PT20J

Sorry to hear about that, but you have company. I'm curious what oil has been used. I've heard that Aeroshell 15W50 doesn't seem to work so well in these engines even though it has the LW-16702 additive. Skip

Cliff, Hoppes No. 9 is a gun cleaning solvent. Find it wherever AK-47s are sold. Lycoming recommends it for cleaning fuel injector nozzles. Skip

Regarding the fuel flow transducer: I heard that cleaning it sometimes fixes it and tried that. Tried running some carb cleaner spray through it and that didn't help so I took it off and soaked it in Hoppes. That made it better, but it was still intermittent. The transducer is made by Floscan which was purchased by JPI a year or so ago. I bought a new transducer and that fixed it though I'm still puzzled that the K-factor setting on the Shadin had to be tweaked so much to get the right flow indication. At the time, it was cheaper to buy the transducer from JPI than Spruce, so check both prices. Regarding the tubing: I changed all mine to SCEET and got the SCAT out. The SCEET is double walled and much stiffer. Guy Ginby at GeeBee Aero N77GB@msn.com will make them if you send him the diameter and length. If you need a sharp bend NOT near the exhaust, you can get some short lengths of large diameter heat shrink tubing on eBay to shrink over it to hold a bend. Skip

The most fun was to fly beyond the mountains and do a 180 and look back a the little flat earth grid.

Anyone remember Bruce Artwick's original Flight Simulator (before Microsoft bought it) with the 2-D stick figure mountains running on an Apple II?

Flight schools like Hobbs time for billing purposes. BTW, the time you log as a pilot is different from the time logged for maintenance records. Per part 1.1: "Time in Service, with respect to maintenance records, means the time from the moment the aircraft leaves the surface of the earth until it touches it at the next point of landing." Most airplanes do not have an air-switched Hobbs meter, so most schools and rental outfits bill by Hobbs and record maintenance by tach time. The savings on using air Hobbs for maintenance was enough that the Part 135 operation I sometimes fly for installed air Hobbs in all the airplanes. The pilot flight time is also important in commercial operations because there are time limits on it, so the company got the FAA to agree to add .02 hours per landing to the Hobbs time to calculate flight time. Can we stop now? It's making my head hurt. Log whatever you think is reasonable. For Part 91 operations, no one is ever going to question it. Skip

No, that is part of your loggable flight time.

If you get a rebuilt from Lycoming, you get the roller tappets which I think is a big plus. All the radials had them and they don’t seem to suffer tappet or cam gear failures. The dual mag is getting expensive to maintain due to parts availability, lack of factory support and the fact that only a few mag shops will work on them. I decided to get an A3B6 and dump the dual mag. The threads on MS have the details you’ll want to know about if you change engines. The Mooney IPC lists the parts you need but there are no drawings. There are a few tricky things like figuring out how to properly rig the prop governor and you need to flip the oil cooler around 180 degrees. The A3B6 uses a different governor than the A3B6D, so it will need to be modified and overhauled or exchanged. It’s also a good idea to get the oil cooler overhauled - it’s not expensive. The Lycoming parts catalog lists a Mooney prop governor line but they refused to ship the engine with that line installed, and it’s several hundred dollars and several weeks to get them to make one. Most shops just bend the standard line slightly to clear the engine mount. That’s what we did. Lycoming ships the rebuilts with an alternator, but no starter. Don Maxwell has done several A3B6D to A3B6 conversions and is a good resource. Skip

Well, I think the object is to get a smooth takeoff with a minimum of fuss. As Bob Kromer pointed out at MooneyMAX last week, a steady 5 lb. pull during the takeoff roll will give a smooth liftoff. But, it only works if the trim is set right. Skip

According 14 CFR Part 1.1, Flight time means: Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing. So, taxi time counts if you go flying.

This is where to begin. If you are adding equipment, you should add a breaker for it. It might be better to have this done by an avionics shop as they are will probably do a neater job of it since that's what they do for a living. Skip

I have the Aspen AOA on my PFD installed by the previous owner. A good over-the-fence speed when light in my J model is about 65 KIAS. This puts the AOA indication clear into the yellow/black crosshatch area (critical). If I keep the AOA in the green, I’ll touch down in the next county. I’m curious if others using the Aspen AOA have the same indication, or if I should recalibrate it. As many probably know, the Aspen design uses a patented software algorithm to derive AOA from existing sensors rather than requiring a dedicated AOA sensor. Skip

Stall warning adjustment is covered in 27-95-00 for the M20J - not sure about others. Stall warning should activate at not less than 5 kts nor more than 10 kts before power off stall entered when decelerating not more than 1 knot/sec from a trimmed speed of 1.5 Vs. Should be checked in all configurations. Loosen screws to adjust vane. Moving the tip approximately 1/4” changes speed by about 5 mph. Skip

The stall warning is adjustable. Specs and procedure are in the maintenance manual.

Ross, it’s in Dave Roger’s paper cited earlier in the thread. And you really should get the 8KCAB out of the pattern - it’s fun there, but funner doing loops and rolls and such

This is not normal. Master cylinders have a coil spring coaxial with the shaft that returns the pedals to the upright position when the brakes are released. Sounds like either the spring is broken or something is interfering with the mechanism causing it to hang. Maybe Clarence @mooneydoc has seen this before. Skip

I read Dr. Roger's paper and found it interesting. I note that his original paper on the subject was published in the AIAA Journal of Aircraft. For those unfamiliar, AIAA is a professional organization of aeronautical engineers and technical papers don't make it to publication without review. Even without going through the math, the results make sense. Certainly, we all learned during primary training that the turn radius decreases and the turn rate increases with increasing bank angle. So if these were the only considerations, a very steep bank would be optimum for getting turned around with a minimum of altitude loss and lateral offset. But, we also should remember that power off descent rate increases with angle of bank which argues for a shallower bank. Given the two competing conditions, it makes intuitive sense that there would be an optimum somewhere between a shallow and a very steep bank angle. Dr. Rogers, using a little elementary calculus, shows the optimum bank angle to be 45 deg. As to the airspeed, it makes sense to use a minimum sink rate speed which is lower than best glide (maximum distance speed). The turn maneuver time is short and the airplane is decelerating so going from Vy in the climb to 1.05Vs during the turn probably averages out to somewhere around the minimum sink speed. And, of course, the slower speed reduces the turn radius. Skip

Great clarification, thanks. Whelen has both PMA docs and STC docs on their website. Can the lights be legally installed with a logbook entry because of the PMA, or do they require a 337 to apply the STC? Skip

Redline Aviation $210. (Price on the website is wrong -- call if you want to order). Extends to 61.5", same nose truss friction lock as sidewinder.

Performing this maneuver at altitude is very different than flying it near the ground. Most of us don't fly steep descending turns below 500' AGL on a regular basis. Two things conspire to increase the risk of stalling: First, we have trained to pull g's in a steep turn to hold altitude and the primacy of this training is strong. In this maneuver, you have to unload the wing to keep the airspeed up. As the Navy guys say, "unload for knots." Second, the sight of a windshield filled with earth in unnerving and creates a very strong desire to pull the nose up which just tightens the spiral. The first effect is counteracted by practice. For the second, force yourself not to fixate on the view directly over the nose, but look up through the top of the windshield and all around from side to side to take in the big picture of where you are going. Skip

If anyone is looking for a KT 76A, I just removed an operational one and will sell it for $200 + shipping. Skip

Sniffle drains to a hose. Easy way to test for leaking sniffle is to temporarily plug line and check idle.

If the high oil consumption is due to worn valve guides, it's possible that one exhaust valve stem might have enough deposits to cause the valve to stick intermittently.

Ross, I pulled this from the seminar handout I got when I attended the APS seminar in Ada back in 2007. Someone who has taken the online version might have more recent info. Since the seminar, I've had a couple of email exchanges with Walter Atkinson and quite a few with John Deakin, mostly regarding radial engine operation, but I wouldn't say I have any special connection. The APS team does a really good job of simplifying some complex ideas. But, as I have certainly learned by humbling experience here and elsewhere, simplifying complex issues has its pitfalls. It's great when people take the time to really understand what APS is trying to teach. It's not so good when people take concepts like the red box, without fully understanding the underlying principles, and loudly proclaim that running at peak (or 50F ROP, or take your pick) EGT will destroy your engine. It's not that simple. I think it's been clearly shown that running LOP has certain benefits perhaps including improved cylinder longevity. But, much of the LOP operational experience has been at lower powers: Normally aspirated engines can't cruise very high and put out more than about 65% power LOP; the airlines ran the big radials LOP at about 55% power; I think I remember Mike Busch saying he runs his 310 LOP at 65% or less. So, I'm really curious to know if engines continue to show longevity improvement when run LOP at high powers. I believe John Deakin was running his turbo-normalized Bonanza at 80+% deeply LOP before he quit flying and claimed no ill effects, but I don't know how long he did that and it's still only one engine. Maybe over time we will get more data on this. Skip

Great summary. Here's some actual APS data for one operating condition for one (unspecified) engine. It's a little hard to read, but the original wasn't all that good. The graphs are internal cylinder pressure curves for the same engine at the same power output with the only difference being mixture. Left graph: 27.2"/2500 rpm / 75F ROP / 390F CHT / 18.3 gph / 244 bhp / 140.5 BMEP / ICPmax= 825 psi Right graph: 29.9"/2500 rpm / 50F LOP / 365F CHT / 16.4 gph / 244 bhp / 140.5 BMEP / ICPmax= 740 psi Note that BMEP is not a "real pressure", but an average. It is equivalent to torque times a constant. As shown below, you can achieve the same BMEP with different shaped curves. Skip