Vance Harral

My data point is 6 months old, which is an eternity given current market behavior. Still, we added a 4th partner at the end of December with *no* instrument rating, *no* complex endorsement, and *no* time in Mooneys (or any other complex aircraft) other than a couple of demo flights. Other three partners have IR, lots of time in type, etc. $58K hull value, pretty close to yours. Total premium was $2787 with Avemco. That was dramatically less expensive than options our long-time broker was able to find with other carriers. We're not quite old enough yet to worry about sticking with a single broker "forever", so with apologies to our broker, we switched to Avemco.

I like the cut of your jib, 1980Mooney. I also don't think I should pay more to subsidize others' risk taking. So... here's a list of risky behaviors many Mooney owners do not engage in: flying at high density altitude flying over mountains flying over water flying at night flying in instrument conditions flying IMC with less than 3 independent attitude indicators flying IMC at all, regardless of equipment flying without an engine monitor flying without ADSB-IN for traffic and weather flying without an angle of attack indicator choosing not to sump the tanks before every single flight choosing not to run a specific W&B calculation before every single flight taking off or landing on runways with less than a 50% margin vs. book performance performing touch-and-go's in a complex airplane It's easy to find accident reports associated with each of these behaviors. So please let us know which of these actions you engage in, and how much it's appropriate to raise your rates, so the rest of us are not paying to subsidize your deliberately risky behavior. Yeah, yeah, I know... the risks you take are perfectly reasonable, it's only the risk others take that are unreasonable and should put them in a separate insurance pool. I hope the list above illustrates the problem with this way of thinking. Shared risk is the bedrock of insurance, and separating buyers into smaller and smaller pools eventually kills the whole concept. You already pay an adjusted rate that takes into account the type of airplane you choose to fly, how much it's worth, your ratings, and your experience. How much more do you really want to carve up that pool? Are you sure doing so is actually going to benefit you?

We've had the 7000B for about 9 years and have been happy with it. Installed it to replace a KMA-24 just like you're contemplating. I don't long for IntelliAudio, but that feature sure seems to get a lot of press. I've only experienced it on the ground, in a marketing booth at a show, which probably is not the environment where it would really shine. I find that in almost all cases, old-school patience is sufficient to distinguish one audio source from another. But sometimes that requires shutting off one of the sources for a few seconds while waiting for the other to quiet down, and that can be an annoyance. The Bluetooth audio output seems like a nice feature for those who want to Youtube their flights, but that's just not our thing. And the variety of Bluetooth music input options seem superfluous in the modern era, where nearly every passenger has their own audio source and connection to their own headset. Having said all that, the incremental cost of the hardware is almost nothing compared to installation costs and general flying costs. If we had the work done today instead of a decade ago, it's very likely we'd choose the 450.

The point is that loose connections of any type (ground, power or signal), at any location, can cause audio noise. As Yetti says, they "may" (or may not) change with engine RPM. I'll say it again. Check for loose wiring first. It's tedious, but cheap, and absolutely can be the cause of various types of audio noise. It's as good a place to start as any.

On the contrary, this is a completely reasonable guess. Over our years of ownership we've had two "alternator whine" incidents that were not solved by noise filters, or even replacing the alternator. In both cases the culprit turned out to simply be a loose ground wire. Always check the wiring connections first. It's tedious, but cheap, and absolutely can be the cause of various types of audio noise.

Like all retract pilots, I've pondered the gear-up vs. gear-down ditching question from time to time. The problem as I see it is that what many pilots think is an "obvious" positive or negative consequence of gear up vs. gear down is (1) not obvious if you start thinking more critically; and (2) there's no evidence in the actual data to support the "obvious" position. As an example, everyone knows you should leave the gear up if you have to ditch in the water, right? Otherwise the gear will catch, turn you upside down, and drown you? Well, not so fast. Leaving the gear up makes you more prone to catch a wingtip at first contact, which is a more severe impact event due to the ensuing side load (or in the worst case, cartwheel). In fact, wing-first contact with the gear up is practically guaranteed if the water is anything other than smooth, at least in airplanes like Mooneys with relatively little dihedral. Next, putting the gear down may or may not result in the airplane flipping, but the only study I'm aware of that actually tries to look at this concluded there's no measurable difference in survivability: see Myth #5 at https://www.nanaimoflyingclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/EQUIPPED-TO-SURVIVE-tm-Ditching-Myths-Torpedoed.pdf. Note also in that study that there's no meaningful variation in survivability for high- vs. low-wing, or fixed vs. retract. More generally, I think a lot of retractable gear pilots have this idea that gear down "catches" anything other than a smooth paved surface, resulting in a high-G stop; and gear up is safer because you'll "slide" on that same surface with a lower-G stop. I'm unconvinced. It's equally likely a gear-down landing on rough terrain will simply tear the gear off the airplane during the impact sequence, fortuitously absorbing some of the impact force while allowing the cabin to continue moving forward; and/or that trying to "belly it in" on water/mud/whatever actually winds up with a worse sudden stoppage than gear down due to catching a wingtip or whatever. We all have to make our own decisions (ideally ahead of time), and I don't think there are clearly right or wrong answers. But I think about this stuff every time I see someone question another pilot's decision about gear-up vs. gear-down in an off-field landing.

Depends on what else has to be done to get the G5 installed. I'm sure some are being installed for the $1500 201Steve quotes, but none of many shops within 50 miles or so of the Denver area would do our airplane for that rate. The place we wound up actually having the work done a few months ago billed 27.5 hours of labor total, for the following invoice detail: Removed attitude indicator, mounted G5 instrument, plugged vacuum system lines going to attitude indicator, removed RH side C.B. subpanel, relocated Autopilot C.B. to lower bus bar, installed short throw 5amp CB for G5 installation, fabricated G5 wire harness and installed, replaced Garmin GTN650 P1001 Dsub connector, tapped into pitot/static system for G5 instrument, adjusted vacuum to 4.8 IN, performed system configuration. At $95/hour that's $2612.50 for the labor alone. I don't think we got a particularly good deal, but I don't think we got grievously gouged, either. A lot of the cost depends on the hourly rate for labor where you're having the installation done. Mooney speeds allowed us to consider shops further away with cheaper labor cost, but then you have to weigh that against the potential need to return to the shop in the event of a problem. We decided having the work done nearby (in fact right at our home field) was worth a premium. So in summary, the single G5 installation itself is only part of the labor. In our case there was re-work of the existing vacuum system (either you pay to remove it entirely or you pay to plug lines and readjust the vacuum regulator), a circuit breaker had to be relocated in order for the G5 breaker to be installed, and a Dsub connector on the GTN650 we used as a GPS position source for the G5 wound up needing to be replaced (your guess as to whether it "wore out" vs. the installer "breaking it during the work", it's essentially impossible to tell). Anyone who tells you what the installation cost should be without going into at least a little detail on ancillary work isn't giving particularly useful information. Finally, if you fly IFR, note that 91.411(a)(2) requires a fresh static system check "following any opening and closing of the static pressure system", and installing a G5 certainly counts. If you happen to do this around the same time your IFR static system check was coming due anyway, there's no extra cost. Otherwise, add a few hundred bucks for a static system check you would not have otherwise needed.

Ah, that's a big difference. Agree there is "barely" enough energy to fly a typical rectangular pattern. The CFI that was training me at the time showed me a power-off "180" with squared corners once, just to prove a point, but there's no room for mistakes... or headwinds.

Sure, but Shadrach specifically said "there is barely adequate energy to fly a tight pattern in light winds". Again, just not my experience in the same airframe. I don't have a good handle on the change in descent rate with change in density altitude, I could easily believe you're right that thin air is no better than thick. Something we probably all agree on is, if the goal is survivability rather than meeting ACS standards, turn toward the runway ASAP. Landing long/hot and running off the end of a good surface and/or into a fence at low speed, is a very survivable event. Coming up short and stall/spinning trying to stretch the glide is not.

Agreed, but you can improve the bond by roughing up the surface of the plastic prior to using the epoxy. I've had success with this method, but also failures where I didn't sufficiently roughen the surface of the plastic first. The acetone solution sounds superior when done correctly, but also less forgiving of mistakes.

Note: unfortunately you can't compare your EGTs with others' EGTs. The EGT value "reported" by a thermocouple probe is highly dependent on the exact placement of the probes in the exhaust pipe, and that varies from airplane to airplane. It depends to a lesser extent on other factors that also vary between individual airplanes, and to an even lesser extent on variations in atmospheric conditions. Nobody worries about standardizing this, because the only utility of EGT is in understanding relative change from peak EGT. So while I understand your reason for asking about EGT values, it's just not going to be useful information. Focus on the other good advice you're getting here.

Do you intend for the airplane to be a beauty queen, or a workhorse? If the former, you "must" do something because fuel stains are unsightly, and disconcerting to passengers. If the latter, read the Mooney maintenance manual, and 43.13, and develop an understanding of what constitutes airworthiness with respect to fuel leaks. The standard for airworthiness is not zero leaks. Most/all of the Mooneys you see in your life with unsightly fuel stains on the wings are in fact airworthy, because the leaks are outboard of the belly, and the rate is small enough to not be a concern. In the context of resurrecting a neglected airframe, it may be perfectly reasonable to postpone maintenance on fuel tank leaks until other issues are addressed.

This is significantly different from my experience, which is interesting given that we're both flying F models. But I think I know why... When teaching the commercial power-off 180 to partners in our 1976 M20F, power is reduced to idle abeam the touchdown point, with the gear already down. In light winds, if an immediate turn toward the runway is made at this point, there is far too much energy at the touchdown point to meet the commercial +100/-0 standard - unless you force the airplane onto the ground, which is an obvious no-no. I teach them to wait a distinct 3 count after reducing power to idle before making the turn, unless there is an especially significant headwind component. I'm sure the experience you are reporting for you airplane is what you actually see. One explanation may be that our home drome is at 5050' MSL, and density altitude is usually higher than that, so less drag and faster true airspeed for the same indicated airspeed. At what elevation/DA is your experience?

The most important part of this sentence is, "I tried ..." Backup instruments that you haven't actually practiced flying with are not useful backups, and should not be relied on or even used at all in an actual instrument failure emergency. There is always a learning curve. Case in point: the GTX-345 in our airplane has a built-in ADAHRS, and you can bring it up on an iPad via Foreflight or other EFB applications. The first time I tried to fly with it in a simulated AI failure state, I found it difficult. Partly that's because the ADAHRS isn't actually very good. Its software equivalent of "pendulous vanes" is laggy, and it's not unusual for it to indicate a few degrees of bank when the aircraft is actually straight and level. That's probably not going to kill you, but the dissonance between attitude and heading change is weird, and I wouldn't want to be dealing with it for the first time ever in an actual instrument failure scenario. The other thing that took some getting used to is that when your AI is backed by a synthetic representation of the world instead of simple blue/brown, objects displayed on the AI move, even when you're holding straight and level. Anyone with a synthetic vision device knows this, but if you've never seen it before it takes some getting used to. In summary: almost any backup can be useful, but don't count on it if you haven't actually practiced with it.

Nitpick: the G5 is only certified primary for AI, DG, and TC. The fact it happens to display ASI and ALT (and VSI) data as well is ancillary. That data is legally just "backup" for your existing certified ASI/ALT, so you can't remove those legacy instruments when you install, say, dual G5s. The GI-275 has broader certification. But it's unclear to me if a single GI-275 running in an EFIS mode meets the requirements for all of AI/DG/ASI/ALT, or if you have to have multiple GI-275s in various modes.

Someone posted in another forum that the noise is indeed the igniters, and that it's "normal" to hear this noise in a Citation in IMC. But I have no personal experience with that.

The Service and Maintenance Manual for our vintage of Mooney doesn't detail the adjustment procedure, see attached p. 5-11. It just says the warning horn should be "actuated by the throttle control when the gear is not down-and-locked and the throttle is set at 10 inches or less of manifold pressure". This statement triggers one of my pet peeves about these discussions: the microswitch that triggers the gear warning logic is a function of cable position only. The MP reading you see at that particular cable position will vary with altitude and atmospheric conditions. That's why those in the know talk about setting the switch to trigger at about XX inches of MP, rather than some specific MP value. The M20J manual is a better reference, acknowledging that the switch is set to trigger "when the throttle is retarded to within 1/4 to 3/8 in. throttle position." See attached screen shot. While it's not official, and I'm not an A&P, my advice is to fly with a buddy and some painter's tape or a grease pencil or other temporary marking device, execute some normal final approaches, and have your buddy mark whatever throttle setting you use. Back on the ground, set the logic switch accordingly. On my 1976 M20F, the trigger can be easily fine-tuned via an adjustment screw, through a hole in the plastic cover surrounding the throttle quadrant. My understanding is older airplanes with push/pull knobs are a little more trouble to adjust, but not unreasonable.

About $130 at Aircraft Spruce these days: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/lgpages/lord-m20-mooney.php If you hunt around a little, you can find slightly cheaper prices, but there's not much variation. These things go up about $10 apiece every year. The first time we replaced ours in the mid-2000s, they were about half what they cost now.

Oh, the irony... For the record, I am not in the insurance business and have no affiliation with any insurance company other than as a customer: aviation or otherwise.

This is not an insightful statement. Shared risk is the bedrock of all insurance. I see this sort of complaint a lot: auto insurance, health insurance, whatever. I'm safer/smarter/healthier than the other guy, so why should I pay for the cost of their poor decisions? Shouldn't insurance companies separate the insurable pools into "good guys" and "bad guys", giving the former generous discounts while appropriately punishing the latter for their poor behavior? After all, those guys were accidents waiting to happen due to their poor habits/practices, whereas I would only use insurance in some incredibly rare, unforeseen situation that wasn't at all my fault. I think this attitude is counterproductive, but if you disagree, take action! Set up an insurance pool with exactly one member: yourself. Stop paying some third party for hull insurance, it's still 100% legal to do so. Take the premiums you would have otherwise spent, and put them in the bank. You can draw on those funds in the event of an act-of-god-that-was-totally-not-your-fault. Since such a thing is obviously an incredibly rare event, you'll almost certainly have plenty of money in the bank if it ever occurs. And if it doesn't, you keep all your money, with none of it going to those scofflaws who are ruining the insurance system.

That's completely nuts. We had a Garmin G5 (slightly more expensive hardware) installed in our M20F by a shop who (1) had never done one before; and (2) had to replace a D-shell connector on our GTN due to bad pins. Walk-away price was $5,505, total labor was 27.5 hours, and my feeling is we got a fair-but-not-particularly-good deal. I can't imagine paying another 2+ AMUs to have an AV-30-C installed.

If a firmware update is done correctly, it's not unreasonable to charge 0.5-1.0 of labor per item being updated. In addition to performing the actual firmware update, the installer is supposed to log the update, print out a revised POH supplement of appropriate size/format and install it in the POH, and provide updated ICA documents if any. This paperwork dance takes a little time, almost always longer than performing the firmware update itself. Some avionics shops will indeed do updates for free as a courtesy for good customers. But free shouldn't necessarily be expected. Again, the paperwork dance takes a little time. Note that if you're not getting updated POH and ICA paperwork with the firmware update, the work is not actually being done correctly.

What revision of software are you running in your GTN? The non-TAWS, Terrain Alerting System, was introduced in software revision 5.00. If the software in your GTN is older than that, it won't have the Terrain Alerting System feature.

If all other options fall though, I'm relatively flexible Wednesday/Thursday/Friday. Based out of KLMO, but can get to KGXY or KFNL if necessary. I'm a CFII, if that makes a difference to you.

Older models do not have inner gear doors, so the caliper is not "stowed by a gear door panel", it hangs out in the breeze (see pics above). When the landing gear is retracted, the wheel axle to which the caliper torque plate attaches is not perpendicular to the bottom wing skin. It sits at a bit of an angle. Because of this, the reversed caliper position hangs out in the breeze a tad less than the original caliper position... ... but not by much.