Ryan ORL

Registered for the Summit, it'll be my first! Looking forward to meeting some other MSers!

It almost certainly isn't an *actual* shift in the elevation, but rather survey error and/or an artifact of how we describe elevations above sea level. Re: 'how we describe elevations', long ago, there was much less standardization of so-called datums, and it's very likely that the prior number was using a different datum. You can think of the datum as representing something like 'the hypothetical idealized shape of the earth', and as the real Earth is quite irregular, different locations are more accurately represented by different datums. Measuring with a different datum not only could result in a slightly different lat/lon, but also a different elevation. Nowadays, everyone (including your GPS, all your maps, etc.) pretty much uses WGS84 + EGM96/2008 Geoid correction now, which is pretty much a 'best fit' for everywhere on earth, and the EGM geoid models (especially 2008) are quite detailed now. Also, we now have highly accurate satellite-measured elevation data for the whole planet. So until they decide to revise the ellipsoid and/or geoid model again, these numbers are unlikely to change much. edit: This is also evident in, for example, anyplace that puts monuments to denote lat/lon locations such as the equator and such. These can and do move over time since we have gone through a few datums over the years.

I flew my 1984 J in there last year... not really 'summer', but it was mid May at least. Takeoff was around 8am... DA was around 11000. We were deliberately at least 250 lbs under gross, or more. (Had like ~30 gal onboard) I didn't feel it was anything all that dramatic. The runway is plenty long and the valley around Leadville is super wide and gradual. If you are taking off to the south, assuming you clear the airport perimeter, if you never gained another foot of altitude, you're flying towards descending terrain all the way down out of the valley. The terrain falls away from you continuously. I was airborne well before halfway down the runway and I managed better than 600fpm on the initial climb. I have had more uncomfortable takeoffs in tired and heavily loaded flight school planes in Florida in the summer. Anyway this is all not to minimize it... maybe another 1000 ft of DA would have made it more uncomfortable, I don't know. I wasn't interested in waiting until later in the day to find out. I certainly didn't want to try it with anything more than the minimum fuel I needed to go somewhere else.

I would be absolutely thrilled to adopt an unleaded Avgas, as long as it was 100 octane. I don't care if it's the GAMI one (I don't mind the STC), and the small cost increase doesn't bother me. Lead is disgusting, dirty stuff to have clogging up your engine.

My J went through 3 separate EA100s before I ripped it out for my G3X. The EA100 unit is junk.

From my Googling, I think it is also a Cygnet CA3112-G.

Yeah it seems to fit fine, although if they had any trouble with it, I don't know

Unfortunately those prices are very real. Back when I still had my KAP 150, my switch failed, and we weren't able to find (at the time) a shop that could fix my switch in a reasonable time frame. I paid around $1500 I think. I was told it was a special order item from Honeywell. I had the Bendix King (Honeywell) 200-2960-00 Pitch Trim Switch. When I ripped out the whole BK system for my GFC500, I ended up selling the switch on eBay for like $500.

Not that this possibly-a-transient guy would know this, but until very recently (gone now but as recently as a couple years ago?) the TPA at SGJ was published as 800. It was definitely 800 when I did my PPL there in 2007 and it was the outlier that I used to point my students to. Guess the FAA finally changed it. Anyway, if he was a local, this wouldn’t necessarily be uncommon.

I echo the above comments about dumping the KFC150 and maybe selling a couple of the GI-275s to recoup some cost. Just do the GFC500. I absolutely love my G3X w/ EIS plus GFC500/GTN650 combo panel. I just cannot see dumping that many AMUs into a halfway solution. Once a G3X is involved, you're at least cutting a whole new panel and hopefully tearing out a ton of the old wiring. Why not just get it done with? You know the GFC500 will be will supported for years to come, and you can dump all the old wiring. And I certainly can't see spending more money to get into a G500 setup just to keep the King autopilot. Plus you're getting a modern digital autopilot that supports VNAV and all the other vertical modes you would expect. My airplane had an Aspen and KAP150 when I bought it... and I had to have it repaired at one point also. Sarasota Avionics has basically one old guy in his 70s who used to work for BK and is their "King autopilot guy". It was super expensive, a lot of money was wasted debugging it, and in the end, I never felt confident we wouldn't be working on it again very soon. One of the biggest motivators for dumping all my money on avionics was to just be rid of the old stuff and not have to be stuck dealing with a (decreasing) handful of shops that are willing to work on that stuff. Fwiw, I sold my old KAP150 head unit and BK servos on eBay and I got at least $3500 out of the lot of it. If you don't go that route, I also echo the other posters and say, pass on the G3X or G500, just do 3x GI-275s. (Attitude/HSI/EIS) The install will be much simpler... I wouldn't rip up my whole panel to keep a bunch of legacy stuff around.

I did a small calibration test on the fuel totalizer… through about 16 gallons it was off (high) between 3-4%. So not perfect but pretty close. I will run a better calibration soon on a larger sample. So I pulled my most recent takeoff log… Max fuel flow hit 20.7 gal/hr (29"/2690 rpm). If my quickie calibration is roughly correct, that would correspond to around 19.9 or 20.0. EGTs were in the 1160-1180 range for the most part. My plan, I think, is to fly it this way and maybe dial the mixture knob back one turn or so to aim for around 19 on takeoff. Meanwhile I will see what the engine shop thinks. I’m reluctant to mess with anything else until annual probably, which is coming in a little over a month. I will finish the break-in within the next week or two, I hope.

That’s a pretty good guess, I definitely saw around 1150 I want to say, but I will go pull the SD card tomorrow and take a look.

Correct, no changes. Seems like it’s the right unit at least.

Going to do that this week because I’m sure that sensor was touched during the install. It was previously accurate to within less than half a gallon over a 50 gallon burn.

It does make full static RPM, even when full rich. I'm guessing it might be not the right size nozzles... we'll see what the engine shop says.

Yes, the servo was an overhaul exchange unit from Avstar Fuel Systems. I am guessing it was configured incorrectly.

Yes, all my accessories were overhauled. The mags were overhauled by Quality Aircraft Accessories.

Hey all, tl;dr - New engine is running richer than the old one and I believe it is causing the mag checks to be rough I just had my IO-360-A3B6 major overhauled by an engine shop down in South Florida. They ran it 3 hours in the test cell and it's back on the airplane now and I've done a couple break-in flights, and fortunately things are mostly looking good so far, and my install shop has helped me fix a few gremlins w/ the (also freshly overhauled) governor, etc. However, one remaining issue is that my mag checks are considerably rougher than I would expect, dropping in some cases almost 200rpm. The mags seem timed close to each other, the split isn't much. Yesterday I decided to debug this issue a bit, and I noted that there is the proper rise of EGT on all 4 cylinders on both mags, so I don't think there is any issue with bad plugs. I had noticed that on my first takeoff (when I was watching all the indications quite closely) that my takeoff fuel flow was higher than normal, hitting around 20.5 gal/hr. My old engine hit around 18.5 gal/hr on takeoff. (From my research on the forum here, that seems to be the correct value, approximately) Takeoff power felt normal, and probably a bit stronger than the old engine, and I suspect my old engine was down a bit on performance, so a bit higher fuel flow isn't terribly surprising, but I didn't expect that much more flow. Anyway, based on this, I suspected that my full-rich mixture setting is a too rich. So I repeated the mag check with the mixture slightly pulled back, and the mag checks were totally normal. I also noted the full-rich runup RPM (2000) fuel flows were also higher than the old engine. I suspect the fuel flows are higher across the board. Based on my reading, this is basically not adjustable... so I think it's potentially an issue with the fuel servo and I guess I need to contact the engine shop for their opinion?

I had a hell of a problem with hot starts on my IO360 when I first got my J. Swapped the mags, plugs (fine wires), etc. Tried every single "method" out there. They would all work most of the time, but occasionally it would be difficult. I also sometimes let a friend fly my airplane, and of course he would always have trouble. Decided that I was sick of this crap. I bought a SlickStart and had it installed 2 years ago. I've never had an issue starting, hot or cold, ever again. It just starts, always, without exception, without any special incantations or messing around with flooded start procedures.

I don’t have any K time so can’t comment there, but I have flown my J around the Rockies a bit, landed at Leadville, and operated at a few other high altitude airports… it does fine, really. Obviously I wouldn’t do it midday in the summer at max gross, but the runway and climb performance was plenty adequate for my wife and I and a bunch of bags and maybe 40 gallons onboard for the really high airports like LXV. That’s a lot of flying miles in a Mooney. I operated from COS and GJT with full tanks without any issues either. To me the real question comes down to whether or how often you plan to fly on oxygen. I personally don’t want to (flying with our dog) and so I flight plan to avoid the need for it. You can get really anywhere at 12k without going too far out of your way… but if you wanted to go *over* the rocks, obviously you need the turbo. If I lived out there I would probably have a turbo, but I don’t think I would really *need* the turbo except occasionally.

I (through my LLC) am the sole owner of my Mooney, however I let another guy (frequent GA pilot/instructor, active airline pilot) that I trust use my plane. We both have non-exclusive dry leases with the LLC, and we pay a monthly fee to access the plane (for hangar, ins, etc) and a dry hourly rate for the usage of the plane. There may be other/better ways of setting this up, but that is how I do it. It is not a money making operation, it is more like a lose-less-money operation. I paid (too much) for an aviation attorney to setup this arrangement, however I probably could have done it myself, if I knew then what I know now.

Yes, I have the A3B6 non-D. Forgot it may not be available for the dual.

I tried all the various incantations and spells mentioned above for hot starting, and I had new mags and fine wire plugs, etc. I mostly used the "Maxwell method" in the video above. It works well, about 95% of the time. Of course, in the other 5% of times where something goes wrong and you don't get it first try, then you're in the 'unknown' state and end up fussing with it for a while. Then I bought a SlickStart and have never thought or worried about any of this ever again. It fires right up, every single time, hot or cold. Best money I've ever spent on my plane.

Looking at these photos makes me confused about how these things work... I expected some sort of wire or mechanical linkage in the back, but there appears to be nothing? Anyway, my sight gauge glass is all fogged up so I'd like to replace mine also. Glad to hear they're still available.

AMI Aviation Services in Sanford (KSFB) did my G3X/GFC500 install