Fritz1

enter the co-pilot with negative weight

I had a similar problem with one of my retract tubes in the fuselage, rod ends had worked roll pins loose, slippage almost 1/8", bought oversized roll pins but my A&P AI insisted on using monel rivets instead, worked on a lot of helicopters and said the monel rivets were an approved replacement for the roll pins and would work better than the oversized roll pins, sure enough, no slippage after one year and no oversized hole in the rod end and retract tube

Takes about 10 min, remove stop bolts on rail front and back, slide seat out of rail, remove seal belt, take seat out of cockpit, do not ding wing skins

Semi religious question, some guys like contis, some guys like lycs, kinda like Beemers versus mercs and Chevy versus Ford, there is no rational answer, the best one is the one you feel most comfortable with, they all have their pros and cons

A subject of ultimate complexity, the 252 has the best overall airframe / engine balance, the Bravo has sodium filled exhaust valves and oil cooled exhaust valve guides, talk to shops that maintain and overhaul these engines

paint itself typically does not cause any measurable speed increase, however a lot of people add speed mods before doing paint, like e.g. flap gap seals, aileron gap seals, in the extreme a Lopresti cowl, scimitar propeller, doing all the above you may be able to squeeze another 6-8 knots out of a J at considerable expense, best bang for the buck are the flap gap seals producing 1-2 kt

spruce sells vac tubing by the foot, that yellowish stuff really looks like surgical tubing which tends to collapse, good idea to get rid of all of it and clean what remains of the vacuum system the best way you can, replacing the vacuum pump might not be the worst idea either because it most likely ate some of the debris and they go without warning, dry vac pumps go 500h at best, if you don't have an electronic backup horizon get one, real life saver. I will not get rid of my vacuum system, independent source of energy, will drive an instrument when all electrical is out after EMP from nuclear blast or zombie apocalypse!

Ok, no doubt this is coming, is TEL available in any shape or form as an additive for race fuel in the US?? to my best understanding only a couple of ounces go into 100 gal avgas, think the only place that makes it is a plant in the UK, is that really so??

I use the forecast on the national weather service website and the weather channel, rolling forecast, start looking at weather for a flight 5 days out, the closer it gets, the better the forecast, when flying the same route over and over a gain personal experience adds to the forecast, 12 hour forecast is usually pretty good already, this works like a funnel and precision goes up exponentially the shorter the forecast range, once in flight the best forecast are pireps that come in through XM weather

cleaning up the baffles, closing all nooks and crannies around the alternators, around the oil cooler and around the intercooler I daresay the CHTs dropped 15 dF on my Bravo engine, fine wire plugs also helped some, high power cruise in the teens at 29/2400 100df rich 1st to peak, I can fully close the cowl flaps now and stay below 380 on the hottest CHT, oil below 215, TIT 1580 or below, sealing baffles is the least expensive performance improvement money can buy, a couple of rubber pieces, pop rivets, RTV and persistence will do the trick every time

feel the pressure of the baffles against the cowl, don't count on ram air pressure to close them, nothing beats visual inspection, use a light and see where it shines though the baffles, that is where you are loosing cooling airflow, check the metal baffles between the cylinders, small holes and gaps add up, close whatever you can with new baffles, use high temp silicone for remaining gaps and holes

I open cowl flaps after exiting runway, yes, one more check list item after go around, positive rate, gear up cowl flaps open

Second corrosion, stub spar, wheel wells, fuselage tubes under window, cylinder barrels, then comes oil analysis, cylinder leak test and coloration of exhaust valves, before you go disect the logs, they will tell you if the birds are worth looking at

checked out the microswitch and it is dead, still need to order replacement and install, think it just got fried by stuck boost pump instead of the boost pump breaker being popped, thereafter the stuck boost pump tripped the breaker in the panel switch, 2000h on the airframe, just about enough for the boost pump microswitch and the boost pump to fail jointly, I was lucky that this happened in front of my hangar

takes a little experimenting with various CGs, I crank in the minimum amount of up trim that allows me to rotate comfortably so I need less down trimming when the gear comes up and the flaps come up

4th for Oasis, Weep no more did my tanks and I had several in depth discussions with Eric on airframe issues, very knowledgeable

This is serious stuff since control surfaces have been removed, I took my AP/IA with me and we spent several hours verifying the attachment of everything that had been removed. Then it depends what you ordered, was the stripper vaporized or not, how has the stripper been removed, have transition lines been sanded, is there a clear coat over everything, are any windows crazed from solvent vapor? Last not least get some insurance against what you cannot check, i.e. adhesion, thus stuff blowing off a couple of years down the road, let them guarantee adhesion for a couple of years in writing I keep fingers crossed, this is a big moment. I had one paint job done 25 years ago by Modworks in Punta Gorda, Perfect job, another one by somebody else 5 years ago, lots of trouble that I did not see coming because the first job long ago had been so perfect

Sorry to hear, that sucks, call around to get a better picture, Gann, Lycon, Victor, Poplar grove, penn yann, Mena, call Jimmy Garrison, he sometimes knows things, that other people don't, BAS was parting out a Bravo with a non shock loaded engine about 4 weeks ago, as stated before cylinders may just be out, set of serviceable cylinders might be your best bet right now to get into back into the air, the AF1B cylinder is used in no other engine, that makes these cylinders rare and hard to find

Call Jimmy Garrison at GMAXAmerican and ask him for an offer on your aircraft. Jimmy knows this game like nobody else, has sold more used Mooneys in the last 25 years than anybody else

Look at the precise flight demand conservers, they will do the altitude compensation, I use two of them, had them for 4 years, really like them, cuts your O2 consumption by 50% at least

Test fly each of them, talk to owners and let the wife sit in each of them, pros and cons will be self evident

thought about it when I bought the Bravo, gives you an option, the Bravo topped off to the fuel cap O-rings has 102 gal usable, I keep the tanks full, so carrying more than one passenger I have to de-fuel, with long range tanks even more so, UL with TKS tank full and rear seats out is about 990lb, figured I was not going across the Atlantic so I passed on the long range tanks, very useful though for somebody who goes strictly by themselves in the Bravo

I concur, there may be several issues at play, Rheinland Airservice is a MSC, Aeromecchanica in Switzerland does a fair amount of Mooney work, then there is Mastenbroek in the Netherlands and a new one, MAS in Leutkirch Germany. One of these shops will be able to help. This may be frustrating to the OP right now, but getting to know a new airplane and fixing all the squaks just takes time, persistence will eventually prevail

FF on my engine is 29-30 gph on takeoff, think this is about right, MP is 35.5 to 36.5" depending on temperature, there is a table in the service manual showing max permissible MP over induction air temperature, the induction manifold has a treaded receiver for an IAT probe, then you can read IAT and monitor density controller, under normal circumstances you will not go below 35.5" and not above 37"

There is a hidden market, once you know what model and vintage you want you can find all US birds in the FAA register, letter costs you about 1$ a pop, chances are 1:100, that means writing 100 letters you may get a response, on 1000 letters you will get 5-10 responses, some owners are thinking about selling, but do not want to deal with tire kickers, somebody who writes sounds like a serious qualified private buyer