Bentonck

....dang hamburgers keep going up. Love the story and the adventure...it will all work out in the end...or it's not the end. Best of luck to you! None of what you are reporting seems out of turn for an airplane that sat for 20 years...you'll get the cobwebs off of it and it will be a great bird.

I am not an excel stickler that tracks every last cost. I pay for the JetStream program (everyone does as they include it) ... I have swapped already the tires, brakes, FCU, and a couple of control units all under warranty at a total cost of zero above the cost of the jetstream. Oil use is negligible at 0,002 L/hr fuel burn is right around 70/hr average in mixed use. Basically it's 90g/the first half hour and then at altitude it drops to 60g/hr avg. It's a fun, fun plane to fly and is stable as anything I've ever flown. We call it the magic carpet, the view is fantastic out of the plane and it feels like you are floating!

Well, I own a Vision Jet. I didn't buy it for the parachute. 1) You can get in and out of the damn thing. Seat slides back past door and makes ingress and egress a breeze. 2) It is stupid easy to fly compared to anything else anywhere close. I flew the TBM and the M600 before the Vision. TBM is just as fast but comfort isn't anywhere near comparable, especially for passangers. The M600 is a great plane too but slower and has no place to put luggage. 3) Pilots with no turbine time can get insured. Try that in a Honda Jet. 4) You can't really compare it to a Phenom or Honda Jet. First of all, it's a $3mm airplane. I purchased mine for less than the cost of a TBM, and about half of what a new Honda Jet costs. The Honda Jet flies at 360kts at 41k. The Cirrus trues out at 310kts at 31k. You can fly the Honda Jet faster, but you have to fly lower...fuel burn goes way up and range goes way down. Not a debate, just explaining the reason that some schmuck would buy a turboprop equivalent jet. It's the same reason you learn in a 172 and your first plane might be a 182 and not a Mooney Acclaim. It's a step. Is my last plane a Cirrus Vision? Probably not. I am looking at something like a Phenom 300 but had I tried to go Acclaim-> Phenom 300 there was no WAY I was getting insurance or even a single pilot exemption for the first year or so. The Cirrus Jet I flew home. It's reasonably fast, compared to anythng burning AvGas...and it's easy to fly. And it has a TON of interior room. My kids love it ... my wife loves it... I love it...

I don't either. I have some default settings, my guess is that it is more than 50 degrees lean but I would have to to take some time to find peak and then go from there. I know 14.x is going to get me close so I usually pull to there and then adjust for smoothness. I have no idea where it is in relation to peak EGT but I know it's lean of peak and running smooth, cylinder temps are in the low 300s and TIT is somewhere around 1500 when the gauge is working.

That is pretty close to my numbers too but I think I must run leaner than you. I'm usually 14.5-15.0 GPH with a TAS of 185-190... TIT and cylinder heads are quite cool at that setting.

Did you get this sorted? I'm thinking I'm going to need a new probe, too.

My guess is that you would have to be in an airplane requiring two pilots to operate with both of them "under the hood" and two pilots in jump seats acting as safety pilots where it was agreed that they would act as PIC? Thinking about it I don't think that makes sense either, though, because two of them would be logging SIC time. Hrmmm

The ship looks great Irmin congrats on that!

I sent my $25 this morning, didn't want to be below average

One other question, the two mechanics that went and mounted the engine and prop and all, that was all done in two days only? That is incredible. I can't even get my oil changed here in two days... They looked like they were enjoying the project as much as you were. Best of luck to you and enjoy it....I lived in Switzerland for two years and I sure wish I had gotten an airplane while I was there. It was such a beautiful country and while I enjoyed taking the train to Germany, France, Italy, and the UK it would have been even better if I could have flown on the weekends.

Have really enjoyed catching up on this thread...way to go.

Good afternoon.... and hi to all of you after a while... If you remember my Acclaim suffered a prop strike last year after me letting an employee borrow it... and it was down for almost a year due to supply issues. It is finally up and running again with newly IRAN'd engine and a zero time (McCauley) prop. 900hrs TT... I had bought a King Air while the plane was down and have been flying that, planning to sell the Mooney when it (finally) came out of the shop but the gentleman I bought it from, who became a friend, called about buying it back while he is waiting for his new plane to arrive and we arrived at the conclusion we could both use the Mooney part-time so we worked out a deal for him to buy 50% and I keep access to PT-ALN... so that was good. My friend, however, is much more of a nit picker than I on estetic greatness and so we have started putting the plane back into tip-top, it's going to have a repaint of the wings where some bubbles have formed and around wear areas (screws on the underside, the gear doors, etc) ... and the original sun visor that has the power settings on it I managed to break in half at some point during my tenure ... I think these are manufactured by Lasar but I can't find it in their catalogue (I have not called them yet) but we are looking to replace it with a new one. Does anyone know where we could find one of these? Is calling Lasar it? Hope everyone is well, I have been lurking for a while and see new faces...

I have enjoyed perusing the threat. As one of the legacy G1000 owners (mine without WAAS as it does not exist in Brazil and therefore not needed) ... the real question is out of the 300 or so airframes flying how many people would spend $30-50k to upgrade to NXi? At this point I would not. *IF* the G1000 became unservicable due to Garmin not supporting it anymore (unlikely in the medium term as there are thousands flying still) then it would become a different issue. For the foreseeable future though (and as an economist I can tell you, in the long term we're all dead!) it will be supported and, while showing a little age, is still an EXCELLENT platform and coupled with the GFC700 in my plane leaves very little to be desired in the way of features, really.... but IF there was no option at some point, I am quite sure there are enough airframes at 300 to warrant an STC from Garmin or someone else... Just for S&G I could ask Garmin, they have always been quite pleasant to deal with in the past and they have developed enough STC's now for the G1000 -> NXi that they must know the time and money needed to come up with one. Everyone keeps touting their agreement with Mooney but does anyone really know what it entails or the limitations in that agreement? There may be a clause that a 3rd party can't develop an STC but the now-for-sale Mooney had announced that they were going to do the NXi upgrade as one of the first things, so it would be interesting to know .. I guess my point is that I'm not currently worried about the servicability of my G1000 and even if the NXi came available would not be in a big hurry to upgrade....my current setup fulfills the mission nicely and parts are readily available.

As part of this adventure I got an IRAN done on the engine and it had sat for a few years after the first prop strike (before I owned it, this is the 2nd one!) and there was some pitting on the lifters... but the block is good, pistons and cyldinders are good, and the cube for the prop tested fine so I'm going to end up just buying new blades and overhauling the cube so it'll be zero time but not new. I'll let ya'll know when the bird is back in the air!

Best of luck dude! It is exciting to have your own plane I hope you get a lot of good use out of it! Nice looking bird and with a newer(ish) panel will make a great platform!