PT20J

I regularly fly my M20J into W10. The runway is 2470 x 25 with tall Douglas fir trees all around. It’s not a problem. A strip like that will teach you to be precise in speed and directional control. As long as you have nearby bigger airports for gas, maintenance, instrument approaches and diversion during unfavorable conditions, I wouldn’t hesitate.

Aircraft Magneto Service does excellent work. They quit doing the dual Bendix mags though.

Yep. Imagine the problem if the NOTAM had been wrong the other way -- with dates a week after the event. I've come to the conclusion that there is no way to protect yourself completely. Like life in general.

It's good to remember that the pilot gets to select the approach regardless of what ATC is advertising. The only time you might not get it is if you ask for an approach to the opposite end of the runway that is in use because it messes up traffic flow, but I have even been able to get that when I wanted to land downwind to use an approach with lower minimums.

This is just one more issue with the stupid NOTAM system.

According to the FAA, NOTAMs are the official source. Both ADS-B and ForeFlight obtain graphical TFR data from tfr.faa.gov. That website contains the following disclaimer. This site is informational in nature and is designed to assist pilots and aircrews for flight planning and familiarization. It may be used in conjunction with other pre-flight information sources needed to satisfy all the requirements of 14 CFR 91.103 and is not to be considered as a sole source of information to meet all pre-flight action. Due to system processing delays, recently entered notams may not be displayed Skip

UREM37BY

Fine wires have gotten pretty pricey. The maintenance advantage is that the electrodes last much longer and don’t need gapping. The operational advantage derives from the electrode arrangement that places the spark deeper in the combustion chamber. I am trying out the BY plugs which should provide the operational advantage but not the maintenance advantage. I’ve got about 100 hours on them and they run great LOP and are also very clean when I rotated them twice so far.

The KAP/KFC 150 was digital with a microprocessor and thus software controlled. The GFC 500 is a distributed system. Some of the software is in the PFD, some is in the servos. Only Garmin knows exactly how it works. I think it was pretty much a clean sheet design. The servos often seem implicated when problems arise. I don't recall such problems with the GFC 600 or GFC 700; does anyone else? The GFC 500 was originally designed for the experimental market where airplanes are usually smaller with lighter control forces. Curious if anyone has followed the experimental threads to see if they have similar issues? Skip

Did they explain why? I wonder if most of the problems have been with J and K models? According to the FAA aircraft registry, Garmin International owns N430G (M20R) and N5272K (M20J).

What did the deposits look like? Do you have any pictures? Deposits could be due to oil. What’s oil consumption? Something doesn’t make sense. If the engine truly has one cylinder running considerably richer than the other three, when you can go deeply LOP, that cylinder should be putting out more power than the other three and you should get some roughness. Has it always done this with the Dynon, or did something change? Aside from the EGT indications, are there any anomalies in the engine’s operation or is it running well?

What engine monitor do you have? How do you know that it is correct? It sounds like the engine runs fine, but there is just an unexplained issue with the EGT in cylinder 4 (or maybe 4 is correct and 1-3 are not. At 60 dF LOP, I would expect some roughness. Roughness comes from cycle-to-cycle combustion variation which occurs at any mixture but is much greater with very weak mixtures). Before tearing too far into the engine on the basis of a single measuring instrument, I would want to be sure that the instrument is accurate. If you do measure the valve lift, I'd replace the valve cover gaskets with silicone.

This is a perplexing problem. I understand how frustrated those are that have it, but having been in product development for my entire career, I also understand why it has been hard to solve. First, the vast majority of installations do not oscillate. Trek told me that most of the ones that have problems are due to installation issues or airframe issues and once the root cause is determined they work fine. I had a slight oscillation in IAS that was corrected by re-tensioning the pitch servo bridle cable. However it seems that there are some hard cases where everything appears to be in spec and yet the problems persist. I'm sure this is why Garmin wanted to find an example to examine. Unless you can reproduce the problem, you are just guessing and trying things. And, even if you can reproduce the problem, it may take special software that is instrumented with more data collection than the production build to determine the root cause and proper fix. Remember that this is a closed loop control system and the fact of feedback can mask issues. If Garmin in fact has an aberrant airplane to work with, they should be able to figure this out. I think we can see now why there are not a lot of companies certifying new autopilots. It is not a simple product to make work with a fleet of aged airplanes. Skip

All the radials had superchargers. Some were 2 stage and some were 2 speed and they had to shift gears at a certain altitude to get more boost to continue climbing. The most complex (and troublesome) radial was the Curtiss-Wright R-3350 turbo compound that also had three power recovery turbines driven by exhaust and fluid coupled to the crankshaft. It was used on the Connie and the DC-7. I think that it generated the comment that the DC-6 was a four engine airplane with three blade propellers and the DC-7 was a three engine airplane with four blade propellers.

IPads that are WiFi only do not have GPS. iPads with cellular and WiFi have GPS. The GPS is part of the cellular chipset because it is “assisted” GPS and uses the cellular system to improve location availability and accuracy. If the iPad has GPS, it does not require a cellular or WiFi signal for the GPS receiver to provide location so long as the iPad has a clear view of the sky. Skip

GPSS has nothing to do with APR. It only affects HDG mode. GPSS ON, autopilot follows GPS; GPSS OFF, autopilot follows heading bug.

If you read the service alert, it says that the problem was corrected in v2.43 per Service Bulletin 22002. It would be good to get that installed if you haven't already. Backups are always a good idea. I have a G3X, G5 and an AV-20-S. The AV-20 uses different technology and is cheap and protects against confusion if the G3X and G5 don't agree. The G5 has a long battery life and protects against an electrical failure. Also the glass panel only draws about 11 amps so the main battery should be good for an hour+. The GI 275 has a shorter battery life than the G5 and the AV-20 also has a short battery life (I measured about half an hour). If I had dual GI 275, I would want a backup AI that is either vacuum or has a long battery life. Skip

Solar activity generally is the cause of this. A possible downgrade is shown on the GTN navigators by LPV being displayed in yellow instead of green. I always wondered if the color indication would be carried over to the G3X HSI. A couple of days ago, I found out: it doesn't -- you have to check the annunciation on the GTN to be alerted to a possible downgrade. As I was being vectored for the KPAE RNAV Y 16R approach, the GTN switched from TERM to LPV, but the LPV annunciation was yellow, so I reviewed the LNAV minimums in case of a downgrade. As I intercepted the final approach course, the LPV annunciation on the GTN changed to green and the GP scale appeared on the G3X. But, just outside the FAF, the GTN switched to a green LNAV annunciation and the G3X GP scale was removed. The G3X showed the correct annunciation (LPV, LNAV) but it was always magenta. Skip

Legacy autopilots have a NAV mode that tracks a course to keep you on the centerline. Modern GPS navigators have all kinds of capabilities beyond that: they will fly DME arcs, holding patterns, have turn anticipation for flying by a fix without overshooting, etc. These navigators interface directly with a modern autopilot to allow it to fly these curved courses. GPSS is a workaround to allow legacy autopilots to do the same thing. The GPSS converter (either a separate device or now more commonly built in to some piece of newer avionics) converts the GPS navigator roll steering digital commands to an analog output that the autopilot can understand. To do this, it alters the autopilot HDG input. So to fly a heading, you put the autopilot in HDG and turn off GPSS. To fly a GPS course or procedure, you put the autopilot in HDG and turn on GPSS. You only use NAV on the autopilot when tracking a VOR. Skip

No, the idle mixture generally must be reset whenever the idle speed is changed and vice versa since the injector is not actually metering according to airflow at idle. Any change in idle speed affects idle mixture and changing the idle mixture affects idle speed. So, usually you have to go back and forth a couple of times to get both right. I usually make quarter to half turn adjustments of the speed stop screw and one click at a time on the mixture thumbwheel.

I believe ADAHRS in the G5 requires the magnetometer. The G5 Pilot’s Guide seems to say that you can enter a menu and select HDG or TRK, but I haven’t experimented with it. The G3X has a setting to display TRK unless the GFC 500 is in HDG.

Not an issue if you learned that way, and stay proficient. On many IPCs I’ve given, the ILS needles look like a sword fight.

Not really. For very small corrections, like 2 or 3 degree heading changes, the amount of control input is so small whether you use the rudder or ailerons that the sideslip angle is negligible. Making these tiny corrections with the ailerons is actually more workload because the roll angle required is so small and it has to be immediately removed as soon as the heading starts to change and mechanical heading indicators had some lag for small changes due to internal friction. This is a technique taught by some from the old days of flying raw data ILS where the proper technique is the stop, hold, and then reverse localizer needle movement by making and holding very small heading changes. In my experience though, very few pilots could hold a heading accurately enough to utilize it and most just chase the needles around. It takes a lot of practice to be able to fly a raw data ILS without an HSI down to 200’ (and below) with the needles centered. Nowadays, with my flight director, it’s a piece of cake. Skip

The Mooney parts are molded from a softer plastic and have some give where the gear doors overlap. If you make them out of stiffer composites, you might want to take a lot of care making sure the fit with the doors is very good so that they don’t wear out the doors. It doesn’t seem like Mooney got the curve exactly right and that’s probably why one corner always seems to wear.

Me too. It even calculates time zone changes.