Skates97

Solid advice. You can likely go higher than you think. The insurance company may ask for proof of avionics, etc... if you are going higher than they expect. Ask your broker to give you quotes at a few different levels. Last year when I renewed I looked at the difference between $100k and $150k. It was an additional $500 for the added $50k in hull coverage. $500 is a drop in the bucket compared to what I spend the rest of the year on this amazing hobby. So, I have a 1965 D insured at $150k. It's a nice plane, I know it inside and out, G'5s, GFC 500, EDM900, GNC355, new paint, etc... Could I sell it for $150k? Doutbful, but I know for that I could find something to replace it with. Just another shoutout to @Parker_Woodruff for all his help sorting through the insurance.

As Eric suggests, all the more reason to keep it in a standard 6 pack configuration. I have dual G'5's, and while I don't look at my old altimeter much, and I use my VSI so little that I put a chart of approach speeds over it, I do find myself frequently looking at my ASI instead of the speed tape on the G5. My current setup, someday I'll get around to cutting a new panel and flush mounting the G5's and the EDM900.

There can be quite a bit that goes into changing them. As Scott mentioned above you may need to change the actual yoke (behind the panel). I wrote up a post when I changed mine. I was able to buy them from a plane that was being salvaged. They don't come up for sale very often and usually go quickly when they do come up for sale. They are pricy, but the difference in how they feel....

I bought my D (essentially a C) with I think about 60 hours total time. Flew it for almost five years all over the SW and once coast to coast without an instrument rating. Our regular trips areSoCal to AZ, CO, or UT. Just flew CA to OSH and back VFR the whole way. I did finally get my IFR rating. Having the IFR ticket has been helpful with the marine layer here on the coast the past couple of years as I didn't have to adjust arrival and departure times but the only trips I canceled completely before the rating are ones I couldn't have made with it because of either convection or icing. If you aren't too heavy you can still get a C off the ground in high DA. We have a house right by KPSO and have departed there more than once when the DA was over 10k.

John, I have always admired the restoration/modifications you have done to your plane. It is beautiful. My wife and I were planning to do something different next year for a flying vacation but we might head back to Osh for a couple days. We'll see.

A friend bought a C that was mid-time but had only been flown some in the previous years. About a year in an oil change showed metal, the lifters were spalling among other things, had to have the engine overhauled and the plane was down 6+ months. Agree 100%, you can at least negotiate the price with a run-out engine and likely get well past TBO if it has been regularly flown.

Just went past Sedona, didn't land on this trip. Fly it in the morning and it isn't a big deal. The afternoon flight from SoCal to Ogden was bumpy as it always is in the summer. We left Ogden in the morning and the flight across eastern Utah and Wyoming was smooth. Happy to chat about it if you would like. I'll send you my cell number in a PM. Forgot to update that on MS when I changed the tail number. Yep, used to be 78878 which got butchered by ATC constantly. Too many 7's and 8's. Met my wife on 10/15 and coincidentally took my PPL check ride on 10/15 seven years later. Then I just had to find a letter to stick on the end of N1015. It took them almost 7 months from the time they received my paperwork to get me the forms to change the number. I submitted that back to them about 5 months ago so maybe they will complete it soon. Flight aware still has the N-Number as a 1966 Beech 58. Not sure what the 1965 scheme looked like. The stripes are close to what it was when I bought it, but it may have been changed along the way. I had the same thinking. I wanted to keep the feel of the older straight stripes, add color to the leading edge, and put the logo on the tail. I like the straight stripes on the short bodies.

Thanks, started up to OGD to see my wife's daughter and granddaughter. Then had to land in KRAP to check that off the list. Detour to fly the Chicago skyline and then spend a couple of days in Illinois at some church history sites before turning west towards home. Further details on the trip in coming posts in the next couple weeks.

My wife and I had a great time at Air Venture. After having the plane painted I decided to have it judged this time around and we came away with the Lindy Award for Outstanding Mooney in the Contemporary (1956-1970) Category! More pics over on the (newly redesigned )blog. https://intothesky.com/2023/07/30/oshkosh-2023-in-the-books-with-an-award/

Grateful you and your kids are okay, one of those small miracles in life that you decided to take a different bus. We walked past your plane many times.

When we bought our house there was a feral cat that roamed the back yards on our street. We never saw rats or even squirrels. Ten years later the cat is gone and the squirrels and rats moved in. There's a neighborhood that shares a brick wall to the end of the taxiway in front of my hangar. I see cats on the wall all the time. I have had glue traps in my hangar for years, never had a single mouse. When I was based at a different airport surrounded by fields I had mice in the glue traps on a regular basis.

It's just the standard Costco Citi Visa card. 4% on the first $7k in fuel. Our Amex does 3%. Works at the self serve but not off the truck billed through the FBO.

My Citi Visa treats the self-serve pumps like a fuel purchase and gives me 4% back. If it is full service from the truck it doesn't count but swiping at the self-serve pump it doesn't seem to know the difference from that and a regular gas station. If you have a card that offers cash back on fuel give it a try at the self-serve.

Exactly, it doesn't need to cool down the whole cabin. A stream of cool air blowing on the back of your neck and head does wonders for comfort. Seeing the prices of those things makes me love my homemade one even more. Add the static cling tint to your rear windows to help with the heat. Then take a few spare squares of the static cling, fold them up, and keep them in your seat back. You can pull them out and put them wherever you want on the front windows and up high on the windscreen in flight to block sun. When you need to just peel them back off in descent. If you put them on top of the dash for a couple minutes they become soft and easy to smooth out on the windows. Homemade AC DIY Window Tinting

I don't have a turbo, so can't comment to any diminished performance, but you will have diminished performance from your prop. That combined with the diminished performance of the wing will contribute to a longer ground roll to get the required IAS to lift off. Something that sometimes catches people off guard if they have not landed at a high DA airport is the visual difference flying at the same IAS but a higher TAS and ground speed than they are used to seeing in the pattern and they can get slow. Easy enough to overcome by just paying attention to the airspeed indicator but something to keep in mind.

I came across this site some time ago and bookmarked it as we fly into KPSO in CO quite a bit and it is at 7,663' elevation. You can either put in an airport identifier and it will pull the current weather, or just fill in the blanks. https://www.takeofflanding.com/

The flight school where I got my PPL had one hanging on the wall right as you walked in as a subtle reminder...

I did something similar to what you are suggesting for my fuel pump. I put an amber LED in the panel next to the green/red gear down/up lights. If the electric pump is on the amber light is on. It is a reminder when taking off that the pump is on and later in cruise helps me remember to turn it off.

I agree, we hit one at 10,500' over western Texas a few years back. It startled me because I heard it "pop" against the windshield, then watched it ooze up... Poor bug, got stuck in a thermal, sucked up to 10,500', and then splattered across my windshield. If it was a bird there would be some red mixed in there.

I had that same one when I got the plane. A few years later it began to leak a little. I replaced it with this one. It has a cap that screws on and stops any possible leaks. The only disadvantage is that you don't want to lose the adapter to be able to drain it. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/pages/ep/oilsystems_oildrain/saf_airF62.php

I have done a number of these flights. At first I was doing anything that would fit in the plane, and if it was bigger than a crate would allow I would put a harness on and clip it into the back seat belts. Then we did one flight with a bigger dog in a harness and on short final it got the runs... The old blanket it was on helped, but there was still more cleanup than I wanted. That was the last time I transported any dogs that wouldn't fit inside a crate.

After a few posts talking about humidity and everything not working equally in different parts of the country, I will preface this by saying I get it. However, here is an example of how my homemade AC worked this past weekend which I think is similar to what you could expect from a B-Cool unit. We were in Phoenix for Father's Day weekend to visit my folks and parked at KIWA. The plane sat on the ramp Saturday and Sunday soaking up the 100°+ heat. Sunday's high was 104° and it was still 101° outside when I was doing preflight on the plane at 4:30pm. The cooler had been in the plane the entire time so it was a nice toasty 100°+ when I added the ice. I put 21lbs of ice in it (three 7lb bags of cubes because nobody was selling blocks) along with about 1 1/2 gallons of water to circulate through the system. It was a quiet day (shocker) with the only other traffic a 737 that had just landed and some poor soul flying a UND plane so there was no delay for taxi or departure. It wasn't making the cabin cool, but we did have cool air blowing on our shoulders, back of the neck and back of the head which does wonders for keeping the body cool. I was sweating when we got in the plane but by the time we were airborne just after 5pm I was comfortable. We climbed to 5,500' to stay under the Bravo shelf where it was 80° OAT and were stuck there for I think about 10 minutes or so, then continued the climb up to 10,500' where it was a nice 52° OAT. It was still blowing cool air when we got to cruise altitude about 35 minutes after departure. Somewhere along the way during the rest of the flight the ice was done, but it was still nice to have the air blowing on your back. It made a huge difference in the comfort level of the flight, especially for my wife which is more important than my comfort, although it does contribute to my overall comfort...

This is my SOP depending on flight time. I take off on one and switch after an hour, that typically leaves me with 14-15 in the tank depending on how long I spend in the climb. I will either run the new tank dry, or if I will be landing with 10 in it I will stay on that tank the remainder of the flight. If I will be landing with under 10 I will switch on descent. I like to be landing with 10 in whatever tank I am flying on. As to running dry in a carbureted engine, it is a non-event. I have done it many times. I have CiES fuel senders and know when the EDM900 says zero I have about 10 minutes left on that tank and start watching the fuel pressure. When it starts dropping, I just switch tanks. Even before I had that setup with just 1965 factory gages, I would go off time and just keep an eye on the fuel pressure to know when to switch. My experience is that once you see the fuel pressure begin to drop you have about 5 seconds to reach down and switch the tank before everything goes quiet. If you have a fuel flow meter expect to see it spike up momentarily as the carb bowl is refilled, then it will level back out. There have been a couple times where I got distracted and didn't notice the pressure dropping and the engine quit, which gets your attention, but it starts back up once you switch tanks.

I made a home built one that pulls the air across the radiator and through a manifold, the air never comes in contact with the water. It does a good job, even leaving Phoenix when it's 100°+. https://intothesky.com/homemade-ac/

A few years ago they had commercial flights that couldn't leave PHX because it was hotter than what they had performance charts for.