EricJ

I have an AV-17 voice annunciator that says, "Check bus voltage" if the system voltage drops below 13V. Both times that the alternator quit I knew about it immediately, which does make a difference in being able to manage the remaining battery power. It also says, "Engine monitor" if the monitor alarms at all, and then I just look at the JPI which always has whatever the alarm variable is in big letters on the bottom of the display. It alerted me once when I forgot to open the cowl flaps on a missed approach, which probably saved my motor. Although it does do some annoyance alarms sometimes, it's way more than paid for itself for stuff like this. I always worry when I fly an airplane without similar voice annunciation that I'm going to miss something.

It seems to be a good idea to inspect the wires at the alternator whenever the cowl is off. You may be able to stay ahead of a broken wire that way.

One things that's not obvious on bowden cables is that you can lubricate it along it's length if you can flex it. When you flex it the outside circumference opens up a bit and will admit some lubricant if sufficiently flexed. Sometimes it's tough to do this while installed, but also sometimes there's a bend in the middle that's enough that it'll let a little oil in. It makes it a lot more effective to lube than just trying from each end, especially if it's a long cable.

I've had the alternator fail twice; once from a broken field wire and once from the ground wire to the brush assembly breaking. Both were easy fixes.

I wouldn't be too worried about frequency interference on most modern equipment. Channel isolation and filtering these days is pretty good, and the requirements and testing to assure out-of-band radiation is minimized are pretty good as well. There's so much stuff out there these days and you rarely hear of common user equipment interfering with each other on different frequencies. There won't be a traditional front-to-back ratio spec on Starlink antennas since they are adaptive and electronically steerable. The beam shape changes radically depending on the relative location of the satellite that it's trying to communicate with, which moves across the sky pretty quickly. A user in a front seat of a Mooney with a terminal on the glareshield will be mostly exposed to antenna pattern sidelobes, and they'll be constantly changing as the beam is electronically steered and adapts. The good news is that sidelobes are usually pretty low-power compared to the main lobe, but who knows how good Starlink's beem steering and adaptation and sidelobe control is. It might be pretty sloppy and have ugly sidelobes, which wouldn't be too surprising for something that has to do a lot of fast beamforming.

Cellular systems are all over the spectrum map these days. They've been sucking up available spectrum in many different bands for quite a while. I lost track of all of them a long time ago.

When my servo failed it was intermittent. During the last failure after we landed it would barely idle, and just made enough power for us to taxi to a parking spot. We ran it there for a while to try to see what we could get it to do, and it did come back and run, even full throttle, for a bit, then quit again. It did that a couple times. We definitely weren't going to fly it again, but there are apparently mechanisms by which the diaphragms and rods can get jammed and then unjam, or something. Contamination can get into the servo through the fuel path, which is heavily filtered, or through the impact pressure tubes, which is usually filtered but not on a Mooney with the ram air door open.

If it's just the motor, you can take it to any electric motor shop willing to work on it. An A&P just needs to "supervise", which isn't really defined anywhere.

The parking brake in my Mooney is useless, so I never bother with it. I've taken off with the parking brake on in the C182s, though. That's pretty easy to do, especially if you're used to it not being a factor at all.

If true, we could make book on how long until it closes again.

Just get a small torque wrench, sometimes called a micro-torque wrench, that has a lower range of settings. They may be 1/4" or 3/8" drive, so pick one you like. This is the cheapie one at Harbor Freight, but they're actually pretty decent and definitely suitable for things like rocker cover screws: https://www.harborfreight.com/14-in-drive-20-to-200-in-lb-click-torque-wrench-63881.html

I always tell people to put the rope between the cowl plugs around the front of one of the prop blades. This way if you do forget it, it'll fling the whole thing down the ramp, like yours, which is way better than taking off with them still in.

A buddy and I flew in to a wings meeting that was held at one of the big flight schools that has a long flight line and a ton of planes. We parked his Cherokee off the end of the schools long line of Archers and chocked one wheel. Before we made it into the building a few students walking by had tied it down and chocked the other wheel. I guess they do that by reflex there. We were both amused and impressed.

Two days is not a problem on a J with owner-assisted, i.e., two people working for two days. This assumes that there is no deferred maintenance and no big issues found. Did this many times with my old IA before I started doing them myself.

Glad to hear! And thanks for posting.

The shop that my engine is currently at runs it for either sixty or ninety minutes (I don't remember which) on a test stand with a club. They monitor temps, etc., and look for leaks, and I think check static RPM. They may do more, I don't know. I think from their perspective this helps them minimize warranty issues. That's obviously not a full break-in, but it's a good start.

Pour one out for the Bonanza and Barron. That was a hell of a run.

My antivirus system freaked out when I clicked on that and blocked it, so I would concur, don't click on it.

I've known a number of 99s members over the decades, and whenever I see a compass rose I check to see whether it has the 99s logo. Usually it does!

Yes, there are multiple competing systems that be will going up, including Amazon's (or Bezo's) Kuiper. Starlink has a temporary market advantage and is trying to capitalize on it. I was recently helping with an organization looking at doing fleet aircraft installs of Starlink, and the aircraft factory was offering to install them. I suggested temporary installations (like in the window, which is practical on those aircraft) would be better since nobody is going to want a five- or ten-year old system integrated in the airframe when something 10x better and cheaper is available, which is the normal expected technology cycle. And remember, Iridium has been around for 25 years. They just don't offer as much throughput, but they haven't caused nearly as many issues, either. As more of these systems go up, radio astronomy will likely be greatly diminished. If there are too many collisions, access to space may be greatly impaired as well. Much of space is unregulated.

+1 that speaker low should not be grounded. The diagram shows a shield which should be grounded, but the speaker high and low should only connect between the speaker and the tray pins.

Very cool! 10000 more to ya!

Yes, somewhere around there, 20-30 psi or whatever it winds up being depending on settings. So an actual clog won't come out super easy, but if somebody just puts 90 psi of shop air into a line it's likely just going to just blow everything out. If you creep the pressure up it's pretty easy to tell whether a line/nozzle is actually clogged or not, and then try to catch the material that's clogging it.

Typically you blow it out with low pressure over a catch cloth and see what comes out. If only oil splatter comes out, then there probably wasn't anything in it. If it was really clogged it'll hold several psi, because the fuel pressure is higher than that when it's making power.

You may be able to tell whether that sealant is conductive with a multimeter. Just put the two probes in the sealant on opposite sides of the fitting and see what you get. I'm guessing there's a conductive layer or conductive screen in the fiberglass which will serve as the ground plane, or a reinforcement plate for the antenna or something. If you're worried that there isn't sufficient ground plane, +1 that a layer of copper or similar tape on the inside will do the job as long as it is electrically connected to the shield part of the fitting. The bolt studs are probably part of the shield, so that may work, too. I doubt it would have made it out of the factory or had very good performance if there wasn't sufficient ground plane there already.