EricJ

I think they'll slow down cruise speed a bit. I miss Blue On Top being around to help with the aerodynamics stuff, but I recall that the square tips are actually very good for cruise speed.

Was joke.

Yes, there are some approved repair methods in AC 43.13, Chapter 3 Section 3. There are several alternative methods to doing repairs for cracks like that. Changing the side windows falls under Preventive Maintenance in the US, so it's something that an owner can do here. I don't know what the rules are in Canada. You should be able to do it without bothering the paint if you're careful. I think there's a procedure in the SMM for changing out the side windows, but generally they're not too complicated.

A common racing mod is using E85, since the engine can be tuned to make more power with it, but it does require changes, like bigger injectors. The base octane rating of E85 is 105, so way better than premium pump gas. Another significant downside of E85 is that it spoils. Just sitting by itself it goes bad, and needs to be used while fresh. That's problematic for most applications.

I thought likewise. The only thing dumber than the original change is changing it back. Change it to something descriptively neutral, like Aviation Notices, or Air Safety Notices, or Aviation Information (AI!), or something useful like that. They're under pressure to be efficient, so they have to hit the higher priorities first.

Well, now all the drone guys don't have to read them any more. I feel safer already!

Yours appears to be in the least sensitive (lowest airspeed) position, so moving it higher may make it start to trip. It may take a few iterations to get it in a useful spot if it has been moved. I marked mine before taking it out to rehab the switch, but it turns out that mine has very little adjustment room, anyway. I wound up pushing it up as far as I could and it is still only just working reasonable well.

Continuing my interest in how the Germans managed this in WWII, the Daimler DB 605 V12 engines that powered things like the Me109 made around 1800 hp with a design spec fuel of 87 Octane. On that fuel they could run 43.4 inhg MAP, and with the later 90/100 fuel they could make nearly 60 inhg MAP. If the 90/100 fuel wasn't available and they had to run the old spec fuel (which happened a lot), they were restricted to 43.4 in MAP. I don't know how they did that, but clearly it's possible.

I think most of the wing damage to the M20 on the ramp has just been from sitting in the sun. Paint jobs and window materials don't hold up well, and if upholstery is exposed to the sun it doesn't last very long. Tires get trashed pretty quickly, too.

It's similar around here. Deer Valley (DVT) has a large number of derelicts of many shapes and sizes of airplanes, including a dash model Mooney M20. The wing had been restored not long before it got abandoned, but now it's been out in the sun for so many years I think it's beyond saving. Strangely, a couple of the derelicts have disappeared over the years. There was an unpainted M20E that was in pretty bad shape, with no motor, and it just disappeared a few years ago. Similarly a very early Bonanza that literally had control surfaces hanging from a remaining hinge disappeared a year or so ago. No idea what happened to those, but a there've been several new additions since then so the derelict population seems to be growing.

I just took mine up to Bruce Taylor at Airpower Accessories, mostly because he's essentially local and a bunch of people from around here have been taking mags to him for a long time. When I get it back and installed if there are any issues I will report back. As often happens in aviation, I wound up shooting the breeze with Bruce for a while when I dropped my mag off. He's been working on mags for many decades and seems to know them as well as anybody. Apparently there are a lot of flying school C172s that use the dual mags, so he does a lot of them for that application. He did say that getting parts is starting to be a bigger problem, including the plastic distributor gears. http://www.airpoweraccessories.com/

Might have been us, but maybe not. We were using a 406 MHz beacon but it may have also had a 121.5 MHz component. Usually if we're doing stuff for VHF the test/practice beacons are actually on a different frequency so that they don't interfere with 121.5, (but they do interfere with DVT Ground, as we found out last time...oops). We have to get permission to use the 406 thingie, so I'd never used it before. I'm not completely sure what it does in VHF, if anything. Usually in the Phoenix area if there's a 121.5 MHz signal it's almost always the salvage yard by Sky Harbor threw something in a dumpster or dropped it off a shelf or something.

Depending on how the sensor works that could be a ground issue or a connector issue. I think I saw you taxi to the runup pad. I was on the south side chasing radio signals around.

Many businesses these days merge their "available inventory" lists with other outlets or even other cooperating companies. Anybody in the network can make the sale and whoever has it drop ships it. Since nobody fully controls the displayed inventory, mistakes seem to be common. Sometimes they'll show where the part is before you order it, but not always. It can definitely be frustrating when there are mistakes.

Either they knew, or suspected, that it would cause issues and deployed anyway, or they didn't do sufficient testing to know that it would cause issues and deployed anyway. Neither scenario reflects well on GAMI at this point.

On race cars it used to be normal to have tires shaved, even expensive race tires, because they'd be a little bit faster out of the box. They wouldn't last as long, but you'd be faster. So shaving tires is an established, time-tested process that has been done for a long time. On an airplane it's kind of a last resort to make a tire fit on a retractable gear airplane, but it's not something that's unheard of or unusual.

If nothing else they'll be good dimensional parts to check fitment, etc. I was also going to suggest that once you get where you want to go with these, a perhaps more desirable part would be the one-piece doors that eliminate the need for the trailing fairing. Since the fairings are also maintenance items, that would provide not only a little more aerodynamic solution plus a reduction in parts count and maintenance. I'd buy a set a of those.

Sorry to hear. Thanks for the update. I will miss his posts and humor. :'(

Yeah, you really need to get caught up via the thread on G100UL.

I've long suspected that the reason GAMI went to an STC process was that they didn't want the level of scrutiny that would be required in PAFI, or perhaps knew that they wouldn't survive it. We're only just now seeing why that may be, and the growing number of unfortunate aircraft owners who have suffered for being essentially beta testers is not encouraging. I don't see how G100UL survives in the marketplace with the current amount of evidence of serious damage, and I suspect we've not seen the last of it. I am glad, however, that so far the damage has been limited to airplanes parked on the ground and there have been no injuries to operators or passengers. STCs do always carry more risk, and for any STC it is the responsibility of the installer to determine that it is compatible with existing systems, including other STCs that may have been installed. Sometimes this can be tricky.

Wow. That'll be impressive if they do get the data out. That's some good system and implementation engineering right there if it works.

Don't assume they want more than they do. It's much better to assume that they want a small, basic amount of supporting data, and then let them ask for more if they need it. Sometimes they don't, especially if they've heard similar from somebody else trying to solve the same problem. If there's an identifiable crossover part number to an automotive/truck/tractor/race/whatever part, that may be very easy and potentially even installable as a logbook entry if it is the same part. If a part number isn't the same, but the part is very close to the same, you'll need more data. At a minimum, showing the physical dimensions are the same will lay a foundation, and then if the intended application uses more boost than an airplane (which isn't a very high bar), that is also useful data. It's also reasonable to call and just present some or all of that or additional measures as a plan and ask if that'll be useful in establishing an AMOC. It may help if somebody installs it on an airplane and does some test ground runs to demonstrate functionality and no leaks, etc., but that's the sort of thing I'd offer to do if it was helpful.

I cannot find it now, but years ago there was a video going around of a Mooney in a shop putting the jacks through the wings. Sometimes it rolls off scales or the gear is retracted when the jacks are under the wings but not set at the hard point, or faulty jacks are used or whatever. I think people have researched many different ways to do it over the years. In A&P school we had an instructor who had spent a career at the airlines, and emphasized that whatever airplane it is, airliner, twin, single, etc., if it isn't being held up by the jacks, the jacks should not be under the wings. Apparently it's a fairly regular occurence to put jacks through the wings of airliners, too. A hangar neighor was weighing his Comanche and had the jacks under the wings while it was on the scales. A dust devil came by and moved the airplane just enough to roll it off the scales and put the jacks into the bottoms of the wings.

An AMOC might be something as simple as finding a good quality automotive or racing V-band that fits and installing it with a required short inspection cycle or something like that. A reasonable inspection cycle might substitute for a PMA'd part at least until they're availabe or something like that. I'm sure the FAA is fully aware of the parts availability issue on this particular AD, so it might be worth a discussion to find a reasonable AMOC path. It shouldn't require redesigning anything.

The hydraulic lifter is there to make sure the clearance stays at zero, and if something happens that makes the lifter stick a little full, then there will be pressure on the cam lobe all the way around. This could also happen if there was maintenance done and somebody swapped the pushrods or replaced a pushrod with one that is too long.