Matt Ward

Any chance you've got a Foreflight track log? I use that sometimes to calculate what my actual climb rate was over a long period of time. That's useful out here where there are big mountains you can run into.

Do you mind talking a little about how it failed and what happened in flight? Any warnings that you can look back on now? I've got a DG that is processing a bit too much and an AI taking longer than I'd like to stand up and wondering if my pump is on the verge of failing. I haven't seen any low vacuum lights (besides low rpm ground ops) but I'm trying to watch it closely.

FWIW, Mike Busch has written a lot about this. See if this is a good starting point. https://www.avweb.com/ownership/the-savvy-aviator-44-making-metal/

Also, and I suppose to each his own, but I am established on glide well before full flaps. My config is set with 15 degrees at the FAF (if not circling) and no more until visual.

My “big” knob for com frequency adjustment seems to be failing. It seems like a spring inside it has either broken or detached. I can only turn it one direction and it does not stop on frequency as well as it should. Is this repairable?

Just an observation, but I’m guessing getting 24 squared at 70% should be closer to 10 gph using POH tables. Assuming you’re low - maybe 3k feet or so - does that ff work for you? Are you cruising at +13 gph to smooth out the engine? Maybe this was a climb?

...and turn the tail backwards and you're set!

I'm curious about this. I've been trying to track down some higher-than-normal oil usage and I think I lost it out the breather on a really long LOP (~20 degrees LOP, ~8.5 GPH) trip - that also happened to be in hot, humid weather. That was surprising to me as I hadn't understood LOP operations as contributing to breather tube loss. How LOP are you running, either in GPH or on the (single?) EGT you have installed when you see that? And how much oil are you seeing on the gear doors - assuming that's where it is showing up first.

Sweet, yes! Thank you! BTW: i added Canon City to the logbook this am. Everyone was out flying. There were four folks in the pattern when I was approaching. Eight folks in the pattern at BJC when I got back.

Thanks guys, that's all very helpful!

I'm coming up on my first annual and have requested my A&P borescope my engine. I say that because of all I read on the ascendancy of the scope over the compression test, but I don't know exactly what I should be looking for. I mentioned this to my A&P and his reaction is "no problem, we can scope it" but I don't think he's as much of a fervent believer as those in the Mike Busch camp. I'd like to have some some of standard procedure that we can look at but I'm not sure what all that would be. Are you guys aware of any sort of checklist I can use with my A&P to get the most out of the borescope procedure? I fully trust my A&P, I'm really just trying to educate myself on how we're using this tool. Thanks!

I just grabbed your 0607 file and saw the same six second flight. Do you have the file from the DUMP ALL that you did? It should be many times bigger than that. As a side note, I had this issue recently. The reason for it was I forgot to plug in the serial connector before I did the dump. The JPI doesn't actually know if you have anything hooked up or not!

I've been through all manner of JPI data challenges with my 700. There are two primary settings in that unit to be concerned with: the data RATE (max is 2, I think), and the MEM setting which controls whether or not it writes to an internal memory or just provides data in real-time to the serial port. If you are getting blank files, that may just be a random occurrence - has happened to me before. Try to do DUMP ALL again and see what happens. If you can't do that at present time, try to look at your data through EZSave. I've had some times where the data was available in EZSave but Savvy couldn't get it. It's not a solution, but a step!

Aww man, it’s Klixon dying season! Let me know if you get jammed up and need a ride home from BIL. Easy flight from here.

In my opinion, you buy a plane because you want to fly it when and how you want to fly it. I don’t mean for that to sound condescending, but it’s my reason for owning. I’ve been in clubs and part of rental fleets. There is probably not a ton of financial difference for me in renting vs buying. And in fact after buying, I haven’t thought about that calculus once. Except of course that all the maintenance is on me which has a pretty meaningful amount of downside risk. I suppose the incremental is lower because I don’t reserve anything - I just pay as I go. But it’s my plane and I can do whatever I want with it, which is the point of why I did it! Further, there really is very little to prepare you for actually owning one. I did plenty of spreadsheeting, read the Mike Busch stuff, followed the type clubs, etc., but it was only a very small percentage of what I now know since I bought my plane. But I wouldn’t trade it! You have to find that Single Most Important Reason for why you want to own because you’re going to be leaning into it a lot.

I’ve been having an intermittent problem with my strobes, a Whelen A413A. The switch is a Klixon 10 amp CB I think. It’s pictured below. For a while, it’s been “stiff” to move from the off position to the on position. Recently all strobes stopped working and oddly the stiffness seemed to go away. A few flights later they started working again. I’m evaluating this on/off behavior during preflight by the way. It seems like a likely candidate is the switch has turned unreliable. But before I replace it, is there any additional troubleshooting I should do? And, any switch I should use instead of trying to find the Klixon replacement? thanks!

New to airplane ownership, so take it for what it's worth. But I'm not 100% sure that the hourly rate is really the driver. Of course competence and all that, but more importantly to me, philosophy and willingness to work me in and spend time with me. Mike Busch talks about Maximalist vs. Minimalist. To me, it's more about creative problem solving and being owner-friendly. My guy is $80/hr (maybe $85) but I never feel ripped off.

Thanks a lot. I just flew my M20E from CO and GA this weekend and have had a few opportunities to practice this. It's good advice. One thing I'll add is that I'm still trying to get the feel of when to release the key from the Start position. That seems to be a very important part of this timing - hold it over too long, no start. Let it go when the engine starts to cough, much better. I'm supposing it has to do with the shower of sparks system but I'm not certain of that. I do know that, unlike other planes I've flown, there is no click if you pull the prop through by hand. That was always an old trick I used with other planes to confirm the mag was functional (maybe not a good trick!) but on the Mooney you don't get it. I'm guessing that's because of the shower of sparks. Thanks again everybody!

Thanks for the help everyone. Today I did an in-flight mag check at about 25 LOP, or, about 8.5GPH. It's the typical BOTH-R-BOTH-L check. I was a little surprised to see the uniformity, but there it is! Not too much roughness during the check - slightly perceptible but not enough to frighten you. https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/3958638/5dea8109-dc64-4bb7-8407-0bce62aee974

Yup, that’s my “how to”; I just need the “when to”.

No prob

Sorry to dig up a seven year old thread, but, what is the answer to this question? The reason I ask is this:1966 M20e, newly OH fuel pump. Cold crank this morning (Denver, 40 degrees) was fine. Ten minutes of taxi, shut down, check fuel pump for leak out of the tattle tale. 3-5 minutes of shutdown. Go to restart and decide to use hot start, no luck. Then decide to use flooded. No luck. Tried 4 or 5 times I think with the flooded start procedure. But I did manage to flood it! I only know that because I got out to check the sniffle and saw a pile of avgas on the ground. How would I have known from in the cockpit? Would it be because the hot start wouldn’t get a cough? Fuel pressure above zero? Any clues to help me know which starting technique to use would be greatly appreciated!

So @carusoam, I think I got a little bit of good data this AM, on purpose even! Unfortunately I had to fly shorter than I wanted because I inadvertently flooded my engine. I think it was partially due to my new fuel pump (thanks Aeromotors!) providing a little more fuel than I am used to and I need to tweak my technique. Anyways, I took your advice and prolonged my run-up mag check. In Savvy, using the mag check view, it *seems* to look ok to me. The original issue I was looking for (the odd EGT on one cylinder) seems to be gone and I'm chalking that up to a fouled plug. I'm trying to lean more aggressively on the ground now. Anyways, here is what my mag check looked this today. https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/3956956/40b6abbd-6292-4a47-802f-c0ffbc09b622 Cheers!

Happy to email you mine if you want to send me your email. I have a 1966 M20E model and am based in Denver (KBJC). I regularly fly in/out of high DA airports and over +12K mountain passes - not a problem at all in the Mooney - you don't even have to do anything right like you do in a lower-powered plane! Let me know if you need it.

Do you have a KMA24 @Alan Fox?