glenn reynolds

I liked your post, and agree with the concept of having a plan B or alternative. A couple of years ago I was cheerfully solid IMC with moderate icing at 8k. Then the TKS system failed. I learned later that I had blown a hose fitting in the belly panel so the system couldn't put out. In that case my plan b was simple: advise Air Traffic Control that I was no longer FIKA and needed an IMMEDIATE descent and would require deviations around the weather cells I had been flying through. Despite it being busy airspace (class b) ATC approved both and I landed 15 minutes later. In this case I had altitude below and warmer temps below and of course staying out of the worst of the weather were my outs. The TKS panel told me I had a failure which allowed me to take action before I was iced up.

I absolutely use the speed brakes to slow the plane in turbulence. It’s fast

I’m learning that it requires time and money. How MUCH of those two resources I still don’t know.

I threaded a bolt into the front engine mount and jacked up the front tire. The bolt broke so the jack slide forward and dented the tubing of the engine mount.

The fuses are not in series and not labeled so I don’t yet know which one is which. But I will know as I flew the plane yesterday and the fuse for the cabin light blew again so there must be a short. Darn front jack bolt broke so now I’ve got to have the engine mount repairsed so cabin lights are a low priority.

Thank You! It would seem it was one of the three in line fuses in the battery area in the avionics bay in the tail. I found two blown fuses, both now repaired. As soon as I put the front panel and side panels back together, reinstall the seats, then I can fly it and confirm all works. quite a goose chase.

my cabin lights are not working. There is no power at the pilots armrest master switch. non of the circuit breakers are labeled for lights etc. the schematic in my service manual pdf is illegible (pdf). the serial number is 29-0037 which the service manual references to an electrical drawing 800304 R2 W. alternatively does anybody know which breaker the cabin lights come off of?

It’s the 2hc-39. Send me a regular email address and I can send a real picture. I don’t seem to have much luck posting pictures on mooneyspace. greynolds@h2osolutions.com

I sent my unit to sacramento executive autopilot and they rebuilt the unit. Saved thousands

The last time I had mud dabber in my pitot tube it took 125 psi to evict them. And yes I removed the pitot tube from the plane before I run the pressure. Vacuum can only generate 14.5 psi so I'd be skeptical that would do it.

Call mountain high and have photos of your connectors or ports, which ever you have. I purchased the pulse demand unit which required an inline regulator to drop the pressure. The pulse demand cut my O2 use by 75%.

Victory Aero tech in camarillo is really good and depending on work load may be able to travel, it's all about the timing.

I fly a known ice tks ovation. I fly in the winter and I fly in Canada and cross country. I’d say that in those conditions the tks system increases the utility of my plane by fifty percent. If my ovation has a $200k value then is the value of tks $70k? I would say it likely is.

Try matt at victory tech at Camarillo. He is a mooney mechanic and a pilot.

that is an excellent point and points out that wing shape is almost never discussed when it comes to Icing. Well done GeeBee

Much of this thread doesn't relate to how my TKS equipped mooney handles ice. the comments here are in response to the full three pages of prior comments where folks have commented about icing. As this is a mooney thread, my comments are about how the mooney CAV tks know ice system works for me, your experience is likely to be different. The prop slinger keeps the empennage ice free in appropriate conditions (which is to say explicitly, any airplane can be overwhelmed and thus I always assume this can happen and I have plan B). The weeping wings keep my wings clean, not just the leading edges (same appropriate condition comment). My last moderate ice encounter was on the approach to Victoria airport in Canada as the number four plane in the que. i refused lower clearances three times from ATC approach, which meant I had surplus altitude by the time it was my turn to land. I didn't need this altitude but had the tks system failed it would have been my plan B. ATC wanted me lower so they could stack planes above me. I stated "unable, in icing meteorological conditions". I landed after a king air and we both arrived at the same ramp. his leading edges were clean, his props were clean and his entire airframe had two inches of ice. My landing light lenses were carrying two inches of ice, my entire airplane was clean (my gear only came out on very short final) Why: because the tks fluid is a glycol film which mixes with the ice/water and films everything it touches. The king air had boots which only cleared his leading edges. The system does have redundancy in that I have two tks pumps, i have two alternators so I can keep power on to keep a pump running. If a panel fails it only affects one section, not the whole airframe. if the nose slinger fails I have a windshield system so there is some level of redundancy. However there is nothing redundant about an airplane. If my engine fails so does the plane. if a tire fails, my landing will not be pretty so there is no level of redundancy which makes flying a zero risk activity. The only time limit on TKS operation is that of tks gallons remaining. The TKS system allows a fast pumping rate and slow pumping rate. The amount required depends on what weather you are flying in. This is a lot like how we should plan for our fuel, how much did you start with? How much are you consuming per hour? what is the time to your alternate? Do you have a plan B? a plan C? Are you monitoring headwinds? I would suggest that flying in weather requires a higher level ok knowledge than flying on a calm wind sunshine day. Is the possibility of a thunderstorm a no fly limitation? it depends if your a novice: likely yes. If you have a couple thousand hours flying the tropics and understand how far away from T storms to be safe, then the answer is no. So if there are no hard and fast rules for how much crosswind or gusts, or darkness or clouds, then each pilot must set standards which they back up with study, ongoing learning and a desire to stay alive. i think it's important to be realistic. There are VERY hard and fast rules about how much gas you MUST have and yet fuel exhaustion crashes far more airplanes than almost any other item. so this leads to my closing statement, don't let a fancy piece of equipment take the place of knowledge. An airframe parachute doesn't preclude needing to know how to handle inflight failures; A twin engine airplane doesn't assure safer flight; on board weather data doesn't guarantee safe flight with T storms, and a certified known ice airframe doesn't make a plane iceproof. I enjoy learning and thus weather flying adds a layer of learning which I accept and embrace.

this fine looking unit was removed when I installed my new g5 and removed my vacuum pump and standby vacuum pump. It worked fine then. I was going to throw it away but looked it up on aircraft spruce and was shocked to see that this item sells for $1,100. I suggest that if you don't yet want to get rid of your vacuum system you buy this fine unit for $110 including shipping.

You need to remove the belly panels and run the system. My leak was instantly apparent. Then all I needed was a longer replacement tube and fittings for both ends. Super easy repair

nice thread and here are my thoughts: I recently replaced my aluminum hartzell three blade with an MT four blade composite and lost twenty pounds. You will be stunned to learn that engines, props and mechanics are in short supply and so the firewall forward project took four months time. to give myself a break from spending all my free time on freight tracking websites and keep some semblance of currency I flew a friends Cessna 140. Oh what a ball! if you think we can bounce mooney airplanes you should try a soft tire taildragger, Yeh-ha. Speed control is just as important as in a mooney. And just like a Mooney, the darn thing will not stop flying if you are even a tiny bit above the wing flying speed. Most of us learned in the larger land-O-Matic cessnas, and now I know why Cessna developed them they are a cinch to land. So here is why I'm adding to this thread: Turbulence. I routinely fly over the Sierra mountains. With mountain tops at 12,000 + feet elevation it is really important to assume significant turbulence on every flight I have an elastic cargo net for the baggage compartment, and my seat MUST be at its lowest elevation. I have hit the ceiling of the mooney so hard I've been literally dazed and had to tell ATC to standby and wait until I can get back to them. I hit my head hard enough that it was a serious threat to the safety of the flight. I am now proactive and lower my seat when there is a forecast for turbulence or I'm mountain flying or in the area of a weather front/convective activity the fourth of july weekend I landed twice at mammoth lakes KMMH with winds gusting to 34K. With this kind of turbulence I needed to land with my seat low so I didn't take a head hit at a critical stage. It is really important to me that I practice landing with my seat in both up and down position for just this reason. I've found that when I have recent taildragger time, frankly I land the Mooney better. Try it you may like it and frankly its a really fun way to do a flight review; getting a tail wheel endorsement. I bought my Mooney with a three blade and my prior airplane was a three blade so I'm not super versed in two blade to three blade transition. However having just transitioned from a three blade to a four blade I can tell you that when I pull all power off (flare to touchdown), the four blade becomes a MASSIVE speed brake. My mechanic has cautioned me that the composite prop blades are susceptible to chips or hanger damage from being struck with tow bars, cowling, or just stupid hanger accidents. He insisted that I make a set of foam blade covers for when the plane is in the hanger and these MUST be on prior to removing the cowling. It sounds like he was present when a cowling was removed and chipped the backside of a composite propeller. this doubly makes sense as clearance of the cowling past a >two blade prop is significantly harder. Yes they are repairable but it takes a lot of time.

I use a pair of deep cycle 12 volt batteries wired to deliver both 12V and 24 Volt. They have a marine battery charger with a two battery output (super common in the marine world) so the two batteries are charged but have plenty of reserve should my load exceed the charger capacity. The kit is on a dolly and thus mobile. We don't have a shop on our field so this way I can swing my gear, check avionics and jump a stranded transient or hanger neighbor. By purchasing marine gear, the cost was very reasonable and the only aviation item is the special aviation three prong jumper plug. at west marine the battery charger is less than $200 (sold as a two bank unit and rated for continuous duty). I've noticed that some of the "airplane" power supplies really struggle to supply clean and consistent power and they give off some pretty horrific electromagnetic field interference. When I switched to the battery pack system these issues all went away. good luck.

Hard to imagine the firewall line as solid since the engine vibrates so the transition from firewall to engine should be flexible. Check it out on your next oil change

I fly a fiki ovation and have had four TKS system failures. I thought it might be helpful if I shared the information with the rest of the team, as I have found few shops that are up to speed on these systems, so I've had to play the role of director of money spending: 1) This is the well documented failure of the stall strip triangle on the leading edge. There are multiple reports of the glue giving out and I was alerted to this by a fellow pilot and got mine re-attached before it was lost. recently I've read about using rtv to seal the gaps (which mine has) so I'll do that soon. this is a tedious repair due to the cleaning involved, exact placement and then cure time required. 2) failure of the COPPER prop slinger nozzle. I lost two of these prior to learning several things: CAV now wants an RTV "cone" of vibration dampener of RTV (room temperature Vulcanizing) sealant at the base of the nozzle. I did this and it has worked perfectly. Second: they now have a new and improved nozzle made of a metal which has less tendency to vibration work harden. If your nozzle doesn't have a cone of rtv at the base of the nozzle, why not? 3) nylon belly tubing failure. This is more complicated. it appeared that my nylon supply tubing had shrunk which apparently is normal and so there must be additional length accounted for in the installation. My installation was lacking this "contraction" length and thus pulled out so I needed a longer replacement section. Careful reading of the CAV installation paperwork shows that the tubing is connected with what CAV calls an "olive" (the tubing industry calls it a ferrule) and these were missing on my installation. CAV supplied both ferrules and tubing. You want a low boy creeper to work under the belly skin! Next time I'll do this with the plane on jacks. 4) this is the latest: forward of the firewall my tks tubing was firesleeved from firewall to engine cooling baffle where the tubing transitions to stainless steel tubing across the top of the engine. I recently replaced all the hoses, firewall forward when I changed the engine and I found the firesleeved TKS hose to be stiff and inflexible. This was in stark contrast with all the other hoses which seemed to laugh and mock me for throwing them away with there excellent looks and high flexibility. So a played a little. As I was flexing my tks line it snapped! I cut open the firesleeve and found that the TKS line had not been a fuel line material, but rather what looked like Buna with a spring wire reinforcement. It had leaked, rusted and failed. I had not detected the leaking as the firesleeve was very well sealed at both ends. The forensic evidence indicates that it had been leaking into the fire sleeving for some time. I assume my propslinger worked solely due my filling the fire sleeve with tks fluid each time I primed. I know some of you will ask so i address it now: I forgot to check the hose date code to determine how old the tks hose was, but the bad news is that other evidence indicates that it was only six years old. It only takes about twenty minutes to remove this hose and see if it is supple or not. There are two shops who supply custom made teflon, fire sleeved, hoses. I called both, one was three weeks, the other was three days. it wasn't expensive, budget around $100 bucks. You send your old hose and they return it with an identical replacement.

One comment not mentioned is that of too tight. I broke two gear door hinges before I figured out that someone had adjusted the door too tight.

The one item nobody else mentioned is the engine Stc data plate. I believe that this will come from mooney but you can google it. I just replaced my engine and my mechanic was adamant that while the stc for 310hp stays with the airframe. The 310 Hp data plate had to stay with the engine core and could not be swapped so I had to get a new data plate. In your case you will be purchasing the stc so you should get the data plate from who ever sells you the stc. The stc is totally worth it. I took off three people with a density alt of 9,500 feet on the Fourth of July weekend and I need every pony I could get.

Acetone should glue that back together again