Sam Judd

The bracket came from the factory, they just happened to have one in stock. The final repair was ~6.8 hours and around $850. The part was just under $61. While my mechanic is one of the very well known west coast Mooney shops, this was the first time they'd seen this particular failure. They tried a couple of things before finally removing the tail to get access to the area with a rivet gun. It's possible that it'll be somewhat less for the next person now that they know what to do. An additional 6 hours was billed for travel to/from the airport where I was stuck and a

""" The fracture surface appears to be unoxidized. Reference photo. That suggests that either the fracture occurred fairly recently or it was well protected from corrosion. (possible but doubtful. The OP will hopefully expand here). """ The airplane was tied down at WVI outside. It's been outside or under a shade cover for the last two years. The previous owner said it had been hangared in CA and then NM until I got it. Thanks for the detailed report @Freemasm, fascinating read!

To tie this off, I've got the plane back. It took a ferry permit and conversations with three separate FSDOs, but at least everything is working again. The tail indeed had to be removed. It was about 6 hours of labor to drive to/from my mechanic's home base, do a temporary repair with cherry rivets and deal with the ferry permit/FAA. It was then another 6 hours or so to replace the temporary repair with the permanent one. @Freemasm I'll PM you to get an address to send the part.

After some back and forth with the FAA and the NTSB, my mechanic was vale to work out a temporary repair and a ferry permit today so I could bring the plane back to the shop. It sounds like @Freemasm is right and the fix will involve some fairly substantial surgery including removing the tail and/or trim assembly. I did get a few more pictures of the part: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6UsusgKjthD5cxncA. To my untrained eye, it looks pretty much identical the other failure shown in this thread. My mechanic will save the part, but we have to give the FAA first crack and the factory

@Freemasm - Note that the part picture is from a different poster. Maybe they also have experienced a similar failure?

@Freemasm I'll let you know. For what it's worth, my mechanic hasn't mentioned any substantial repair beyond replacing the part that broke. What's prompting you to think the tail needs to come off? Thanks! I hadn't even heard of this system before, so I appreciate the clear explanation of how it works and why it felt the way it did.

Thanks! About 5200 hours. I always do a control test during my runup. I noticed nothing abnormal until after the incident. Then the pitch force felt quite heavy when pulling nose up, even on the ground I reported it to the NTSB via phone the night of the incident. I had one follow up call. Both times they basically said they'd only be interested if I discovered substantial damage. I've sent them the picture and haven't heard anything yet. I'd be totally happy to work with you on this. I can make sure my mechanic preserves the part. It won't get re

I took my '78 J out last Friday night to do a short night cross country and get my night currency back. After my first uneventful flight/landing, I ended up declaring an emergency doing pattern work. On short final I felt/heard a bang and the nose dropped about 5 degrees. I initially thought I might have done something silly with the flaps or trim and went around. Shortly after starting the go around, I realized my pitch control felt all wrong. I declared an emergency and landed uneventfully. In retrospect I realized that, among other things, I'd been pulling up with full nose up trim to

Over the last month or so I've had an intermittent problem with my starter. On the first start of the the day, the first time I turn the key and push, I hear a click but no other noise and the prop doesn't move at all. If I release the key and repeat, the starter starts turning the prop right away. Every subsequent in the same day turns the prop over right away. The click on the first start of the day happens about 50% of the days I go flying. The starter is a Skytec 149 LS which was installed almost exactly a year ago after similar intermittent issues with the same model progressed to t