EricJ

Depending on how long it's been, I'll treat a warm start like halfway between a cold and hot start. In other words, give it some boost pump for two or three seconds rather than the usual duration used for a cold start. If it repeatedly catches but won't stay running, then try giving it boost pump just as it catches and see if that sustains it...which I've found I have to do at high DA.

A buddy has a PA-28-180, I have an M20J. The cabin dimensions are very comparable between the two, in width, height, length, etc., they're basically the same in the general dimensions. The differences are not enough to matter in a purchase decision, imho. My non-turbo J model Mooney flies fine up through well into the teens, and I've had it as high as 18k ft. If you need to go up there routinely, you'll probably want a turbo. If you just need to go up there once in a while, a non-turbo is probably fine depending on the details of what you're doing. I live in the southwest, where it's pretty normal to fly above 10k to stay out of the terrain, and I used to fly back and forth between AZ and SoDak frequently, which required crossing the continental divide somewhere along the way. I've never felt like I needed a turbo, but requirement vary depending on personal preference and the details of what you want to do.

On a J model the engine baffling routes high pressure air to the front of the alternator, and is open to the alternator core. In other words, the high pressure air will naturally flow through the alternator rotor, so there may be no benefit to any additional shrouding. This is visible through the cowl inlet without removing the cowl. A normal preflight includes reaching in there to check the belt tension, so it's easy to see.

If the DPE has been identified just ask them. It's not an unusual issue so they may have dealt with it before, or they may just quote the reg.

Another alternative, although maybe not practical before you need your check ride, is to slide-in upgrade your 530 to an Avidyne 540. This allows a digital time display on the top (mine is configured that way) with seconds that qualifies as the clock. I also have an LC-2 that has proven to be a maintenance hog, enough so that I'm no longer interested in trying to figure out what it's problem du jour might happen to be. The UI is not great on those, anyway. There's a comparatively inexpensive FDS GT50 that might work, https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/flightdatafc50.php

My airplane had FCIIIs on it when I bought it, and one had a huge flat spot. I had noticed that unless you looked at the tire, you wouldn't have known there was a flat spot, since it still rolled smooth and didn't vibrate at all on takeoff or landing. I only recently replaced that tire, so now I've replaced both the MLG tires with new FCIIIs since the old ones behaved so well.

It's always the IA's job to make sure that the STC is compatible with the aircraft being altered, in its current state, even if the aircraft is on the AML for the STC. This includes checking what other STCs are installed, and whether there could be compatibility issues with those installations, since compatibility with those STCs may not have been considered during development of the current STC being considered. Since we now know that there were a lot of material compatibility issues that were not adequately considered (IMHO, anyway) for the G100UL STC, and GAMI says that they think all o-rings should be flourosilicone by now, anyway, if an IA knows (or, IMHO, suspects), that a particular aircraft still requires nitrile o-rings according to the IPC, or still has nitril o-rings installed, then that's an issue that the IA could be expected to deal with. We also know that that's just one dimension of the potential safety or maintenance issues that should be reviewed for an owner considering this STC. Many say, as you suggest, that an IA is just installing the STC and the burdens for safety compliance are elsewhere. So where are they? Everybody points fingers somewhere else, so a judge may have to decide at some point. I think the point being raised here is that the IA is a safety gatekeeper to some degree, and is often the aircraft owner's last chance for such a safety review, regardless of how much somebody might trust the STC process. One of the fallouts from this whole saga is that some, including myself, have lost a lot of confidence in the efficacy of the STC process to produce safe alternatives or modifications for GA aircraft.

The latest, Mar 2025, issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine, the professional society magazine for Electrical Engineers, has an article on "Bring Back Buttons", about how the trend in user interfaces is now swinging back to having buttons instead of solely touch-screen controls. I think a decade or two of touch screens has taught us some things. I've never liked the idea of being dependent on a single touch screen for controlling an integrated system, so maybe the interface design pendulum swinging back to buttons to will solve some of these issues. Of course, that doesn't eliminate the possibility of software failures, but I think it'll help some things.

I wouldn't, either, fwiw.

My previous Concorde was on a minder pretty much constantly, and lasted about 7-8 years, so I'm not sure it makes a significant functional difference. FWIW, I was doing capacity tests on mine and it was always coming in at >90%, even when it started cranking slowly. One day, not too long after doing a capacity test, it only turne the prop about a quarter turn and stopped in the middle of a compression stroke. It did subsequently turn it enough to start, but after that I took it out and did another capacity check and it failed. So I think starting to turn slowly is a better indicator of needing replacement than the capacity checks based solely on my experience, where it consistently passed capacity checks right up until failure.

He was pretty quick to throw the entire Mooney community under the bus as soon as it appeared that it would benefit him to do so.

Runway drifting left Adjust heading to the left Fly to the runway

I've always heard that the "demonstrated" number is just the highest crosswind observed during a particular portion of the certification testing, so it is just dependent on what crosswinds were present or available during testing during that phase. In other words, "we saw this value actually demonstrated", which is a useful data point, but also why it isn't a limitation.

It's a tradeoff, since moving the ballast forward to reduce the polar moment linearly increases the amount of ballast weight needed. In other words, if you move the weight forward half the distance toward the CG, you'll need twice as much weight. That can chew up UL pretty quickly. I helped a friend with an experimental do an engine swap from an na motor to a twin turbo that weighs quite a bit more. Just to get the CG back to where it was we added a big chunk of ballast and mounted it in a small space on top of the stabilizer, basically as far back as we could get it to minimize the amount of ballast needed. So the increased engine mass and the ballast together increased the polar moment, but I don't know that that changed the handling much. I never flew it before the swap so have nothing to compare to, but he hasn't complained about it at all (other than the increased fuel consumption).

You could also apply for an AMOC. Since the issue addressed by the AD was that the pump was prone to catch fire, an alternative pump shown to have design measures to prevent overheating and fire would be a good candidate for an AMOC.