EricJ

Pyramid fractional ownership scheme. For company shares and/or airplanes. Timeshare schemes for airplanes (wait, didn't they actually try that?)...yes, it's still on the website. D'oh.

One or both of the antennas has probably been replaced at one time or other with whatever was thought to be the best choice at the time. Performance differences between radios can be due to the antennas, corrosion in the connections, old cabling in bad condition (kinks, crimps, crushes, splits, etc.), or just differences in the radios themselves, or even the audio panel. So it's hard to pin down without doing some sleuthing. Cables and connectors sometimes reveal problems just by visual inspection, so that's not a bad place to start. If the two radios are the same kind, you can try swapping their positions and see if the trouble follows the radio or the slot.

Each comm radio has a separate antenna, and the second two antennas you show are the two VHF comm radio antennas. The VOR/localizer/GS antenna is usually the whiskers at the top of the tail. You probably don't want to remove that. If you still have a marker antenna it will probably be on the belly, maybe a "skid" type or a flat antenna.

That or just seal all the compartments, and fill the bladders or sealed compartments with hydrogen to increase lift.

I don't think the words "closing" or "shuttered" have been used yet in a related thread title. Could also maybe do something along the lines of, "The light of Mooney eclipsed by Cirrus clouds," or, "Mooney finally dies after a long illness," or, "Even the Chinese have given up on Mooney," or something along those lines.

A co-worker was in biz school getting an MBA when the Rockefeller Center and Japanese/Arab property grabs were going on. His biz school was telling them what a horrible thing this was for the US and for US businesses. I made the case that the money all those guys were paying were going to the US previous owners, and the only way it'll be bad is if they're resold at a later date back to US ownership for a lot more, sending that money overseas, and then the prices collapse, hurting the US owners, and that that was a pretty unlikely scenario. I found it equally likely the benefit would be to the US, which turned out to be substantially true. I lost interest in biz school at that point if that was what they were teaching. And we missed out on selling some family property to an Arab conglomerate that was buying up land in the area for way more that it was worth and ultimately selling it for a loss. So, yeah, the international finance/foreign ownership thing is easily vilified, usually for no good reason. I was wondering whether the supposed 90 remaining staff were crating up tooling and equipment to send it elsewhere.

I've never had trouble with PHX ATC, either, and the Bravo transition, which is pretty much my only way south out of DVT (Deer Valley), is pretty straightforward. I've never been asked to remain clear. They are very busy sometimes, but I've still always gotten where I needed to go without too much trouble. I don't know any locals that avoid the transition because of problems. It is usually very busy airspace around here, though.

I think we'll have diesel propulsion a lot sooner than electric. Purely electric propulsion isn't even fully mature for automobiles yet, and electric propulsion in automobiles is far more viable in a hybrid system, which aircraft don't lend themselves to nearly as well. If one were to go back in time and fix Mooney, I think a lot of other knobs could be turned besides the M10. Keeping and developing the 301, which has since been proven to be a successful design both technically and in market acceptance, and so many other milestones that in hindsight could've gone differently. That said, there's no telling how the story would have unfolded even if the "obvious" things could be changed. No telling where it'll go from here, but as an owner I'm not particularly worried just yet.

An IA is required to sign off the form 337 for return to service for anything that is a major repair or alteration. There is not tight agreement on what that means, and it has even been officially opined by FAA legal that STCs that aren't major alterations don't require a 337. Avionics changes generally don't fall under the description of major alterations or repairs in FAR 43 App A, and fit the TSO-for-TSO description of allowed changes, but most folks still use a 337 for them. Opinions vary. All that being said, the only thing the IA is really needed for is to sign off the 337 authorizing return to service. An A&P can do the work sign it off for conformity and an IA sign if off for return to service, and there are even separate places on the form for the A&P and the IA to sign it. So your A&P with available time can do the work and sign it, and the IA with less time can sign off the return to service. This might be tricky if they don't like each other or something, but it's a possible strategy.

http://www.tcmlink.com/pdf2/SIL19-04.pdf

I used to ride frequently in corporate Embraer Legacy aircraft and wound up being racing friends with one of the pilots. I mentioned that it was a little annoying to watch the wingtips constantly move in a slow circular motion. He said that's known as the "Embraer Waltz". It even had a name. I never thought to ask whether they had a YD or not, I just got the impression that it was baked into the control system for whatever reason.

It's actually about in the middle of the envelope, based on the original forty-two-year-old-and-n-times reworked WnB, so who knows where it is actually. I plan to re-weigh it, but not until I finish with avionics mods and such. I don't run out of down trim except in fast descents, about 160kias, which is significantly cranking it down, but there have been a number of times when I wanted it down further and there just wasn't any more. Otherwise flight characteristics and such seem fine, so it's not been anything I've worried about, just an occasional annoyance. Don Maxwell flew it to check rigging during my pre-buy and thought it was fine and "pretty fast", so I haven't worried about it.

And they're PMA'd!

172s seem to always be expensive due to their utility as trainers. That seems to be possibly changing, though, so be cautious going forward. A local school is cycling out a large fleet of C172s and replacing them with Archers, and Piper's Archer and Pilot models seem to be backfilling needs more than Cessnas. Another local school has been cycling out Archers and cycling in Diamonds. The Lufthansa school here has been cycling out the Bonanzas that they have been using for decades and replacing them with Cirrus (the horrors!) and some Grob complex aircraft. I don't know of any schools cycling in new 172s. It may be happening somewhere, I just don't know of any. Anyway, the value of C172s as trainers may be set to decline as other aircraft become more popular or plentiful, but who knows how long that'll take. Meanwhile, C172s are still pretty expensive relative to other airplanes, so a well-bought derelict might be a candidate for rehabilitation without going upside-down on the investment.

Oh, we'd have a country, but we might be speaking French, or perhaps German (Hessian), or perhaps some form of a Native American dialect. It does seem, though, that both of our countries are trying to outdo each other for how quickly and thoroughly we can shoot our own feet off, though. And highly partisan politics is most certainly supported here in the ads that are shown, but since we aren't allowed, I, too, will refrain. I think "patriot" or "revolutionary" is the word you were looking for. It is interesting that a handful of the same names appear so regularly in our history of that time.