PT20J

Don’t think you’ll find a serviceable used elevator for less than $1K. Check the salvage places. As of a couple of years ago you could buy new skins from Mooney for less than $1K. If you are good at sheet metal work and paint that’s your cheapest option.

From comments here and elsewhere, what seems to happen is that some always use the electric trim or autopilot and never manually operate the trim wheel. The trim system gets tight from lack of lubrication over time if not maintained properly. The trim servo has a lot of torque but eventually things get to the point where the clutch slips at which point attempt is made to adjust the trim with the wheel and it becomes obvious that the trim is very difficult to move. During annual inspection, the trim wheel should be moved from stop to stop to note it's action. I also make it a practice to manual

If you look in the tail, you will see the trim torque tube running down the center. Above it will be the trim servo. The servo has a sprocket and there is a sprocket on the tube and a chain connects the two sprockets. Directly behind the tube sprocket is the carrier bearing that supports the trim torque tube. This picture (courtesy of Don Maxwell) shows the assembly removed from the airplane and turned upside down. You can see the trim servo below (in the airplane it would be above) the carrier bearing. The sprockets and chain are on the other side of the bracket and can't be seen in the pictu

@Parker_Woodruff can you suggest the actions any of us might take to be considered a better risk? Skip

I did all that. The Mooney factory installed the transducer on M20Js mounted to the sump upside down (wires coming out bottom). I even went to the trouble to build a new mounting bracket and flip it over. It made absolutely no difference. (The reason for mounting wires up is so that the vent can allow vapor bubbles to evacuate, but if you don't have air leaks in the fuel system, this doesn't seem to be an issue according to JPI). I also removed the 45 degree elbow from the inlet side and replaced it with a straight fitting. No difference. Somewhere, (I think it was in a Floscan installation do

The command bars are just a visual display of the commands computed by the autopilot that feed the servos when the autopilot is engaged. With the flight director on, but the autopilot not engaged, keeping the airplane symbol nestled tightly in the command bars means you are flying exactly as the autopilot would. Skip

The Mooney service bulletin M20-206 is pretty clear: 1. Changing the prop indexing from 1 to 3 makes the engine/prop combination slightly smoother particularly at high power settings 2. Doesn't change the caution range on the tachometer 3. Is optional at the owner's discretion. The effect is likely small. If I got a good dynamic balance on 1 index, I would not spend money messing with it. If I were rebuilding an engine, I'd change it to a 3 because that is presumably better and more common and the incremental cost and effort would be insignificant. You can't accidental

It's not Airpower that decides the core exchange policy -- it's Lycoming. Lycoming sets the policy depending on what they are trying to incentivize. Lycoming retains the right to surcharge dissimilar cores but now they seem to want to get more IO-390s in the field. When I traded in my IO-360-A3B6D for an A3B6, I got a discount for retiring a D which Lycoming would like to get out of the field. Skip

Have you checked the accuracy of the airspeed indicator? There is a simple leak check that can be performed on the pitot system (see the Service Manual). You can also do 4 way GPS true airspeed measurements (there are threads around or search for ntps airspeed spreadsheet). When the hangar warms up I'm going to track down a leak in mine -- it's low by 7 KIAS at cruise. Skip

Both Shadin and JPI use Floscan 201B transducers. http://www.floscan.com/html/blue/aviation.php JPI acquired Floscan a couple of years ago. These transducers have a K-factor range of 28,000 to 30,000 pulses per gallon and are individually calibrated at a 16.0 gph flow rate. Floscan claims that the transducers are accurate to 0.5% down to a flow rate of 3 gph. If all this was correct, setting the JPI for the transducer K-factor should be very accurate. But most find that getting accurate fuel used requires tweaking the K-factor. Since it was very accurately calibrated at the factory

Theoretically, if you put all the 201 mods and 200 hp on a M20C it should be slightly faster than a J because it has slightly less wetted area and trims slightly more efficiently. But, in reality.... who knows?

Maybe this will help...

Did you mean IAF? I don’t believe you should ever be direct to the FAF (unless you’ve already intercepted the final approach course). ATC should vector you to intercept outside the approach gate. Skip

That is a very clear explanation of how the GTN works, how to use it, and how to get what you want from ATC.

Ah, now I see what you were getting at. Certainly you have to get the GPS navigating on the approach somehow. My point was simply that there is nothing special that you need to do to “activate” an approach. From the pilot’s standpoint, it’s just another sequence of waypoints. Skip