toto

I think if you want a Garmin AP for a J model, the GFC-500 is the only option. The big advantage with the Aerocruze (nee TruTrak) is that the installation time is about half the GFC time, because they install all of the servos under the seats in the passenger compartment. But as @Pinecone said, there's a lot of unknowns. So unless you're wanting a bottom-dollar installation, the Garmin is your best bet. And if you want bottom dollar, there's always this thing https://www.portapilot.com/ (Not yet available for the Mooney) (And that was mostly a joke) (Even though it's kind of an interesting idea)

Yep, it’s definitely a nice feature. Confirmed with the Garmin marketing materials btw:

Synthetic vision comes for free with the G3X. I don’t believe it’s a paid option (at least, it came with mine and I didn’t have to do anything special to get it ).

Looks like substantial damage from an electrical fire in 2014: https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/290395

But so if you’re a member of the public (i.e., another GA pilot, no connection with the airline) and you see a 121 pilot doing this stuff, could you call a safety hotline at the union to report it and expect that they’ll follow up?

I thought the scenario here was a pilot struggling with possible mental health issues, alcohol abuse, impaired flying judgment and failure to report all this stuff on medical applications?

Out of curiosity, does the airline pilots union have a safety hotline or something that would allow anonymous reports of suspected bad behavior? I would think that they would have better resources to address this sort of thing, and could address it quietly where appropriate (or noisily where not). (I know this thread is about GA and not about 121, but I’m genuinely curious.)

I have a pretty similar new panel and a pretty similar box of old crap from my 89J, but you’re ahead of me on bothering to post it One of these days I’ll get the camera out .. I know there was somebody looking for an NSD-360A a while back, but it sounds like you might have replaced that previously with a G5 HSI?

I know almost nothing about helicopters, so it might be that hover ability is more impressive than flying around ability - no idea. But if I were flying a home-built helicopter with a rotor driven by a little rubber belt, I'd probably stay pretty close to the ground too

They'll sell you a factory built one for not that much more money Part 103 is an interesting world.

The website suggests that the XET turbine engine is about $15k on top of the kit. The single seat design is (I assume) to meet Part 103 restrictions - which would not apply to the turbine, but would apply to the piston models. They also have a fully electric model now

You can get a turbine mosquito for about 60 grand

When we move from a better product to a worse product, we typically say “moving down”

I think we can all agree that 1989 is the year that everything just came together in perfect harmony for the J model

OT: I always find it strange when Mooney owners aren’t on MooneySpace. Some of my favorite threads on here are the ones where the incident pilot is talking to the community about decisions made in the moment, and collecting advice/feedback on how to proceed. It’s often cathartic to commiserate with others who have made their own mistakes and have hard-earned wisdom on the matter. When an incident pilot isn’t here, we end up with rampant speculation, which is fine as far as it goes - but nowhere near as productive as having a candid conversation with someone who was there. Type club membership is generally associated with safer pilots, and it’s not just about proficiency programs - it’s also about having a sounding board for ideas and a place to sanity-check decisions.

Really? That one on June 14 was the only one I saw for this aircraft ever. I thought maybe it was a discrete transponder code that required switching off anonymous mode. ETA: Sorry, there was also one in late July 2023 that had no details

I've kind of decided that when that day comes, I'm getting an Aventura UL ... hard to beat an amphibious ultralight for punching a hole in the sky

I was curious about that, too - since the aircraft is apparently ADS-B compliant, I thought maybe he's a 978mhz ADS-B out user who normally runs in anonymous mode.

https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/390029

The most fun I ever had flying an airplane was getting a seaplane rating in a Supercub on straight floats.

I asked a similar question a few years ago and had good input from MS experts:

I wouldn’t get too attached to the hours estimate. A lot of the calendar time is on random stuff that you wouldn’t predict going in — my shop had a week here, week there trying to troubleshoot minor settings issues with Garmin, where the actual time spent working on the plane was minimal, but the time spent waiting to hear back from Garmin support could be multiple days.

I did a similar project last year, and there’s a lot of useful information online for coming up to speed on the new gear. If you take all of the hours that you would normally spend flying and invest those hours on avionics self-training, you’ll be way ahead when the plane comes out of the shop. You’ll have to invest the time one way or the other, and spending that time in advance will make you much more confident when you start flying your new panel.

This is where I have my CO detector too. In my a/c this panel originally had a large silver sticker on it that showed the power settings needed to achieve adequate suction for the standby vacuum system. I put the CO detector there after the vacuum system came out - I couldn’t have been happier to remove that crazy sticker.

Yeah, the whole thing seems like an afterthought. I really don’t understand doing this big promotion with the intent of increasing subscriptions but without constantly showing us smiling winners of monthly prizes.