toto

By the way - here’s the R-1 tach. This was a pretty easy replacement for the factory tach. I don’t really like the look of the R-1 (someone here on MS said it looked like a pinball machine), but honestly I thought it looked pretty nice when installed. I used the R-1 for less than a year before replacing it with a G3X+EIS, so I don’t know about longevity, but I had zero problems with it. I wish I’d done it sooner. https://iflyei.com/product/r-1-rpm-tachometer-instrument/

It’s electronic. My ac had the same tach, and I ended up replacing it with an EI R-1 after wrestling with problems for a while. I believe the factory tach used a tach generator, and the R-1 just uses the p-lead. The fogging is pretty strange - mine was just intermittently erratic, but no fogging Hope others will have ideas about the fog ..

Kind of an interesting development. The SkyView HDX can now be coupled with a Trio Pro AP for approach certification. No Mooneys on the AML yet, but this is potentially good news for people who wanted a SkyView but have been waiting years for a certified Dynon autopilot to couple. ETA: More info with links to the AML https://www.dynoncertified.com/trio-pro-autopilots-compatibility.php

Since a lot of people on here have familiarity with the LHS product, it really would be good to reinforce the comparative benefits of the SkyVoice system over the LHS. When I first saw the SkyVoice, it seemed a lot like the LHS with a more limited track record, but this announcement of a portable unit is definitely interesting and is kind of a "try before you buy" option for someone who's on the fence about a full install. Anyway, my advice to both the HolyMicro folks and the Microkit folks is to point out the reasons why someone would want your product instead of the other product. And plan to do that over and over again The most successful products on MS seem to be the ones with reps who are engaged on the boards and keep showing up to help answer questions when these threads get going.

I always think it's weird when I get a personal letter in the mail from a complete stranger wanting to buy an airplane, but I'll admit that if I were looking to sell, I'd be a lot more interested in selling to an individual who went to that much effort to find a nice Mooney. For whatever it's worth, my experience with the flashy aircraft sites isn't as good as with the lackluster ones. For some reason, people who drop a lot of money on flashy ads aren't as interested in sitting around chatting about Mooneys as the people in the cheap seats - and the flashy sites far more often get you a broker on the phone instead of an owner. Don't discount Barnstormers as a decent classified site - it looks like it's 1996 all over again, but they have pretty decent inventory, and it's mostly real people selling real planes using photos they took with their phone. Also check out the Mooney Flyer, as well as the FB groups and PoA etc. Lots of free places where people who aren't quite ready to drop money on Controller are gauging interest in their planes.

(It does say "sale pending" ...)

Ugh, this is really a tough situation. I'm hopeful that the MS braintrust might be able to help get you airborne again soon. Glad to hear you and your wife are healthy, even if the plane is not Why on earth did the shop cut the wings in half? ETA: Misunderstood that this was posted by the owner. Looks like the owner is @Irmin on MooneySpace

There used to be a really neat museum at KMKC, the Airline History Museum - with probably the most beautiful flying Connie in the world. The museum still exists, but has been involved in a very public spat with the city and the FBO, so it's been more or less closed to the public for a couple of years. I think they've actually had to sell the Connie, although it might remain at the museum under new ownership - not clear yet. https://airlinehistory.org/ Anyway, maybe next time you come for a Garmin class, they'll have it all sorted

Not going to be in the class, but I’m local - my favorite BBQ is Joe’s Kansas City. There are a couple of locations in the city, the one in Overland Park is only about 15 mins by car from the Garmin HQ. Joe’s KC is open Monday through Saturday. Other BBQ restaurants that are popular are Q39 and Jack Stack.

I’ve been treating this primarily as an academic discussion without much practical value. But it’s certainly worth understanding the regs and the AFMS and how they relate to each other. I always appreciate this community for the wealth of experience, and I often learn a lot from these academic discussions.

I don't have my AFMS in front of me, so I'll happily defer to you on that - I'm sure you're correct. I was just picking this as an example case where no FAA regulation requires an operable GPS, but the vendor has a configuration that requires something not required by regulation.

I think I sent the thread in a weird direction. I was just asking out of curiosity whether the Garmin AFMS for the GTN series required a current database for ground-based navigation. I later checked my own AFMS and did not see anything to indicate that the AFMS requires a current database for, e.g., flying on airways to an ILS, but the point is that the AFMS controls and not the regs. Garmin absolutely can do this using their own configuration and their own supplement. An example is the fact that Garmin requires a clear GPS signal in order to fly an ILS using a GFC500. This isn't something that anyone at FAA requires, and nothing in the regs would say you need a GPS in order to fly an ILS, but Garmin requires it and included in their AFMS. So even if you *could* do it with your GTN+G5+GFC, your AFMS would prohibit.

I went and pulled my AFMS to see what they say about databases for enroute, and actually it reads essentially the same as the GNS: I don’t see anything here about using ground-based navigation signals.

I don’t think I agree with this. Garmin absolutely could say in their AFMS that you must have a current database in order to fly enroute on airways using the VOR receiver in your Garmin navigator. Whether the navigator technically allows you to do it does not control whether it is permitted by the AFMS.

This goes back to my original question. Does the AFMS require you to have a current database if you’re navigating using ground-based nav sources? If not, then your re-route to an airway is not a problem.

You don’t need an EFB. Just compare the lat/lon of the airport in the database with the A/FD.

For GPS direct to an airport, the airport is your only waypoint. You can easily confirm what the database thinks the airport information is, and you can confirm that the lat/lon has not changed.

Fair enough. I honestly can’t imagine why someone would think about flying a GPS approach with an expired database, and it isn’t something I’ve ever considered. But there is a significant amount of utility in GPS direct routing, and if you’re going GPS direct from one airport to another, there aren’t a lot of waypoints to check. For most of my flying, the destination airport has an ILS - my question about the AFMS was really just about whether Garmin requires a current database for flights that use ground-based navigation signals (either for enroute or approach).

Interesting. It’s been quite a while since I had a GNS, but I thought it was new to the GTN AFMS and I thought that that was generally understood. Never mind ETA: I looked up the GNS AFMS and it definitely says “or verifies each waypoint for accuracy” as an alternative to having a current database.

This was an unhappy change for those of us that went to the GTN series from an earlier Garmin navigator, but as mentioned above it was never especially practical to manually verify all waypoints anyway. Out of curiosity, do you know offhand whether the AFMS for the GTN series requires a current database for enroute or approach operations using only ground-based nav sources?

I think it’s about $200 for the initial ADlog setup.

Don’t all three of these use the Rajay turbo?

There’s a lot of MooneySpace threads on turbo Js. Just search for “Rajay” and you should find most of them.

Database prices right now are absurdly expensive, and that’s with Garmin at a much lower price point than Jeppesen for my subscription. The bundles are ludicrous, packaging stuff that I don’t particularly need (terrain and obstacles can be updated once per year with no real impact on my flying) with stuff that I do need (navdata). And both Jepp and Garmin are selling me data that I already paid for once as a taxpayer. The convenience of navdata on a chip is certainly worth something to me over the pain of paper charts, but if navdata becomes significantly more expensive, it will influence my hardware buying decisions. This is not a limitless well that private equity leeches can drain forever. Garmin makes fantastic hardware, and I’m happy that they are providing a competitor to Jeppesen on the navdata side. But they know well that their hardware sales can’t survive a massive increase in database pricing - Avidyne and others will be happy to repackage government data and capture a bigger slice of the hardware market as a result. I suspect that Garmin got into the navdata business for exactly this reason - Jepp was previously the sole provider of navdata for Garmin hardware, and Jepp pricing decisions had influence over Garmin hardware sales. Being in the navdata business gives Garmin some navdata independence, and doesn’t put them at the mercy of Boeing or whatever private equity firm comes along to try to milk the data subscriptions. I doubt seriously that Garmin views navdata as a key profit driver - it’s a moat to protect their hardware business.

I switched to Garmin navdata years ago, and haven’t looked back. It’s quite a bit cheaper than Jepp, and while I do prefer the Jepp chart format, I don’t prefer it enough to justify the additional cost.