Skates97

If it is someone that I have not flown with before I always ask for their "real weight, not driver's license weight." I tell them I need to know what they weigh today with what they are wearing and if they don't know I offer that there is a scale in the hangar they can step on. I've never had anyone balk at the question.

I have the bellow out of mine from when I put in the electric step. It's sitting in the hangar. If you are interested send me a PM. That is Rob's @takair mod. It is an easy install and works great, I highly recommend it if the bellows fails or you are looking to get rid of your vacuum system.

Flight 21- Some more round-robin approaches. I pulled and included the ATC audio in the post. https://intothesky.com/2021/08/12/ifr-training-aviate-navigate-whats-next/

Flight 20, the IFR Cross Country. https://intothesky.com/2021/08/08/ifr-training-cross-country-completed/

Looks like my response to you got lost in the website transition. It was a stabilized descent on approach.

Possibly even some new words invented...

Looks like the nose gear collapsed when she landed. We have done a number of pilots n paws flights and the dogs all did well. I have only taken our smaller dog flying once, it was from UT back to CA. She was fine and happy, until we started flying. The first picture is before I started up. The second is how she spent the entire 3+ hour flight, sitting there with her back to me. Talking to her, offering her treats, didn't make a difference, she was not happy and wouldn't look at me. We landed, I put her in the back seat of the truck and she was back to herself like nothing ever happened.

Not necessarily. The metar may report clear skies, but smoke is a different animal. In September 2020 we flew SoCal up to Sun River OR for the West Coast Mooney Retreat. Michael wasn't able to get through the day before because of smoke. We made it there and then on the way back we went out to the coast to be west of the fires and smoke. I was planning a fuel stop in Tracy KTCY and keeping an eye on the metar in flight. It was reporting clear below 12k and 10 mi visibility. I passed up some other airports along the way because my planned stop looked good. As we descended through a smoke layer it was nothing near clear skies and 10 mi visibility. If it was 3 mi that is extremely generous, it was probably more like 1 1/2 and the layer began at about 1,800' and went up to about 5,000'. I don't know what it is about smoke but it doesn't register right on an AWOS for ceiling and visibility.

I'm going to do it myself so just a bunch of time and probably a cut here and there on my hands. I have the aluminum sheet for the panel and the brackets to flush mount them already. I have a friend with a CNC machine that will cut the panel for me when I'm ready. I did the avionics install with oversight from my AP/IA so compared to that I think the panel will be easier. As Tom said the 900 is not so much about clearing up panel space, although it does that nicely, it removes future maintenance issues with the old gages. If you are going to overhaul I would spend the extra for a certified monitor that will allow you to pull out the old gages.

Keep the step, get Rob @takair's electric step. It is an easy install and it is great. For the audio panel get the PMA450B and never look back. It has so many features to it. On the way back from Oshkosh we were flying along at 10,500 over New Mexico and there on the display pops up my friends phone number, so I pushed the soft button on the audio panel to answer the call and had a nice chat in crystal clear audio as we were flying along. This was my panel when I got my plane. This is my panel now which also has the GFC500 controller above the audio panel. It was done somewhat in stages. I still need to have right and left sides cut to flush mount the G5's and the EDM900 as well as get the whole panel the same color. But right now it is functional.

https://www.eaa.org/airventure/plan-your-eaa-airventure-trip/aircraft-parking Parking Updates

A 1968 will qualify for Vintage, it's 1971 and older. But it will be dependent on people leaving, we got here Sunday morning and Vintage was full. They put us at the end of a taxi way on a row out in the South 40. There should be quite a few leaving Thursday morning having stayed for the Wednesday night air show so I would think spots would open up. We're leaving Thursday morning. It's the South 40 but quite nice, and mostly quiet at night.

My sister in law had a commercial flight from LAX to Reno cancelled last night because of smoke.

We flew Palm Springs to Des Moines on Saturday. We got an early start and stopped in Grants NM ahead of the morning build ups. A few hours later and we wouldn't have gotten through AZ. There were thunderstorms that we went south of passing Albuquerque which was easy with ADS-B weather on board and stopped in Garden City KS for fuel and food. Where the on board weather really came in handy was the next leg. I had planned to go east towards Topeka before turning north because of storms I saw to the north while briefing the flight. ATC asked me if I was planning Topeka to get past the storms which I confirmed. As we turned to the north I was asked "Are you aware of the line of storms to the north east?" I told him I was. There was a line about 160 miles long that had developed after we took off. There was about a 60 mile gap that we were headed for and the storms were stationary. With the haze and knowing there were storms ahead I would not have continued had I not been able to watch them develop and see their movement for the previous two hours while we were flying. We went from 5,500' down to 3,500' to keep clear of some lingering clouds. Knowing the weather along our path I knew we would be clear. We were rewarded with very smooth air and some amazing views as the sun was going down.

Nope, the plane was down for 3 1/2 weeks for a GFC500 and then a handful of weekend trips have kept me from the hours needed. Sitting at about 23 hours right now, getting in 1-2 flights a week. Flew my cross country a couple Saturday's ago so all that is left is more studying for the oral and knocking out the rest of the hours. Heading to Oshkosh tomorrow so that will add another week to the delay.

I was able to find a used one, it was expensive, but less than what the shop wanted to overhaul/rebuild it.

You can also check and see if there is a duct that comes off the top of the right inlet scoop to the back of the avionics stack. My plane had one to cool the avionics in days gone past and I would pick up CO readings from it depending on the phase of flight. With the newer avionics it is no longer needed so I capped it off and haven't seen the readings since then.

Interesting that it is just a toggle and not a split switch. From day one I never planned to get any of my investment back in dollars, but in enjoyment it has paid me back ten-fold.

As @kpaul said definitely get the trim. I don't think you need the YD in a short body but letting it level off and trim itself instead of having it tell you to adjust trim is worth it. I also think the TOGO is worth it even if you are just taking off VFR, take off, hit the button, and you have a nice visual reference.

Let's try this again. Here is Piper Painter's folding rear seat mod instructions. Rear Folding Seat Mod.pdf

I have the pdf file of Piper Painter's rear folding seat mod but when I try to attach it here I get an error. @mooniac58, did something get messed up in the migration? I can't seem to upload anything, jpg, pdf, etc... to a post. The error is: Sorry, an unknown server error occurred when uploading this file. (Error code: /home/mooneysp/public_html/uploads/monthly_2021_07 could not be created.)

Looks like my memory wasn't very good, mine aren't any different than yours.

IFR Training Flight #18 from June 16th. I was fortunate to combine it with picking up Kathy to give her a ride back from Oxnard and she snapped a great picture of the sunset that I missed seeing with the foggles on. https://intothesky.com/2021/07/18/ifr-training-i-brought-along-a-photographer/ Flight #20 was my IFR cross country and will be posted soon. Flight #19 will be written up for The Mooney Flyer and published August 1st, it was my first experience in actual IMC.

My quote for 3 axis (pitch/roll/trim) was $18,864 and that was also already with G5's in the panel. They originally quoted 2-3 weeks. In the end they came in a little under the quote on the price and took 3 1/2 weeks to complete.

That was me, based on his flying I thought he would have been full fuel to make the flight back to KFUL without a fuel stop. Further research showed there is no fuel at Dinsmore so he probably had between 15-25+ on board. There is a fuel stop about 30 minutes away which was probably going to be his next stop if I was guessing. If he had 15 gallons all in one tank that's an easy hop landing with 10 still on board. He was still likely too heavy for the short strip in a small valley with DA coming into play.