EricJ

Kauai rocks. I recognize those places. And, yeah, the microclimates on the various Hawaiian islands are really interesting. I think Kauai is especially noted for that. Great pics and must've been an awesome flight.

If you poke around on Amazon or elsewhere you can find 12V cigarette-lighter-port USB chargers that also do useful things like show the system voltage. There used to be one type that would also alert on excessive CO2 levels, but that no longer seems to be available (plus they were the type that can inadvertently short the supply voltage, so maybe no big loss). Voltage display examples: https://www.amazon.com/NewVan-Tech-Display-Charger-Tablets/dp/B01FWXY636/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1492272672&sr=8-2&keywords=USB+charger+display https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Awakelion-Voltage-Monitor-Display/dp/B01N09DF1Z/ref=pd_bxgy_107_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01N09DF1Z&pd_rd_r=AT444A3GC7W1AS89Y3A2&pd_rd_w=akGO2&pd_rd_wg=LvHn9&psc=1&refRID=AT444A3GC7W1AS89Y3A2

Yup. 77. I like the throttle quadrant, so that's a bonus.

I just ran the endoscope down a gap between the interior plastic and the A-pillar region. I think they're still the original factory coating, but they look good as far as any evidence of corrosion.

FWIW, I ran an endoscope down the front tubes on the left side and they looked excellent.

Yup. Just trying to find out as much as I can on this particular issue on this particular airplane since it's an obvious sensitive area on these.

Yes, it's been outside for most of the last twenty years, but in the desert (Nevada). There isn't any paint bubbling or cracked anywhere else that I noticed, and the color change where the paint is peeling is evidently where the last paint job (in the 1990s) just didn't reach. So that spot may have been like that for a long time, which I suspect is the case. The paint is oxidized and looks like it has at least one good polish left in it without going through it completely. Haven't popped the seat yet, but will as part of the PPI. These are pics I took just getting a look at it myself. The second pic isn't upside-down, perspective pic attached here. I *think* the crack you highlighted is just a seam. And, FWIW, this is an ugly airplane but it has promise, and the issues I'm showing here are really the only significant airframe issues I could find that weren't just stuff needing to be cleaned up or updated. Compared to some other Mooneys I've looked at, this airframe is actually in the best shape so far, sadly, and that's looking at airplanes in the plains and southwest. I want to make certain of the nature of the issues on this rear spar and see whether it's surface corrosion or intergranular, but that may require a deeper inspection than we can get here. I wouldn't be surprised if it's been like this for decades, as corrosion is just not an issue in the environment that it's in. It's dirty, the paint is crap, the panel needs a lot of upgrades, but other than the questions with this spar it seems pretty solid. It's just coming out of annual inspection and a check flight has been agreed to but not scheduled. Edit: And just to clarify, this airplane spent a decade or two early in its life in the Pennsylvania/Maryland area. The observed corrosion may have been static since then. Hard to say.

I'm not sure what crack you're referring to? Also, the first pic was taken in the panel under the wing root if that's what you meant. FWIW, all of the ferrous pieces and fasteners look good. The fasteners in the same inspection area at the wing root that hold the back of the cage to the rear spar look very good. No appreciable rust at all. Compared to some airplanes I've looked at this one is especially clean for its age other than the areas in the pics (that I've been able to find, anyway).

A J model I'm looking at as a purchase candidate has lived the last twenty years in the desert southwest. The airframe generally looks very good, but I did find these spots that I'm not too sure about. The first pic was taken through the inspection plate at the wing root just in front of the flap on the left wing. The second is the spar from inside the wheel well. I tend to think that neither of these is horrible although I do want the stuff in the wheel well looked at better, but I wanted to run it past the experts here and see if I'm missing anything or just to partake in the wisdom of MS. Note: the top pic got turned upside-down somehow.

This airplane was on the ramp by the fuel pumps at Chandler today and I taxied past it coming in. Looks nice. I wish I had time to walk back and take a better look.

Thank you for doing this important research.

I didn't realize Mooneyspace was used for that sort of personal discussion.

I recently started using a Stratux which feeds my tablet traffic info. Generally targets are little yellow circles, and a close target is a black circle with a red border and an airplane inside to show heading and a text box to show altitude. The Arrow I rent has a GNS430 and ADS-B-in with traffic alerts that will occasionally give audio warnings when it thinks there is close traffic and will tell you when it loses the TIS-B link. I've put the airplane detailed info, N-number, transponder ID, etc., into my EFB, but it still gets confused by the Stratux data sometimes and sometimes shows multiple ghosts, usually my current location and then often one following behind a little bit. A couple of months ago I had a student pilot friend along on a trip and we were both still getting used to using the Stratux with our tabs, and we both noticed at the same time that there were *three* ghosts, our current position, one behind us, and one in front of us, exactly on our GPS track, but pointed the opposite direction (i.e., exactly at us). We were both looking inside-outside-inside-outside-inside-outside trying to figure out if it was a ghost or something real. The symmetry of the display, with a central target, one behind and one in front, was just the sort of thing to make you question what you were looking at. We couldn't spot anything outside until suddenly we saw the flash of a Seminole's wings turn and dive in front of us. He saw us first, and he was real, and it was close. The GNS did not alert. I usually fly with the landing light on all the time, and I don't know but it may have made the difference in this case. My buddy always gives me crap for doing that, but I think I'll keep doing it. And now I don't question the traffic display. And I wonder, too, whether that stuff alerts on an ATC display if neither aircraft is under ATC control. We weren't, and I suspect the other traffic wasn't, either.

Ah, would love to be able to make it up there, as Hangar 24 is one of my fave airport restaurants.

Looks like that path with the turn at the end would be more appropriate for a J model. ...is joke...

Unfortunately the company I rent from uses Signature for their fuel service and rents the aircraft dry, i.e., when they fill it I pay Signature fuel rates. When I do cross-country flights, which is usually what I'm doing, I fill it at the last stop before returning to Scottsdale.

I fly rentals out of Scottsdale that buy 100LL fuel from Signature for ~$7.50/gallon. I don't know how that doesn't show up on somebody's bogosity radar, as anybody else around the area are priced at what you would expect.

So I sent the vid link to a friend and confirmed that this is the same Earl Douglas that I knew. I have to tell this story now, as it is very cool in many ways and completely true. I was an Air Force brat and we lived in southern Germany when I was in High School. There was a tiny Army Airfield just south of our housing area in Ludwigsburg that had an American flying club that had a few old Cessnas. Most of the membership was Army helicopter pilots, primarily Vietnam vets (this was in the middle 70s), that wanted to get their fixed-wing license. The field had a 2000' paved runway, three UH1s and two OH58s, plus a German flying club and a German glider club besides the American club. Being a teenager crazy about airplanes I weaseled myself into being the lineboy and general gopher at the club, and got paid in instruction and flying time. This is how I learned to fly. The club usually had one full-time instructor that was a European national building time for an aviation career, and also a lot of additional part-time instructors that were various military personnel who had CFIs and wanted to instruct. Our club president was a Lt. Col that worked at European Command who also instructed a lot, and Earl Douglas was an Army dentist at the time and also instructed frequently at the club. I think I flew with every or nearly every instructor we had, and by the time I soloed on my 16th b-day I had 105 hours. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but by then they'd made me proficient at all the commercial maneuvers, gave me a lot of instrument training, and a lot of just other general but more advanced instruction, like spin training, because I was a bit of a joint project and they didn't know what else to do with me until I soloed. It was every bit the awesome experience for a teenager that loved airplanes as it sounds. We rotated back to the states before I turned 17 and moved back to my home town in South Dakota where I finished my license when I was 18. I flew as much as I could (which wasn't all that much because I was poor) for the next ten years until I got out of college and moved to AZ. Then life and career and everything else happened and I took a thirty-year break from flying, resuming last year when I got current again. When I started flying again last year I dug out the logbooks and started recalling some of the many names of instructors whose autographs graced its pages and thought I'd look up a few. This is where it started to get interesting. I'd already decided to start looking for a Mooney as it fits my expected mission requirements and just generally appeals to me. I discovered that the Lt. Col. that was our club president, who I flew with frequently forty years ago and who I got along with very well, lives ten minutes from me here in Scottsdale. So we started having fairly regular lunch meetings. It turns out he used to own an M20E, so he's been giving me all kinds of advice and guidance and has been helping me research candidate airplanes. As part of all that he told me that Earl Douglas had helped him find his because they were both living on the east coast at the time and Dr. Douglas owned a J model at that time (which I think was the early 80s). The lady who was our pilot examiner at the club in Ludwigsburg also had a home here in AZ, and I had gotten in touch with her when I moved down here after college and used to frequently hang out with her and her family until I moved back to SoDak for grad school, after which we kind of lost touch. So, of course, recently I find out that she's still here (in her 70s now), flying her C210 and still working as an examiner. Going to schedule a joint lunch with her and our old club president at some point before too long, I hope. And then today I see this thing with Earl Douglas, who is, in fact, the same Earl Douglas that was one of my instructors at our funky little flying club in Germany when I was a teenager. And he's still flying Mooneys, quite proficiently apparently. This is just way too cool for me. Thanks a ton. This should be fun.

Sent the link to a friend to see whether this is the same Earl Douglas that was one of my instructors forty years ago. Is he a dentist? This might be very, very cool for me.

You'd also need a massless electron, which don't really exist. Electric signals propagate at the speed of light in whatever the medium is that they're travelling in, but the electrons themselves don't move very fast. It's kind of like water pressure showing up at the far end of a pipe even though the water didn't move. Capacitors (or the stray capacity caused by long wires or whatever) delay the increase/decrease of voltage by absorbing charge. I'm still not sure how all that was intended to be relevant to the spark plug issue, but thought I'd throw it out there.

When I got current again last year my old paper certificate was nearly forty years old, and my license number was my SSN. Figured it was time to change the number and get one of the fancy new card thingies Modern times. Gotta keep up.

What do they charge at your place? The Arrow I rent is somehow an indentured servant to Signature on the home field and I pay around $7.50 a gallon. On cross-countries (which is about all I do anymore), I fill it up on the last leg.

Ah, good to know there's a local that's done this before.

Personally, I think the extra info is useful because it helps anybody else in the area with a picture of what you're doing. That helps everybody's situational awareness.

One small tick in the Meridian box is that the gross weight is <6k lbs, so somebody flying on the new BasicMed rules could still fly it. I think all of the others mentioned are over 6k.