Rmag

I just wanted to say this was a really good first post who he is, where he is, what his mission is, initial desires, etc.

For the most dangerous of varmints, there is only one thing that works:

Good idea Yetti. Since I was calibrating my engine computer, I figured I'd stick it and I also took pictures of my wing gauges. To my eye they read about a gallon low for each point.

Resurrecting an old thread to share some answers. I had to recalibrate one of my tanks to my JPI EDM 930 fuel gauge. Completely drained the tank, added back 1.25 gallons unuseable. I have a 1987 M20J with 32 gallon tanks each wing (64 gallon total). I used a cheap yard stick you can get at the Home Depot paint department. They might be free I forget I had a few of them. I cut the yard stick down to make it smaller. Here are the measurements I took: 0 gal = 0" 8 gal = 1" 16 gal = 3 1/8" 24 gal = 5 3/8" 32 gal = 8 1/2"

For what its worth Henry Weber's Aircraft recommended that I not completely fill the tanks and park it. Said it puts more weight sitting on the gear and he felt that a full tank of fuel is always "looking for a way out".

Our interior shop used 3m 1357 glue on mine. It's strong, but not too rediculous to remove if you have to.

This has probably been posted before, but I just saw it today. Wonder if there was any conclusive story on what happened here...

@gsxrpilot I just talked to Lightspeed support. Apparently in the app you can toggle the recording source and the app recorded my iphone mic the whole time instead of the headset, thus nothing but ambient noise. I'm going to test it again today. EDIT - The app worked fine when I tested today. So I can record radio and intercom audio on my iPhone through a bluetooth connection to the headset.

I have a Lightspeed PFX headset and I downloaded the FlightLink app and recorded the audio during that flight. It says it is supposed to record incoming and outgoing comms and intercoms, but it did not work. All I got was engine noise and me talking faintly in the background.

Yes it was. You're welcome. I need multiple cameras I only have one so I use wide mode to get most in the shot. 100 downwind, 90 base, 80 final, just over 70 or so over the numbers. On the ILS after the FAF I was 90, slowed to just over 70 over the numbers. I seemed to float a bit on the landings at that speed. I was light on fuel less than half tanks. GoPro Hero 3+ in wide mode clipped to my hat with a ND filter lens which blurs the prop so you don't see those goofy prop artifact lines in the video. Best regards to you as well!

I use YouTube for vids. I gave my Dad his first ride in N205J today.

Funny story similar to this, my brother used to have a custom ring tone when his wife called that was an actual warning in an aircraft he was flying, it said "WARNING WARNING PULL UP". He was co-piloting with my Dad on a flight. On final approach his wife calls... Needless to say, the ring tone was quickly abandoned after that.

The M20J is an airspeed switch goes on when gear switch is up below 60 knots The only time I have heard it was during practicing stalls, or during a ground gear swing on jacks. It's loud as s#%t. No way you can ignore it. You can hear it in this video quite prominently.

My instructor made me do these things: For the initial gear down I do not remove my hand from the gear lever until I confirm the gear down annunciator and the green in the floor window. GUMP on downwind, GUMP on base, GUMP on final. If I missed the GUMP on final it was a go-around. All GUMP checks are verbal, and the hand moves to the appropriate controls. The gear check is not only the switch position, but a reconfirmation of the annunciator and the floor window. He said if you get in a hurry or don't fly a standard pattern, that's when it bites you. That's why GUMP 3 different times in case one is missed. I agree with what others said about it's hard to slow the Mooney without the gear out, which is definitely a bonus to this aircraft. Of my J my gear extension speed is 140 kt and my 1st notch of flaps is 132 kt. So my gear is first when slowing down.

Yes, they turned it into a marketing win though. I still generally think that people with mid 200 AMU and up budgets are probably looking for different aircraft than what I did. If you forget about Cirrus and look at Mooneys, you can get a Ovation2-3 GX or Bravo GX with G1000's that was built in the mid 2000's for what I have in this bird. I guess the only way to know is if I tried to sell it, but my gut tells me people are looking at the above if they are looking for a Mooney at that budget. I'm obviously a fan of the M20J, it really hit a sweet spot in efficiency and I think we took N205J about has far as you can go with it.

I have not priced it out but it's probably going to be somewhere around 150 AMUs on just the SureFlight stuff. This is more than I paid for the plane itself I have what amounts to a brand new 2017 M20J if such a thing existed. If I add in the aircraft acquisition cost and engine work I'm well into the upper 200's which is still less than half the price of a new Mooney or Cirrus, etc. so only in that respects am I ahead But I am not sure if a market really exists for what I just did For similar money you can get a nice used Cirrus with the fancy avionics, nice interior and parachute, or a good used Baron, etc. I would assume most people that have that budget to spend is not looking for an 80's Mooney to do what I did. I did not go into this thinking I could make a profit. I wanted to use the all talents of a company I helped build and create something special. But certainly if someone wants us to replicate, We would be obliged

Close, the rendering on the website had gold where the silver is. I was torn between blue and red. We did a really nice looking red pearl on a helicopter for the owner of the Arizona Cardinals. I wound up using that red for the little Mooney logo on my tail.

That's where I got the paint scheme. It was a rendering on Mooney's website in 2016 for an Acclaim. But it was red, gold, and black.

Here is a video I took tonight trying out a coupled LPV approach with a G500, GAD 43e, GTN 750, and a KFC 150 autopilot. After it captured the glideslope and started down I ended the video so I could fly the plane.

Thanks for the nice comments guys. Here are a few videos I figured I would share as well. They didn't really belong in the original post... The first is doing a gear swing test as we put everything back together. I used the opportunity to test doing an manual gear deployment so I knew how to do it if the unfortunate event ever arises. Its not that exciting of a video, but if you never saw a manual swing, here you go... The other video I just took tonight. I was testing a coupled WAAS approach with the G500, Gad 43e, GTN 750 and the King KFC 150 autopilot. With the Synthetic Vision, the Flight Path Marker (Green Ball) lines up right on the end of the runway on final approach. This was really cool to see. I had to end the video kind of quick so I could reduce speed and fly the plane

Fortunately, we know how to fix that problem pretty easily

Since we were doing the work between paying jobs, I didn't know how long this was going to take us, so I decided to just wait until we were done. It was half a year of work on and off so it would have been a very slow and incremental thread!

Better than New: The Refurbishment of N205J Mooney N205J is a 1987 M20J model “205 Special Edition (SE)”. It differed from other M20J “201’s” at the time in that it incorporated a few changes: 1. Fully enclosed gear doors 2. Rounded window lines 3. 28 volt electrical system 4. Electric cowl flaps with infinite adjustment 5. Upturned wingtips with forward facing recognition lights and aft facing position lights 6. Gear extension speed increased from 132 to 140 knots The 205 SE came right as the general aviation market was in decline, so only seventy-seven 205 SE’s were built spanning two years. N205J was previously owned by a business associate of ours. N205J was hangar kept most of its life. It had original factory avionics, paint, and interior and was a low time aircraft with only 1885.5 hours. It had Precise Flight Speed Brakes installed. So why did we put so much money into a 1987 Mooney? I am one of the owners of SureFlight Aircraft Completions which specializes in paint, interiors, and avionics. We made it a “project plane”. We worked on it when we had any gaps in our schedule. Now that it is complete, we have a demonstration plane to show and fly customers that showcases SureFlight’s capabilities. It’s an awesome Mooney to fly! First stop was Henry Weber Mooney Authorized Service Center at neighboring KLNS to perform the pre-purchase inspection. The important thing for us was to have a good airframe and engine to start with. We took care of some maintenance on the airframe, overhauled the prop, bought a new governor, put new gear shock discs in, etc. We had them complete an annual at the time as well. We had the engine sent out to Columbia Aircraft Services for an Inspect and Replace as Needed (“IRAN”) which included new Camshaft, Lifters, Bearings and Rings. While it was there, we had the engine converted from the Lycoming IO-360-A3B6D to the IO-360-A3B6 specification to eliminate the D3000 dual magnetos in a single housing, driven by a single driveshaft. The engine now has two separate fully independent Bendix magnetos. We had the cylinders removed to be sent out for nickel plating. After the engine came back, Henry Weber reinstalled it with new Lord mounts and made sure that the engine and engine cowlings were properly aligned. We added GAMIjectors calibrated fuel injection nozzles and then went to work on the full refurbishment of N205J. Avionics: The aircraft was equipped with a factory original avionics suite from 1986, except the addition of an Apollo GPS. It all came out. All the wiring was removed and replaced. A plastic panel is created to make sure everything looks correct before fabricating the metal: Yokes are painted black and a metal panel is installed: And then filled with equipment: · Fully Electronic panel; Eliminated Vacuum System · Garmin G500 flight deck with Synthetic Vision · Garmin GAD 43e autopilot interface for G500 · Garmin GTN 750 GPS/Nav/Comm Navigator with Telligence Voice Control · Garmin GMA 35c Bluetooth enabled remote audio panel · Garmin GTX 345R ADS-B In/Out remote transponder · Garmin GNC 255 Nav/Comm · King KFC-150 autopilot (the only thing that remained from the old panel) · L3 Avionics ESI-500 Standby Instrument with: Altitude, Attitude, Slip/skid, Vertical speed, Aircraft track, Synthetic Vision option, Navigation option. Magnetic heading option. · JP Instruments EDM 930 Primary computer for RPM, Manifold Pressure, Oil, Fuel, Battery, Engine data. · AirGizmos iPad Mini 4 panel dock · Nimbus Aviation Electroluminescent Circuit Breaker overlay. · ACK E-04 GPS Emergency Locator Transmitter · Guardian Aero 451-101 Panel Mount CO Detector · MidContinent MD93 Digital Clock/USB Charger. Paint: We painted a new King Air 300 for the Mayo Clinic earlier in 2016. We loved their colors. We knew that these would be the colors we would eventually use on the Mooney. Stripping: Everything that is not stripped is covered in foil. Windows are removed to be replaced with Great Lakes Aero Windows SC (Solar Control) Grey installed with Extra thick .250” windshield. All flight controls and gear doors are removed to be painted separately, airframe is etched and alodined in preparation for epoxy primer. After primer, an Axalta White Pearl base color is applied. N205J is painted in all Pearlescent paint which requires a clearcoat after each color is applied. This is one of the reasons pearlescent paints cost more. Paint Scheme Layout: Axalta Cumulous Grey Pearl is applied to undercarriage, wheel wells, airframe, and then clearcoated. Axalta Sable Pearl accent stripes are applied and then clearcoated. Final Prep for the Axalta Dark Blue Pearl: After all the pearlescent colors are applied and clearcoated, exterior placarding is applied, and the entire aircraft is re-sanded for a final overall layer of clearcoat. This gives the airplane a wet, glossy look and deepens the color, smooths edge lines between accent stripes, seals the placards, and it also provides a more durable and cleanable finish because you do not cut into the color when polishing. Flight controls are hung and painted separately: Cowlings and access panels are installed with new stainless steel hardware. Flight controls are balanced and then reinstalled. Interior: Unfortunately, we forgot to get some good “before pics” of the interior. It had blue velour seats with aged and yellowing plastic panels. Old seat covers off. Repaint the seat frames. New covers sewn for the new foam buildups. Upholstered seats with custom Mooney Logo headrests. We repaired cracks in several of the plastics, and repainted with a textured paint to hide any old imperfections. We decided against covering the panels in ultra-leather to save weight. We fabricated a hatch behind the hole for the windshield bar that holds the compass for easy R&R of the glare shield. Painted a flat textured black. Looks like new. The interior goes back together with repainted plastics, new carpet, new door seals, and new upholstered seats. After it was all complete, we put the aircraft on scales. The new weight and balance was 17 lbs lighter than before. We also performed the gross weight increase to increase the gross weight from 2,740 to 2,900 giving the aircraft a new useful load of 988 lbs. Mooney N205J – Ready for Takeoff! Update 6/21/2018 Since Garmin came out with the G500 TXi we updated the Mooney by removing the Garmin G500 and JPI EDM 930 and replacing it with the G500 TXi with integrated Engine Information System (EIS). Here are photos of the conversion: EDIT for 2021: L-3 ESI 500 removed and replaced with Garmin GI 275 backup instrument and a Garmin GFC 500 Autopilot.

Sounds like your covered! With two alternators I don't think it will ever be time to hum the sea shantie

That is of course assuming that you have the GTN 750 which would not be the case in a full electrical failure. Having an iPad is also a good MFD for a full electrical failure.