Rick Junkin

I keep my software up to date. I’m running v9.18 in the G3X along with all of the associated component software updated with the release of 9.18. I learned today that there are several different part numbers for the GSU 25D. My shop today swapped my original GSU 25 part number 010-01071-56 for the most recent GSU 25 part number 011-02929-56. I don’t know what was changed, but I remember reading about it when the new part came out. There was an SB for it I believe. At any rate the GFC 500 was solid from departure all the way through a coupled RNAV approach I let go almost to the runway. VFR of course. But it was a short 1.5 hour flight. I’ll see how it does on my next 2+ hour trip.

What I want to see is something from Garmin describing what they did to address the problem, rather than an apparent stealth update to the STC gains with no information about what changes they made or why they made them. My shop is a Platinum Garmin dealer/installer and I’m going to be visiting them today and tomorrow. I’ll report back with anything I learn while I’m there. EDIT: The shop has no experience with the issues I'm having but they agree its most likely an intermittent air data problem in the GSU 25. So they're swapping in a new one for me under warranty. We'll see if that does the trick. Oh, and of course the A/P was rock solid through hard IFR and moderate turbulence all the way here, a 1.3 hour flight.

No, I was IFR. I asked for a block altitude 6000-8000 and deviations left and right of course and they gave me the clearance. So I cloud surfed for almost an hour avoiding the ice. And yes, the pictures don't do it justice. The dark spots look a lot darker in real life.

A bit sporty this past Wednesday climbing over Knoxville on my way to St Louis. Thar's ice in them thar clouds! I was able to maneuver around most of the broken and overcast to avoid it. I didn't get any pictures but the trip home Thursday afternoon was just as, if not more, fun. It's that time of year. And the winds weren't my friend either. They only got worse the higher I went. Although the trip home on Thursday saw 200+ all the way. All in all a good trip!

Thanks Skip, I missed the paragraph in the AFMS. The GSU 25 is my number one suspect for both airplanes. My trip Monday is to my avionics shop for some other minor stuff so I may ask him if he’ll do a warranty swap on the GSU 25 as the most likely cause. Of course that will require a call to Garmin for approval, so who knows.

Sorry, I should have mentioned I’ve combed the data on the G3X data card after every flight and all that is there is the A/P fail messages. No other data aberrations that would have contributed to the failure. No indications of GPS faults either. I haven’t looked at the G5 data but I’ll do that tomorrow. I do have an SD card in the G5 but I never look at it. As for the airspeed trend indicator, Barry has seen it without the autopilot engaged (the pic in my first post) but I have not. Also, both airplanes here have had recent pitot static checks and are good. We’re both going to concentrate on watching what the G5 is doing on our next flights. Barry is going up tomorrow, and I have a trip on Monday.

THE PROBLEM: My GFC 500 disconnects intermittently and the G3X A/P scoreboard displays a flashing red A/P and flashing yellow HDG and PIT. The airspeed turns yellow, and the airspeed trend bar (magenta bar on the right side of the airspeed tape) is pegged at the top but the airspeed is not changing. Here's a pic from a friend's Bo that has the same anomaly. His system will also intermittently flash the yellow HDG and PIT and give the same airspeed/airspeed trend indications even with A/P disengaged. The pic is of that case. You need to zoom in to see the magenta airspeed trend bar. Has anyone else seen this, or heard of anyone who has? I'm thinking it's an intermittent air data problem. I think the runaway airspeed trend input is tripping the GSU 25 or GFC 500 fault monitors and knocking the A/P offline and showing the airspeed, HDG and PIT as unreliable. My friend's avionics shop contacted Garmin and they said they've seen this in experimental installations but not in a certified installation. They said they've seen it, but offered no diagnosis of what causes it. They said it would be addressed in a future software release, but gave no details as to when or with what level of urgency. My next troubleshooting step is to pull the GSU 25 circuit breaker and fly with the G5 ADAHRS providing input to the GFC 500 and see if the behavior persists. It's interesting that the G3X pilot guide talks about yellow/amber indications, but makes no mention of flashing indications or their meaning. WHY IT'S A BIG DEAL TO ME I sent this anomaly to Garmin when it first started happening right after my installation last year and was told they already had an open engineering ticket for the issue and they would add my flight data files to that ticket. There have been two software releases since then and the problem persists. I generally avoid using the A/P in "hard" IFR because of my lack of confidence in it. Which of course defeats the whole purpose of having the autopilot in the first place. I've reached the point where I'm ready to devote the time, energy, travel and money to aggressively engage Garmin in the interest of a fix for this issue. I don't want to go through the same ringer we went through with the pitch oscillation issue. I think if there was a legal accountability approach for resolving this someone else would have already initiated it. I have no idea how many airplanes exhibit this anomaly. But I know for sure of two, and we're at the same home field with brand B and brand M airplanes with nearly identical avionics suites installed by two different, reputable shops. Anyone have insight on this one?

I believe it is indeed TKS fluid. I ran the TKS on the previous flight and didn’t notice anything abnormal, but discovered today that my prop slingers aren’t getting any fluid. (I know, should have caught that during preflight but I didn’t prime the system that day, didn’t think I’d need it). It’s highly probable the line to the slingers is leaking and flowing the fluid behind the side panel and on to the cockpit floor. Annual is next month, one more thing added to the list. Good call, @skykrawler.

Good question - it didn't feel like TKS fluid, I'm pretty sure it was water. Haven't made it back out to the airplane yet.

Careful with the v-band during removal!

Thanks Skip, I'll do the hose check on the storm window first. The wet spot is forward of the storm window and here was no water on the side panel or arm rest so I'm not initially hopeful. Although I guess if it's leaking it could be flowing down the side window behind the interior panel and following structure forward? I hadn't considered that until just now. I'll find out soon enough. Here's an older pic showing the exterior area of interest. The the windscreen skirt gap I referenced is just below and forward of the pilot window. There's no NACA scoop on my TLS/Bravo and I have no idea where the air comes from for the knee vent

The carpet on the pilot's side floor was soaked when I climbed in yesterday after the airplane sat out in light to moderate rain for two days. I'll be pulling the seats, carpet and side panels to try and find the source, but nothing obvious is jumping out at me. Thoughts? A few details. I had the windscreen resealed about a year ago because it was leaking at the top, and it looks good. They did a good job. The IFR window was latched closed with no evidence of water on the side window or inside panel surfaces. The only possible entry point on the outside is a small gap, no more than about 3/64", where the lower windscreen skirt piece extends on the side of the fuselage for a few inches past the right bottom side of the windscreen. I haven't looked yet but I don't think there's a water path from there to the inside. I did get a new instrument panel last year and they mounted the OAT probes on the fuselage side in that area (GAAAAHHH!!!) but they're tight and sealed. Any suggestions on where I should be looking once I get the seats/carpet/panels out?

I recall having an issue with my door latch becoming difficult to close, and it turned out one of the pushrods inside the door had become bowed due to the increasing force we were using to close it. I agree with @PT20J, I'd want to make sure the door is indeed latching properly before I flew it again.

Here's an illustration from my Bravo service manual to help you visualize how the door latch works. I believe they're all pretty much the same.

Here's a silly question - with the door open, can you move the outside door latch easily through its full travel? This might help isolate where the problem is, and let you see what the side pin and top latch are doing.

I'm still seeing the same banner behavior on my MacBook, iPad and iPhone running the most recent OS and iOS versions. Possibly a Safari browser issue with the latest update. EDIT: Yup, I tried Google Chrome and it works as expected. Something changed in Safari that is causing the banner to not load until the web page is refreshed.

Dropping by 1H2 will only add 15 minutes to my trip home, happy to make that happen. I’ll touch base with you next week to confirm a day and time. Tentatively looking at Thursday afternoon, 21 November.

This occurred before the election following an effort spearheaded by Jeff Simon of Social Flight and Mike Busch of Savvy Aviation. There’s a number of Social Flight video segments with Jeff and Mike discussing how it all came about and why.

The Mooney badge and MOOONEYSPACE.COM do not load initially when I open the web site. When I refresh the page the banner displays properly. Is anyone else seeing this behavior? Not a big problem, just weird. I'm using Safari 18.0.1 on a MacBook Air running macOS Sequoia 15.0.1.

How far down state? I'm flying over to St Louis next week and may be able to make a detour on my way home on Thursday the 21st. What's the closest airport to you?

I am the same size and I fly an M (Bravo) "more or less comfortably" with my wife in the right seat. Also comfortable with 180-200# friends in the right seat without a seat stagger. What you'll want to look at is how much room you have, and what range of motion you can accomplish, with your left arm with your hand on the yoke. It's tight but I can make it work. I've heard some folks say they sit slightly offset to the right to give them more room. If you can fit in other brands you'll probably be ok.

Ok, I'm guilty of missing @Danb's post about the RxSights LAL lenses. That answers my question about light adjustable lenses. $6K per eye is out of my league. As I recall the Vivity multifocal was under $2K out of pocket after insurance.

Yes, it's well worth it. Now having said that, everything is relative. You said your engine runs smooth, as compared to a number of other engines you've flown behind. My engine had the slightest vibration that I could feel, and dynamic balancing made it go away. But the other benefit is the improvement on reducing mechanical stress in your engine/prop combination. Less vibration yields less stress and less wear throughout the airplane, even vibration you can't feel in the cockpit. The best time to start that benefit is early in an engine's life, where yours is. The balancing process is pretty simple, and the setup takes more time than the measurements. An accelerometer and optical sensor are attached to your engine to measure engine vibration and prop position, and an indexing reflector is applied to the back of one blade of your prop. You run the engine up to a nominal cruise RPM and the computer calculates vibration in inches per second, and also calculates how much and where to apply offsetting/balancing weight (bolts/washers/nuts in varying combinations) on your flywheel to reduce the vibration. Stop the engine, apply the weights, and repeat until you're happy with the results. Here's a good introduction to dynamic balancing from Jeff Simon.

Well count me as lucky too. I got the Vivity multifocal IOL in my right eye in 2021 and didn't have any additional visits for adjustments or "locking in" that @donkaye speaks of. It works great for me and met all of my expectations, and I'm a scientist/engineer/test pilot/CFII. Perhaps the adjustable lens technology is new in the last 3 years and I received an older fixed version of the Vivity multifocal IOL. At any rate it was a good choice for me and I'll make the same choice when my left eye cataract makes it uncorrectable by conventional means. @Hank, you're the expert on IOLs. Any clarification on multifocal IOLs you can add? I'd hate for people to be scared away from considering an option that has clearly worked for some of us (puns intended). EDIT: Reading back through the thread I see @Danb already answered my question about the latest tech advancements.

I have an earlier version of this Black Diamond headlamp and I like it. It uses AAA batteries, and has a detented pivot that lets you aim it down where you need it while you keep your head up. I set to power up in the red mode when flying. I use it outside of flying as well. Unfortunately the mode sequencing is not terribly intuitive and requires me to play with it occasionally for a refresh on how it works. It does have a number of modes and colors (green, blue) that aren't useful to me, but the general ease of operation and easily replaceable batteries work for me. https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/black-diamond-spot-400-headlamp?hvarAID=shopping_googleproductextensions&ds_e=GOOGLE&ds_c=BPS|Shopping|PMax|Camping|General|NAud|NVol|NMT&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD1Tgtd-xLx1u4N_Ik7NhGJOuEcb_&gclid=Cj0KCQiAire5BhCNARIsAM53K1hQoScYYFgSGP_BmHhskw5HfYQ8sPJG9jIrriIC39Q9BBicRzE0ZVQaAiqqEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds