Skates97

Hank, depending on what kind of shape your old one is in you can just roll the new stuff right on top of it, takes hardly any time at all and looks great. High gloss, good grip. I still have half a can of the UltraWingWalk I used that I can send to you. By the time I need it again it will be no good.

My oldest son is on town for a week from school so after work he and I went for a flight out to KRAL for fuel. I let him fly from about 1,500 AGL to entering the pattern at KRAL and on the way back from about 1,500 AGL until about a 10 mile straight in final at KFUL. I guess I have been to KRAL enough for fuel that the tower knows me. As we were rolling out he didn't ask where we were headed, I just got "Mooney 878, left on Echo, taxi Echo to fuel, monitor Ground point seven."

Purchased from Chase @Avionics Source. Still in the box it came in along with all paperwork, going a different direction with the panel. Original post listing below. I did not purchase the EA100 so it is not part of the sale.

Purchased 8/19 but I am upgrading the EDM-830 to and EDM-900 so will be pulling all my gauges. It is new, still in the box, unopened. It is set up with RPM ranges for the O-360-A1D, check your POH for your limitations. Green 0-2150 rpm Yellow 2150-2300 rpm Green 2300-2700 rpm Red 2700 + https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/ei-digitalgraphic1.php

Yep, I wasn't even flying when it was started... Do you have that video kicking around where you fogged your plane? I thought it showed nicely how the sprayer I posted (got the idea from you) fogs well.

This is the one I bought and used, it worked well. https://www.harborfreight.com/engine-cleaning-gun-68290.html

This is cheating, and my apologies to @bonal for putting 2017 flights into his 2019 thread... This was a collection of 2017 flights that I just got around to completing the blog post. Most of it was written in 2017, but I finally got to sorting through the tons of pictures that were taken on those trips. Here's just a few pics, there are a bunch more of Yellowstone and some other places on my site along with the story of a handful of flights. https://intothesky.us/2020/08/02/mooneys-are-for-travelling/

I need to do better posting up pictures... 7/22 took a short post oil change flight over to Riverside for cheap(er) fuel. 7/24 flew to South Valley Regional in Salt Lake to see family for the weekend. 7/25 two short flights to take one of my sisters, three of her kids, and one of their friends all on their first GA flights. 7/26 flew back to CA. 7/28 put 5 gallons in at KFUL (only had 10 in the plane which is my personal minimum to land, not take off) and then a relaxing post work day flight over to Riverside, my current favorite less expensive fuel stop. 8/1 my oldest son is in town for a week so we flew over to Camarillo for breakfast. 8/1 put the homemade AC in the plane and took a couple friends and her son for an flight-seeing tour of LA. It was her and her son's first flights in a GA plane, fortunately greased the landing. Lake Mead Utah Flights Camarillo Breakfast - Mooneys well represented, ours plus two more. LA Flightseeing - Yep, two adults in the backseat of a short-body.

You could also go with the GNC 355, it is a GPS/COM, no NAV. Check the airports that you are flying into, more and more have GPS approaches. $7,695 for a GNC 355 and a GI 106B https://sarasotaavionics.com/gnc355-gi106b-kit

I had mine this month, my AME didn't stop doing them.

Are you sure? I bought a GNC 355 and it was shipped to my AP/IA. Sitting on my shelf right now waiting to be installed at a future date.

I contacted Jim on Monday and he worked me into his schedule, meeting me at KFUL this morning. I've never really thought my plane had too much vibration but have wanted to have this done for awhile. I don't think you are going to find someone more knowledgeable about dynamic prop balancing. Mine started out at 0.49 and when he was done it was 0.03. Running it on the ground it feels much smoother, the biggest difference on the ground was when he told me to pull it back to idle. Normally with it idling at 600-630 rpm it is rough and will rattle you around a little, now at 600-630 rpm it is smooth. I can't wait to fly it and see what a difference it makes. He said it usually takes about 1 1/2-2 hours. After an hour and a half he had it dialed in and then removed the spinner to safety wire the screws holding the weights on. With the spinner off he saw that there were weights on the spinner bulkhead which have probably been there from day one. Rather than leaving it as is, he removed those off the bulkhead, put the spinner back on, and started over again so that it would be done without weights on the bulkhead. When he was done he printed off the complete report and went over it with me, explaining the different numbers on the report and the things it says about the prop and the engine. To top it off, I had mis-read his text message about the rates. I thought it was an hourly rate but it is a flat rate. I was expecting $3-400 for the job, it was only $180. He said he does an flat rate because he just wants the job to be done right, regardless of how long it takes him. He doesn't want to feel rushed by a customer to finish (to save them money) or have someone think he is dragging out the process (to make more money). If you want to fly it to him at KCCB it is $160, the extra $20 is for his traveling to me at KFUL, not sure if he charges more/less depending on how far he's traveling. He said it should not need to be re-balanced until either the prop or engine are overhauled. Bottom line, Jim is great and I would refer anyone to him. I will provide more feedback after I get a chance to fly it, most likely Saturday. After the ground runs I'm fairly certain I am going to be wishing I had this done a long time ago.

I try to look at ownership from the big picture, as you put it "drop in the bucket" perspective. It has resulted in me probably spending more on the plane, but everything is relative. I figure that I'll hop in the plane, spend $50-60 on gas to fly somewhere "just for fun" and then another $40-50 on a meal there, so keeping that in mind if I am looking at spending $2-300 on some kind of maintenance it shouldn't be a big deal. Last time I replaced the mains the tubes were almost twice as much as the tires. I put Air Hawk tires on for $79.95/ea but the only tubes Aircraft Spruce had with the 90° stem were Goodyear's at $148.99/ea. Haven't had any problems with them holding air, I think I add air about every 3-4 months when it drops from 30 psi to 29 psi, and that was almost two years ago.

Mike Jesch is based out of Fullerton. His contact info is on The Mooney Flyer CFI page. Paul Kortopates is a little further south in San Diego. https://themooneyflyer.com/cfi.html

I'm honestly not sure if I noticed much of a difference. Maybe if I had old/tired plugs in then I would have noticed a big difference, but then there would be a difference regardless of putting in new plugs. In the 350+ hours I've had the plane I've only had a plug foul out twice, both times it was a short from the side electrode to the center.

I have the same engine in mine. The Tempests with the long electrode are the UREM37BY plugs. I put them in just after I got the plane and ran them for around 250 hours without any issues. I replaced them in June 2019 with a new set and ran them for about 50 hours before replacing them with fine wires while doing some other work on the plane. I saved them (no sense tossing out plugs with 50 hours on them) and keep a couple in the tool box in the baggage compartment. I figure if I have a problem with a plug away from home one of the 50 hour plugs will get my back. If you want to try the ones with the long electrode in the bottoms I'll send you four of the 50 hour plugs I pulled out, just PM me an address.

Funny, last week I went back through my old PM's to find the contact info of the guy that @Niko182 used, it was Jimmy. I was planning on calling Jimmy this week to arrange a time for him to do my plane.

I have my Citi Visa card through Costco that gives 4% back on up to $7,000 a year in fuel purchases (1% after that). If I buy fuel through the FBO as full service it isn't classified as a fuel purchase by Citi, but if I do self serve and swipe it at the machine it treats it just like if I was at the gas pump with my truck and I get the 4%.

For anyone looking, they have a current promo going that is good either through midnight Pacific time either today or tomorrow (depending on which part of the website you are looking at). I was going to just buy a pair of sunglasses, but the promo is three pair for $30 so I figured I would get a couple different sunglasses to see what I like and a pair of clear ones to wear at night. Why not if they are $10 each? Code: MIX30 "Coupon code valid only on purchases made before midnight PT on July 24, 2020. Items eligible for coupon code must be in-stock at time of purchase and priced between $10 and $25. Coupon code may not be applied to prior purchases, Friday Deals of the Day items, or combined with any other coupon codes, vouchers, discounts, or offers. Applicable taxes still apply. Quantities are limited."

I was fortunate enough to win the silent auction for them at the summit last year, I love them! (I bought a new tail light to finish things off)

We never did figure out the cause, and I didn't see it happen again. When the EDM 830 was installed it confirmed what I mentioned above, that the strobe showed that at higher RPM's the mechanical tach is not accurate. When the mechanical tach was reading 2,700 I was really only getting 2,610-2,615. I ended up replacing the governor about six months later with a PCU5000, not because of this issue but because the old one had developed an oil leak. With the new governor I see 2,700 just after rotation and the mechanical tach is showing somewhere right around 2,800, although reading the needle is more of an estimate than an exact number. Sorry I can't provide any more info.

I will put up a full video of the flight, but here's just a short clip from under the wing of the departure. You can't see the entire nose wheel but you can see it moving as it transitions from one section of concrete to the next. You can also see the rectangles that the concrete was laid in, they did a nice job, but should have finished up grinding it smooth from one section to the next.

I'm not sure how rough it was before but it is quite bumpy. No pot holes but it felt like the concrete just wasn't smooth, like they need to grind it level between sections similar to what they do every five years or so on the freeways to smooth them out. Kept the yoke back to keep pressure off the nose, like if you were on grass. On takeoff did it like a soft field takeoff again to keep the pressure off the nose, a couple small bounces before staying airborne and picking up some speed in ground effect.

I'm game for that. We're flying to Salt Lake this weekend but a weekend after that would work.

Yesterday I made two $100 Burger Runs, the first was breakfast and the second was the long awaited flight to Catalina. I think I am in love with Catalina. The options were to pay the landing fee each time or an annual membership in the Conservancy with unlimited landings, I opted for the second. A great day of flying! Here are a couple of pictures. The complete write up is on my blog, and yes, the cameras were running for the flight there as well as the flight back which included a trip around the island. Hoping to have that footage edited and up in the next week. https://intothesky.us/2020/07/19/two-100-burger-runs-in-a-day/