0TreeLemur

The wisdom of what these folks have written in response to your question is priceless. This is the value of MooneySpace. A lot of experience here. Take advantage of it.

I've seen videos on Reddit where counter-drone technology involving a drone that drops a net on another drone. The US Military can't even do that as part of CONUS force protection?! The way drones have changed warfare suggests that the US Military needs to completely reevaluate their weapons acquisition programs. When a $1000 drone can take out a $35,000,000 fighter on the ramp, that's some mighty asymmetric warfare.

I didn't watch the video and saved minutes of my life to do something else! Unpainted metal is the requirement. I too use the tow-bar hole in the nose gear.

Since Anthony isn't commenting on fantastically underused words, I'll do it. An interesting way to describe camlocs!

Yes, and I'll add to that: "get what you want before you retire."

I gotta say having the freedom to travel through the air and not have to deal with TSA and sit in a can with 100's of people is pretty freakin' awesome! In case of bad weather, I had bought two refundable round-trip tickets to Santa Fe on Untied for $770 ea. Awfully glad we didn't have to use them. It seems like every time I get in on an airline over the past few years I come home with some crud.

Yeah, but I didn't think mine was a dumb question...

I suppose (hope) that the knee vents are easier to get to than the overhead eyeball vents!?! We removed one of the overhead eyeballs last month to repair it. The thin wavy washer (forgot name of, son knew it) came out of its slot, causing the whole thing to stop working. It required surgery. Opposite of stuck. I like Skip's contact cleaner idea. Might break up some gunk.

Normally I fly with the knee-height eyeball vents open. If hot, they blasting me and my co-pilot. If not, they blast the avionics. On a recent multi-hour flight with OAT -9C they needed closing. The pilot's side vent closed. Co-pilot's side stuck open. It seems that there's probably one right way to lubricate the internal mechanism and many wrong ways. What's the right way? I want to avoid lubricating the eyeball joint itself - just the internal mechanism. Thanks!

Find a used B-hub Hartzell if you've got time to look. Airplane propellers were pretty much figured out by WWII. Every "new" prop feature since then is a tiny improvement. The Hartzell Top Prop is now $15k new. I bought one a few years ago and the paint wouldn't stay on the tips. They could care less.

Good to know. I've never tried that on the iPad.

I right click first. That simultaneously puts a white circle on the map at that point and opens that menu.

After I click on "Sounding" up pops this:

Weird. Chrome is where my premium subscription is set up. When I open windy.com in firefox, which is not premium, and right-click, I get a little menu that looks like this:

I use windy.com. If you right click on a point, you get a little pop-up menu that lets you select a sounding tephigram (deviation of temp. and dew point. vs height from dry adiabatic ). After the sounding appears, you can select skew-T optional toggle.

Got a little revenge today on the return flight- Santa Fe to Tuscaloosa (938 NM) non-stop in 5:25. 173 knots average groundspeed at 11,500. Landed with 18 gallons of fuel left in the tanks. Fun! As the plot shows, the further east we traveled, the tailwinds increased. Just before TOD we were up around 195 knots. At the beginning of the cruise descent the groundspeed hit 210 knots. Did not see a single cloud anywhere, all day.

We're on the ground in New Mexico. Going westbound around the north side of the low we too stayed as low as possible. Clouds galore. First time I've ever flown 1000 mile trip all on an IFR flight plan. First leg from Tuscaloosa to Tulsa kept us mostly perpendicular to the wind with avg. groundspeed of about 130 knots. Second leg to SAF we stayed at 6000 as long as possible and had groundspeeds increasing from 120 to 150 knots until we had to climb due to rising terrain and clouds to 10,000. The last hour and a half was a slog at 110-115 knots groundspeed and that good ol' front range turbulence. Many controllers were very busy. Lots of piston GA traffic today. Everyone I talked to was very professional and helpful. My co-pilot is aces! She really pulled her weight today in a high workload environment with complicated flight plans! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Go Mooneyspace!

On our J the gascolator drain hole is about 2 ft aft of the boost pump drain hole, which is almost 2 ft aft of the engine driven fuel pump vent hose .

I took that panel off today and gave the boost pump a good looking over. Everything appears fine. Fittings are good, no external leaks. Since we tested it Sunday it hasn't leaked any more fuel. Went for a test flight today to top off with cheap ($4.30) fuel, and when I returned it was not leaking. I'm thinking that since I didn't fly for 5 weeks, maybe the seal dried out enough to let a little leak out. Anyway, I don't see this as something that grounds the airplane. The pump works fine (27 psi) and has stopped leaking out of its vent. Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts. This board is a great resource.

Tomorrow we're flying our J from Alabama to New Mexico. Normally we fly direct and it takes about 7:15 total. Because of a deep low over southern OK tomorrow that route gives us 45 knot headwinds at 4500! Worse up higher! 8:40 total flight time. I played the "what if" game using Foreflight and WIndy.com. What route gives us the shortest flight time? We ordinarily stop for fuel in Altus, OK, but that's a no-go. I tried Edmond, north of OKC, it cut the flight time to 8:20. I tried Wichita, KS. That cut the flight time to 8:00. I tried Emporia, KS, and that cut the flight time to 7:40. We'll actually have a slight tailwind from EMP to SAF. I suppose that jets and the airlines deal with this kind of thing all the time. First time for me that I'll be flying 100 nm further to shave 1:20 off our flight time.

The one that is on there is a Weldon according to the logs.

We just went to the hangar and tested the boost pump. Two times, running for 1 minute each time. Three or four drops of fuel came out of the vent in the first 20-30 seconds then fuel stopped coming out of the vent. It produced 27 psi of pressure. Seems like it isn't something that would ground the airplane.

Thanks Skip! Just sitting in the hangar it is leaking a drop of fuel maybe once per 30 minutes or an hour. It is not a bad leak. I'm wondering if this is bad enough to prevent me from making the flight to New Mexico?

In late October I traveled to Europe for meetings and returned unwell. For this reason I hadn't flown in awhile. Yesterday I went to the hangar to check our J over in prep for our trip to New Mexico for Thanksgiving and I notice a new blue stain on the floor. Investigating, it's coming from a fitting below the engine. I remember reading somewhere that fuel coming out of this fitting means that the engine driven fuel pump is on its way to failure. Drat. Looks like another commercial flight...

Meltdown.