0TreeLemur

The McCauley B2D34C214-A prop on my M20J started leaking grease, so I removed it for a reseal. Thinking forward to having an A&P reinstall it, I don't have a manual for this prop. Looking at the McCauley www page, I did not find one to download. Does anyone happen to have a pdf they might share? Particularly interested in a document showing the stud installation torque spec. Thanks, -Fred

The C I bought in 2017 had a Brittain wing leveler. Loved that thing, especially in turbulence. Over the first three years I owned it I added the Accutrak II magenta line follower, the Accuflite heading bug chaser, and the PC/AH II Dynertial rate of climb control and altitude hold. It took work to find the parts, but none of them cost more than 1 AMU each when bought correctly. With the help of advice of Brittain fans here on the forum and an A&P who was willing to let me do the installation research and provide guidance, I had a full two-axis autopilot capability for probably less than 6 or 7 AMUs. I flew it in some soupy IFR conditions. The Brittain equipment is extremely well thought out, reliable, and I would say elegant. That is a cost effective certified A/P option if you have the patience and desire. As far as I know, Brittain will still provide STCs for correct installations at no cost if you can locate the equipment.

To me, the engine monitor is the best "first" upgrade to a legacy airframe. If primary like the EDM900, it lets you eliminate lots of other stuff that really cleans up the panel. I've been flying behind the EDM900 for over six years and have never been mislead by the temperature indications. In each instance when a temperature was odd, something was wrong that I wouldn't have known about without the engine monitor. The EDM900's I've used are extremely reliable and useful. Since upgrading to an airframe with a fuel injected engine, I've saved a LOT of fuel with the engine monitor. A good A/P is fantastic for IFR flight but as others have mentioned is mucho dinero and more down time.

Last week I took off on RWY 09 at Los Alamos (field elevation 7171). Winds were out of the south at 15, with a DA of "only" 8600 ft. The runway at LAM is located on a mesa, with steep drops on both the left and right side of the runway and the east end. After pulling the nose up at about 63-64 KIAS and lumbering off the ground, at about 30-40 ft above the runway she stopped climbing and started to slow. Power looked good. I had leaned the mixture during the takeoff roll to get my target 1250F EGT. So, I lowered the nose. What I didn't do at that moment that I should have was raise the landing gear. After a few seconds we flew off the east end of the mesa and gained 1000' of AGL. It was then that I realized that I hadn't raised the gear yet because of the distraction. I'm guessing that the flight was affected by descending air over the runway from a roller created by south winds interacting with the mesa. A superior pilot in that situation would have anticipated the possibility of flying into descending air and recognized the importance of getting the gear up to maximize performance. Luckily the situation did not require application of my superior skills...

Keep an eye on the ads. Good planes tend to sell fast. @Rangoon the key points I've learned through two Mooney purchases is as follows: 1. Define your mission and minimum equipment that meets your mission. Adding/fixing stuff after the purchase is costly. When you buy equipment already installed, the seller generally eats the installation labor cost. 2. Don't fall in love with anything until you own it. Be skeptical. An independent pre-buy by a shop familiar with Mooneys will more than pay for itself, allowing sale price reductions that you don't have to pay for at the first annual after purchase. 3. Look for the nicest airframe/panel you can afford that meets your mission. Use Jimmy's value guide to evaluate appropriate cost. 4. When something catches your eye, ask for and study the log books before doing any thing else. Ask lots of questions if discrepancies arise (they will). If log books not provided, ignore that airplane. 5. If it looks too good to be true, it is. Something's wrong. 6. Don't fear a mid-time engine. Fear an airplane that hasn't been regularly flown. 7. Paint jobs and tank reseals have gotten really expensive. Don't buy an ugly Mooney or one with leaky tanks. 8. Corrosion is a Mooney killer. Make darn sure that whoever does your pre-buy knows what corrosion to look for on a Mooney. 9. if something hasn't sold in a few months, either the asking price is too high or something is wrong with it. Good luck!

One thing I'd suggest from experience for high DA takeoffs is to not fixate on leaning/EGT but also get the gear up as soon as you can to help the plane accelerate.

That is correct. The KFC-150 autopilot that came in my airplane was intermittent. I took it too a shop for troubleshooting, and it turns out that the KC-192 installed was an early prototype unit. Its firmware was very aggressive in altitude hold (+/- 20 ft!) and would almost make me throw up in moderate to severe turbulence. Now I'm not prone to airsickness. I've only ever puked in the air twice- once when I got sick from a virus, and the other time on the NASA Vomit Comet. Jake suggested to me that I find a non-prototype unit with maximum mods and a P/N ending in -03 (discrete components, not surface mount soldered) which I did. It had numerous discrepancies that he repaired. I swapped out the computer, and now have a much better autopilot that doesn't try to make me puke. I was just suggesting to @BlueSky247 that installing the KFC-150 was an option with the provisos already stated. The 28 V KC-192's are much more common than the 14V models. Ebay has several 28V KC-192's listed for 2AMUs. The one or two 14V units listed are BIN for ~5 AMUs. I lucked out and jumped on one with a P/N ending in -03 that came with all three servos for 3AMUs. Deals can be had but are infrequent.

If @BlueSky247 can identify a shop that has experience with the B-K equipment and is doing a big-G upgrade of a KFC-150 system, it could work. Better yet if he has a friend in the business. There are always removed systems for sale here and there in varying degrees of completeness. I have two each spare servos for my KFC-150 system. I bought three here on MS for $750 total from a member who did the big-G upgrade. One set came with all the mounting hardware for the servos in the tail. The only thing I'm missing is the aileron servo mounting hardware, which I don't need anyway. The KC-192 flight computers are easy to buy for 28V systems, but more difficult to find for 14V aircraft. Maybe someone here on MS is removing a system and can help him out? I will swear by @Jake@BevanAviation's ability to keep this old stuff working well. The KC-192 I sent him had multiple faults which he repaired for less than 1 AMU!

You seek new equipment, but I did the same investigation and found that there presently isn't a real good non-Garmin solution in existence. Like you, I didn't want to spend the > $50k on a whole panel upgrade. One alternative solution is to buy a complete working B-K autopilot that someone else removes from their Mooney as part of a big-G upgrade and have it installed in your Mooney. I have KFC-150 in my J. I had the A/P computer (KC-192) IRAN'd by @Jake@BevanAviation . Since April I've flown over 60 hours and it works flawlessly. After flying 500 hours behind a Brittain system (Accutrak II, Accuflite, and PC-AH/Dynertial) in my C, I love the KFC-150. It flies RNAV approaches like its on rails including glide slope. Advantages: spare parts are relatively cheap and plentiful. Jake has intimate knowledge of these systems with quick turn around. They couple to Aspen PFDs. Disadvantages: they require analog inputs, which means either BK analog attitude indicator or digital to analog converters between the Aspen and autopilot. It's not the hot new thing so unlikely to add value to your Mooney. If you know a shop doing upgrades you might be able to work out an installation deal in advance.

At first glance, these seem great. However, I hear from my son who is in the instrumentation industry that these connectors have known reliability issues. I personally would not use one of these on an airplane, especially in a location that experiences a lot of heat.

Efficiency.

Don Maxwell's shop in Longview, Texas, is the premier bent-metal Mooney shop in the country. They can and do work miracles. Give them a call and talk.

As a federal employee when I travel for business using my Mooney, here's what federal travel policy allows: 1. Current (f.y. 24) GSA personal aircraft reimbursement rate = $1.76/mile 2. Look up GSA one-way contract air fare for city-to-city pair $X 3. Calculate 1-way personal aircraft reimburseable mileage as: $X/$1.76 In short, I cannot be reimbursed an amount greater than the negotiated contract air fare between those two cities. At least I have the freedom to fly myself and avoid the airlines if willing. I seldom get reimbursed for the true cost of the flight, but I enjoy the freedom and time savings. Sometimes, the contract air fare is so low that it just makes more sense to fly commercial. I always book a flight any time I plan a trip as a backup. Since federal tickets are fully refundable I cancel it if I decide to fly myself. In every case so far, the cost of my trip to the federal government is less if I fly myself than if I fly commercially, because it eliminates expenses such a driving to the distant commercial airport, airport parking, and usually one nights lodging and associated per-diem to accommodate airline schedules.

Aside from what you mentioned, I really like to have a small bottle of window cleaner and a microfiber cloth. After along cross-country the windshield is always covered with bugs this time of year. It's really nice to start clean when you takeoff for your return. Also, if you have a cover take it and cover your plane to avoid baking the interior while sitting outside in the sun all day.

I landed at U42. Arrived early afternoon from the southeast. It got real busy real fast trying to duck under and stay below the Class-B, avoid traffic and restricted airspace. Wish my co-pilot had been with me to help look for traffic. It worked out, just too busy to enjoy. Service at U42 was "meh". Nobody greeted me. A fuel truck guy stopped to tell me that I was parked in the wrong area. I was on my own to find the right area, which wound up being out on a helipad with one broken tie down ring. Had to schlep all my luggage 300 yards across the ramp on a hot day. Here's the sight that greeted my entry to Spanish Fork descending from 12,500 on arrival. Departure was a piece of cake. I left shortly after 0700 and was cleared into the Bravo on my climb-out!

Mooney over Mars? Taken two weeks ago between Cortez, Colorado, and Moab, Utah, at 12,500 ft on a flight from Los Alamos (LAM) to South Valley Regional (U42) just south of SLC. Looking west, showing where the Colorado River has dissected the Colorado Plateau. If you enlarge it, the blue patch in at the right-edge of the photo is the potash mine on the bank of the Colorado River just west of Moab. I flew a total of 25 hours on this trip!

Here's the one I created for our C in .doc format. Printed on card-stock and laminated to fit nicely on a kneeboard. drat. This site won't let me upload a .doc format. If you want it DM me your e-mail address and I'll send it to you. I'll attach the pdf so you can see if it is something you want. -Fred Freds_Checklist_Draft3.pdf

I'm in the middle of a long cross country in my J, TCL-LAM-U42-LAM-TCL. Covering much of the same parts of the country that you plan to traverse. My process: 1. For long range weather, I use windy.com to compare the outputs of the different forecast models. Agreement between the ECMWF and GFS models boosts my confidence in their forecasts. Divergence between them adds uncertainty. For route planning & fuel stops I use skyvector.com because it is fundamentally map-based. It allows you to enter a flight plan, giving a megenta line on a map. Shows 100LL prices to help you pick candidate landing airports along your route. Skyvector also shows you the AFD entry for airports you enter. Has some reviews. Starting the day before departure I do route briefings with foreflight. 2. From 106W to 80W your route covers 26 degrees of longitude. Weather is always going to be a factor this time of year Are you flying IFR? If not, good luck, because you'll be doing a lot of deviations, unscheduled overnight stays or scud running. All of this throws your initial plan into the rubbish bin. If you are IFR current and capable, then you'll have more luck. A Stormscope and an iPad with FIS-B weather displayed and talking to controllers all keep me out of convective trouble. 3. Leave as early in the morning as you can because it decreases the time you spend in rough air. 4. Eastbound, I like to plan for 11,000 or 11,500 because I don't have O2, and it typically maximizes tailwinds. Westbound, lower (~6,000) east of central Kansas offers lower headwinds. I've stopped at GLC westbound for fuel- nice facilities. From there to DEN you gotta fly above 8,000 terrain. 5. Since my J burns 7.5-8.5 gph LOP, I don't have to completely fill the tanks at every stop. Last year I flew eastbound (Fort Collins/Loveland - Tuscaloosa) FNL-TCL non-stop in 6 hours, but that was mind-numbing. I enjoy flying a bit more if I can stop every 3-4 hours and stretch legs and use the facilities. 6. Miami Executive has a good FBO. It's located about 6 miles south of MIA, and the MIA approach controllers sent me low (at or below 1,700!) over the Everglades for a long while keeping me out of the heavy traffic above. Bouncing along in the hot, humid air for 50 or more miles dodging 172's on training flights is not very glamorous. Good luck!

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want (or expect).

BTW- a couple of weeks ago I received a DM from a MS noob (0 posts) saying that they have one for sale. When I asked how much they wanted for it, I got no reply. Drat. Still looking.

With the current setup (IFD540-Aspen-KFC150) I get coupled VNAV approaches. I kind of have "Smart glide", but it depends on how smart I am, and how much time it takes me to hit the NRST button on the IFD and look at the glide ring on Foreflight .

As I wrote, the avionics shop I visited recently to troubleshoot my KFC150 put the hard sell on me for a whole panel Garmin makeover. They told me that to use a Garmin autopilot I'd have to replace the Avidyne with a Garmin GPS. Anyhow, with my KFC150 autopilot problems solved and a pile of spare parts, I'm not going to be ditching anything in my setup for quite some time. I love my "anti-establishment" panel!

Let me get this straight. Your IFD540 is connected to one or both G5's, and then the G5's are connected to the GFC500? When I last spoke with an avionics shop, they didn't say that was an option. They told me that to install a GFC500 I would have to ditch the Avidyne, which I do not want to do! I really have grown to like it. So your Avidyne is driving your autopilot?

Which autopilot do you have?

Thanks! I appreciate you sharing your experience! Fred