0TreeLemur

As stated before, there are many reasons to lean in the climb. Provided that you have an engine monitor that displays EGT and CHT for each cylinder, there is very little risk. On the other hand, not leaning and running way rich invites creation of carbon deposits that can glow and act like little spark plugs and cause pre-ignition. Notice your EGTs the next time you take off. That's the full power EGT target. Mine is 1270F. As you climb, slowly lean once every couple of minutes to re-establish that EGT target. Watch your CHT's. If your engine has good cooling air distribution they will stay below 400F. In my J they only climb to about 390F in the summer and 350F in the winter while leaning in the climb this way. If your CHTs start to reach or exceed 400F, then richen it up a bit. By maintaining the EGT target, you are still running quite far ROP. In my J, 1270F is about 200F ROP because my cruise max. power EGT's up high tend to be about 1470F.

That's what I do. My takeoff EGT (full power, mixture rich, ff~19 gph) is 1270F. I lean in the climb several times to re-establish that target. Probably saves a gallon of fuel on a climb up to 10,000 from sea level. Why not?

I just love the reflection on the wing in this shot taken somewhere over Arkansas today flying through the tops after passing through a cold front on my way west to New Mexico.

Noctilucent chemtrails?

I've been doing a deep dive on this very topic lately. Today on a 7-1/2 hour cross country I experimented with some of my notions. I've learned that: 1. Propeller technology is mature. Since WWII all constant speed propellers in wide use have efficiencies that vary from about 81-85% over the RPM range from 2200-2700 rpm. The efficiency doesn't vary that much. From 2300-2600 RPM it varies only from about 83-85% 2. There are three ways to change the amount of power that an IO-360 produces: RPM, MP, FF. Lycoming engine manuals vary the heck out of RPM and MP, but only provide data at maximum power mixture, which is not where we usually run them. 3. Pumping loss within the engine at high rpm are significant. Running an engine at high rpm has a cost. More energy is lost in the induction and exhaust systems with higher mass flow rates, probably proportional to mass flow rate squared. 4. At higher altitudes for normally-aspirated (NA) engines, you must increase RPM to increase engine power because of the reduction in MP with altitude. I had several legs today, and here's what I tried, with the notion that 65% power (130 HP) offers a nice compromise on speed and fuel consumption when running LOP: Leg 1- 4000 ft. Set MP at 24". Did the big mixture pull (back to about 8.5 gph)- at this point with 24" MP the engine is pretty deep LOP. Reduced rpm to get about 60% power indication on the JPI (I know, it's not perfect, but hey- it is an indication). That resulted in about 2360 rpm. Used the Lean Find function on the JPI to operate at peak EGT (ff=8.7 gpm). That increased the power indication on the JPI to about 64%. Leg 2 - 6500 ft. WOT. Pulled mixture back to a ff of about 8 gph. Set RPM to 60% power on JPI- about 2450 RPM, then used LF to set to max EGT (ff=8.6 gph). Resulting power indication on JPI 65%. Leg 3 - 8500 ft. WOT. Pulled mixture back to ff=7.6 gph. Set RPM to 60% power on JPI, about 2550 RPM. Used LF to set max EGT (ff=8.4 gph). Resulting power indication: 63% (ish). increased RPM to about 2580 and that made JPI indicated power about 65%. This last result means that it won't be possible to use RPM to adjust to 65% running at peak EGT much above 8500 ft because I don't think cruising with RPM above 2600 makes much sense because of the increased pumping loss, and the fact that at the high end of the rpm range the efficiency starts to drop off pretty rapidly. At no point during these settings did the cylinder head temps do anything unusual. Typ. 340-360F with cowl flaps closed. OAT ranged from 11 to 3 C. Oddly enough flying west from Alabama to New Mexico I had a tailwind for all but the first two hours. Averaged about 17 MPG.

If you can feel a scratch with your fingernail, you cannot polish it out without altering the optics of your windshield. Auto detailers removing deep scratches in plexiglas windows will use a random orbital sander with sandpaper to remove material over the entire window to the depth of the scratch, then use successively finer polishes/pads to clear the window up. There is a good video on youtube that shows exactly how to do it. The problem with this is approach is that it makes the window thinner, probably not good for an aircraft windshield. I did use this approach to remove a couple of deep scratches from one of my side windows and it worked like a charm. It took guts to apply sandpaper to the window and it looked like holy hell after I went over it. But the Novus polish system cleared it using a finishing pad on the random orbital. After that I used the Novus system and finishing pad to polish all my windows, including the windshield. Aside from that one deep scratch it looks new. Luckily that deep scratch is on the co-pilot's side and easy for me to ignore.

I believe it was Mooney test pilot Bill Wheat who wrote (somewhere) to the effect of "The takeoff trim setting requires the pilot to just slightly pull back on the yoke to lift off." That's the way it was designed. One could speculate that this is safer, because it requires pilot input to become airborne, which will happen when the pilot determines that the ship has enough forward speed to safely take to the air. Makes sense, no?

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 .