DXB

Very glad Foreflight is keeping up and am looking forward to checking it out. I was not enthusiastic about making the switch to Garmin Pilot.

Absolutely, but repeatedly resetting a tripped breaker in flight without knowing what tripped it is certainly tempting fate. https://planeandpilotmag.com/should-you-reset-a-circuit-breaker/

Yikes - in flight fire waiting to happen. Figure out where it is shorting.

+ Agree an LED is the way to go, but what you have is not normal and should be sorted regardless. Does turning on your pitot heat do the same? It should be a comparably large electical load I think? Yes or no might help trouble shoot where the issue is. I'll leave it to the folks with more expertise on how electrons move about to figure this one out

I know this plane - immaculate airframe, well cared for, regularly flown, basic IFR panel with with 430 and basic autopilot.

It's outta control, today due to @vinni68

The implementation of the Trutrak / Aerocruze 100 for Mooney has been a ongoing clusterf*ck for several years now. It's painful to watch. Everything BK touches turns to sh*t. It would be great if the entire Mooney community wrote off BK and turned their attention to the Trio folks to encourage them to finish their STC. They seemed committed to doing so by end of this year when I spoke to them at KOSH - not that I put much faith in that outcome.

Interesting - thanks for clarifying. I suppose there also could be a slight timing advance if the Surefly discharges early due to a narrow gap, but the electronics probably compensate automatically for this? I kinda hope the next mag setup I put in after the 2400 hr life of my left Surefly is over is like the (currently still experimental) Emag on both sides. They draw ship's power for stronger spark but also have an internal alternator to make them autonomous if power is lost. I noted at KOSH that they were bought by Hartzell a couple months ago - maybe not totally a good thing but they sounded committed to pushing the STC forward more quickly.

I'm doing my first spark plug maintenance at 100 hours after install of a new set of Tempest UREM37BY spark plugs. They were installed at overhaul of my O-360-A1D without altering the gap set by the manufacturer (I think ~0.018?) to account for my Surefly SIM4N on the left side. I think Surefly recommends a gap of 0.022 to 0.035, favoring the high end of the range - not sure why, I think maybe because the longer duration spark otherwise causes excess wear? By contrast, the Bendix mag I have on the right side generally favors a 0.015-0.019 spark plug gap. My engine has run great for the first 100 hours SMOH with this setup, and just now there's starting to be slight roughness and occasional misses on the right mag at runup (without engine monitor anomalies). I think this makes sense since I see some of the plugs have worn past a 0.019 gap. Predictably there's a bit more wear on the plugs driven by the Surefly given the longer duration spark. My question is: What would you do for plug rotation and gapping in this situation?? I can find no official guidance on this.. The standard rotation scheme will keep the Surefly and Bendix plugs separate throughout their life, which I think is desirable, except maybe the Surefly plugs will wear out faster leading to earlier plug replacement. However this keeps gapping much simpler - just let the Surefly plugs continue to wear into their optimal range while continuing to narrow the gap on the Bendix plugs as needed. Would anyone do anything different here? My ignition setup: 1 2 3 4 TOP Bendix Surefly Bendix Surefly BOTTOM Surefly Bendix Surefly Bendix

Some thoughts: (1) Your Mooney is an awesome instrument platform (2) Finding vintage planes with fully modern avionics is tough, making your plane an excellent blank slate on which to build an IFR panel that will serve you for a decade or much more after the investment up front (3) You will find a CFII to train you in it. Again it is a great instrument platform. 10 years ago, I did an extensive update on my panel before instrument training. It was a great decision in retrospect. Though I don't have time to stay proficient in multiple planes, I remain very comfortable flying hard IMC in that plane.

+1 that the FAA, to their credit, does follow through on the registration data removal request . In my case it took a couple of weeks. Thanks again to @shawnd for posting how to navigate the website to submit the request! For all the folks who consider an LLC simply to hide their info (which can be circumvented with a little effort), this seems like a MUCH better solution. I submitted a request to https://www.aviationdb.com/ that they update their online information to reflect the public FAA information for my tail number, but I will be surprised if they do anything - anyone else have success on that front? Nevertheless, this is progress...

Just use them before you hit the starter, then turn off at night if other planes are operating nearby. And you'll be glad you went LED all around! Brighter, minimal battery load, last forever so you'll never be caught with them inop when you want to fly. I was happy to junk my belly light after the bulb blew at an inopportune time, and bulb replacement was $40+.

To be clear, I agree taxiing around with strobes on at night when other planes are operating is annoying. However, I always start up on the ramp with LED strobes on - the attention divert at that moment is appropriate, day or night . They are far more more effective than an old coffee grinder - particularly at the belly location on Mooneys, whose low stance makes it even less effective.

unnecessary, probably a waste of money, unless you don't meet minumum legal lighting requirements https://flywat.com/pages/aircraft-lighting-regulations Low draw LEDs let you keep strobe and nav light switches on all the time, even before startup. The belly beacon adds nothing here. I had my factory beacon on the belly removed on my '68 and the hole sealed when I went all LED including stobes several years ago.

I too am a member of this faux alternator failure club. Luckily mine happened a bit closer to home.