DXB

And more to the point...no Mooney Aircraft Co. to be bought by the Chinese. And then there would be no worries about it closing down so we cant find parts for our vintage planes. Just trying to get this thread back on track

The vintage owners gotta be grateful to everyone who has an interest in making parts for us - @GeeBee, LASAR, etc. I'd rather the profit goes to folks like this than the factory or some warehouse owner.

The guys who go around saying crap like that are usually the same folks who have no insight into their own vulnerability and limitations. This attitude was once pervasive in my own profession, but luckily much of it has been beaten out of us. Luckily I don't run into it much in aviation, but it is easy to recognize as a red flag when I do.

My ADS-b out transponder will let me switch the broadcast call sign to anything I want - I think some others may require unlock by avionics shop to change it. It would be fun to play with this, if it didn't get you in trouble. The rules are clear that starting in 2020, the transponder has to display the same thing as on the filed flight plan, and ATC gets an alert if there is a mismatch: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/september/27/faa-updates-call-sign-policies Not sure if there's any rule governing what it says when vfr and talking to no one?

That stupid vent gives me minimal airflow in the cabin, and so I never use it. And it is a corrosion risk from water entry. I don’t know if I’ll have patience to fix it when my wire eventually snaps. Anyone ever remove it entirely and rivet a plate over the opening?

Undoubtedly our planes are not suited to current automotive oil, which is optimized for the much tighter tolerances and temperature regulation of modern water cooled car engines. But ashless dispersant oils were originally developed for car engines and adopted into aviation in the 1950s, and tetra-ethyl lead is certainly no stranger to the car engines where MMO was originally used.

What is unique about their chemistry? These engine designs are ancient and have widely known properties, and such solvents have been used in them for many decades. I have no warranty to speak of at 18 years SMOH. MMO is legally unable to endorse use in piston aircraft engines, even though application to deposits in these engines perhaps makes more sense than in a modern car engine. To dodge the pesky FSDO inspector, next time I will use it to flush a cylinder in the middle of the night with the hangar door closed, and maybe also not announce it on the internet . I don't fully embrace that the MMO helped me - it's just an anecdote, but both plugs are certainly no longer oily on the problem cylinder, and they stopped fouling in flight.

What kind of trouble? By what mechanism? Though my enthusiasm for MMO's marketing is tempered by skepticism, the stuff has been around almost a century with hardly any anecdotal evidence of harm when used in the described applications. By contrast, ability of this solvent to unstick an oil control ring is entirely plausible and likely what happened in my case, whereas I am not aware of any rational basis to think washing out a cylinder with it might cause harm. By contrast, the substantial risk of invasive maintenance on an engine are well established, and if MMO helps prevents needing to do so, I don't care about the "legality" of a hangar elf having exposed my engine to the stuff briefly without mentioning it in the logs.

So some followup on this situation - with a little help I pulled the top plug on the problem cylinder (#4), filled with MMO with it near TDC, reinstalled top plug and rocked prop back and forth a few times to try to push some solvent past the rings, and then drained the stuff out. We then added 1qt MMO to the oil, flew for 5 hours, and then changed the oil. So fast forward 40 hours and my next oil change - Oil consumption stabilized, reduced slightly at 1 qt per 8-9 hr. No more plug fouling events on #4. And no more oil found on either top or bottom #4 plug and only healthy tan deposits on them. Much less oil pooled inside cylinder on borescope. I'm gonna tentatively say that the MMO trick worked, and I am tentatively happy. It's best not to gloat here, lest the aviation gods strike me down for my arrogance at next oil change by shredding my cam into my filter

Obligatory Mooneyspace aircraft valuation expert post: SO OVERPRICED. NO VINTAGE MOONEY CAN EVER BE WORTH MORE THAN 50K Wishing you many more 3rd class medical renewals!

Looks like very impressive technology! I love how it tells ATC what's up automatically. It could provide some peace of mind, particularly for older pilots and their passengers. Sudden pilot incapacitation from a medical problem in flight seems spectacularly rare however. Among external causes of pilot incapacitation, the CO poisoning category seems particularly relevant on piston singles, but that can be largely solved with a much cheaper CO monitor. Cabin pressurization or O2 system failure risks would also be mitigated, and that may be where a system like this has greatest appeal. One could also imagine a situation where it makes it possible for a pilot to deal with a sick or unruly passenger safely.

Sounds great!! never made it to one yet- it is time.

The A2D came with the original factory M20Ds - only difference I think is that this engine is missing the accessory case fitting for a prop governor. Obviously the engine must have been converted at some point. I wondered about that bulgy-looking thing in the diagram too. What is that?!

Completely fair point! And it turns out your background leaves you already far better equipped to ferret the problem out than me (or most A&Ps for that matter). I'll be curious what it turns out to be.

Sorry for these costly events - seems very unlikely to be coincidence. I would be afraid to fly again until someone with real electrical expertise checks the systems. The risk of more fried components and maybe even an electrical fire in flight seem to justify the effort and expense. Could a low sampling rate on the G3 be missing the destructive voltage spikes? Could this be a runaway alternator? A malfunctioning voltage regulator? Have there been any popped CBs?

I've been happy with Falcon, but it's hard not to contact him for a quote after those endorsements!

Accident aircraft M20A N8354E, a classic wood wing bird: http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2019/10/mooney-m20a-n8354e-fatal-accident.html Some info on Mr. Clinton Powers, the pilot: https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/tri_state/west_virginia/good-guy-pilot-passenger-mourned-after-crash/article_2becfe0e-d784-52f1-9e97-5d8f653ad5ac.html Very sad. RIP.

Horrible news after such a tough road toward recovery. Condolences to the family.

Great discussion here - it's nice to see this board serve as place where people can post their IFR mistakes (I've had my share) and get thoughtful and civilized feedback.

There's lots of detailed info out there now on the nature of the 737Max issue, and it's hard to look at the picture without concluding that it was a truly awful design of aircraft systems, irrespective of the compounding failures to inform pilots about those systems and train them to handle potential malfunctions in them.

Alex, There's a trouble shooting guide from Plane Power - it is a bit complex. My event was an alternator failure, where the alternator was fine, just a corroded contact that made me make an unplanned landing en route and Uber to the nearest train station. The Plane Power alternators themselves are pretty robust, so hopefully it's another component, like it was for me. Dev

F*ck Garmin

I was doing some research on getting my air box rebuilt (carb heat linkages are beyond sloppy) and I came across this photo from @Sabremech The scat tube on mine is connected to a small screened hole on the front of the cowl. Is mine wrong? Very odd setup. I think that intake on the front of the cowl was originally meant to blow air on the generator? The duct from mine has long been removed, and I have sealed the hole in the cowl. Is your carb heat box actually connected to the muffler shrowd or just that little hole in the front cowl?

The modern Bravo, Ovation, Acclaim nomenclature is more elegant than someone deciding to call the E model a Chaparral (?!), which I think means broad-leafed evergreen shrubbery?! Someone please explain that one

I you need new shafts and yokes.Mooney used to sell an upgrade kit. The info is around here somewhere...