glenn reynolds

Perhaps you guys could help a TKS owner understand more about my system. When would you use this device? I test run my TKS system on the ground each month to verify that each panel is flowing correctly. Is this cart a repair item? thanks

I have made several replacement inspection hole covers when they were damaged by a shop when doing my annual inspection. I really like the Cleveland tool. given how cheap the materials are and the fact that my inspector mechanic says that I should be paid by the JOB not the hour (i'm not a mechanic, it's his way way of expressing how appallingly slow I am) I make up a practice piece, then make the real deal. It's fun, it takes very few tools, but I do recommend the 3M aluminum buffing wheel on a bench grinder (see aircraft spruce or mcmaster carr) for making perfect ovals and shapes. this tool is only $48 which makes it about the lowest price airplane entertainment device I own. this tool rolls the edge crease so the plate has a positive edge contact. http://www.cleavelandtool.com/Edge-Forming-Tool/productinfo/EF60/#.Wo2wn-inG3A

nice photo and description. I had a fuel return line come loose a couple months ago and it sure makes you uncomfortable!! thanks for posting

I removed my aero safe guardian I standby vacuum pump. 24 volt unit. It was mounted in the rear avionics bay of my my 1995 mooney ovation. looking at the log books, this unit has been installed for many years so the unit is not new. The unit works great as I had to use it twice due to engine mounted vacuum pump failure. The unit was run as a test every couple of months so it is has been maintained in good working condition. the unit weighs 7lb and six ounces. This unit lists for $2,000 at Chief aircraft. I'd like to get $700 and I'll pay shipping in the US.

After using a Bruce's cover outside on my prior airplane, when I purchased a new cover for my new to me Ovation (which lives in a hanger) I switched to the lighter weight "travel cover" from Bruce. What a great cover. It is super light which means it rolls up and goes in the stuff sack very easily via one person. That means I use it for day stops, not just overnights. I use the cover for several reasons: 1) it is very water repellent and reduces the water migration in heavy rain. 2) It makes it much less obvious that I have four thousand dollars worth of Bose headsets, one thousand dollars worth of I pad and only Pacific Coast Avionics really knows how many tens of thousands in avionics which all come out with one simple screw. 3) The windows are a lot of work to change and UV is not their friend 4) The cover will keep the interior ten to twenty degrees cooler in the sunshine than not having it. you mentioned that you wish to use the cover inside, so I'm guessing you have a dusty hanger? We have a few at our airport and the guys use cotton sheets. I like the idea of cotton sheets as you can take them home and launder them every six months. A cover with snaps, velcro, buckles etc may not be as easy a laundry item. Beside, purchasing your wife a nice new set of bed sheets for the master bed room (to free up your new plane cover from it's present use) seems like a smart domestic move?

I also have seen this several times, so I'm now more cautious to let at least an overnight before I assume I need to add oil.

I fly an ovation with the 550 310hp conversion with a full dipstick of 8 quarts. Engine is new. the breather put a quart on the belly every three hours with dipstick oil level at 8, at 7 and at minimum of 6. after about 200 hours of me cleaning the belly way too much, I had the oil changed and the shop made a mistake and overfilled the engine to 9+ quarts. I went in to ask about draining it and they could/would except that they offered to simply clean the belly they knew how cranky I was about this) when I returned from the flight i was due to leave on. I called two Mooney specialists who agreed that this would be the only penalty clause. I flew three hours. I checked the oil: 9+ quarts! no kidding. I've now flown 100 hours additionally (three more oil changes) in this configuration. I change the oil and filter every 33 hours. I refill to 9 quarts and usually (but not always) make the full 33 hours with adding only ONE quart additional oil (yup, about ten to fifteen hours per quart) I've stopped asking mechanics about this issue as most of them want to tear into my engine. There are plenty of sages on the web who say: "if it ant broke, don't fix it". I had three mechanics tell me I would cause no harm with the extra quart, they simply said that out it would come. My own theory is that the configuration of that engine and breather, likes an additional quart. Maybe I'm wrong and the engine was breaking in and my now broken in engine doesn't need to blow oil? (I have NO interest in tearing the engine down to find out (this has been suggested twice!!) I'm not a mechanic and so I don't want to offer you any advice, but I did want to tell my story as I was sooo tired of cleaning my belly. good luck.

My advice is to NOT do a prepurchase inspection. If you look carefully at what a prepurchase inspection is: A third parties opinion on if it MIGHT be an ok plane to purchase. This is a like knowingly taking off for a flight where the weather MIGHT be ok to land! The destination weather may be perfect for an instrument pilot where it could easily kill a VFR only pilot. The cost of a prepurchase inspection is about two thirds the cost of an annual so what are you exactly saving? is it dollars? is it time? is it hassle? If a thorough prepurchase involves going through all the items of an annual, then the only thing saved dollar wise is the repairs. I would argue that if a buyer is not ready to pay for an annual then they have not committed to buy that airframe and that is not a bad thing. But why should you then own this plane for maybe eight months dreading what you will learn when the annual comes due??? When you know an airplane is the right machine for you, then offer to purchase the plane pending an ANNUAL inspection at a shop NOT associated with the seller. In my opinion it is VERY valuable to use a shop which is familiar with the type, they know where to look first and save thousands by spotting known issues almost immediately. In your case this means LASAR or Top Gun. You need to talk to both shops and see who you like, and what their schedule is. Look at it from the sellers perspective: a potential buyer says they had a prepurchase done and the seats need work for example so they want to pay less money. Contrast that with a buyer who has said they will own your airplane if only it passes an annual and the Inspector says that the seats need work and can't be signed off as airworthy. The Mooney I currently fly was purchased with known damage history and I'm thrilled. I had the Mooney service center do a "super thorough" annual. They said, oh we use a "Mooney checklist" I said, nope, I want all items even remotely associated with a prop strike totally investigated. I plan to pay 20% more than normal for inspection time. We then made a list (based on what the Mooney service center had observed in prior prop strike repairs as items that they would inspect. This included the engine mount, the firewall attachment areas, landing gear attachment areas, etc. Ten days later we had a unacceptable list a discretionary list. The seller paid for the unacceptable list and I paid for the discretionary repairs and the most expensive item? : it was the heated stall vane (the plane is TKS equipuiped) which it would seem was left on during the ferry flight to the airplane broker so while not really the owners fault, as it happened after he turned it over to the broker, was still a $4,500 repair I didn't have to pay for. I suspect that the owner found it easier to deduct this repair from my purchase price as he had a signed purchase agreement, down payment and was only $4,500 away from selling the plane, so there was no haggling just a simple agreement. The extra time that the annual cost me? Less than $400. It takes only ten minutes on google to find hundreds of owners lament stories of folks who had a "really good" mechanic look at a plane before they bought it only to get slammed at the first annual. If you start with an annual, you have a year of getting to know your new (to you) machine, figure out who will do the second annual and learn the joys of speed, speed, and more speed (sorry I couldn't resist being an extrovert proud mooney owner) This purchase is about you getting your head around owning this plane and making sure it fits in two places: 1) Does your spouse fit in the plane and like it? (a mooney is not a lexus!) Second does this plane fit in your bank account? (not the other way around!) If the answer to those questions is yes, then how do we move the plane from the seller to you? Understand that far too many buyers show up with 3/4 of the budget for the new plane, or put another way, many smiling buyers are financially reaching and the purchase can/will/should/may fall apart. Your job is to show the seller that you are willing to pay a fair price for what your getting. If your buying a non-flying ramp rat, then you should pay pennies on the dollar, but it's fair as your going to sink a lot of time and money into the machine. I like to make a spreadsheet of all the machines of that make model type with columns for year, upgrades, engine time, options, damage history etc. (I personally don't include location as I love the bring it home trip) Yes this will burn many hours of your evening, combing through trade a plane, but when you find your dream machine, you will know exactly what it is worth and be ready to make an offer now. good luck.

commercial delivery to a business. Don't recall anything other than $550 cost delivered

I have the 55 gallon drum and no hazmat shipping fee. I use about twenty gallons per year. I do put an extra five gallons in the back when I travel so I don't have to buy it on the road as it is often north of $30 per gallon at FBO. I love the TKS system and don't see how people fly in the north without it.

I was flying cross country to san francisco last week and about mid country i noticed a slight fuel odor on take off and sometimes landing. it wasn't a very strong smell of gas but is was noticeable, but just on landing and departure. I thought that the tanks might be seeping into the cabin, but couldn't really put a finger on the source. Arrived on west coast and went to attach the fuel ground clamp prior to refuel and observed fuel dripping onto the nose wheel. Towed the plane to hanger, uncowled engine and turned on booster pump. fuel sprayed out of loose engine fuel pump return hose fitting. I torqued all fuel lines and applied torque seal to all fittings. Good luck with your leak.

I used to fly with a portable tank and was frustrated by how little oxygen the tank held, given the weight and space it took up in the cockpit, When I upgraded to my ovation with built in O2 a friend had me buy the pulse demand oxygen device from mountain high. Yes the box costs $700 and yes that seems like a crazy amount of money so now let me give you the data: I typically fly between ten and 16,000 feet, and almost never below five thousand (california has foothills which preclude flying lower). I fly 50% single seat, 40% two seats full and ten percent three seats full. I use a mountain high headset cannula and simply turn the system on prior to take off (it automatically turns on and off at five thousand feet). I have now flown 275 hours on one refill of O2!! To really make this oxygen efficiency sting, the aircraft bottle was emptied by accident when the hose from the plane to the pulse demand box was disconnected and thus drained the bottle (it was about a 1/2 full at the time). So really I've flown 275 hours on about 0.5 refills of the ships tank. The pulse demand gizmo is like a scuba regulator, it only delivers O2 when you inhale. I fly with a blood level pulse oxymeter and all is good so it works well. I do have a three tank cascade refill system in my hanger, but it is now clear that I purchased much too large tanks, given my very modest consumption rate. If you fly with oxygen (and you should) you really want a pulse demand box. Two weeks ago, my wife and I flew from san francisco to Boston and back and we used less than three hundred pounds of oxygen.

I take this crazing much more seriously than I used to. My prior plane had a pair of sunroof windows, which always saw the sun, didn't get hangered or covered by the windshield cover. I was flying along when my kids asked about the crazing and I said "we will probably need to replace these soon" and I gave one of the skylights a tap to emphasize my point. Bad idea. At this point I should interject that the plane was current for it's annual inspection, my mechanic simply said I could change the windows when it bothered me. So there is this fairly loud bang and we are flying at 5,000 feet with a missing skylight! The kids were pretty scared, so I put on my best dr science voice and explained how the bernoulli effect which was the same effect that made our wings work was currently making the sucking sound in the cabin, and look, how cool, it would suck trail mix right out of mid cabin and and out the missing skylight!! very cool effect, kids calmed down and my heart returned to my chest and I focused on entering a busy pattern, spotting planes on two concurrent downwind legs, getting in sequence and landing. Oh so good. I turn around to see how the kids are doing and learned that we had "venturi'd" the foam ear plugs, they had shredded my charts "they were out of date daddy", The trail mix and popcorn all gone as were the tissue, windshield wipes and heavens knows what else. You can be assured we flew home with 120 knot tape. But there is no doubt that crazing weakens the plastic and frankly I wouldn't want to be sitting behind weak plastic. just a thought. Besides it's hard enough to make a landing into a setting sun on a west facing runway, buy a new windshield.

I have a used sigma tek vacuum switch model 22-1280 it was working fine when I installed a garmin G5 and removed my vacuum system. It told me me vacuum pump had failed again! I can ship it anywhere in the US make me an offer. Glenn

I have a functioning unit from when I removed my vacuum system. let me know sigma tek, part number 22-1280 glenn

I just removed my sigma tek 22-1280 switch from my plane so I have a spare if you need it. I installed the garmin G5 so the vacuum system is now in a box in the hanger. I'm not saying you should remove your vacuum system, just that it is always nice to have spares. glenn

I have at least two complete portable O2 systems in my hanger, and three different sizes of bottles. They are left over from a prior plane. My new Mooney has built in O2 so I'd be happy to move these out of hanger. I'm at KHAF. I don't know much about shipping but I suppose I could dump the O2 from what ever bottles you choose and ship? the bad news is that some of my bottles are out of hydro so you'll likely have to have the tanks hydrostatic tested prior to having them filled. I have my own O2 in the hanger so I never worried about it. I have to agree with the posts above, but I'll add a comment: You will absolutely want to buy the mountain high portable pulse demand unit. I now own two of their two place units and am stunned by how much less O2 I'm using. Recently flew from Boston to San Francisco with three people round trip and we used two hundred lbs of O2 and spent most of the flight above 14,000 feet. I understand that you will be not so happy with the price of these units, but the extreme O2 savings totally pays off. The portable tanks are expensive to fill on the road as most FBOs charge a flat $50 or $75 rate. The part of portables is that it really chaps me to be on a trip and be lugging an empty O2 tank around so I always paid to have it refilled. I have 260 hours on my pulse demand units and have not purchased O2 YET. (full disclosure: my ovation has a large tank, and I have O2 in my hanger for the eventuality that I will reduce my internal tank enough to fill it) I'd like to get some money for my gear but maybe 25% of new?

my previous airplane was missing it's data plate! assumably from when the plane was painted some years prior. I carefully admired the data plate on like model and make, then made my own. I purchased a stamp set and laid out the format with pencil on the "data plate" (rectangle of aluminum) and stamped away. It was so easy I made a second and better looking one. I riveted it to the plane (left hand or pilot side under the horizontal stabilizer) and cheerfully flew the plane for another 12 years. I would leave your factory plate, and install a FAA advised duplicate where they have suggested and send them a photo.

I think many of the above suggestions are great ideas. I think you really, really, really want to buy a large box of zip ties, cut your old zip ties out and start tracing those wires. I use a super small set of really sharp diagonal cutters and be very careful that you cut no wires. Once you have unbundled the wiring runs it should be very straight forward where these wires lead. I have a battery powered led light that goes up under the panel (costoco) and I use two sets of the rubber matts that costco sells about a half inch thick close cell foam, about three foot square. remove the seats of course. put your darn cell phone in a really hand place as it will ring within about three minutes of your working yourself into an upside down position under the panel.

Since we are having fun telling oil stories, I'll throw mine into the library: cont 550 no turbo. (ovation). I bought the plane with 150 hours on a factory new engine and the darn thing threw a quart out the breather every 3 hours regardless whether you put a full sump of 8 quarts, partial sump of seven quarts or started the flight clock with the minimum of six quarts. I did actually see a slight improvement to about four hours when I started trips with only six quarts, but what a lot of nice clean oil all over the belly. Lots of sage mechanics all said, bad break in, live with it. During a routine oil change a leak at the accessory pad was resolved (new gasket) and the leak was putting a pretty good film of oil on the firewall, but was a relatively new issue. during this oil change the service team made a mistake and overfilled the sump to nine quarts. Since I was now a trained belly cleaner, I flew the plane rather than decant the extra quart. All opinions were that the extra quart would be blown out and we would carry on with the usual quart per three hours of operation. but no.... it was not to be. I now have 14 hours on the same nine quarts! Yup you read that correctly. when i maintained between six and eight quarts in the sump, the engine would blowing a quart every three and a half hours. When the sump was accidently overfilled to nine quarts it's held that nine quarts for 14 hours and counting. Just to be clear, I'm not complaining, and I'm really not interested in "experimenting" as now that I have had the airplane for 14 months and this is the first month with out me under the belly cleaning oil! But, I am really curious as to why and theories are cheap.

I have flown in to phx multiple times and consider it a great airport to fly into. I rank it as my favorite big city airport. You absolutely want flight following or ifr so that approach knows you are coming. Study the landmarks but don't hesitate to state "unfamiliar" and ask for vectors. It is very likely you will get your own controller so they can focus on your route. The airport has a smaller runway specifically for general aviation traffic. I have found the controllers to be excellent. There are two fbo on the field. I have used both and they have been very good. Cutter makes a point of pricing a gas cheaper to bring in ga traffic and I use them. Call ahead and tell them what you need and they will be ready. I do make sure to have my Bruce cover as it gets too hot in phx. Matts big breakfast in downtown is the best in the country. Enjoy.

The right Hand lower cowling developed a dim size blister yesterday. Any idea?

G500 dimming issue. I'm flying a 97 ovation with a g500 installed and I've been told that the reason my g500 will not auto dim is that the install shop relied on the g500 photo cell instead of picking up the panel dimming circuit. The ovation eyebrow lights confuse the g500 photocell.