airmocha

Sounds great, y'all! Though I'm still as-yet relatively little-to-almost-unpublished by anyone else (AOPA Pilot indulged me with a blurb about the airshow deaths of Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin once, back in the mid-2000's, and some guy who ran a good (but of course unsuccessful) e-zine published a few articles I wrote, but that's it), I too ran a blog like @Skates97 for several years. You can still peruse it at www.writingtakesflight.com, but I quit keeping it up, so it's all old stuff, mostly intended to help build a platform as an author to help me get my novel published, which never happened. Because no one in the literary world seems to think there's a profitability-sized market for an aviation-themed novel, and because they were too closed-minded to believe that, while its main characters are pilots, that it wasn't about flying, I had to publish it myself, and the result is a whole other long, sad story. But hey, I love how it came out, I tried, and I may yet finish the sequel I'd already begun by that time, and try to resurrect the damned thing then. I'm also trying to put up a whole new site (using software) at www.flightpathvector.com, mostly just to express myself to/for myself and to anyone else who cares to listen. But it's nowhere near done, so if you go look, please don't bother trying to comment yet. It's NOT ready for critiques. Nice to know I have a few more readers, if/when I decide to try to whisper any of my thoughts into the hurricane of 21st century civilization again.

Beefcake pyramid point of a totally cool line of airplanes. Jealous!

Hank, my taste for/in coffee came, and changed, a lot like my taste for/in beer. Mom's coffee was weak, light with 1/2/ 'n 1/2, and sweet as marshmallows with sugar or saccharin. Dad's was a little stronger, barely lightened at all and only with milk (yuck!), and lightly "sweetened" (if you can call the twinge of saccharin that) with that awful, carcinogenic concoction. I got sips of both growing up, have escaped cancer thus far, and preferred mom's, but when I flew the nest in '86, I began to make my own with dad's strength, mom's 1/2 'n 1/2, just not so much of it, and a tsp. of SUGAR, of all things, per 12 oz. Tried going black in college, for simplicity's sake, but, just like with whiskey, could never stand the taste. Then, in '94, I came to California, and met Starbuck's. Hated it at first (eww! It's BURNED!), but it was the only legal source of narcotic stimulants around, so I acquired the taste. Met my Jet City woman in '98, (my email was EmbizoFlyer and hers was gotmocha...so...) and our tastes in coffee, as with so many other things, are identical. So yeah, for us it's Starbuck's French, Italian, Komodo, Gold Coast, or Sumatra, with enough 1/2 'n 1/2 to fill the cup to the rim, 3 Sugars in the Raw for a venti, 2 for a grande for me, and about half of a stevia packet per cup for her. I think Starbucks should make a t-shirt or hoodie with their logo and "Starbucks...enhancing aviation safety since 1985" on them. Bet they'd sell like, well, good coffee.

Merry Christmas and Happy "get thee behind me, 2020," everyone! I'm a little tardy in doing so, having bought my '85 231 in October, 2019, but I want to introduce myself and maybe begin building an identity here in 2021. My day job's being a mid-seniority captain for a major airline whose name I'll have to try to keep a secret, but, as is also the case about much of my other background info and history you can see on my profile page if you're that interested, I want to say: I mention it all not to convey how in love I am with my own history, position, or identity, but because, after more than 40 years of flying so far, I'm just still so in love with aviation that I have no better way to express it than to cite how, how much, and for long I've been "plane crazy," which is, in all truth, longer than I can remember. I have a great wife (obviously, if I get my own Mooney!), we have two sons from her previous life and another of our own, all gainfully employed and/or married and/or out of the nest, but I'm still the only pilot in the family, unfortunately. With that brief sketch, I'll sign off with a question, hopefully to get a conversation started... What, if anything, do you feel is missing from this community or do you wish you could see more of here? I ask because I enjoy writing almost as much as I do flying, and writing about flying is the best of both. I've long wished to have a column in a magazine, but my tone/tenor/subject matter is apparently largely out of step with whatever the editors of the major aviation magazines seek for content, and I just don't want to be under a deadline for any fly-by-night and/or digital-only outlets. If I have to produce on a schedule, I want to know that some significant number of people are actually looking forward to reading me. My union has a forum that's absolutely toxic, in which I rarely dare post even a single cold, analytical thought, which will predictably be torn apart by the hyenas which dominate that pit, let alone bare my soul about anything as sublime as most of what about flying compels me to write. Facebook and most other social media have clearly become propaganda tools working (rather well, sadly) in opposition to my hopes for the country and world, so I quit them, and that leaves me kind of searching for a community with which I might be able to interact and be a little of what used to be considered human now and then, without (much) fear of running afoul of the trolls and sociopaths. If you're old enough to remember Gordon Baxter and Richard Bach, they're two of my larger influences and what I feel the aviation "literati" are sorely missing today. If you just want more Martha Lunken or another Richard Collins, you'll definitely want to ignore my stuff. Interested to hear any thoughts from anyone, but especially those who've been here the longest. Can MooneySpace use some more "heart," or are y'all hopeful to make or keep it more/much like many other online/aviation communities, a place where pilots come mostly to talk nuts and bolts and switches and knobs, and take the touchy-feely stuff elsewhere?

Going to attempt to feather the edge on this topic a little by referring any interested to a "howdy" in the General section, since I'm new and have heretofore only sought to "take" from this community. Seems like a nice bunch here, just taking a quick survey of the thread titles...refreshing if true, if indeed possible, in this time. I quit all my other social media earlier in 2020 because of the constant, draining rancor. Looking for other outlets. With that, I'll say "ttyl" here and hope to see more of you elsewhere in 2021. Safe travels, high groundspeeds (however you may achieve them), and greasy landings, all! Here's a link to my howdy post:

Ok so finally got some time, light, and heat in the same place. It's definitely the DRC cable. Thing's so old the conduit's mostly gone. Thing I thought was the intact, healthy cable's just the brake line. Can't believe I couldn't tell before, but it was dark, I was cold, and had Christmas bearing down on me... ..over which we enjoyed having one of our house's two sewer lines back up into the master bathroom. What a year. Hope 2020 DOES let the door hit it on the way out. Truly appreciate the help, y'all.

So no other J/K model owners who've read this out there have these ferric, uninsulated cables in their gear wells, then?

Eureka? What about a bonding wire for my static wicks?

So any clue what the rusty cables could be? The painted conduits are nicely intact, and the "DRC"/speed brakes worked fine last time I tried them.

Thanks and Merry Christmas, M20Doc! If I'm reading that diagram correctly (miracles DO occasionally happen), pneumatic lines may be carrying carrying the force (vacuum) out to a separate actuator in each wing, then, and the cables would then be relatively small/short, running only between each wing's pair of brakes and their dedicated actuator? So they wouldn't be exposed to much and only very slowly, if ever, rust. Part #26 on that diagram seems to bear a similarity to the rusty, stringy thingies I'm seeing in my gear wells. Could you perhaps post or send me a key to this diagram, or at least the name of that particular part? Only things out there beyond them are flap and aileron linkages, nav and strobe lights, and probably a magnetic flux gate, judging by the age of my slaved HSI. None of those things would seem to have any need for a ferric cable, but I think I took Aircraft Systems and Components, which I loved, the same semester as Basic Drafting, which I despised, so it's a wonder I can recall any of what actually mattered...

Ok so I just read the supplement in my POH, and they ARE vacuum actuated with suction from the vacuum system (no discussion of whether the standby would work or not), and NOT engine vacuum. Sorry for the wasted time. Didn't have the POH handy earlier and, like I said, when I'd read the description before it just didn't strike me as odd enough to recall, at least not for a year. Curious to me that the system is termed DRC, for Descent Rate Control, by PreciseFlight. Almost made me skip that supplement because I was searching for the term "Speed Brakes." The supplement mentions using 20" and 2200 rpm as a good power setting for descents, "to keep the engine warm." I've occasionally used lower MP settings than that for slow cruise, but the lower airspeeds and closed cowl flaps keep the jugs around 270-280, so I wouldn't think that could be harmful. Any info to the contrary? Onward and downward!

So it would appear that I have all-electric speed brakes, as in the pics RJBrown kindly provided, but I also have some very sad, rusty cables running through the aft portions of my gear wells, and I can't imagine what those would be for, if not the speed brakes. The pic is badly focused, I realize, but they are textured, like cable, and not smooth like wiring insulation. Next time I have it fired up, I will get someone out there with me to observe the cables' behavior and extend the brakes with the orange push-button I meant to photograph just now, but forgot, on the bottom of my panel. If the brakes move but the cables don't, I guess I have a mystery on my hands. It is comforting to hear that if they get stuck extended, or if one extends or retracts without the other, that the handling and performance won't be drastically compromised. I'll also pore through the POH again and see if my memory's just failing me (it wouldn't have been "memorable" to me to have read that they were either vacuum- or electrically-actuated when I read through it the first time, since both seem completely plausible and conventional to me), and my mechanic only just mentioned the need to replace the cables on my first annual with this plane last November. The shop that did the pre-buy for me didn't even mention them. As far as how I would hope/plan/intend to use them, I understand they're helpful/effective for making steep, unplanned, and/or less-shock-cooling-prone descents, and I understand, very, very well, that sometimes ATC asks the impossible of all pilots, and often relegates GA aircraft/pilots to last priority in favor of the airliners and corporate rigs. Many of those kinds of shenanigans happen "back east" and "out west" far more frequently than they seem to here in Flyover Country. All of that said, however, a) I haven't even had my plane over 10,000 MSL yet because I'm still awaiting my ADS-B-out installation, b) I fly almost exclusively over flatlands and in/out of low-elevation-airports, and I rarely run it so hard that there isn't plenty of room to accrete speed in a powered descent (so long as it's not bumpy), c) I make power reductions extremely gradually, typically commencing a few minutes before descent and try to allow at least one minute per inch of MP I reduce, until bottoming out at the gear warning, around 15". I have yet to see my EI monitor give the first indication of any shock cooling at all in doing so, so I believe I'm being kind to my turbo/engine. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. So I'm just not an adherent to the idea of using speed brakes as a replacement or mitigation for poor descent planning or as a normal part of every descent, and when I said I hope I "never" need the brakes, I was simply (trying to be) saying that I hope I literally never get faced with any dire need to land immediately (fire, heart attack, etc.) and figuratively only very rarely get so lazy and/or far behind the airplane that I need to use the speed brakes to facilitate what could have been a normal descent/landing at a low-cruise power setting, if I'd only just begun it sooner. By my training, doing so is sloppy flying and waste of gas, and I didn't buy a Mooney to allow myself to get away with either.

Pics of what I have...

It occurred to me right after I stood up from the computer that perhaps the source of said vacuum could be the same pump that's driving the gyros, and not the intake side of the engine. Seems plausible since the gyros would be unaffected by a momentary drop in suction, but again, a more detailed systems description in the manual would really be nice. Been a while since I looked for it - maybe it's hiding in there somewhere.

Carusoam, apologies if I'm wasting any of your time or seeming to be trying to come off as overqualified. I'd been under the impression I could relax and would be among friends here. I was actually trying to save others' time explaining basics to me by summarizing my background. I will try to post a pic soon. Holidays are upon us now, no time at the moment. I do dispute the idea that vacuum might be ever-available in all or even most gotta-get-down-fast scenarios, particularly when/if avoiding shock-cooling is a/the goal. it sure sounds like the vacuum-powered kind are what I have. Shocker, I know, but I'll admit I'm not educated enough to know, but I feel like I can sanely envision a couple ways in which a turbocharged engine with a still-functioning exhaust/intake system but severe issues in another area (such as a busted fuel line, for example, which could be feeding a fire at FL240, etc.) could still, perhaps even unavoidably, develop super-atmospheric pressure - particularly up where atmospheric is down in the teens of inches Hg. My understanding is that a closed or partially-closed throttle AND an engine spinning fast enough to create vacuum downstream of the throttle would be necessary, but I'm not even pretending to know. Again, Merry Christmas.