MikeOH

My $0.02 worth of advice is what I did...two years in and I'm still happy. So, I'm sure it will work for EVERYONE! (sarcasm) MOST important was that the plane had been recently flown. Mine had been consistently flown 75-100 hours/year by the same owner for 13 years. It is NOT easy to find such a plane. Most for sale under $50K have NOT been flown much. The instant case is an excellent example of what you'll find when you look into most candidates, unfortunately. I did NOT care about total airframe time (okay I wasn't wild about >8,000 hours). I'm a believer in Mike Busch's overhaul on condition, so I did NOT rule out planes with high engine time. In my case, I got a price that reflected a run-out engine. I'm two years and 150 hours in with no engine problems. If I have to overhaul tomorrow I'm way ahead and get to choose the shop and the quality of my overhaul. Honestly, 'fresh' overhauls with very few hours scared me off when I was shopping. Find a plane equipped with the avionics you want. I wanted WAAS and an autopilot. Didn't need the latest Garmin glass. Cosmetics were way down the list. As long as the paint wasn't chalky and falling off, it worked for me. I lucked out in that regard; paint still has decent gloss and the interior, while far from pristine, is clean and without rips or tears; no rush to upgrade. Good luck!

This just doesn't sound like a good idea. The risk is probably small if proper grounding techniques are employed, but I'm not seeing the big return on the risk taken. Honestly, I'm NOT going to take off if nothing shows on the dipstick (i.e. less than around 10 gallons in a tank). So, no point in draining a tank for me. I just waited until I was down to 12-15 gallons in a tank, then marked a line, filled five gallons at the pump, marked a line,...rinse repeat until the tank was full. Then labeled the lines by subtracting backwards from 32 (M20F full tank). A dipstick is NOT a precision measuring device, +/- 2 gallons is all I'm going to count on.

Yuup, about $1300

Ah, did not know the cap comes with pre-cut leads pre-installed. Thanks for the education!

Well, if that's the case, then the Figure 5 title: Ignition WIRING Diagram is pretty misleading. I would think a reasonable person would figure (tee hee hee) that he could rely upon that diagram to hook up the mags! YIKES!!

Hmm, I'm probably missing something, but that diagram doesn't seem correct to me. Assume it's clockwise rotation, so firing order is 1-3-2-4. Looking at the left mag, turning counter-clockwise, we see that firing order. However, if you look at the right mag, rotating clockwise, I get 1-3-4-2?? Show me the error of my ways...

Trying to learn here; not being argumentative. I had small gaps (maybe 1/2") in my baffle seals and closing those helped a lot (15-20 degrees cooler). A small scat tube has a pretty good cross-sectional area... on a par with the seal gaps. As you say, the baffles need to be 'absolutely tight.' So, I'm having a hard time understanding why a scat duct wouldn't be significant? Also, an oil cooler presents a pretty significant restriction to airflow; plus it's engineered to be there. That is, the 'leakage' through the cooler would seem to be much less than what would flow through an open scat duct.

I think that makes a lot of sense. I had issues with cyl #2 running hot and it was poor baffling on that side; anything that causes pressure loss in the plenum above the cylinders is going to cause loss of cooling...IMHO.

CavuAviation out of Riverside just put my TailBeacon in today; went smoothly. Still need to make the confirmation flight. Bought the TailBeacon from AircraftSpruce which had it in stock.

I've always thought that the Van's "Tail kits" are a huge moneymaker for them. The RV-10 tail kit is a little over $4,000. I'd bet there's $500 worth of aluminum plus whatever it costs them to stamp out the ribs. I'll bet their margin on those is HUGE! Forget their over 10,000 planes...good lord, I can't imagine how many tail kits have been sold compared to completed aircraft!

Well, that was still true 2 years ago. I had a bunch of hours renting a M20B...bought my "F" with 0 "F" time and didn't need any checkout or solo time from Global. Picked it up from the the pre-buy mechanic after the deal closed and flew it home.

Hmm, if a kit J was offered it would compete with the Van's RV-10. How do the two compare performance and load carrying wise? Kit is $50K, and a brand new Lycoming experimental engine is just about $50K; call it $100K without paint, interior, and avionics. Add $15K for Quick-Build. Could a J kit be offered for the same?

And, 5) Willing to PAY. IMHO, those uncompromising 'picky' buyers never seem to think, even if they find the 'perfect' plane, that it's worth the price.

Just one. I'm with Garmin; it's slightly cheaper (didn't used to be). You will need an appropriate programmer in addition to the subscription. I think you can buy 'one-time' updates, as well. But, if you plan to fly IFR on a regular basis it will be way more expensive that way.

And the other is a chump's?

I hear ya...the single crystal blade was just an example. I think there is a lot of that (exotic materials and precision machining/assembly)...it adds up. I think all of that development R&D represents an enormous amount of up-front investment that is spread over a relatively low volume. That is one reason why I think the iPhone is NOT a valid analogy. The admittedly very large R&D is spread over an almost inconceivable volume (i.e., the per unit R&D cost is lost in the rounding. There are 56 billion transistors produced every year...for EACH person in the world!!). Further, I suspect building a PT-6 still requires a substantial number of labor hours. The direct labor involved in building a smart phone is likely pretty low due to automation that I doubt exists for building turbine engines. I don't like the answer either; but, I don't think turbine engine companies are screwing their customers. Well, not beyond 'normal' aviation standards, anyway

The safe answer is, "not enough data yet." IMHO, the shutdown is irrelevant to any but the newest Mooneys. If you want to buy a "J," worrying about a short term market change due to the factory shutdown is a wasted effort. Shop to find a good value...same as always. You're not market timing an 'investment'

I've wondered the same. But, based on VERY little research, I think there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. For just one example, Google "single crystal turbine blade." This ain't your 1940's piston aircraft engine part!

The spec says 14.0 +/-0; not sure what that means. Says 29.0 +/-2 for the other stop, which implies 27.0 to 31.0 degrees is acceptable. In research, 10:1 is desirable for instrument accuracy; e.g., if you are measuring to 0.1, your instrument should be accurate to 0.01. In my field of engineering, we like to see at least 3:1. So, yes, I was asking what the 'tools of the trade' are capable of. Sorry, I wasn't clear enough for you.

Dang! I had no idea 1/2 degree was that critical! How accurate can you set the prop angle? 0.1 degree, or even better than that?

While a cap can help, proper filtering of EMI is more complicated than that. Further, electrolytics are a sub-optimal choice; not effective for high frequencies and less reliable than other types. Thing is, interference from a noise source like a PWM can be subtle and may not be present in all conditions (e.g., some comm frequencies might be affected, not others; autopilot 'glitch,' etc.).

Can you share contact info, please?

And, to be accurate, assuming they all have two feet, there are twice as many soles as souls remaining at Mooney

Can't resist throwing in my less than two cents: If you have never owned, DO NOT buy a project plane. You are going to be busy enough climbing the first-time-owner learning curve...you are NOT going to save that much money, and the delay and aggro factor is just not worth it...IMHO, naturally As a first time owner, I am SOOO glad I resisted the temptation to buy a 'cheap' plane.

I see barely 1 knot when I close the cowl flaps on my '70 M20F. Frankly, I just leave them open most of the time and don't have to monitor CHTs as closely. What do you other M20F guys see for speed delta?