Mufflerbearing

I was a Pi baby and we have pie on my birthday every year!

If a factory shut down wouldn't stop my buddy buying a Studebaker Avant or if I thought I couldn't get parts for my GT40, then we wouldn't buy those kinds of cars. I never thought for a second a shut down factory would be an issue when I bought my Mooney.

After all the stories and videos of gear up landings, I am super paranoid about doing a gear up landing. Having a long body, there really is no way to get the speed off to land if the gear is not down. Recently, I had started to deploy the gear later in the pattern but really struggled to get the speed off before descent to base. It took me a bit going over in my mind what had changed, and once again, deploying mid field downwind sets things comfortably right. If something is just not right, think about it.

It has been a long journey that started 26 years ago. I started but didn't finish my ppl. I walked away with just my check ride. I know, what was I thinking? One of those decisions that I have regretted for so many years. We recently moved to a new state and simplified our lives. Part of that was to get back and finish my ppl and buy a plane. During my training, there were some school plane damage, done by other people and a choice was made with the help of this great forum. I came across a plane that I really loved and it checked all of the boxes. It's an M20S screaming eagle with FIKI and upgraded dash. I purchased this plane and with an instructor, flew it home and found a hangar right away for it's new home. Finishing my training in my plane was a lot of fun and found how much it flew like my Porsche drove. Tight and accurate. My instructor became used to me saying how much I love my plane sometime during each flight. It was fun to slow down the plane to Va to perform maneuvers by throwing out the speed brakes and immediately go into clearing turns. So much fun! Well, I will have been checked off to take my ppl oral and flight exam on Monday! I am so excited to get done with something that started so many years ago!

I was wondering when the MMO comment would show up in this discussion. I have used it and I like it. I think it works well for certain things like sticky rings and such. However, there is never a thing called a mechanic in a can.

Just changed the oil and while reading this thread, a suggestion was to look at the plugs. I looked through the engine log books and came to the conclusion that only one plug had been replaced. Ever. The engine has 1440 hours on it now. I pulled the plugs and all of the original Champion Massives were so out of spec. The closest one was the replacement Tempest plug that was at 1100 ohms. The next closest was 35,000 and the rest went up from there. 11 out of spec out of 12. Not sure how this plane flew. I have ordered a new set of Tempest fine wires which will be in on Wednesday. I am not sure that this will totally fix the problem, but I am sure that the engine will run much better overall.

Would not even hesitate buying a plane whose manufacturer is out of business. Especially a J model that has been out of production for so long.

We put a pressure gauge on the FI system and it is just too low at idle. He raised the pressure which we know is a band aid and will use the proper FI set up at annual. It is working a little better. I catch it when necessary which is not as often now.

This is a case of the evil you know vs the evil you don't know. Finding the unicorn airplane that will have everything you want that may be for sale will be difficult. It may have hidden issues too. It is much easier to build the plane you want, it only cost a bunch of amu's. The downside is you will never get your money out. The best scenario would be to find that very elusive airplane and get it at a reasonable price. No matter what, you will have to fix the plane you have.

I regret not serving myself, but proud of my father who served in the Army and now my son serving in the USAF. We all enjoy freedoms because of the high cost of freedom paid by our brothers and sisters. I cannot express my thanks adequately but by being the kind of citizen that is worth fighting for.

I read on MS that by upgrading the power output, that we were also able to use the whole 100 gallons of fuel that is available in the Ovation? This is part of the STC?

Thank you so much! I'll make a new station for the TKS fluid.

Going over this weight and balance has shown me one very important thing. I need to lose some weight!

I have all the weight and balance sheets for every modification to the plane in the POH. On the paperwork does not show what the CG limits are, just the addition and deletion of weights and moments. My empty weight now is 2371.41 with the CG of 44.69 This plane does have FIKI, not just TKS.

That would be awesome!

Did you change the forward or aft CG limits and where did you find that information?

Thanks! I had to not just click, but hold on the gross weight and then it allowed me to edit.

I have recently became a fan of Foreflight. When putting in my plane parameters, I have found that the gross can not be changed in the weight and balance pages from 3200 to what my poh says is 3368. Can this be done so I can use this tool?

That would make such an awesome ceiling fan! What are you looking to get for it?

It appears that the Acclaim S prop was a solid recommendation over the MT. Is that still the case? Is there a speed or weight advantage one over the other?

The real question is, is there a real advantage of going from 280 - 310? Is there any downsides?

My mechanic put in 1/8 turn rich on idle circuit just to get me by before setting up the time to hook up the fuel pressure gauges. I'll report when I know more next week. I appreciate the heads up and the ideas!

There has been no recent work done on the engine. This problem has been recent, but I am not aware if it came on at once or gradually. I'm thinking that it was more of a quick onset of symptoms. I had my mechanic look at it today and he will clean out the fuel screen and then he will hook up a fuel pressure gauge and check idle fuel pressure. He said that it needed to be between 8-10 psi.

We are thinking the fuel injection idle circuit.

A recent problem has struck my plane. Especially when warm, the plane will not idle below 1000 rpm. I can get it to catch when I hit the electric fuel pump, then it runs rough after a bit, shut it off and it will die. There is no issue with any rpm or power loss above 1000 rpm. When doing a mock emergency landing with my instructor, we pulled back to idle and it continued to run, probably from the windmilling of the prop. This does make for an issue while taxiing as you can imagine. I do not have a fuel pressure gauge on the dash so I don't know the pressure at idle. Ideas?