A64Pilot

I know your kidding, but we can usually only work on N numbered aircraft, which hers likely isn’t.

Where this comes from is you asked. Therefore he HAD to give you what we called in the Military as the most conservative response, because of course he could get into trouble if he didn’t. it goes like this, an inspector asks you why you didn’t repack the wheel bearings and you say Mike told me I didn’t have to, you didn’t say because I can inspect their condition by jacking the wheel up and checking, just like I don’t take the calipers apart every year, I can inspect their condition by inspection for function and leaks. You just said Mike told me I didn’t have to, we’ll it may be that Mike is going to get a talking to, maybe even a reprimand, but if he says repack every year he won’t. I’m not saying you did anything incorrect, just know that when asked most of the time you will get the answer that covers the inspectors butt not necessarily the one that he feels is correct, if they want to climb the ladder and Retire they have to. It’s a Government Bureaucracy, that how they function. Sometimes that changes, the second inspector I got for the Repair station that I was an accountable manager for was near Retirement and he didn’t really have anything to lose, he wasn’t building a Career. He let me take him to lunch whenever he came down for example which is strictly Verboten for example.

Interpretations, AC’s and memorandums are not law. If they want me to do something different they need to change the FAR, which IS law, not print opinions, which is what an interpretation is, isn’t it? My opinion or maybe it’s an interpretation?

I haven’t read the whole thread yet so maybe this has been answered, but as an IA I can tell if it’s done correctly an Annual on a new to the IA airplane takes much longer, the reason is the IA has to ensure all AD’s were complied with and all work done since the aircraft’s birth date was done correctly, checking every accessory etc for the correct part number etc. You would be surprised at how many aircraft are out there with incorrect props for example. However if I did the annual last year I only have to validate the last years work and any AD’s that came out last year etc. There is truth in switching shops may give you a better annual, as different people find different problems, the more eyes looking the better, but it’s likely to cost you quite a bit more money. For friends in my neighborhood I charge $300 if they do all the grunt work for simple airplanes, complex ones everyone takes them to shops that specialize in those aircraft which is better, and I don’t want to do Bonanza’s etc anyway, only one asked and I gave a quote that showed I didn’t want to do it. When an IA signs off an Annual, he “buys” everything that has ever been done or not done on that aircraft since it was new, but nothing from that date forward. When an A&P signs off work he “buys” that work, but only that work until the day the airplane is scrapped, buys means accepts accountability of course

They work fine. However any disk that doesn’t rust won’t work as well as one that will. Without getting into exotics it seems that for converting kinetic energy into heat nothing beats sintered iron, which of course rusts if you look at it sideways. However unless your the guy who heavily uses your brakes I don’t think it matters, either SS or sintered iron will work fine. Often aircraft brake pads are offered in organic or metallic, often the words heavy duty go with metallic. I use organic, they don’t last as long but work better when cold and don’t wear the disk nearly as much as metallic, metallic lasts longer largely because they put much of the wear on the disk.

A friend built an Experimental Maule, Chuck is the builder of record but it was built in David Wright’s shop, David is in Moultrie and rebuilds Maules, he did mine. Anyway it has an IO-540 built for the Red Bull racers and has an MT aerobatic prop with reversing, being an aerobatic prop when oil pressure is lost like on shut down it goes to full pitch, not min like normal, sounds really strange on start-up. Chuck didn’t get near the speed he thought he would with all the HP and clipping almost 6 ft of wing from a stock Maule. Stock is 235 HP on that airframe and I don’t know how much more than 300 he has. They put ram air on it like a Mooney but didn’t do it right, theirs is like a funnel and has the big end forward which will build velocity but not pressure, you want pressure so even though it’s counter intuitive you put the small end of the funnel forward to build pressure I haven’t seen it for years but bet he has the stock 33’ wings on it now, if he still has it. https://www.kitplanes.com/experimental-maule/ You have an M5? I miss my M6, never should have sold it, it would truthfully be a better fit for the flying I do now.

We used to talk about them when sitting in the desert in South West Asia, the topic usually was what would happen to a parachutist if he got into one. Our best guess was that maybe the chute would get twisted up and then he’d drop like a rock, or would he spin with the chute? I hate the Damn things, there is little noise associated with them, one day we were all in the tent supposedly sleeping, I say supposedly because you can’t sleep in 120 degrees laying in a pool of sweat. The sides of the tent stayed rolled up due to the heat of course, anyway suddenly the world exploded, everything in the tent got thrown around and covered in dirt. We were hit by one of the things, Shamals sucked too but they didn’t sneak up on you, the dirt tornadoes do.

I was around then, I think there are a LOT more accidents now than then, back then there was a lot more seat of the pants flying, and way more short field flying and well just way more flying as in the average pilot flew a lot more than the average pilot now, has to do with age of aircraft and relative expense to fly then vs now I believe. Back then a Middle class person could afford a “used” airplane that was five years or so old and had original engine and prop with less than 1000 hours on them for their first airplane and there were literally more different manufacturers of aircraft to choose from than there were cars. There was also much more of a progression of aircraft bought, by that I mean your first complex aircraft was not your first aircraft, they were cheap enough to be bought and sold every few years, so many progressed up to twins, with a twin being usually about the fourth aircraft you bought, interestingly many that progressed to twins next airplane was a “heavy single” but I digress. The whole attitude and culture around flying was completely different then, it was upbeat and everyone looked forward to next years new models etc and the industry was growing by leaps and bounds. It was a happy time if you will, but then Society was, the perfectly logical assumption was that next year would be better than this year as in spendable income etc. That ended in my opinion in the early 80’s, we didn’t realize it then but looking back I think that was the beginning of the decline. But now I see very inexperienced pilots spending lots of money on autopilots and “glass” that they should be spending on fuel and parts to fly and gain experience, but largely due to social media they believe there is this list of must have modifications to their aircraft Today I see more accidents that seem to indicate inexperience than back then. By back then I mean late 60’s and on. Everyone whether they want to admit it or not follows the same path, as junior pilots they are actually pretty safe, they tend to take out the checklist and use it every time, always enter the pattern mid field downwind etc. They establish routines whether they realize it or not. Their accidents usually occur when they get task saturated and the time doesn’t exist for the methodical approach. Then we cocky, think we’ve got this, it’s easy, we don’t need a checklist for anything else so we don’t use one in the airplane, we enter on base or straight in etc., this breaks the routine we had set up earlier and we are more likely to forget pushing the prop in or gear or whatever. Most often this ends when we scare the snot out of ourselves and the smart ones digress to being methodical and not breaking routines etc again, or don’t and have an accident. But one thing that’s different is that now there are pilots that have been pilots for years, even decades that are relatively inexperienced, that’s always been true, but there are more now. Back to age of aircraft and increased cost to fly, maybe. One thing that fosters that is our age of social media, used to be to be able to be among other pilots and hangar talk etc you had to go to the airport and usually fly, now you just pull out your phone.

What precipitated my one landing “incident” was my belief that I could salvage a bad approach, that and I was determined for some stupid reason to make the mid field turn off. What I learned from that was something I already knew, never try to salvage a bad approach, so I landed hard and broke the right gear and stood there looking at about 2,000 ft of usable runway in front of me. All trying to make the turn off that I always used

It’s critical in my opinion that the rollers NOT be metal or any material that can wear the aluminum rails, reason is roller replacement is easy, so easy that in my opinion an owner is allowed to do it, however seat rail replacement is hard and expensive, if you can get them, so again in my opinion if rollers were made of some material that would cause no rail wear and were advertised to cause no rail wear, unlike the factory ones they would likely sell much better and be a better product. The Phenolic does wear the rails as evidenced by them being silver or black colored where they contact the rails. They're dead easy to make but should include a oilite bushing to roll on the attachment screw. Of course this is just my opinion. Mooney’s are wide open for small parts being PMA’d because none of the usual STC houses do for whatever reason, Univair etc. I can get most any part imaginable for my C-140, but the Mooney is tough and of course as the Mooney is a higher priced aircraft I believe the profit potential is higher. So I think as you dig into Mooney’s most everything you make for Beech products you could make for us too, one difference though is it’s likely you would be a sole source for Mooney’s which is always good for profits.

For whatever it’s worth the University of Tennessee ran a C-310, one engine on “Gasahol” and the other on 100 octane in the early 70’s for testing, they put many hours on it without issues, I don’t know how rich etc they ran it or any particulars, just friends of the Aviation dept head at the time. Gasahol was what they called it in the 70’s during the oil embargo, it wasn’t until much later it got the moniker of E10. I’m certain they took care to keep the cyl head temp down surely, but a good pilot does that anyway. I know several people that run the Mogas in one wing and 100LL in the other on high compression Lycomings, one of them forgot to switch tanks on landing and after refueling had a hell of a time restarting it. the Mogas had vapor locked much worse than 100 LL. I had a 100 gl tank in the back of my truck for fuel for my boat so for some it’s easy. The Experimental crowd can burn what the want and there are many that burn Mogas in even 200+ high compression IO-390’s and 360’s. Basically Mogas is fine at the same power settings that you can’t hurt the engine with mixture, it’s only rarely the extra protection of 100 LL is needed, my bet is below 25” MP and 400F cyl head temps and your fine, but she may vapor lock like you have never seen before if you just shut down for a short time, low wing aircraft are particularly susceptible and harder to certify for Mogas as they have to suck the fuel up. You can buy test kits to test for Ethanol in fuel but you don’t need one, all you need is a canning jar with graduated marks on it, fill it about 20% with water and the rest with gas, shake it vigorously several times, if the level of water decreases it has alcohol in it as the alcohol mixes with the water and it gets into solution, pure gas won’t absorb water, but E10 will, you know on edit I think it’s the opposite, the level increases as the alcohol is pulled into the water, in fact I’m sure the level increases. Getting old Sux, you forget things It would take much different fuel metering but I’d bet Lunch that we could run E85 without issue detonation wise, but surely would require quite a lot of modification. I just scanned this but at a quick glance it seems E85 made more power than 114 Octane race gas, again just a quick scan, but I had that understanding anyway. https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/e85-vs-114-octane-race-gas-on-the-dyno-with-a-boosted-small-block/ A major problem with Certifying E85 is first there is no profit because your not supplying it but also it from memory it has no real standard, it can be anywhere from 50% ETH to 85% and be called E85. In Brazil Embraer has sold the Ipanema that burns pure ethanol in an IO-540 Lycoming, I think almost 20 years? I believe however its burn rate is much higher than if it were burning gasoline. They have pretty much 20 years of data on a decent sized fleet with each aircraft flying on average between 500 and 1,000 hours s year. That’s the kind of test we need I think for whatever fuels get Certified, an honest fleet flying hard for hundreds of hours per year. A ver good argument could be made that Ag planes don’t fly in cold weather nor at high altitude etc and it would be correct. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/brazilian-crop-duster-flies-on-ethanol-1.559324 Having said all of that it’s very much an airframe issue and an engine issue, for instance the low compression O-540 in a Maule can be bought factory Certified to burn Mogas, or can be field modified. It adds vents to cool parts of the fuel system and an additional fuel pump, fuel under pressure is much less likely to boil, that’s all vapor lock is really the fuel boils and turns into vapor. The high compression IO-540 Maules are not Certified to burn Mogas. I’m not abdicating anyone run Mogas in their mooney, and never believe anything you read on an internet forum You cant go wrong or be found at fault if you follow the POH, if you want to experiment, we’ll there is an Experimental class thst was created for that.

The Hartzell composite has been out for years, believe it or not but Maule was one of the first, same prop the Cirrus uses is why I think. If Hartzell made one for a Mooney there is no way I could afford it, especially with their “new”pricing. Price one but sit down first. MT is composite in name as composite just means made from different materials, MT is a wood prop covered in fiberglass, wood is strong but has issues with moisture, the glass fixes that. MT USA is based in Deland Fl I’m pretty sure, I’d certainly call them and have them weigh in, I’m pretty sure it’s not unsafe, but boy if you lose a blade the outcome is real bad, so give them a call in the morning.

Most don’t in my experience I guess they are in too much of a hurry, I don’t know about your Mooney, but mine is full of inline fuses that I have no idea what they do. I guess I could climb under there, remove them one at a time and see what stopped working, as inflexible as I am with Arthritis I’m not though. So one day when something stops working I guess I’m going to spend an hour or two checking those fuses one at a time. I’d bet lunch though that several don’t do anything at all, they were for equipment that’s no longer installed, which is pretty common in my experience. Even for example I have a couple of CB’s labeled for equipment that’s no longer there, ADF comes to mind. You would think when it was un-installed they would have at least covered the label?

That’s known as a “sneak” circuit, as a mechanic I hate sneak circuits and of course if X CB pops who knows what else you lost with a sneak? You may know if you remember but the next guy won’t. I hate in-line fuses too, because they can be hard to find, if yiu go that way, please label the thing for the mechanic

We had something that for example could tell the difference between 4340 steel and 4130 for example, and those steels are pretty near identical, but 4340 heat treats “better” on thicker parts, better as in more evenly where 4130 was more difficult to get the same heat treat through the whole part. We used both types of steel of course and had to be able to ensure there wasn’t a mix up in the machine shop for example, and the part had to be unharmed. Point I’m trying to make is it’s not difficult or expensive to have done, they don’t need a scanning microscope or whatever. We had to determine the type and heat treat level of critical parts like wing spars for example when we “bought” in parts. I don’t remember what it was we had though, but it wasn’t exotic. But it satisfied the FAA. Of course you need the part. My bet is this will involve a DER to get done, but maybe not

Determining heat that level and material type if steel or aluminum isn’t difficult. We determined heat treat level by its Rockwell hardness and if aluminum by believe it ir not but it’s electrical conductivity. I don’t remember what we did for steel to be honest, but none of the tests were destructive, the part was unharmed, the Rockwell hardness tester leaves a small pit type of mark of course. But are these gears steel?

Believe it or not but the FAA often doesn’t have a copy of all the drawings, the amount of drawings are enormous and of course they change often, so the man power and just plain storage space for an FAA MIDO to have a copy of all drawings would be pretty much impossible, and of course drawings changed often so someone would have to post every change for every drawing. Can you imagine for instance the FAA having all the drawings for every Gulfstream ever built and then to keep them current? Gulfstream is of course only one manufacturer that ATL MIDO manages. I assume it would fall under the MIDO, but it could be the ACO? Thrush was the only source of their drawings, if the FAA had a question about a part then of course Thrush would send them a copy of the drawings. Back two owners ago they got into a bad habit, if they wanted to change something they simply changed the drawings and didn’t seek FAA approval, how could they get caught? Well later on the Thrush QC head went to work at the FAA MIDO in Atl, and now the FAA keeps a copy of all current production aircraft for Thursh. I would hope that mooney if they had no interest in manufacturing the part would give a copy of the parts drawings. I know I used to. We tired to support all of our old aircraft but it just wasn’t possible for every part, in many cases the tooling for parts that hadn’t been built in 40 years didn’t exist and no one was still around who know how to build the thing, drawings often don’t tell you how to build the thing and there is a heck of a lot of what I call Tribal knowledge in building an airplane.

I did, but my post was more for everyone than this particular aircraft, we all sometimes think well Joe did it so I should be able to also. With the FAA that’s not always the case, for Field Approvals it often helps quite a bit if you can get a copy of the 337 of a previously approved modification if your doing exactly the same thing, but today even that’s not the slam dunk it used to be, and of course that’s for a field approval which an IA may want. But even in this case I think that he needs to ask his IA or shop around to find one that agrees as many modifications are considered permeant as in you can’t go back. The bottom line is I promise you, you can’t always use what you consider to be obvious or logical when dealing with the FAA. Best before you start spending money to ask first.

On an aircraft that was originally manual there are I believe Mooney drawings at least that allow conversion to electric, converting back in my opinion is allowed because your taking it back to its TC. Opinions of course do vary. On an aircraft that came from the factory electric if it did, installing manual gear is in my opinion a Major alteration and I think would require a field approval. There may be no differences, but its TC is electric gear. Before starting down this road I think you should have your IA contact the local FSDO to see if they would support it. Of course your IA’s opinion may differ from mine and he may decide it’s a minor, but either way I think you should see if it’s possible before buying parts.

Not unless your ADSB out has Anonymous mode and it’s activated. Very few people activate it, some I believe require a switch to be installed. I only VERY rarely ever see VFR where the tail number goes so I know the overwhelming majority of people don’t activate it or don’t have it.

Both, it doesn’t transmit your N number only when your Squawking 1200, mine transmits VFR where you normally see the N number, but any squawk other than 1200 transmits the N number and even when you are transmitting VFR ATC knows who you are, and I think that Flight Aware etc gets your N number even when you are transmitting VFR, but I’m not sure on that because I also did the LADD thing so when you try to track me on Flight Aware you won’t find me. However apparently there are sites that don’t follow the LADD thing and do give out tracking data, I assume these are those “nuts” as I call them that build receivers and put the data out. There are also what I call nuts, but they call themselves “aircraft spotters” that walk around writing down N numbers and report the location for some reason. I ran into that at Sun-N-Fun 20 years or so ago. So even if your not on an IFR flight plan, if your flight following then of course your transmitting your N number.

You know ADSB isn’t really my “issue” I know why the N number is imbedded in it, it’s for enforcement, just like we all drive around with tags on our cars, for enforcement. Cop stops you, he “runs”the tag and knows all about you before he walks up to the car. I don’t have an issue with that, BECAUSE it’s not freely available to everyone with internet access. However the Feds make personal data available, listed under our N number. Why? How does that serve the public? They simply need to remove the personal data, everything else they can leave, how hard could that be? Then I could delete the LLC that “owns” my airplane, it’s a minor expense, but one I’d rather do without.

Wait until you’re Retired and don’t get raises. I’m old enough to remember how bad it was in the early 80’s Retired people were losing housing and eating pet food because that’s all they could afford due to inflation. Those of us that were adults back then fear inflation. I believed recently the worst it got was 9%, the 20% number is cumulative over the three years. In 1980 it peaked at over 13% banks were failing, unemployment was higher than any time except during the Great Depression. It was the reason I joined the Army in 1982, there were NO jobs in the oilfield, not even convince stores, I was a newly married kid and had to provide. From Wikipedia The prime interest rate, an important economic measure, eventually reached 21.5% in June 1982.[30][40] Try buying a house when the Prime rate is 21.5% because you can’t get prime. I don’t remember the number because I couldn’t afford it but I think home loans were around 25%? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession#:~:text=By 1979%2C inflation reached a,end of the next recession.

I do my best to try not to make any kind of political statements because I have seen them ruin other Forums and don’t want that here, so if any think any post I have made is political I assure you they aren’t. I’d delete it if I could but it’s been quoted and I can’t delete those.

Having an LLC in Montana and having the aircraft an asset of that LLC isn’t seemingly illegal even in California based on what you said, but not Registering in California if your there over some amount of time is. Boats for example that are in Fl for over 90 days are required to resister in Fl and display the FL sticker, that doesn’t trip a tax though as Fl doesn’t tax boats, so I don’t know why they are required to register, registration isn’t free, but it’s not a lot of money either. Even USCG registered boats which usually skip the State thing have to register in Fl if they stay. However if you have your airplane in the State of Fl for over some number of days (whatever it is it’s not long) then Fl will tax you, and it’s a significant amount of money, they use Flight aware as one way of finding you. That is why I said the Montana registration will not get you out of Fl aircraft taxes, but does a Motorhome, because out of State Motorhomes can apparently stay in Fl for as long as they want without tripping any kind of tax, just like boats can. Many, I bet most States don’t register aircraft. https://advocatetax.com/2017/08/21/do-i-have-to-register-my-aircraft-with-the-state-it-is-based-in/ Bottom line, Tax or not varies both by State and type of vehicle as does registration. But most States don’t even register aircraft I assume since they are Federally registered they don’t see the need. So just because you think having a Montana LLC is illegal in California, you shouldn’t make a blanket statement that’s it’s illegal everywhere. I suspect it’s not illegal,even in California, but if California requires registration if you stay, then that defeats the anonymity point. I’ve paid Fl sales tax on my aircraft and on everything I own, the purpose of me registering in Montana isn’t to beat the tax, it’s to keep some idiot from obtaining my personal information even my address.