really good point with your friend... If I had a friend like that, what actions could I or should I take? Would it be reasonable to at some point sabotage the plane to make it so airworthy he couldn't even try to take off? Document specific provable FAR violations to send to the FAA? I've got a friend whose actions as a pilot make me cringe so much because they are risky, but as far as I know, they are legal.... He loves flying that way, but... Ugh.

Good point, I should have picked up on the fact that the pilot is pretty old and this might be a factor as well. I'll add that to the list of things to watch for. How many of us ever actually say anything to our fellow pilots when we see something that is a slight indicator of potential risky behaviors and actions? I'm a CFI and unless I'm being paid to do so, I find it really hard to criticize other people's behaviors unless it's very clearly dangerous.

I really don't like this thread. It feels to me like a lot of finger pointing and blaming and more than a little holier-than-thou. And nothing we can take away from it other than this dude's name, home address, and previous mistakes. So I'll try to change that. Based on the facts we know so far, what are some things we could do to keep ourselves, the flying fleet, and other pilots, passengers and others safe? I think we should look for things where we might be able to find a similar situation that is about to happen and intervene. By 'intervene' I mean have a friendly chat with the pilot, which might turn a little more preachy and less friendly depending on how it goes, or if you are a CFI being less willing to sign off on a BFR, or if things are actually bad enough, going to the FAA. One thing that is pretty obvious is that he's had two previous incidents. If we know anyone with even one incident it's probably worth taking extra time as a fellow pilot to watch how they behave and be willing to offer helpful advice when we see them doing things not by the book. Things like using the checklists, or fuel planning, or preflight and maintenance. And their medical, currency, and proficiency. Maybe if one of us knows a pilot like this, be willing to lend a hand and go fly with them. Either demonstrate in our own plane the behaviors we wish they had, or as a pilot-rated passenger (or low-cost CFI) to urge them to follow the correct procedures in their own plane. The ADS-B mismatch is another thing. This I think gives us advance warning that this owner isn't doing everything by the book; in my opinion it's more likely that if this thing is wrong there are other things wrong with the plane. Maybe there are significant fuel leaks and/or the fuel gauges don't work right. This could be the cause of this specific accident and if a friendly hanger neighbor had been looking, they could have chatted with this guy and helped him understand the value in following all of the regulations and ended up catching this before the plane went into the water. Anything else that we could identify before the incident itself in another pilot our ourselves where we should make take an action to prevent something like this in the future?

Interesting. I fly into KTTD occasionally so I'm somewhat familiar with the area. It sounds like he was arriving from the North to land, and when I do that I always just fly the approach directly into base, but the news reports the pilot as saying "“I was coming downwind to land in Troutdale. As I was turning to base..." So I'm a little confused what was going on. I would expect the ATC radio traffic is a more clear picture. A approach from the North with a base that far out is very typical, at the North side of the Columbia river the Portland class C has a floor of 1,700' and even further North is only has a floor of 2,000'. It's easiest to stay further East of that so you can descend at a normal rate rather than having to stay down below the C for so long.

There are cars that park long term at many airport that I know of. KBFI, KORS, 6S9, S52....I think it's pretty common

The trim motor humming but not moving is very indicative of a trim motor failure. You might give the folks at https://www.autopilotscentral.com/ a call. They IRAN'd mine and it works perfectly. Apparently there are a couple of other common problems that might be very inexpensive to troubleshoot or solve. The three microswitches in the 'trim up' and 'trim down' switches on the yoke can fail and either the normally closed parts are open, or the normally open parts are closed. But you can just take a multimeter and figure that out. The normally closed switches in the "AP Disconnect" switch in the yoke can fail and be open. This is also pretty easy to measure with a multimeter.

Yes, I did end up taking that off to get the bottom.

Worked on my door seal over the last two days. So far I've gotten the old one off and the old glue cleaned up. It was kind of painful, probably took me 5 hours. But I think there were at least three layers of old adhesive under there, so the new one should stick well. The Peerco 321 Adhesive Remover was critical to getting this stuff off. No way would it have worked without something. I bought the 3M "Yellow Super Weatherstrip and Gasket Adhesive" part 08001. We'll see how that works I guess.

I am not sure that the cable is adjusted properly. It doesn't go all the way to the panel in the cockpit, even when I have everything near the cowl flaps themselves disconnected. It moves very easily until it hits a hard stop. I didn't know that there was a mid position at all, I thought it had only 'open' and 'closed'. A few weeks ago I called Rocket Engineering and that guy said they should be 1.5" open in flight. Specifically, he said "One and a half", so if someone mis-read the book, it was him. But mine are very clearly way wrong.

Glad you figured out how to make that work! That's a pretty complex series of steps required.

@Z W I don't know if they are a normal part or a Rocket conversion part. I have been hoping to find some pictures of another K model and/or a Rocket that has a similar setup. One of the things I don't really know is if the arm coming off the torque tube is supposed to be pointing forward or aft. If it's pointing forward it's got a really acute angle to the cowl flap.

That was me on FB complaining about my cowl flaps. Here is what they look like fully closed. Yes, this is closed, not open. They about double their distance down when open. The second picture is just a little closer shot of the mechanism. In order to keep the engine cool with the cowl flaps in this position I have to be climbing at about 130 KT. But I think this is caused by the fact that I'm running about 2 to 3 GPH too lean at full rich. That's about 10%.

I'm flying mine this morning. It's 5 AM and I'm up. It won't wear off

The avionics are totally fine for basically ANY flight you might want to do. Sure, better is better, but it's also more expensive. I'd say a couple of things you can do short term: Get rid of the ADF and the Area. Get an iPad mount and use an iPad. The iPad is just as legal as the Area from Garmin for any flying and it's a way better interface, IMO Plus you can play music on it to your headphones. I see you have the S-Tec autopilot. Not bad, I had one and wow does it make things better. Other than my suggestions above, I'd leave the panel as it is for a couple of years. Then decide if you want to do the GI-275 route or the G3X route. You *could* upgrade to the GTN (6|7)50 in the meantime, but the 530 is more than capable enough and I'd just leave it. Tearing the panel open twice going to cost you an extra $10k compared to saving up and doing it once.

https://www.aircraft.com/aircraft/216677309/n651rk-1968-mooney-m20f-exec-21 And congratulations, that looks like an amazing plane, I hope you get lots of use out of it and have so much fun!!

I ordered the ADS-M1201 from Aircraft Door Seals, LLC. Is it the best? I don't know. Will it work? I'm highly confident it will.

@haymak3r Based on your name, I figured you were in the midwest. But the Willamette Valley is also fitting for making hay. My father-in-law flies out of Corvallis so I get down there fairly often. Yeah, you can get stuck away from home fairly easily there in the winter. The MVAs are quite low out there and you can get quite low with the approach at Albany or Corvallis and you could fly VFR back. Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe think of it this way... Every so often you'll need someone to go pick you up at KEUG, KCVO, or S12... But most of the time you will be able to just land at 'home'.... If you consider every flight as 2 hours of driving, but on *some* flights you need someone to go to one of the other airports to pick you up, you can calculate the average drive time per flight. A 'normal' flight 'saves' you 90 minutes (45 minutes each way) but a 'bad' flight costs you. Assuming you always go to Eugene when you can't make it to Lebanon, since every landing at KEUG requires 2 spousal drives (1 round trip to pick you up, 1 round trip to drop you off later) that's 4 hours, plus the 'regular' 2 hours for you, plus the 30 minutes for a round trip to Lebanon, so you 'lose' by 270 minutes. So it's basically a ratio of 3 to 1... If you think you'll actually land at Lebanon 3/4 of the time, it's probably worth it. This does assume that you value your spouse's 'last minute' time is the same value as yours. And that the repositioning flight is neutral value, as well as leaving the plane at Eugene for a night or two until the weather improves. In order for the average drive time to be worse, you'd need to have to be unable to land at 1/3 of the flights you take. You could leave a car or something at Eugene in the winters which would help, but you'd need an extra car.

I think there is a problem like that wire on my GTN-750Xi When I transmit while the engine at low RPM the whole engine monitor freaks out (temps show values beyond reasonable limits - CHTs of 8k degrees for 1/2 second then back to normal) And ATC says I'm kind of hard to hear sometimes, and I don't receive all that well either. This is after trying two separate GTN 750's in the same tray.

Well, long story short, I'm getting a new door seal. I replaced the storm window seal on my Mooney about a week ago. The plane has always (since I bought it last year) been quite noisy and I discovered when I pressed against the back of the storm window it would reduce the hissing quite a bit. In flight it's now incredibly obvious that the majority of the noise is now coming from the door instead of "all over" like I thought before. I'm very much looking forward to having this done.

I don't have an answer for you, but wow, that's too bad. Sounds like it's probably one of three things: A misconfiguration in the GI-275 A wiring issue A tuning/thresholds issue in the KAP-150 If you had the KFC-150 it'd be easier because you'd have the flight director to check it against