Skates97

Well @Air pirate... Now you have been officially introduced to the dark side of Mooneyspace...

Yes, when I switch it on at idle I watch the volts on my engine monitor drop. Glad I have manual gear/flaps, a couple less things pulling power. I want to move to LED but there have been some other things on the plane this past year that ate up discretionary funds. I know, and one day I will. That day is hopefully not today.

Much cheaper, and at least this way you can lock it up in a hangar, walk away, and come back when you want. I think there are laws against doing that with a girlfriend... Oh, and it will be just how you left it when you return.

Are you talking about LED bulbs for the rotating beacon? If there are I haven't been able to come up with any through searches. Eventually I would like to replace it with a LED strobe but that is quite a way down the list of things, especially as long as I can keep it working. Mine has a collar on it, and I recall a retaining ring but it looks much different than Chris'. I'll mess around with it tonight when I'm there assuming I don't have to crawl inside, that would be a job for the skinny 14yo kid that lives rent free in my house.

My coffee grinder beacon works well, at least it has been. I would like to replace it but not right at the moment. Last time I flew it was rotating slowly when first turned on but after a few minutes was up to speed. Searching through old threads I found a post from @carusoam (pretty good odds there ) talking about cleaning and re-lubing the beacon. My question is how? Take the lens and retaining ring off the outside? Do I have to crawl inside the empennage and go at it from that side? I am thinking that perhaps it needs needs to be re-lubed and might last me a bit longer.

If you are rebuilding yours take the opportunity to lube the cable. It should slide nice and easy when operating it. I don't think mine had seen any lube in 50 years. (Something I wish I had known...) It's a long thread, but some of the guys offered some great insight.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I don't find a takeoff busy or a go-around wild. I have the same plane as well (love everything manual). On takeoff I find myself feeling like I am waiting to do things. I don't really think much about keeping the wings level and runway heading, that is just part of flying. Just like I don't really think about staying in my lane going down the road, it's just part of driving. Take off Pre-takeoff checklist complete, nothing to do but take the runway, push the throttle in, and stay centered (right rudder) while speed builds and glancing at engine monitor. Gently pull back and I'm airborne Raise gear (takes about a second) Wait some more until I get to 400' AGL, flip lever up to retract flaps and turn off electric fuel pump. Wait some more until I get to 800' AGL to make my turn (unless I'm given an early turnout, noise abatement procedures, etc...) Continue climbing to whatever my cruise altitude is at which point I adjust the prop and lean it out Go-around Push the throttle forward, some forward pressure on the yoke, right rudder, and start turning the trim wheel (Love the manual trim, it can be adjusted very quickly) Positive rate of climb retract gear and then flaps Wait until I get to 800' AGL and make my turn in the pattern Agree, one of the things I did on my first few flights for my PPL and later in transition training was practice go-arounds at altitude. CFI would tell me what altitude the ground was for the exercise and I would fly a normal pattern with the assumed altitude as my ground level. At some point on final (I'm keeping a watch on the altimeter) he would say "go around." Sometimes it was 50' above the set altitude, sometimes 5-10', always mixed up. Goal was to not bust the "ground level."

Me too, never had my Samsung tablet overheat, even in the summer in CA/UT/AZ in direct sunlight.

Sure

I recently put some LED lights under my glareshield and removed the torpedo lights. Probably a year and a half ago I converted my torpedo lights to LED following @Raptor05121's do it yourself guide. They worked using the old rheostat for dimming, I think because there is a regular bulb in my CDI. They can be really bright, I actually colored in the red lenses on them a little with a sharpie to dim them so that it balanced with the post lights better. If anyone wants them let me know. It is a single wire that hooks up, the ground is supplied through the metal balls that they mount to.

I second that! John, these are amazing, you truly have a talent.

http://flightenhancements.com/index.html @takair here on MS is the one that developed it. I'm going to be going that route once the AV-30's are available and then I will pull my vacuum system.

This was my exact line of reasoning when I decided to just put a PCU5000 in. Shop swapped out the governors, no downtime, and I was able to sell my old one as a core and recover $175 for it.

Yes, Mooneys are fast and I regularly fly to Phoenix and Salt Lake, not short little breakfast hops. And yes, everywhere around here you need ADS-B, things I already know. My question was about what might have failed, not how to spend my money or make a plan. If it's the encoder I can have one for $50 and the Skybeacon less the rebate has me complaint for about 1 AMU. Given all the upgrades going on I can pick up a spare transponder for not much if I want to down the road just in case it goes belly up. Thanks for this, will take a look at connections and wires and have my guy do a transponder check to see if we can narrow this down. They could see the transponder (location) there was just no mode C (altitude) in the reporting.

I don't have a strap over there but just grab the center post with my left hand and door frame with my right hand. I'm just glad I get to sit in the left seat, it is much easier to get in and out of than the right seat.

After an annual in December and a very busy December/January I finally flew yesterday for the first time in 6 weeks. Longest stretch since my first flight in May 2016. It was a short hop, about 10 minutes) from Corona to Fullerton where the plane will now be based. Two years ago the price difference between the two made sense to go to Corona. With two rent increases it is now only $23 more a month at Fullerton so I have spent the last 8 months on their waiting list and got to move in yesterday. Bigger hangar, same distance from my house, no traffic to fight to get there, control tower, actual security (no homeless people wandering the airport at night), two miles from one of the dealerships I work at, it all makes sense. New Home - KFUL

Blinking light works fine. He knew where I was, just not how high I was, which is why I am thinking it is the encoder that died.

Here you go. https://www.epgsoft.com/VisitedStatesMap/VisitedStatesMap.php

Moved to a new home if you can update my location on the map. I'm now at Fullerton (KFUL).

For a little while now every so often the Mode C on my transponder will stop reporting. Cycling the transponder has previously got it working again. Today I was flying to my plane's new home (KFUL, will post in the today's flight thread on it) the tower reported that my Mode C was not working and asked me to cycle the transponder. I did, and it still wasn't working. The transponder was broadcasting position because when I initially called up tower he came back with "Are you next to the water treatment plant?" which I affirmed that was me. That was when he asked me to cycle it, after doing so and inquiring if it was working he told me negative, get it fixed when you get on the ground. Not knowing enough about the workings and relationship between the transponder and encoder my question is which is it, or both? My thought would be that it was the encoder that gave up the ghost. Transponder is a Narco AT 150 and encoder is a Narco AR 850 both of which could be had fairly cheap to swap one out and kick the can a little further down the road. (Yes, I know ADS-B is less than a year away and there is something to be said for not throwing money after bad/old/worthless components).

When I know where the oil leak is it doesn't bother me as much, it's the ones that I can't figure out that make me nervous... Yes! It is easy to set up and once you do if you go to amazon.com instead of smile.amazon.com it will prompt you to go to the smile site. It does not work if you are using the app on a phone, but that is easy to work around. Just put everything in your cart with the app, then open the web browser on your phone and go to smile.amazon.com. It will all be in your cart, you can place the order, and the Mooney Summit gets the benefit. Either I order too much on Amazon or we need to get more people using the smile link and setting up the Mooney Summit as the charity. I shouldn't be making up close to 5% of what has gone to the Mooney Summit...

I got mine off Amazon Prime. I use a lot more of the Blue so it was nice to get the gallon jug to refill the spray bottle. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X04JRMU/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VSAS1O/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure how up to date this list is. The only thing I can find with a date is a report they link that was given in 2012 so perhaps the data is that old as well. It provides some place to start anyway. http://aireform.com/airports-atc/faas-airports/the-air-list-of-airports-626-airports-512-towers/

I'm moving to Fullerton KFUL this weekend so went to their monthly Fullerton Airport Pilots Association meeting last night. The presenter was the ATC Air Traffic Manager for the Airport. He has a long pedigree working all over SoCal. He gave a great presentation and did mention that they are getting paid because they are a contract tower. It is also the reason he is still able to work because he had aged out. Great guy, very professional, very helpful. There was also a controller there who works at LAX. He got up and spoke a little at the end, also very nice and professional. @M20Doc mentioned the pizzas, one of the comments that was made last night by the conrollers was "Send pizza up to the tower." I'm thinking that even when the shut down is over that they would still appreciate some pizza.

I do the same. They must have changed it sometime in the late 60's. My 1965 D/C is the same 120mph for gear and 100mph for flaps.