MikeOH

@rbmaze

You otherwise best be certain about any particular plane you have inspected in FULL compliance with SB208 as you will be out $2000 per your own research.  Shopping is going to get pretty expensive if you do this on every pre-buy!

1 hour ago, EricJ said:

I went from getting hot oil alarms when cruising in the teens and needing to keep the cowl flaps open in cruise on warm days, to having essentially zero cooling issues.    

Glad to hear it!

I wish I'd had similar results but mine only dropped a few degrees (maybe 5) when I cleaned up the baffle seals. In summer I'm still around 220F oil temp in cruise 

21 hours ago, Shadrach said:

I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m merely interested observer. it seems to me your statement is not entirely true. It’s not that the amp hour rating is interior so much is the battery type being used. How do you suggest they create a lifepo4 battery that fits within the systems current (cca) specifications and still has the capacity of an AGM battery? 
 

We live in good times… when our airplanes were delivered they had crappy wet cell batteries that would barely break 250 CCA and 20 ah. 

Hmm, "no dog in the fight"...coulda fooled me (But the EarthX rep has gotta love you!)

I fail to see how the fact EarthX can't create a battery that "fits within the systems current specifications and still has the capacity of an AGM" becomes my problem to "suggest"???  Isn't it the point of "new technology" to provide a BETTER solution?  Ignoring those parameters that are inferior (half capacity!) just because one "likes" the new tech doesn't seem very logical.

And, I must point out that even those old "crappy wet cell batteries" provided nearly a third MORE capacity than this new tech battery (20A vs. 15.6A)

I keep harping on this because IMHO giving up a safety margin is NOT smart.  Sure, you can argue improbabilities all you want but ask yourself if you do have an alternator failure in IMC would you rather have 1 hour or 30 mins of electrons?  This is a lot like a fuel reserve to me: the law says 30 min (day VFR) but I use 1 hour.  

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

I use the handle all the time to get in and out.  Works fine.  No screws or mounts ripped out.

EXACTLY!

Maybe we're not following this discussion...are people trying to make sure the actual grab handle does NOT get used??? Sheesh, that's what it's there for.

3 hours ago, sdmideas said:

I removed the motor from the system and with no load the motor pulled over 10.5amps from a 14v bench supply with current measurement.

Yeah, that'd do it!

2 hours ago, jetdriven said:

0 ohms is zero.  64 ohms is full. Open circuit is offscale high 

Yes, I understand that.  It means the circuit is more involved than I originally thought: simple series circuit of regulated voltage source, sender, meter, to ground.

I'm curious to the actual circuit implementation, that's all.  So far, looking at the Mooney schematic is just a 'black box' for the fuel gauge in the cluster (no internal detail)

How did you determine it was the motor drawing excess current versus something stiff/binding in the rest of the flap system?

Sorry that I'm not close nor do I own a short body but I just have to jump in on your comment, "its much cheaper to purchase and resell an aircraft rather than rent the whole way". I assume you've never owned so be careful with that thought!  Not counting all the expenses associated with the purchase and sale, there are real risks to buying that could result in BIG expenses and, more importantly, downtime if you're trying to get your ratings in a timely fashion.  Over the last 7 years of ownership I've averaged $18K per year, all in, for about 75 hours/year.  If a rental plane is out of service there's going to be another ready to go.  NOT so if you own!  What happens if your aircraft is down for maintenance?  Are you going to end up renting anyway?  Just food for thought.  I'm sure there will be others along to tell you to buy!

Good luck!

21 minutes ago, ArrowBerry said:

I was just curious if it made sense money wise because say in theory our prop is worth $7k with hub and blades, and the cost of the overhaul is $5k, you're already $12k into the new prop... so if you bought the Hartzell for $15k, and spent another $2k on shipping and installation labor costs--you would have to come up with another $5k...

Roughly... I'm guessing on those numbers. But you get the idea. I don't know. That's also a lot of flying gas.

@ArrowBerry

Remember, you're going to spend money on R&R and shipping regardless of OH or buying new.  Also, your analysis assumes you can SELL your old prop to recoup the $7K; if not...even more difference.

I look at it as $5K for the OH plus shipping and R&R vs. $15K new plus shipping and R&R, which is $10K more out of pocket.  If you could really sell the old one for $7K then it would only be a $3K delta.  But do you truly think that's realistic?  I mean, in Canada, is someone going to pay you $7K for a used prop that MUST have an OH?  Even selling it in the US?  No idea what you can get for a used, good condition, but past calendar OH date prop?

But I get it, if you're trying to 'rationalize' having a spiffy new prop.  All of us do that just to 'rationalize' even owning an airplane

5 minutes ago, EarthX Inc said:

So my question is, what engineering data do you have that supports the need for 30+ amp hour battery?  

So again I ask, what engineering data do you have to support the need for 30+ amp hour battery?

Flying safely is all about good judgement and risk mitigation and is NOT merely about 'engineering data'.

Your continued insistence that having HALF the time available to a pilot should his alternator fail in IMC is somehow perfectly okay is NOT persuasive!  It is a complete antithesis to risk mitigation and the exercise of good aeronautical decision making.  You are making excuses for your product's inferior Amp-hour capacity.

5 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

I’ve made that case as well. That could be done by installing two ETX900s in parallel would yield 12V 31.2ah and 780CCA. @EarthX Inc stated that the current would exceed the specs for the starting system. Which is why I suggested a dual battery on a switch.

Installing two ETX900s in series would yield 24V 15.6ah and 390cca.

Installing in series and parallel would yield 

12v 31.2ah and 780cca.

Im not sure why 790cca is a problem, but I’m assuming there is a legitimate concern.

 

I suspect, but don't know with certainty, that the original starting 'system' Mooney design could handle a short circuit without 'going up in flames', at whatever peak current the battery is capable of, until the battery was depleted.  I don't believe there is any current limiting/protection device in the high-current path from the battery, through the contactor, to the starter that would protect the wiring.

Hence, too much short term current availability from a battery could be an issue.

3 hours ago, jetdriven said:

0 is empty

 

@jetdriven

Thanks.

But I'm now very curious how the system works as the gauges themselves are really current measuring; when the master is off and no current is flowing they read zero.  Therefore, it is somewhat confusing that low resistance, which would normally be associated with more current flow, is the zero reading.  Must be how the circuit is really designed; maybe some kind of bridge circuit.  Do you know?

I'm going to dig up the Mooney schematics and see if I can understand what's going on.

1 minute ago, Shadrach said:

That would make it a 24 V system for which they do not have an STC.

I believe @jetdrivens point was they would sell a lot more 12V batteries if they DOUBLED the Amp-hour capacity.  Yeah, STCs will be required.

1 hour ago, EricJ said:

That's probably the cap for the alternator output filter.

Given the distance the cap is from the alternator must have been a CE vs. RE problem.  Not that an electrolytic would be very effective for most RE anyways.

@jetdriven

Is 0 ohm full or empty?

2 hours ago, dkkim73 said:

That's a pretty good essay. Pushing me to finally get around to reading it.

Yeah, now that I'm retired I'm going to read it...in Russian....NOT

That reviewer lost me at, "it's a page turner"...sorry, I don't think so

No experience with anything other than my stock 2-blade "B" hub on my M20F, but staying out of the 2100-2350 is a piece of cake.  I wouldn't feel the same about the higher 2350-2550 range as I often operate at 2400-2500.  If the prop has that few hours on it, then the OH should be a no issue deal; why complicate and add cost? 

6 minutes ago, Slick Nick said:

Give it a rest man, now you’re just splitting hairs… “the soup” is a metaphor for IMC conditions. I didn’t come up with the term, I’m sure it harks back to the dawn of aviation. 

Back to contact approaches for a moment, would you rather have no guidance at all, or at the very least some sort of runway centerline when conducting a contact type of approach? I hate to break it to you, but especially at underserved remote airports here in the great white north, you simply can’t just fly radar vectors from ILS beam to ILS beam. It takes some airmanship, skill, and solid decision making to get in sometimes. More so “back in the day” before GNSS approaches were mainstream as they are today. 

I'm not splitting hairs...you said, "DOWN THROUGH". Yeah, let's talk contact approaches: they REQUIRE visual contact with the ground, 1 mile visibility, and clear of clouds. So, now you're going to backpedal that you exercised "solid decision making" in using GPS OBS just to provide 'lateral guidance', only 'advisory' of course (sarcasm), and had solid ground contact the whole time?  Sounds waaay different than, "We affectionately called it the “Mexican ILS:”  OBS the runway, and use the 3:1 rule to get you down through the soup. Worked like a hot damn!" to me, anyway.

5 hours ago, Slick Nick said:

Don’t think in terms of cloud layers. 

You said, "to get you down through the soup" and now you claim "It has everything to do with visibility"

I'll let all the gentle readers decide for themselves if that description was merely 'clear broth' or 'pea' soup when you flew these "ILS approaches"

16 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

No. In fact, I go out of my way to remove formatting because it's annoying when I try to read posts that are mis-formatted. 

Whenever I paste, I get a prompt that says:

Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead 

I always chose plain.

Interesting.  I never get that prompt when I paste.

@Shadrach

Right you are!  I went to 'dark mode' and your post showed up with no problem.

I use an iPad; no idea if that has any bearing on the issue but many other people don't seem to have a problem.  Did you use any special formatting on that post?

@1980Mooney

I agree with all of your points.  But the fact remains, as @Pinecone pointed out, that we do NOT know what AIG offered up.  I reserve my judgement on who is taking advantage of whom until I know what the dollar figure was.  You seem to assume AIG 'lowballed' their offer when we really don't know that.

1 hour ago, Slick Nick said:

I never said any of that. You are making an awful lot of assumptions. A contact approach requires intimate local knowledge of the surrounding terrain, especially when it comes to assuring terrain and obstruction clearance on your vertical descent path.

In Canada, you are still required to have a published approach to the airport, but if that happened to only be an NDB with a procedure turn and circling minima, doing a contact approach straight in to the runway instead was orders of magnitude more safe. Flying is all about risk mitigation. Do what makes the most sense. 

In reference to using the OBS feature on GPS here is exactly what you said:

"I remember doing that almost 15 years ago now in the old King Airs and 99’s up north to airports that had no approaches. We affectionately called it the “Mexican ILS:”  OBS the runway, and use the 3:1 rule to get you down through the soup. Worked like a hot damn!"

THAT does NOT sound even remotely the same as a contact approach after using an NDB to legally descend through an IMC layer.  You even specifically stated you did this "to airports that had no approaches". 

36 minutes ago, Slick Nick said:

I remember doing that almost 15 years ago now in the old King Airs and 99’s up north to airports that had no approaches. We affectionately called it the “Mexican ILS:”

OBS the runway, and use the 3:1 rule to get you down through the soup. Worked like a hot damn!

Ok, let me get this straight... a few posts back you highly imply someone that doesn't know how to operate 'every function and feature' of a piece of onboard equipment is an idiot and an accident waiting to happen, yet you're proud of rolling your own IAP???  

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