Vance Harral

This is one of those interesting cases where newer isn't a slam dunk. GI275s have higher resolution, brighter displays, and features the G5 doesn't. But whether having more, brighter pixels makes up for the physically smaller size of the display depends to some degree on individual eye performance: focus, whether you need cheaters, etc. Some people prefer the physically larger square displays over the higher resolution round ones. So make sure you go actually sit in airplanes with each flavor, before deciding. You can't really tell how it will affect you personally just from pictures. You only have to cut the panel for G5s if you want to flush mount them, and that's not a requirement, though you might have to file the hole slightly out of round to get a pair of them to sit one above the other (we did). But they stick out from the panel quite prodigiously if you don't flush mount - about 3/4". You don't really notice this sitting right in front of them, but it looks ugly from the side. If you're a flight instructor in the right seat, non-flush-mounted G5s also tend to obscure the tip of the steam gauge ASI needle when it's in the most interesting part of the range; and if you install only a G5 ADI and keep your steam gauge DG/HSI, the non-flush mount tends to obscure the top of the DG/HSI, which is of course almost the only thing you care about. Note that the airspeed and altitude tapes on the G5 are not certified primary, and thus are for "situational awareness only", the 275 is superior in this respect. But when I point this out with my flight instructor hat on, response from the pilot in the left seat is nearly always, "Yeah, whatever..." I know most of them are completely ignoring the steam gauge ASI/ALT, and it is what it is. When it comes to battery life, things get really curious. Garmin advertises 4 hours for the G5, but only 1 hour for the 275. 1 hour is "plenty" by a lot of people's standards, but if you're just comparing runtime, the G5 is the clear winner. My guess is that high-end display eats a lot of electrons. Here's a subtle point that's not obvious: the operational knob for the G5 is in the lower right-hand corner of the instrument, while the GI-275 is at lower left. In a "classic" Mooney 6-pack panel, the yoke shaft exits the panel right next to the 4 o'clock position of the lower center hole, which means the knob for a G5 HSI winds up right next to the yoke shaft, and that's an annoyance for us. Whether a lower-left or lower-right knob is better varies from airplane to airplane. Something to think about. Both devices are wonderful instruments and you can't go wrong with either. But as I said, not really a slam dunk to choose the newer GI-275, given the cost difference and the subtleties mentioned above.

The biggest issue with Cologuard is financial, at least if you use insurance for healthcare. Cologuard has a high false positive rate, about 13%. If your Cologuard test turns up positive, they send you for an actual colonoscopy, which often indicates there is nothing actually wrong. The problem is that at that point, your colonoscopy is no longer a "routine screening" that's covered at 100% by law. Instead, your insurer gets to decide how it's handled, and you typically pay your co-pay or deductible or whatever. That can run into the thousands if you're on a high deductible plan, see https://www.gastroconsa.com/how-cologuard-tests-may-end-up-costing-you-thousands/ I'm sure the people who developed Cologuard and the docs that suggest it mean well. It's a way to screen a percentage of the population too squeamish for the gold standard practice. But because of the way insurance works, it effectively looks like a big financial scam. Just go get the colonoscopy.

Here's the EGT routing on our IO-360, as of a few years ago. You'll note that the port side routing avoids the ignition wires, while the starboard side routing for the forward cylinder routes alongside the ignition wire and uses the same clamps. Like you, I never noticed any particular problem with data from the cylinder that ran along the ignition wire, and concluded it didn't really matter in practice. That said, the last time I had to replace a probe, I changed the starboard side routing to look like the port side routing and avoid the ignition wire. I don't really like the way the thermocouple wires just sorta hang loose in the breeze, but the wire is monostrand, stiff, and supports itself to some degree. I do think this "hanging in the breeze" arrangement likely contributed to a bunch of problems we had the first few years with the wires fatiguing at the crimps of the blade connectors that joined the pigtail from the probe to the connecting wire that goes to the engine monitor. I complained to E.I. about this and they claimed no one else had the same complaint as me. But then then they changed the type of connector they were using from a spade style to the "OLC" barrel connector, and our problems with wire fatigue have mostly gone away with those connectors. We've replaced several probes over the last ~16 years since engine monitor installation. They do have finite lifetimes. I think the "fast response" (smaller) probes don't last as long as the massives. They theoretically give better response, though. Our probes are further down the exhaust stack than any other installation I've ever seen. We just re-used the holes from an old analog 4-cylinder probe installation. They're further away than the installation manual for our engine monitor recommends, but having been in a bunch of different airplanes with different installations, I've come to the conclusion it just doesn't make any difference where the EGT probes are installed from a day-to-day operational perspective. Since absolute EGTs don't matter, and the numbers vary from airplane to airplane, it's not like you're trying to target any specific range of temps that make location critical. Hard to say what effect probe distance has on longevity - again we had poor luck with this before switching to the barrel style connectors, but that's a problem with the wiring, not the probes themselves. The conventional wisdom is that the closer they are to the cylinder, the higher the indicated temperature, and therefore the shorter the life. But I can't offer even anecdotal evidence that our probes are lasting longer than others' because they're further down.

Glad to hear from you, Andrew. Thanks for checking in with the community.

I think the risk of failure for a gear set that was properly inspected and lubed in the past 200 hours is quite low, and I don't lose any sleep over it. As discussed in other threads, though, the gear set really does wear out over time, even when properly inspected and lubed. That's the reason the lack of availability is so maddening. It's a little bit like being told the manufacturer of your airplane just isn't interested in the availability of brake pads or O-rings or oil filters, or other stuff that you are absolutely guaranteed to have to replace at some point. The long lifetime of the gear set compared to those other consumables makes it a slow-moving problem, but it's a problem nonetheless.

Your reasoning is logical, but that's not the way humans work. I've given about 1000 hours of instruction. That's not much compared to folks here with a lot more experience, but it's enough for me to have put a large number of pilots with varying experience in situations that make them slightly to largely uncomfortable, in a distracting environment. The idea that pilots will make a rational response to specific problems based on logic like you're stating here, just ain't true. I've seen pilots either lock up, or react "backwards" to all kinds of warning indicators: horns, buzzers, G-loads and so forth. And these are smart people who can tell you all the right answers on the ground over coffee. So I know based on what I've seen with my own eyes, that no one should take any comfort whatsoever from the idea they would "naturally" react properly to an unusual situation. The best you can do is actually induce the situation, and train for the recovery, until it hopefully becomes instinctual to do the right thing. Not instinctual because it's "logical", but just because it's what you did the last N times you actually experienced that situation, in training. Deliberately putting yourself in such situations with an instructor is reasonable for a certain class of problem: stalls, spiral divergence, etc. That's what Scott is doing in the video. There's another class of problem where it's not reasonable to deliberately put yourself in the situation in anything other than a simulator, e.g. engine failure immediately after takeoff. I try to get in the simulator to practice those sorts of things, but I don't do it as often as I should, and I don't suffer from any illusion that I'd be ice cool and always do the right thing in a pressure situation I've rarely or never experienced. I try my best to convince other pilots the same.

@gsxrpilot is alive and well, I had lunch with him this weekend. But like many folks (not yet including me for better or worse), he has decided that the less time he spends on social media, forums, etc. the better. Even if he was here, though, I doubt he'd have much to say about the 262. His airplane left the factory as a 252 which he updated to an Encore. As far as I know, he doesn't have any more insight into the 231 -> 262 conversion than I do, which is just we both know someone that had one. https://mooneyspace.com/topic/2181-comparison-of-mooney-252-and-mooney-262-conversion/ has a pretty good summary of the feature differences between the 262 and a "real" 252. But it's been so long since either was made, that most of the differences at this point are more about the individual airplane under consideration than the designed features. I think the increasing difficulty in obtaining "conventional" Mooney parts (landing gear parts, intake boots, etc.) is a much larger concern than anything associated with unique aspects of the various Mooney conversions like the 262, Rocket, etc.

The classic approach prescribes lacing for electrical wiring and Adel clamps for hoses and cables. That said, every mechanic I've ever spoken with about this says they use zip ties where reasonable. "Reasonable" is up to their judgement, like so many other things.

Splices are acceptable, but soldering them is contrary to the guidance in AC 43-13. The theory is that solder joints are brittle and likely to break, crimp splices less so. I'm not saying I necessarily subscribe to the theory, because I've had plenty of trouble with crimps. But that's the conventional wisdom, and the reason @PT20J - who I greatly respect for his practical experience - is directing you to use aircraft-grade butt splices. More importantly, you should generally be following the guidance in AC 43-13 as opposed to asking Some Guy On The Internet. 11-97 recommends replacing wire that has splices at less than 10-foot intervals unless for a specific reason, so yes it recommends replacing the whole wire even though it's a PIA and lots of mechanics ignore the advice in practice. The whole of Section 13 discusses splicing itself, where acceptable. It says there shouldn't be more than one splice in any single wire segment except in special circumstances. Section 13 also has guidance on acceptable lugs, including the tiny ring terminal on the CHT probe, which really is designed in accordance with industry guidance. FYI, other sections of AC 43-13 provide specific guidance to use "solderless" connectors, and discuss crimping extensively. The only places in AC 43-13 that mention soldering technique are in the context of pins that are mechanically supported in connector assemblies, and - interestingly - the use of solder in mechanical work rather than electrical.

The OEM CHT probe is a thermistor, not a thermocouple like modern engine monitors use. The good news about this is a thermistor just needs conventional aircraft-grade Tefzel wire, not mono-strand thermocouple wire. You can use the same type of wire for both the CHT probe and your landing light, though perhaps not the same gauge. Something like this should be fine: https://www.steinair.com/product/18-ga-white-mil-spec-wire/ Regarding gauge, the critical factor is to ensure the current carrying capacity of the wire is greater than the circuit breaker which protects it. The whole point of the circuit breaker is to ensure the wiring in the circuit doesn't overheat and catch fire. Here's a current capacity chart for Tefzel wire: https://www.prowireusa.com/tefzel-amperage-chart

I heartily endorse Aerodon's GMU11 mount! Worked perfectly to mount our GMU11 in the wing.

Stupid question from a vintage Mooney owner: why do the newer Mooneys have such deep "filler necks" in the first place, given all the grief they cause with actually filling the tank to capacity? I'm not near my airplane at the moment, but my recollection is that the structure that holds the fuel cap on my M20F is only trivially thicker than the wing skin itself. You don't read threads here on Mooneyspace about C/E/F/J owners trying to "burp" their tanks to get more fuel in, as so often comes up with the K/M/R/S/TN.

Obligatory pedantry from a high-density-altitude resident: manifold pressure at a specific throttle position changes with density altitude. So if you adjust the switch to trigger at, say, about 12" MP around your sea-level airport, it won't trigger above about 8" MP when approaching an airport that's 4000' higher than your home field. That means it might never trigger on a normal approach to that 4000' field. So... if you operate out of both high DA and low DA airports, your options are to have the switch trigger at annoyingly high MP, down low; or potentially not trigger when you need it, up high. We choose the former because of where our airplane is based, others might understandably choose the latter.

The 40:1 gears were installed as OEM equipment in later-model Mooneys with additional lower doors on the landing gear, and higher Vle/Vlo speeds. I presume they came from ITT, which was the manufacturer of the actuator at the time. They are not a "retrofit" in the sense of being special, one-off parts, manufactured specifically to address SB 190B. Rather, a case of using parts from a newer design in an older housing.

Every few years, someone posts a question like this about the electric gear actuators and the related AD/SB. Whether intended or not, I feel like it often has an air of, "The gears don't really wear out, right? The AD is just a scam?" But that's fine, nothing wrong with being skeptical and asking real owners what they've actually seen. Every time the question is asked, though, I feel obligated to relay my anecdotal experience that yes, the gears really do wear out. Specifically, in 2009, at ~2200 TT on our 1976 M20F, the 20:1 gears were worn to the point they failed the 1/2-tooth backlash test. They had a scalloped shape, just like the SB/AD shows. This happened despite dutifully servicing the actuator as required, during the 5 years we owned the airplane after purchasing it in 2004. But we couldn't tell from the logs how often - if ever - the actuator was serviced prior to 2004. It's possible the prior owners neglected to maintain them properly, and they wore out sooner than they otherwise would have. But I'm also reasonably sure those 20:1 gears were original equipment from 1976. Regardless of how they were maintained, I consider 33 years to be a pretty reasonable lifetime, and I was not upset about the replacement cost. We installed 40:1 gears in 2009 (they were readily available then) and have serviced the actuator every other annual since. In practice this works out to about 150 hour servicing intervals, which seems very reasonable. The 100-hour "part 2" action in SB-190B is not possible with our particular actuator, as it has no grease fitting. In fact, our actuator is actually an ITT LA11C2114 rather than the LA11C2110 called out in the SB. So technically, neither the AD nor the SB applies to our particular aircraft. But we act as if it did, per advice from Don Maxwell. I have always performed the gear inspection myself, with a mechanic looking over my shoulder. So I have lots of personal data points on what our gears look like over time. Here in 2024, 15 years and another 1300 hours since the 2009 swap, I am definitely seeing a small amount of wear in our 40:1 gear set vs. what they looked like new. The wear is almost undetectable from inspection to inspection, but cumulatively over time, even the 40:1 gears are developing a slight amount of scalloping. I don't lose any sleep over this, and it's likely I'll be long retired from aviating before this set of gears fails the backlash measurement. But I attest the wear is present, and something worth paying attention to - same as other long-term maintenance concern like exhaust, landing gear biscuits, engine overhaul, etc. I freely concede that one data point from one owner isn't necessarily applicable to other airplanes. But I disagree with the premise that properly-maintained gears last "indefinitely". I've seen the wear over time with my own eyes.

I sympathize, this would seem weird to anyone who has an understandably simplistic idea of battery capacity. But it's useful to understand there's really no direct way for a G5 or cellphone or any other battery-powered device to determine how much charge remains in the battery; so this idea of "percent charged" is something of a lie. Modern battery-powered devices use computer algorithms based on empirical tests to estimate time/percent remaining, and those algorithms get less accurate as the battery ages. Every such algorithm has weird corner cases that the designer desperately tries to avoid exposing to the end user, but sometimes they creep through. Weird discontinuities are one aspect of that. Another is the huge variability in how much longer a battery lasts once it's down to the "red zone" (10%, or whatever). For some excruciating detail on this, you can start with https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-903-how-to-measure-state-of-charge. Full on nerds like myself can go on to look at individual ICs that implement certain charge counting algorithms, e.g. https://www.analog.com/en/products/max17263.html

This is entirely reasonable advice. But "early" is subjective, and as you note, wind at the surface is often lower than wind at altitude - even 100' AGL can make a significant difference. I don't necessarily want to encourage pilots to wait until the landing flare to establish a crosswind slip. But I've also coached a few pilots on the more timid side, that inability to hold the extended centerline in a slip when they're hundreds of feet above and a half mile from the runway threshhold isn't particularly meaningful, and they might be giving up on things a little early. The reasonable abort altitude varies with skill and experience, of course. I think it's a good exercise to go up to a safe altitude and practice getting into and out of slips until one's comfort with doing so increases. The purpose of this isn't necessarily just for crosswind landings. Smoothly adding and removing slip on approach is also a nice drag management technique for precision landings, particularly in simpler airplanes with fewer drag configuration options.

You don't really need to have a new faceplate fabricated to "reorient" that vertical layout. The folks at engravers.net will make you a thin overlay in metal or lexan that will stick on top of the existing plate, based on a dimensioned drawing you send. All you'd have to do is remove the switchplate nuts and turn knob, stick on the overlay, then reinstall. I've used engravers.net several times for new/updated placards. They're inexpensive, and look great - every bit as good as factory original.

The mistake you made is common. I've experienced it dozens of times, mostly teaching new student pilots to do a mag check. I do try to avoid it, and I'm not saying it's no big deal. But it's also very likely that nothing was damaged. Certainly take a look - maybe at the next oil change - but I wouldn't lie awake at night worrying about damage to the airplane or to your ego.

I know the "Normal Procedures" section of many POHs prescribe full throttle when leaning for best power in a normally aspirated airplane at high density altitudes. But let's apply some sanity here... Go ahead and perform that full-throttle leaning operation at high DA, once, which won't hurt your engine as others have noted. Then make a finger smudge mark or use a grease pencil or a post-it note or count turns or whatever, to mark where the mixture knob wound up. Then immediately repeat the leaning procedure, but use a lower "run-up RPM" instead of full throttle: 2000 or 1700 or whatever. Note the difference in mixture position between the two methods. For the vast majority of normally-aspirated GA airplanes, the difference will be small to non-existent. Then go look at a power-developed-vs-mixture chart, maybe like this one. Observe that it's very important to not run full rich at high DA, because developed power drops off significantly; but observe also that once you've leaned anywhere near best power, the curve is very flat. This means small differences in mixture setting around the best power point make very little difference in developed power. Certainly not significant enough to be the difference in whether you hit that tree off the end of the runway. So even if the mixture setting you get at 1700 is slightly different than what you got at full throttle, it doesn't matter. If these observations hold true for you and your airplane, it's rational to conclude you're not giving up anything meaningful by leaning for best power at less than full throttle. It's also rational to conclude you don't need to take minutes-on-end to carefully dial that mixture vernier to eek out the last 10 RPM of indication. Just set the mixture at or near full rich, quickly bring the engine to runup RPM; adjust the mixture in a timely manner for a decent RPM increase (doesn't take more than a few seconds), and get on with your mag and prop checks. Doing so saves prop wear, paint nicks, gas, and noise complaints from the neighbors, with no compromise in safety. This approach is appropriate for the vast majority of the piston GA fleet. To be clear, there are some exceptions involving pressure carburetors and other interesting mixture animals. But for your basic 172 or Cherokee or non-turbo Mooney, there's just no convincing evidence that it's important to use full throttle when leaning for best power at high DA.

I know this isn't the answer you want to hear, but I don't think the orientation matters in practice. The IPC illustration for the main gear doesn't display the bevel on the collar. The IPC illustration of the nose gear may show the bevel, but it's not clear, and doesn't seem to match where the bevel actually is (see attachment). The service manual doesn't mention the bevel, it just refers to installing "the collar". And as you note, the retrofit kit doesn't mention the bevel either. I just looked through some old photos I took of measuring the gap with respect to shock disk replacement, and I can see the bevel in the photos on one side of the mains (bevel up) and I can't see it in the photos of the other side (bevel down, or not there at all). I can't see any obstruction that the bevel would clear, nor can I see any reason the collar would be easier to remove or re-install based on the orientation of the bevel. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps the bevel is designed to snug against the bolt head. But I have a sneaking suspicion the beveled collar was actually designed for some application, and just happened to be convenient for use in our airplanes.

Can you post a picture of your panel, and let us know what engine monitor you are considering?

Maybe relevant:

It tells you nothing? On the contrary, it tells you a heck of a lot. This idea that asking prices are completely divorced from the reality of sales prices only has merit when N is small. It's a fair point if you're talking about the single Hawker Sea Fury for sale on Controller; but not for, say, an M20J. The dozens for sale on Controller/TAP/whatever have a price range that is almost perfectly linear with engine time, and it's extremely unlikely anyone is selling an equivalently aged model for half the price advertised on those sites. The reason is that some very healthy percentage of people advertising airplanes and RVs and other toys actually want to sell them, and will move asking prices as needed to do so. Sure, you get the occasional weird outlier ("Of course the airplane is for sale, honey!"), and that's why the asking price for that Sea Fury isn't meaningful. But I'll say it again: Mooneys are not special exotics. There are enough of them on the market that asking prices on the for-sale sites are a fine way to estimate current values. That's the only place Vref and similar tools can get data anyway, so it's not like those tools have some special edge that individuals don't. Even brokers who give you valuation advice are not going to disclose exact sales prices to anyone other than the buyer and seller of a particular transaction, because doing so would kill their business. None of this is to say that an extremely casual buyer can't occasionally be successful with a lowball offer, or that an extremely casual seller can't wait years until a sucker comes along. But for people who are actually serious about buying or selling a Mooney in a timely manner, everything you need is on the for sale sites. That'll be true until the inventory gets so scarce that there aren't enough data points for the market to be rational.

If we're going to be good nerds about 1.2 or 1.3 times Vs0, remember that this rule of thumb is based on calibrated airspeed, not indicated airspeed. In the average Mooney, indicated vs. calibrated airspeed error in the landing configuration are pretty close, so it doesn't make a lot of difference. It's more interesting to have this conversation about other airplanes, particularly the venerable Cessna 172. Vs0 at gross weight in a 1978 172N is 41 KIAS. But if you look at the airspeed calibration tables, 41 KIAS in the landing configuration is 48 KCAS, a difference of almost 20 percent. 48 * 1.3 gives you a rule-of-thumb approach speed of 62 KCAS, which converts back to 60 KIAS, per the airspeed calibration table. That's smack dab in the middle of the 55-65 KIAS speed recommended for a normal landing in the 172N POH. If you don't understand that, you might instead compute 41 * 1.3 = 53 KIAS, and either claim the 172 POH was written by a bunch of lawyers who added unnecessary fudge factor for liability reasons, or that the 1.3x rule is bogus. But that would be bad analysis. You can certainly make a nice, short-field landing in a 172 at 53 KIAS approach speed; but there's not much stall margin left at that speed if you're really at gross weight.