Nukemzzz

Owning, and mostly working on, my plane for a year now I've thought a lot about the risks with this hobby. My prior hobby was driving a sportbike as fast as I could on race tracks around the midwest. In this prior hobby I knew several folks that were taken to the hospital in lifeline helicopters, folks that were in traction for a month, some that had their drivers license pulled indefinitely because a head injury caused high risks of future seizures, etc. I ran in in the advanced class and pushed the very limits of my bike and my capabilities, however, flying seems somehow higher risk to me. I think this feeling is valid...my opinions on why: Once flying begins, you can't just pull off the side of the track if things go wrong. Things have to work long enough to get to a suitable landing spot. I think the design margins are about the same. Weight reduction and peak engine output means the race bike is running at the edge of technology (14,000RPM operation @~150hp in the case of the motorcycle)...but the race bike technology is modern and designed and manufactured in modern ways. I feel like there are more failure modes in a plane that can result in a crash. Perhaps this is because it's not just operating on one plane...there is a vertical component of control and the added complexity that comes with that. Flying is harder, requires more coordination...again the vertical component and complexities. Wind and weather is a bigger factor for control. Decision making is faster going 160mph on a racetrack than in the air. Fractions of a second on start or end of braking determines if you are going to make it through the next corner. Deciding if you should make a pass after the next corner, mid corner, while the back tire is trying to slide out on you, has to happen now...it can't wait until you see how things look after the corner. That white spot on the pavement, I turned in on that spot at 110mph the last time I went around the track...I was a little inside of that spot this time, should I brake a little longer? (too late, corner is here!) However....the decisions are less complex, much less complex, on the motorcycle. And while landing, decisions have to happen almost as fast in a plane. Lets be honest, my race bike was a 2004 model vs a 1966 model airplane...more stuff is wearing out...hopefully we can see and inspect all the important bits that are wearing out. I was also the first and only owner of my 2004 sportbike, I knew exactly what had and hadn't been done to it. The airplane relies on more systems and parts to not crash. Reliability is more challenging. If you let go of the handlebars the motorcycle drives straight and stable...maybe straight into a building, but it drives straight and is stable unless a human makes it not so. Any idiot can buy and drive a motorcycle with a simple endorsement on a drivers license, and medical approvals isn't really a thing. This perhaps counters many the above points about flying being harder. If I fall of a bike it's only a 1.5 ft AGL and leathers are pretty good at slowing you down. Just some thoughts, no conclusions. I think if well prepared, with good maintenance, with good decisions made, its safer than my bike entering a corner at 120mph with some stranger trying to pass me on the inside.

The floater is no factor. It was a slight dark spot showing up on a bright computer screen that tracked with my eye movement. Barely visible. It went away on its own in a couple of months....for now.

Interesting...I’ve only been to an optometrist twice in my life. First time was for a floater that freaked me out like 5 years ago(it’s since vanished), the second was for the Airman Medical Cert last year. I told them that I’m having a hard time reading close, especially in low light (can no longer read the check at a fancy restaurant). Asked if they did reading glasses and they said no...people just get at Walmart or CVS and recommended I try 1.25x. I tried that, worked fine. Then one day I tried the 2 and 2.5 and things were even closer and that was cool so changed to them. Maybe going up in mag isn’t doing me any favors. The big mag change from close to far is making my eyes take a bit to adjust and that’s what’s really messing with me. When taking the glasses off I can count to like 2-5 Mississippi before things outside of the glasses come back into complete focus. Lol I like the idea of glasses with mag only on the bottom. Also easier to not lose them in the cabin if they just stay on my face. I’ll have to check in on these.

Ok...so I’m new to two things...flying and wearing reading glasses. Last night, during my first night training flight, I discovered that needing reading glasses adds an additional level of difficulty! i’m 44yrs old. Noticed that my short range focus started to go a few years ago and in 2020 I started using reading glasses. Vision is still prefect outside of arms length, but short range low light vision is the hardest. I tried landing with my CFI last night with my readers low on my nose to read the gages and look over them to see outside the plane at the same time. This was tricky and it seemed like it could cause real problems with disorientation if IFR. I kept looking outside through the lenses on accident. What a mess. Flying is hard enough without this added challenge! What advice do you experienced pilots have for me on this? Should I crank the lights up and just not see so well outside? Should I just look at the pointer direction on the gages and give up on reading numbers? Lol Is there a technique or product that you use?

I think I see a trip to Don Maxwell for this plane in the future just to be sure that it’s rigged right. I don’t believe my shop here has Mooney travel boards. Great shop, great guys, but not Mooney specialists. Rigging feels like I need a specialist or I need to become one myself. Lol

Maybe this is just me getting used to the plane. Maybe this is all normal. My CFI flew it by himself today however and he commented that takeoffs were tricky in this plane and flying seems second nature to him. He’s legit like a bird. Lol

So new potential piece of info... While doing pattern work today we had a 5-6kt left crosswind. Takeoff was quite squirrelly each time. When we start to rotate, the second the plane leaves the ground it yaws to the left quickly. We go straight into a left crab...but man it snaps left fast and you have to hold it down and then jump up so the nose doesn’t stay the only wheel of the ground for long. On one instance, I didn’t rotate fast enough and the plane turned hard left like it was wind vaning while still on the ground luckily I was fast enough to complete the rotation and lift off. Is this another symptom of what I’m discussing above? I’m wondering if the left yaw bias is causing the nose wheel to not be aligned well with the rudder...this is something we actually adjusted per the manual while the plane was down because we rebuilt most of steering components. I seem to remember that it seemed to not be aligned well and we “fixed” it. It behaves as if the plane needs more right rudder to fly straight under power headed down the runway and that is realized the moment the rudder has to control direction instead of the nose wheel. thoughts?

On left base and final no left rudder is required. I’m relaxing on the right some, maybe neutral. But no left rudder in the left turn. This can’t be normal right? Descending slow left turn...no left rudder.

Alan has the set for $40 and Lasar has new ones for $25.... if it takes longer than 15 minutes to make new ones its cheaper for me to buy them. Time is money! lol

My avionics guy says that he’s never seen a plane this bad in his 20yrs of doing this...and so isn’t familiar with degaussing a Mooney. I’d do it myself if I had that tool. Lol

Update: I borrowed a friend for an hour. He sighted the plane with the compass on a stick out in the freezing cold and I taxied around and around for an hour following the calibration procedures. The Balance Balls with the vertical card compass are really powerful, it tried really hard to get the job done, but it’s not enough...there is some serious magnetic interference in the cabin. I’m surprised that it doesn’t make my fillings hurt. The best I can get in the NW direction is 25deg of deviation. Lol. The good news is the cardinal directions are good enough to set the DG for now. I also got a cool, easy to read new compass out of the deal. But I still want to swing this thing right soon. Where does one find a growler?

Paint stick works for me. Just have to be careful to be consistent in how you dip the stick and be aware that the plane not being level changes things.

So I took like half of the plane apart and put it back together and only ended up loosing one (two really) part. It’s the O-shit handle strap ends for above the copilot panel on the ceiling. I think they are the same as the door handle (aluminum caps). I’m going to get another leather trap made to match the door panel but like these end caps Anyone have any of these laying around collecting dust?

Easy to say. Have you read the Mooney procedure? And these degaussing guns...they don’t rent them at Lowes. The balance balls for this compass specifically call out addressing Mooney roll cage mag as a reason to use these balls. Going to give them a try.

Add this to the list. Was unable to get the whiskey compass to calibrate even close. It doesn’t have enough authority to override the cabin magnetics and maybe the roll cage has some charge. Hoping this gets the job done.

Just did, and replaced 4 of the 6 boots. Maybe need to check again. Thanks.

I’m kinda fishing for someone to say: “mines done that for years, my left rudder isn’t needed much.” And then I’ll just carry on for now with flight training. If someone says this dangerous and why then I’ll consider grounding it again until we sort it. My CFI didn’t seem concerned. He was mostly concerned that maybe the Brittain system is giving us inputs that we aren’t asking for which could make stalls unsafe.

Haha, yeah, the NW and then SE leg was checking the Brittain autopilot. You see it swerving back and forth on the SE leg, that’s it not tracking so well...seems to overcompensate and then has to fix it and then overcompensates more. It’s over controlling...PID issue. Not sure what to do about that yet. the southern leg of loops was 45 and 65degree turns. That’s where I’m confused by not needing any rudder in a left turn and a bunch of rudder in a right turn.

I did my throttle and mixture a few months back. Keep very close track of the cable routing and mounting behind the dash. Also, the new cable may require that you drill the panel mount to a larger diameter and actually with a higher centerline than the prior or the cable shaft retaining nut behind the panel. I can’t remember for sure if that was the throttle or mixture.

So on our second test flight today I noticed something bugging me... set up for 130kt straight and level cruise when I turned left... no rudder was required to maintain coordinate..even at 30 degrees. When turning right it seems a lot is required. Seems to track straight in straight and level flight The PC system works now. The autopilot is trying to work but it hunts constantly left to right trying to stabilize the track. Altitude hold seems to be caput. I also noted that with the PC engaged it takes some muscle to turn the yoke right, but the PC force isn’t noticeable when you turn the yoke to the left. I don’t know if this is related to the strange rudder behavior. Disengaging PC didn’t change the lack of rudder needed in the left turns. What gives? Do I have a rigging issue? Is there something supposed to be linking rudder to aileron to auto coordinate and that something is broken for right turns? Thanks in advance for your thoughts. Got 2 more hours in it today. So far so good, but finding new demons to chase...like a very stiff trim wheel at max nose up (jack screw needs overhaul maybe)

Looks like the clamp isn’t tight enough on the cable. Cable itself might be fine...unless it’s binding inside, or kinked, and that contributed to it coming out of the clamp.

Good advice. I’ll check it out.

I do see a black mark that has lines on it like the tire. That’s why I’m kinda wondering if it is touching. Maybe it’s an old mark.

I installed the same boot from aero comfort. Only difference is I didn’t fly it to the center doghouse. I trimmed around it and didn’t remove it for install. I used 3M contact adhesive. Not sure how well it will work yet.

Updated. During one landing it handled well. However I’m not entirely sure that the wheel isn’t hitting the top of the wheel well when retracted. That last inch of motion took some pushing. Need to get it back on jacks and double check that.