alextstone

My contribution to the Genius thread happened today. Well, actually slowly over the past several days. My wife and I stopped in St. Louis last Thursday and while there, I ordered a top off of our O2 bottle as we had 12 hours of flying over the next several days. This morning, as I pre flighted the airplane at Mackinac Island airport for a flight to NJ, I discovered that the O2 was EMPTY! Yours truly left the valve open and one of the regulators slightly open too. To complicate matters further, there is no fuel at Mackinac so I planned for both the leg to Mackinac and to NJ before leaving Traverse City. I planned for performance at 17k not 9k. Fortunately, I fueled to the max allowed and I had a nice cushion. That mistake will not be repeated soon

Wait, what?? Are you sure your regular mechanic caused the problem? If so, why not insist they fix it at their expense? If there is resistance, kindly offer to have another shop handle the fix and forward the bill to their insurance company. That should create some motivation to make you whole. Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

Hmm. The AD says: “Airworthiness Directives; BENDIX IGNITION SWITCHES: Applies To All Aircraft Employing Magnetos and Using Bendix Ignition Switches”. My parts catalog says: Bendix Scintilla part number 10-357210. So, it appears to be under the AD...

Thank you Paul. I was not aware of the AD. There has been no mention of compliance with this AD in my logs and my airplane was serviced for several years at an MSC. This leads me to an important question. How does an aircraft owner find a truly complete AD list? When I conducted an AD search on the FAA website for both “M20M” and “M20”, the Bendix switch AD did not come up.... https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/airworthiness_directives/search/?q=mooney m20&makeModel=&type=Current&filter=&sort=effectiveDate&direction=desc&startRow=51 https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/airworthiness_directives/search/?q=mooney+m20m Does this mean that a complete search would have to include all accessories for the aircraft separately? Is there a service the does not cost a fortune that one can rely on? Thanks in advance. Alex

Thank you. For the record, I’m a dentist. I’ll try my best to behave here so as to balance out the perception. I can’t promise I won’t come off as a bit crazy though.

Would you please share some specifics on improved takeoff and climb performance with the MT prop on your Bravo? Thanks Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

I think the spirit of this was and is to foster a positive environment to share a common passion - Mooney aircraft snd nothing more. I am in support because I like the single minded focus and frankly, If I were to share openly what my political and religious views were, I might inadvertantly strain the relationships I am hoping to develop here. I'm looking for inclusion, and comradery, not division. I've come to greatly appreciate the help and support I receive on this forum...thanks. Safe flying to you all.

I'm all for this.. Alex Touchstone Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

The point of my comment was simply an agreement with @mike_elliott in that there should be no set time for achievement of proficiency. I have had instructors who are so "humble" as to allow me to decide if I am safe and if I have had enough training to complete the task at hand. I don't know if as the student, I am really the best person to make that decision. So, while I am sure there are humble instructors who are also safe, if I were to choose between the two, I would rather have one who is assertive enough to make an honest evaluation of my skill and to guide me toward improvement regardless of the time involved. My comment was not meant to imply you are wrong. Perhaps we have different needs in an instructor. As an aside, I was at the airport recently and I saw another pilot who bases his airplane there show up, pace around while he was on the phone as his airplane that had not been flown in over a month was pulled from the hangar and then hop in for a series of touch and go's without so much as checking the oil level. Now, that's not safe. This same person switched instructors a while back because instructor "A" was too insistent on following the FAA training guidelines. Instuctor "B" that he switched to has a reputation for being "nice", "humble", "supportive"...in other words, he's the guy you go to if you want to get the training done quickly and easily. So, it's through observations and personal experience that I made that comment.

No one said that.

I'll take safe over humble any day Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

Well now, that's an ambitious goal.

Thank you!!!

I did not use the GEE-BEE kit. I ordered everything from Aircraft Spruce and cut the pieces to match so I'm not sure these photos will help...(not sure why these are rotated and I cannot seem to figure out how to fix that)

What do you mean by this statement? I run my Bravo LOP and my experience is that it runs smoothly all the way to starvation on the lean side of peak and I am cruising at 29"/2400RPM/14GPH while showing <1600 deg TIT and the hottest cylinder at just shy of 380 degrees. When I run ROP, the CHT's are higher by 20+ degrees at the same settings and I have to add more fuel to about 100 deg ROP to keep the TIT below 1600 degrees. My GAMI spread is not great yet either (0.8 GPH as of the last nozzle swap). I'm working with John-Paul and Savvy Aviation to dial this in. Is my experience unique? If so, why?

I'm partial to Gulf Shores KJKA but it might not be a convenient location to others

Does that mean you can now fly in the carpool lane?

Thanks for the info!

@BaldEagle, I am in the same position as you relatively speaking. I hope the OP will share so I too can get some sense of what the timeline is.

Wow, I do not know you but your post makes me wonder if you and I would get along. I hope my first impression is wrong and that moreover your assessment is as incorrect as it is in poor taste. Interestingly, this was your first post on this forum. How about an introduction before you pontificate?

My engine runs smoothly LOP all the way until it dies due to fuel starvation. Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

Hmm. I wonder where that came from? Why would LOP be unhealthy for a specific engine? I will say that GAMI injectors are key as well as a proper engine monitor if one wants to run LOP. Check out Mike Busch's book, "Engines". It will transform your thinking on how engines are to be run and maintained. Alex

Hi Pete, I am just into my first summer with my Bravo so I am typing from a limited experience. I have found LOP to be a great hedge against higher temps. That said, I do run ROP at 29/2400 from time to time. I find that my temps stay at about 400 +- 5 CHT for the hottest cylinder and 1605 +- 5 TIT when the FF is set to 19.0 - 19.5. No cowl flaps in this scenario. I did recently install new baffle seals but I did not go through a summer with the old ones so I have no basis for comparison. LOP is a different story. the CHT's go down to <375 for the hottest cyliner, the TIT stays at or below 1600 and the fuel flow is about 14 GPH. I trade 10-15 knots of airspeed for this but in my view it's worth it.

Now, I'm curious @LANCECASPER. What are you experiencing and are you concerned for some reason? Also, did you recently install a new monitor? I did and I have been trying to tweak the K factor setting to get the fuel flow just right....

31 GPH WOT, full rich and 2575 RPM for me.