mhrivnak

Here is my setup. The 10" adds a lot of value, so I would highly recommend it. Flying an approach, having the geo-referenced plate on the display minimizes the need to look anywhere else during your scan. It's a very nice experience. In busy airspace (especially around Airventure recently!), I'll put the traffic view on the right side of the display so passengers can help visually identify targets. The map and chart views are helpful. I especially like the descent planning; it shows where you'll be when you reach your target altitude given your current rate of descent. While I still like using foreflight, I appreciate that I can fly without a tablet at all and use the G3X Touch for charts, plates, ads-b in, etc. Pulling up weather and notams through the G3X Touch is nice and easy. I find it more convenient than looking it up through foreflight. Controlling a GNC 255 through the touch display is very convenient. As for layout, I like having the EDM 900 and backup G5 close to each other and in a central location. If things go bad and the PFD fails in adverse conditions, I like that my scan is now focused on these two instruments in one fairly central spot. They're also both visible from the right seat without too much trouble.

The light is "required for primary installation" according to the install manual. It doesn't matter where the main display is.

I assume that's among the reasons they're targeting airports and heliports.

The Wisk folks said they'll have remote operators monitoring each flight, communicating with ATC as needed, and intervening when needed. One person will be managing up to 3 flights at the same time. I assume they'll use software extensively to help that person keep track of what's happening and what needs attention. In terms of "Especially from companies that have never certified an aircraft before", Wisk is now owned by Boeing.

Wisk had a nice display at Airventure showing off their autonomous eVTOL. They do a better job than Archer at telling the story of their vision. https://wisk.aero/ To the original question, the goal of these designs is to make aerial short-hop transportation much more affordable and mass-market. Yes helicopters can fill the same mission, but these new eVTOLs will (in theory) be a lot cheaper to operate and thus more cost-accessible to the general public. To that end, it seems like the automation is the real innovation and key feature that will lower the cost of a ride (pilots are expensive and take up a seat). I suspect the fact that it's eVTOL vs. an autonomous helicopter is a secondary outcome. Outfitting any VTOL aircraft to be autonomous is a big deal requiring a ton of new systems and integrations. It probably wouldn't make financial sense to retrofit an existing aircraft vs. design a new airframe; and as long as you're starting fresh, you may as well go with the better airframe and power plant choices for the mission. The manufacturers would argue that their choices have more redundancy and reliability than anything else that's available to fit the mission, and being electric gives them a better sustainability story.

I found similar reluctance after noticing an obvious hot spot with a borescope in an IO-360. It seems like it will take more time for valve lapping to become something that an average A&P feels comfortable with. Thankfully it's an easy flight from here up to Shenandoah Valley, and I was able to get Dean Showalter (a big proponent of valve lapping via his podcast) to do it. I arrived in the morning, and he was done before lunch. At the next annual, compressions and borescope views were stellar. I recently had another borescope view after about 70 hours, and it looks just as you'd hope; no sign of the hotspot or any other concerns. The cylinder is more than 30 years old with ~2300 hours. I figure that changing the cylinder would be around 10x the cost, so lapping was worth a try, and it will only take 100-200 hours of extended life to easily justify the cost.

Spot checking aviationoiloutlet.com, where I usually buy oil, I see about a $1/quart savings on Phillips and $1.72 on W100 Plus. My flying club buys oil by the barrel, and I think we hope to save about $1/quart. There's also the convenience of not constantly breaking open cardboard boxes and individual bottles; and speaking of that stuff, hopefully there's less waste, assuming the barrels can be recycled. But we do several oil changes per week, so we can get through a barrel in a reasonable amount of time. For most people, 220 quarts is a lot of oil to buy at once.

There are STCs. I just clicked through their website and found this list: https://earthxbatteries.com/list-of-stcs/#mooney-m20

I had a Strike Finder that was installed at the factory (I think in 1991, a year after initial delivery), and this was the antenna. The antenna cable had tens of individual conductors in various shielded groups, all wrapped into one big cable. It's been a couple of years, so my memory could be exaggerating the thickness, but it was a big heavy cable.

I decided to remove mine when doing a G3x Touch panel upgrade. Though that was helped by the fact that it wasn't working correctly, and I'm not sure what it would have taken to revive it. But I live in the south-east US where we have thunderstorms nearly every day in the summer. I just don't tend to fly often in proximity to such convection where real-time strike data would make much difference. The storms around here build and develop quickly, and even before the first lightning bolt they are well-worth avoiding. If there's convective precipitation along my route, I like to either be high enough to see and avoid the large buildups (usually 10k plus on a hot summer day), or low enough to be below the bases so I can see and avoid heavy rain. On the rare day with thick IMC and embedded convection, I just avoid that. Others with more experience navigating such weather, or more of a logistical need to get places on those days, could benefit from live strike data. Before you decide, consider this: look at the big antenna on the belly of your plane, imagine its interaction with airflow, and then imagine it gone. Think about how heavy the whole system is, including the cable that's nearly the length of the plane and is a good 1" thick. For my typical flying, I was more interested in reducing weight and drag than to keep/fix/upgrade/replace a piece of avionics I'd rarely use. But clearly it has a lot of value to some pilots, and we each get to weigh the trade-offs for our own situations.

When I bought my plane, the prior owner had been doing oil analysis with AvLabs. It's been a few years so I forget the details, but they made me do something to demonstrate and assert that I was the new registered owner before sharing anything about the prior history on the engine. It may have been enough that when I sent a sample from my first oil change, the FAA registry had been updated and matched my contact info. In any case, they are at least particular about only sharing data with the owner of the engine or their mechanic, and they specifically told me they guard against prospective buyers fishing for information. If you want to make sure a future owner of your engine doesn't get the data you paid for, AvLabs might be willing to delete it or at least not share it if you ask.

You can buy the kits with or without the pre-paid shipping. I buy without and then pay normal USPS 1st class postage, because I've also experienced the long delays (at best) of their cheap pre-paid shipping.

I also stopped by the Whelen booth (as I did at last year's show, when they were "almost ready but didn't quite make it in time for SnF 22" ... ). They said they were wrapping up the final testing and would ship in about a week. So likewise, it did not sound to me like anyone had the 28V parts ready to hand out yet.

In my 1990 J, the circuit breaker panel and related enclosure was riveted in place, making that shunt a giant pain to access and replace. It was a slow exercise of blind contortions and patience. It might be better to drill out if you face the same. When I did mine about 2 years ago, JPI did not include a tachometer cap for the engine, so check early to see if your mechanic has one. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/tachcap.php The thermocouple wire they provided was just long enough to fish through the wing thinking it would work, but came up a bit short. I had to get a longer piece of thermocouple wire myself and pull that through using the one that was too short. So as you pull it through, watch the other end carefully to make sure it doesn't disappear! The zip ties inside my 1990 J wing were tight, which made pulling the old wire out and new wire through (twice...) challenging, but it's worth it to have the probe in the right spot. Don't let them talk you into putting the temp probe in an air vent or somewhere easier to access. Lastly, I found this stuff made an excellent cover for odd shaped holes, like the hobbs meter and the engine instrument cluster: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0049MWXM8/

I'd call them on the phone and ask if they generally expect to put you in a position where you can intercept the GP at the FAF, and if not, what are they expecting people to do? In the air, you could just tell them you need to be at 1800 by the FAF. There's no ambiguity in that, and it still gives them flexibility in how they accomplish it.

It looks like all of the OnePak subscriptions are more expensive than a subscription for a single GPS navigator. Or am I missing something?

My J had a 530W/430W combo when I bought it. I sold the 430W during a big panel upgrade, and the proceeds paid for a new GNC 255 nav/com. I didn't find much value in a second GPS navigator, but I definitely want to be able to shoot an ILS if NAV1 fails. So a new modern NAV/COM works great for me as NAV2 and should last a long time. It also integrates with my G3X Touch installation. I figure if my NAV1 fails, it'll be annoying, but in the worst case I'll get vectors to an ILS and then wait for VFR weather to fly it to my avionics shop. Paying for database subscriptions on a second GPS is a significant cost to consider along with the equipment itself.

Assuming that not many of your annunciator lights do anything at this point, consider replacing that whole unit with a small number of labeled indicator lights somewhere on the panel. That would also give you extra room in the center stack to use.

Correct. I don't recall exactly where they terminated, but probably in one of the big barrel connectors that has nothing but grounds.

For wing tips, my 1990 J had four conductors: nav power, nav ground, strobe power, strobe ground. With the LED fixture, you only need one ground wire, so we repurposed the other ground as a sync wire. For the tail we ran two new conductors to be NAV power and sync.

Mine is grounded to the engine as prescribed, and I recall JPI making a big deal out of how important that is. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure my ground wire was long enough to get to the engine.

The hardest part may be snaking the wire through the tail section aft of the quick disconnect. Assuming you have the rudder off right now, since you say you're going to "get done painting", that makes it a lot easier. And if you install an LED light now, you can include the new fixture when you balance the rudder (assuming you're painting the rudder and planning to balance it anyway). If you're going to run wire, run two so you'll have a sync wire available to tie into your other strobes. I don't know if it's compatible with your existing wing strobes, but even if not, if you go all-LED in the future, you'll be happy to have that sync wire ready!

I recently got this Husky ratchet with lots of teeth for a tight swing. I'm no expert, but it works well, and I like that it has a lifetime warranty from Home Depot as their house brand. You just bring it to any store for replacement if needed.

I got the yaw damper in my J and like it. In any turbulence, even light, you can turn it off and on and feel the difference. The ride is noticeably smoother with the YD on. It's not life-changing, but it does marginally improve the quality of life, particularly for passengers who aren't used to being in vehicles that experience turbulence as yaw. In turbulence, a pilot cannot do what the yaw damper does. It's not like the other AP functions, for example where you can hold altitude yourself, or let the autopilot do it. Yaw damping responds with extreme speed and precision to very small disturbances in yaw, stopping a yaw motion just as it starts. It's impressive technology, and I found it to be a relatively small cost to give my plane smoother rides for the life of the autopilot (hopefully measured in decades).

The limiting factor is the ability to find the person with the laser. The position report given by a pilot is likely to be "at my 2 o'clock in 1 mile", which is highly imprecise already. Then ATC has to figure out how to translate that into a location that law enforcement can use. Unless the pilot is willing to circle and spend time identifying a specific location, which may or may not even be possible depending on how urban or rural the location is, little can be done. Green lasers can cause permanent eye damage, so don't spend time looking for the source unless you happen to have protective eyeware. Episode 142 of the Opposing Bases podcast (highly recommended as a podcast) talks about the ATC side of how difficult it is to do anything about green laser events.