Pasturepilot

I used the website https://drytransferletters.com they’re a print shop in Los Angeles, and their turnaround time was pretty quick. I laid out my placards in Microsoft word, saved it as a PDF and uploaded it to their website order system. Here’s where it went wonky, and learn from my mistake. Because I wanted white text, I converted the text to white in the word processor, saved the PDF, and uploaded it. When they process the PDF, the file corrupted and the text turned into crazy characters. The good way to keep from getting a print of comic strip curse words in the mail, is to upload it with the text Black but attach a note telling them to print it as white. applying it isn’t difficult. There are YouTube tutorials on applying dry transfer decals - basically it’s printed onto the back side of a transparency sheet. You cut the decal out, and tape it down around the edges. You use a hotel key card (or something similar) to burnish the transparency and the text sticks better to your panel than the clear plastic. but throw a coat of clear over it quickly, as it’s easily damaged when not protected. 10/10 would recommend over a homemade label maker. I’ve got placards printed to do the rest of the panel when I get around to it.

Holy thread revival, Batman. But… it’s my thread and I’m gonna do it anyhow. It’s been a moment since I bought the mooney four years ago and had big ideas about the panel. G5s. GPS 175. Engine monitors. Man, it just seemed like so much money. I don’t post a lot here but I do read the forums regularly. Just figured I’d check back in. Before we headed out west on that first big trip, I replaced a failing gyro horizon with a G5, and that’s about the last time i posted much about the panel. as you can see, the turn coordinator wasn’t real pleased with its new gee-whiz neighbor. The Pandemic struck and boom. Travel tanked, and as an airline pilot, I had a lot of time on my hands. I bought a GPS 175 after an IFR across country to Kitty hawk where every controller tired to clear us direct, so I took the hint. Also picked up an EDM900 engine monitor. I wasn’t ever what you’d call an electrically-inclined a&p so there was a lot of studying as I went, but the installs were both successful. We’ve done a few big trips, and have more planned. But I found myself using the g5 in HSI mode pretty often to follow a course and I’m better tracking a HSI than a CDI. and I’d stared longingly at y’all with your six-pack panels until it was time to act. Last fall I picked up a g5 HSI kit and… procrastinated. In January, I began tearing the panel apart. and cutting metal And fixing 50 years of airline pilot “improvements” that included a lot of electrical equipment just grounded Willy nilly all over the plane. I laid out a bunch of placards and had them produced as dry transfer text. Applied over paint and then clear coated, they look great. It took a while, and there’s a few things left, but I flew yesterday, nearly squawk free. Oh, and I added a garmin USB port. I’m sick of carrying batteries to keep my foreflight devices juiced up on long trips! So… wrapping up. If you’re on a budget and have big ideas, hang in there. Things don’t have to happen quickly, or all at once. Like a mouse devouring an elephant, one bite at a time, you’ll get there if you just stick with it. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

@jwarren2 I’ve got a 65C model with the PC wing leveler and I love it, although getting it rehabilitated was a slow process. a friend with a B model was entertaining thoughts of installing one. Anything can be done, with deep enough pockets, but his didn’t have the brackets for the actuators installed and after studying it for a while, we decided that trying to engineer the PC system into his airplane wasn’t worth the headache. The brackets for mounting the actuators weren’t installed in his plane so there was going to be a bit of sheet metal work in tight spaces to achieve his goal.

Some are standard, others are slightly non-standard. Wicks is another source that worked for a rod end I couldn't find at Spruce last year.

More fuel in the wings - been mentioned Less ballast in the pilot seat - mentioned. More ballast in the back: Not mentioned. My C model is faster on long trips when my wife and I don't travel light. Mods are expensive. Efficiently loading the airplane is cheap. WIth the W&B information in ForeFlight I can load the plane pretty accurately to keep it within the envelope, but much nearer to the aft limit than just buzzing around with two people and full tanks.

Every once in a while, I get asked to ident on initial call. It's rarer than in the past.... usually when I'm in a spot where radio coverage isn't great. I have a suspicion that between ADS-B and most of us sporting GPS technology, ATC has a better idea of which patch of sky to be searching for us, versus having to gaze across the whole screen when we first call them up. Pre-GPS I once called up Atlanta approach for flight following and made a bad guess at my distance off the Atlanta VOR. Forgot how many miles to an inch on the chart? Failed to carry the one? Who knows. "If that's your position, you're already in the Bravo" sent chills down my spine. Then, "oh, got you now, you're still clear of the Bravo, cleared through the bravo..."

In a dark hangar, uncowl your mooney but leave the doghouse in place. Stick a flashlight in the doghouse, and anywhere you see light, there’s air escaping. Seconding the power flow exhaust as a heat source.. that’s not helping your situation. I got after my doghouse aggressively with some sealer and saw significant changes in temperatures. 25 degrees is the number for your timing, but it doesn’t take a lot of adjustment to help. 24.500001 degrees rounds up to 25 in some folks’ book. I have no idea how you’re measuring temperatures so accurately with a single CHT probe into the Garwin box. It’s telling you 1/4 of the story… and even that is transmitted with some poetic license.

The hubcaps are a nice dust cover to help keep dirt out of your wheel bearings... or grease out of view, depending on your point of view. Over time, the threads in those soft aluminum wheels do get worn - mine are pretty well shot at this point. The screw holes wear even quicker if you use cheap tire tubes since you'll be airing those suckers up all the dang time.

The label is from Bogert Aviation. They make all kinds of fun stuff. https://bogertaviation.com/collections/bottle-jack-extensions-ram-adapters

I made it about halfway and absolutely had to close the window. There are two yokes. Fly the plane. Put the gear down. Land. Have a beer and call it a day. I wish there was a way I could un-click the link to take back the 1/137,000th of a penny I generated for that video channel.

@0TreeLemur oddly enough, your panel project thread was one of the first ones to send me down the path of modernizing my panel. When I pulled my old Garwin cluster (that’s now in the hands of a man whose father was my Mooney’s first owner), the oil pressure line was original to the airplane. It was a sobering moment, realizing that brittle old hose wasn’t far from creating a really bad mess. The presentation of clear data by modern instrumentation is such a leap forward in awareness of our birds’ health that it really is difficult to communicate without flying at least a short hop with one. JPI, EI, et al. have their strengths and weaknesses but any of them is better than trying to manage your engine using a gauge cluster that may not be giving you any useful data. I’m pretty sure my only reasonably accurate indication in the cluster at removal was oil pressure. With apologies to Nike, the only other words needed for anyone on the fence: Just Do It.

The AME in AOPA Pilot wrote a column a few months ago that mentioned a novel idea - that a CPAP could be adapted for flight. It's not that there is less oxygen in the air - it's that the air is less dense. A CPAP, for purpose of discussion here, is essentially an air compressor and would work to keep you breathing the proper amounts of oxygen into the flight levels. I'm not a doc, a scientist, or even a real smart fella. I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so if someone shoots that idea full of holes, so be it..

Also @Gary Bymers I bought a new old stock one from BAS Parts on Ebay a while back. They had a few in varying levels of completeness and condition.

I’m on my way back home from a trip out west. One stop was a 3,600’ gravel runway in a border town at 2,717’ elevation. I studied it on Google maps, Google earth, Foreflight, and grilled the owner. Non event, but did pick up some light prop erosion. I’m based on 3,000’ grass. I’m not afraid of well-tended runways, but I’ll leave the crazy stuff for folks trying to feed a YouTube audience.

I had negotiated down to about $150 I think it was… then I heard the story and realized this was the son of the owner who’d died in an accident, and he drove it from Long Beach over to Redondo where I was on a layover. I paid his full asking price plus a delivery fee.

So, looping back, in case anyone encounters this issue: the 201 cover on a C model with a 201 windshield works fine. And, it turns out, it’s a Kennon cover, not a Bruce’s. My only antennae on the cabin roof are low profile GPS ones, so the mast antenna sock didn’t have to line up at all. Tried it out for the first time yesterday in Carlsbad NM as we continue our quest to fly to the national parks. Only thing that doesn’t line up is the cutout for the handle. I can live with that as rarely as I’ll be using it. But yeah, it works.

This one hit real close to home. Last year, I brought my buddy's F back from Arizona after he bought it - one digit off from this one's registration number. Also just helped a different friend buy an F model that's based at PUJ - He literally just finished off his insurance requirements and was taking his family for their first Mooney rides this weekend. Staying tuned for developments on this one for sure.

That’s a great point. The only antennae I have in the area, I believe, are two low-profile GPS ones. There’s a comm antenna behind the baggage door that may require a slit cut, but shouldn’t be a big deal. Already met the guy and bought the cover. Turns out it was his dad’s, who died in a mooney crash earlier this summer. It was the last thing they were trying to sell from his hangar collection. Even if it winds up a dud, at least I helped a Mooney family move past that hurdle.

Yep, I’ve got the 201 windshield so the front should fit nicely. this one is pretty much new, the previous owner only used it when he traveled, which is my plan as well. thanks!

I routinely fly with full aft seat. The wing leveler tracks well enough that I don’t need a hand on the yoke often, and I pick up some amount of speed. Not a lot, but every bit helps. Also, with the CG pushed aft like that, I can make minute pitch changes by moving one foot forward or aft. It keeps my knees from getting stiff over the course of a long flight, too.

Hey friends, I’m always checking the classifieds when I travel and at my next layover city, there’s a Bruce’s canopy cover for a 201 for sale. I’ve got a C model with the 201 windshield. Would the thing fit, or is the mid-body fuselage stretch significant enough to kill the deal? Considering it’s about 1/3 the cost of a new one I’m tempted to give it a shot regardless, and if it doesn’t work, I know a guy with an F who could probably use it.

Maybe your setup is different than mine - very possible, considering I bought an airplane with no flap/trim indicator installed and had to kind of build my own. The trim indicator cable did have an odd brazed-soldered connector on the trim jackscrew, but the flap indicator cable was just piano wire with a terminal lug crimped and/or soldered on and run down to the flap fitting and clamped on to it.

When I get home I can shoot you the numbers - I picked up replacement t fasteners at SNF for mine with the same setup. What I can’t help with, and am tuning in to see, is if someone figures out the proper grommet and/or retaining clip part numbers so I can quit having to catch mine as they fall out of the panel more often than not on preflights.

My understanding is the STWA Windshield mod is no longer available - I think several of their STCs are now unavailable as a matter of fact. I'm glad my friend knocked out all the mods back in the 90's when all the mods were readily available, and so I didn't have to deal with the hassle of doing them myself. You might reach out to SWTA directly to confirm this, I understand they're a right friendly crowd.

My C model has the SWTA windshield, so it has the two small access panels. I've had those panels open more times than I can count; they're the perfect size to stick your arms through and then have no idea which wire you're grabbing because your arm pretty much fills the hole. I flew a friend's F with the stock windshield. It felt tighter up front, even though it had all that space in back. The extra real estate you pick up on the glare shield is handy if you've got a Stratus or handheld you want to perch up there, or maybe just a place to warm your sandwich in the sun... I prefer the 201 windshield, but given the chance, I'd make it the last mod after the panel was set for the next generation of avionics upgrades. My chiropractor is reaping the rewards of my labor having recently been under the panel for GPS/Engine Monitor/Fuel Sender install.