EricJ

It's more likely vapor lock/cavitation at the input to the mechanical pump, which creates low pressure/suction at its input during pumping. The low pressure at the input to the pump may approach the fuel vapor pressure when the system is hot, so turning on the boost pump increases the fuel pressure at the input to the mechanical pump, reducing the likelihood of boiling/cavitating. As more ambient temperature fuel flows through the system it may cool the mechanical fuel pump enough to increase the fuel vapor pressure at that location and decrease the likelihood of cavitation. The fuel downstream from the mechanical pump will be at higher pressure due to the pump, and so also less likely to boil. The fuel in the distribution lines can boil after shutdown once the supply pressure is removed at engine shutdown, but generally won't before that.

There may be a good reason for cutting that arch in the panel, especially if you asked for maintenance to be done on that control. I was speculating that maybe there was interference with the lock, and if you had complained that it was "sticky", that might have been the cure. Otherwise, if the cable was put in while the upper panel was out, it may have been the only way to get to it to address the problem without removing the upper panel. I've no idea what communications were or were not done, I'm just speculating that there may have been a very good reason for making the modification, especially if you asked for it to be looked at.

Lol...it was where I grew up, and we spent our childhoods and younger years trespassing in the place. It came up for sale after the 2008 real estate crash for pennies so we bought it. I regret selling it. It was a lot of fun to fiddle around with. We did have occasional problems with trespassers getting through the gate at the adit so we put up a security camera.

I used to own a historic silver mine, which was basically a tunnel network in nine acres of hillside. Keeping trespassers out was always a worry, especially since it was easy to get lost in there if you weren't familiar with the place. Not surprisingly, we couldn't get insurance for it. I also co-owned my grandmother's place with some siblings, and it wasn't very far from the mine. My regular insurer and our insurer for my grandmother's place both said that it would be easy to add the mine to an existing policy for local property, but the owners, i.e., the insured, had to be the same for both places, which, unfortunately, it wasn't. But if it's easy to add a mine to an existing policy, I'd think it'd be reasonable to add a hangar. I'd definitely pursue that.

I was gonna say that, that sometimes particular controllers don't like to be challenged at all, especially if their workload is high at that moment (which is typical around here). Asking "say intentions" sounds a bit more like a challenge than just "confirm" with a question behind it, e.g., "confirm heading xx for Nxxx. That sends me away from the IAF." You can still get bit back, but at least you'll be more confident that they're not sending you off to time out or something.

Croswwind/headwind components can be computed easily with any calculator with sin or cos functions. I can do it on my phone. Nerd power.

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.