0TreeLemur

Hank, are they the same size, but fixed in some open position? Or are they spayed and neutered ?

After climbing from 9,500 to 11,500 on one leg of our recent trip around the Wild West I leveled out, trimmed, and leaned the mixture. After a few minutes I realized that I hadn't closed the cowl flaps. My thought was "AHA! we'll really go fast now!". I closed them and really couldn't detect the increase within the precision of the AS indicator and noise of the GS reading on the GPS... Disappointing. I'll be interested to hear how that changes the results in in your next test. Looking at the Flight aware trace of that flight leg, I think I closed them about 54 minutes into the trip after I climbed from 9,500 to 11,500. The speed plot really shows no difference in reported GS. That result suggests that closing cowl flaps at 11,500' (DA about 13 kft) in a C with a LASAR lower cowl mod. represents a sub-kt speed increase.

I thought that was crazy fast and I gotta do some serious mods, until I re-read and noticed your speed unit was mph. Converted to kts, your TAS is a very ballparkish for a pre-J Mooney 146 kt.

Junction of the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers, 27 August, 2018.

The eroded volcanic necks near Indian Wells, Arizona, in the painted desert.

Meteor Crater near Winslow, AZ, August 26, 2018. San Francisco peaks/Flagstaff, AZ, in distance.

The Grand Canyon photographed by my co-Pilot, looking west from approximately the north entrance of the Tuckup VFR corridor at 10.5kf, August 26, 2018.

How weird, the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer slopes backwards!

Thanks @gsxrpilot. We picked late August because the weather out west is usually the nicest that time of year. This year the monsoon flow of moisture up from the southwest was still switched on so we had to dodge some storms. It would have been nice to have a turbo. The density altitude the morning we departed Laramie, which has field elev. of nearly 7300', was 10,400'. Takeoff took a long time chewing up a LOT of runway. Kind of like a 747 takeoff from LAX to SYD. I'd guess the takeoff roll took probably about 45 seconds consuming about 2500' of runway, and the climb out was not breathtakingly fast. About 300-400 fpm was about all we could muster with full tanks, and my co-pilot is really light. Together we average out to about two standard Mooney 170 lb humans.

It was really a really cool trip. The trip took 15 days, we have a lot of family out in that part of the country. I'll post a few enroute photos soon after I get them downloaded. The thread and before/after photos of the new panel is here.

This reminds me that I did an altitude chamber ride at Ellington field (Houston) back in 2003 as part of my training to ride on the NASA vomit comet. Come to think of it, I don't remember whether or not that one had any E-stop's, but it was crewed by a large NASA staff both outside and in. The fun bit was that our flight included a mix of NASA/civilians and USAF fighter pilots. The competitive nature of the fighter jocks led three of them to a fight to the bitter end over who would last the longest with their mask off at I think a pressure altitude of 26,000 ft. After about 3-1/2 minutes I got to witness a human being drool then drop his forehead on the desk. The other two were not as entertaining. The second one just ceded without passing out, then the last one conscious just grinned and put his mask back on.

Me too.

My co-pilot and I have gotten to know our 1967 M20C well since we acquired her last October. With the help and supervision of our A&P plus a good instrument shop, we took a tired example of a Mooney M20C and brought her panel up to modernity thanks in no small part to some advice given by MS members. She now has an 8-pack panel layout, JPI900 EDM, GNS430W, and Appareo transponder with ADS-B in/out. To celebrate we took her out on a "victory lap" around the Rockies in August, covering 2838 nm in 26.2 h flight time. We really spread her wings with max. cruise at 12,500, and 208 mph g.s. at top of descent approaching Amarillo thanks to some ridiculous winds. We faced headwinds more often than not, even on some eastbound legs! The haze from the numerous forest fires out west severely limited visibility particularly in the northern portion of our trip into Colorado front range and into southern Wyoming. We visited friends and family, plus toured Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park, Cedar Breaks, Nat.'l Mon., drove down the Moki Dugway and across Monument Valley, overflew the Grand Canyon N-S via the "Tuckup" VFR corridor at 10,500 ft., and orbited meteor crater near Winslow, AZ. "Little Sister" as we call her performed admirably.

My maint/repair manual says 80 in-lb torque for the sump drains on the C model. That's not much. You should look up for your model if different. PP only. Not a mechanic.

I use the same slotted PVC but I glued a tee on the other end. The total length is 8". I velcro it to the top of the nose wheel well. It is happy as a clam there, always waiting for me next to might right calf, when I need it. Shown here.

Co-pilot and I cleaned square step shaft with brake cleaner, then applied dry teflon lube. The top half was pretty dry. We worked it manually several times, and the spring was well behaved. Seems better now. Thanks for the advice to all who replied.

The last few flights saw the vacuum actuated step on my '67C not fully descend after landing. The engineer in me thought "that needs lubed". An hour ago, I would have bet serious $$ that someone had previously discussed ad-infinitum how to do this on MooneySpace. I searched and much to my surprise it did not turn up as an issue... The maintenance manual says "Tri-Flow every 100 hours" but doesn't say how. Before I start spraying teflon-infused oil everywhere, can one of you experienced guys give a relative noob a clue? Thanks!

I had an empty 2-1/2" hole in my panel so I filled it with a GT-50 clock/timer/g-meter/voltmeter. I liked everything about it except one thing that drove me nuts. It has a low voltage warning mode that seems to be its #1 priority. Any time the voltage falls below about 12.7 for about 20 seconds, the thing becomes a blinking distraction. Getting ready to take off, I want to know the time, and it is blinking voltage! Doing my checklist, and runup, that thing is blinking voltage! I already have a voltmeter in my a/c. I took it out and replaced it with a good 'ol Davtron M811B. The AV-20-S will be on my Christmas list.

I agree- the plastic yield properties of aluminum are horrendous. Wrinkling of the wing skin suggests plastic deformation of the wing, possibly including the main spar. Normally structural aluminum behaves well. But, once aluminum yields and goes plastic it becomes an unpredictable and highly non-linear. Plus the load path changes under plastic conditions due to weakening of the parts that did yield. This means that extreme load may have traveled into connectors or parts of the wing far from the main spar. I'd think of it as an ill-tempered rattlesnake and steer clear.

Good idea getting sight gauges installed. My model C has them. We checked their accuracy when we calibrated the fuel sending units after adding the JPI EDM900. They are accurate to within 1 gal. They "run out of gas" so to speak and don't really measure anything below about 5 gal so they are not good for the FAA mission of telling you when your tank is empty. In flight we cross-check them with the JPI fuel totalizer and the fuel sending units. I really like them. Another source of data for fuel management.

Hi @PilotCoyote. Thanks for posting this. We'd all benefit from a picture if you can post one. I've never had that part of my a/c torn apart. Thanks!

The AV-20 looks pretty useful. Having a backup AI is appealing. This hits a pretty good price point.

Thanks for the photos. That looks like the original 1960's Garwin? The two shops I've talked to about re-screening both want to test/overhaul and warned me against sending them something that is obsolete. Do you know if parts can still be had for this AS indicator? I'd hate to buy something that turns out to be unserviceable.

Thanks- can you send photos?

The prior owner of my C left me a little flag with velcro straps that says "DO NOT TOW". I strap it around the nose gear.