GeeBee

Actually, recently visited a shop that is both a Cirrus and Mooney Service Center. The shop is qualified to do Cirrus repairs and I saw two under repair. One was a hangar rash to the stabs, the other was a collision between a fuel truck and wing. Neither repair condemned the airframe. The repair method was reviewed and approved by the factory and a repair kit was created to fix the damage sections. As I spoke to the shop foreman I asked how the man hours of the Cirrus repair compares to an aluminum airframe. He said in reality they are about the same if not a little less for the Cirrus because removal of the damaged section is actually easier. Repair of composite airframes is not new. The Marines in the 90's repaired successfully a lot of AV-8B Harriers wings with a lot of Iraqi created holes. They have not lost one to a bad repair.

Inertial all the way. I flew in a friends airplane a while back with manuals. I dropped a pen on the floor and what a PIA (That is not Pakistan International Airways)

When someone says, "replace all 6 cylinders" that is a non starter for me. There may be some weak cylinders but they all don't go bad and they don't go bad in 30 hours. Fix the exhaust valve and get the FF right. Take it from there.

Mercedes S Class.

I am trying to remember but I believe it was "pelican".

Here you go!

If you find a used one are you sending it out for a yellow tag?

If it really bothers you, run your system on the ground, open the panel, if the back is dry, not to worry, if it is wet, trace the puddle.

IMHO as long as you have good flow out of all protected surfaces I would not worry.

Ok, tried it on grey plastic on my Garmin marine radio. Lots of silicon goop in there and it did not craze or deform.

Cannot speak to plastic, the lens was glass. I am going to do some tests on plastic.

Had to remove a glass lens from a nav light held in with clear RTV. I was afraid of breaking the lens so I was hunting for something that dissolved RTV/Silicon. There is a lot of expensive stuff, around 40 dollars for 16 ounces. Then I discovered this stuff from Motorcraft. It is on Amazon for 20 dollars a can. It really works. It usually takes 2 applications let it sit for about a day and the silicon will be weakened enough to easily pull off the part. I heard WD-40 works but not really and not as good as this stuff.

They are not riveted. They are held on by adhesive. What looks like rivets are actually anodes.

For Textron I think the Bonanza/Baron line is a lot like how refiners view 100LL. Nice little profitable business but no one is going to ramp up for economies of scale. Textron is not going to have a dozen TIO-550's laying around or Garmin G1000 NXI kits. They're going to build to order, make money on each one. If it were clothing the Bonanza/Baron line would be couture shop. There is no ROI in ramping up.

I think you have to differentiate under what conditions the alternator operates. An alternator on a C-172 is not going to take the beating that one on a Bravo does and not even close to an Ovation. Cooling is different, current demand is different. Just look at their ratings in amps. Equally so where they are mounted for cooling and how they are mounted makes a huge difference. The alternators on Continentals for instance take a huge beating and worse the consequences of failure of the drive coupling can be engine failure, so they deserve attention and care.

There was a thread about this on Beechtalk. A Textron engineer (at least he claimed to be) said the problem is insufficient parts pipeline to meet the demand, so they are not taking orders until the pipeline is either filled or they catch up. Given the issues we see with engines, and avionics backlogs, I think that may be have some veracity.

The electric Aero Creeper is really interesting because it uses the same batteries as the Sidewinder tow unit. Extra batteries!

I use two creepers. One is the AC unit for wings and tail. Another cheepie for the belly.

In my case Anthony, I found the short right at the jack because on the PA-18 the jacks are in the wing root panel. Easy to see the dangling wire. Yours I cannot say. If you removed the jacks and the wiring was in place and secure and the jack insulators (they are the round insulators on the jack receiver) look good, then you have to go spline.

Once you understand how fast an alternator spins, a 500 hour inspection is always a good idea. On the Continentals, I generally like to pull it off and replace the coupler.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1421822/iridium-mined-production-worldwide-by-country/#:~:text=Between 2018 to 2022%2C South,6.16 metric tons in 2022.

Just make sure you have an out. Some times the system may quit. Tubes and fittings blow out from time to time and the icing forecast sometimes turns to doo-doo. In a Mooney you don't have the thrust to get clear quickly.

Thank you!

As I said, I would not worry about what the tank levels show. There are really only two levels for me for dispatch. Full and empty. Full because I want to dispatch with a full tank into icing conditions because you don't know how much you will need. You can make a good wag of how much remains by time you run the system. Empty because in non-icing conditions where you need the payload, you want it all out. Beyond that is IMHO a waste of time and technology.

Appears like the word is out on the value of these panels.