A64Pilot

I know, looked what happened with the RX-8 though, for automobiles I’m afraid it’s dead, as are Diesels in my opinion, yes you can make Diesels pass emissions, but it’s really, really tough and expensive. It really wouldn’t be hard to make an aircraft engine run off of car gas which is I think our biggest problem, all it would take is a modern combustion chamber, that’s why cars now can run higher compression than our aircraft engines on low octane gas, but the money to build and Certify there is no payback apparently. One advantage of a Wankel is that it can tolerate very low octane fuel without detonating, due apparently to the lack of valves. However a Wankel just isn’t nearly as thermally efficient as a reciprocating engine and there just isn’t a way around that. However the RX-8 required Premium and the engine just didn’t last often only about 60K miles, I assume but don’t know that Mazda had to run it very lean and hot to pass emissions, but they couldn’t make it pass newer emission standards and it died. Many people pre-mix fuel and oil in the RX-8 to try to make the engine last longer, Pretty sure it’s for the apex seals which has always been the achilles heel for Wankel’s, but run them hot and it kills seals. I like Wankel’s, they can be real hot rods, the turbo RX-7 made over 250 HP in stock trim with a roughly 80 cu in engine, and they are nearly turbine smooth as it simply spins and doesn’t recpriocate, but also a piston engine gets one power pulse for every 720 degrees of rotation per cylinder but a Wankel gets e power pulses per revolution so six times as many as a piston engine. ‘I think they would make a great aircraft engine, even the shape of a Wankel lends itself to aircraft.

Mine will build pressure, it’s easy to check just turn the Master on after engine has been off for 10 min or so, if it’s building pressure it will pin the pressure on the gauge What I do is after shutdown is I push mixture in with the Master still on, pressure quickly goes to zero, pull mixture fully out again and turn Master off. I also always leave keys on instrument panel except when I’m away, then they go in my pocket. Two weeks ago, the day after I did his condition inspection on his Pitts, a neighbor got hit in the back of his neck by the prop, he apparently moved it and one or both mags were hot. It would have killed him the Dr said if his neck hadn’t been fused with steel rods in it, but he was hospitalized for several days, hot mags with any fuel in the cylinder are dangerous, and when I push the mixture in to bleed off the pressure some fuel is going into one or more cylinders probably not much, but maybe enough if the mags are hot to kill you.

I would do that anyway, even if Lycoming had them stacked up. The 500 hr Gann “Performance” engine is why I bought my airplane, I overlooked the no glass, original interior and paint missing on the leading edges for that motor

As a mechanic it’s the wiring left behind that drives me crazy, and in truth very often it’s not realistically removable as it’s hopefully laced and not zip tied into bundles that go through pretty much inaccessible places. The other thing that’s annoying as an IA is most older aircraft according to the records have all kinds of equipment installed that isn't, by that I mean most everything is installed via a 337, but as it’s removed there is no 337 removing it, so records wise you still have that ADF, DME etc. That is a minor annoyance sure but it’s just sloppy records keeping, and if your paper work is sloppy, is your work also?

This IF your a Fl resident. However I believe they go after out of State aircraft if they stay some short period of time. (20 days maybe and I think that time is cumulative)This annoys me because they don’t go after Motorhomes, Yachts, cars etc, just aircraft. Scan down to aircraft temporarily in Fl, good luck on the training /repairs etc. exemption for a year. https://floridarevenue.com/Forms_library/current/gt800008.pdf It does seem to allude to the 6 moth time line but I have heard that’s not relevant that they go after all visiting aircraft, but am unsure

I think he means metal construction as opposed to composite. I prefer metal myself due to its damage tolerences and ease of repair and it’s very well known fatigue rates. However having said that I like the 4130 tube structure around me, the Meyers 200 carried that much further than Mooney, even the wings out past the gear were 4130, however this meant it was extremely labor intensive to build, Aero Commander learned that they couldn’t break even on it, it just took too many hours to build. However I believe it is the only complex airplane that has never had an airframe AD, and it’s known for its survivability, even more than Mooney. ”Spam Can” construction like Cessna, Beech, Piper etc is less labor intensive and therefore cheaper to build, composite even moreso, however it’s possibly not better as in crashworthiness. Pic of the Aero Commander line in Albany Ga probably about 1966 or so, you can see the tube steel structure and size of the tubing.

Wankel’s are cool, I wish they were further developed. They have similarities to turbines, sort of a middle ground between reciprocating engines and turbines. Mazda was the first Japanese manufacturer to win the 24 hours at Lemans in 1991 with a four rotor 2.6L (158 cu in) Wankel capable of 900 HP but detuned to 700 for the race for fuel consumption and reliability, it is a 24 hour race after all, still 700 HP on 158 Cu in ain’t bad, not even turbocharged. Of course you can turbocharge a Wankel, the last RX7 was and I think in factory trim made over 250 HP from a 1.3 L engine, the 787’s engine was essentially two RX7 engines bolted together, hence 2.6 L. To me it’s among the sweetest sounding engines ever built. Wankel's were banned in 1992 by the FIA. Mazda Wankel conversions were popular at one time in the EAA world, but as with all auto conversions there were issues usually reliability. Wankel’s died years ago as in I think 1973, due mostly to fuel consumption. Lots of power from a small lightweight engine but it drank gas, also due to very high exhaust temps it was tough to meet emissions. GM had built a very good two rotor Wankel with astonishing reliability and an expected life in excess of 500,000 miles and those of us that were driving in the 70’s can attest that regular engines were horrible then, if you got 100,000 miles you were in the minority. Unfortunately it just couldn’t get good milage so it was scrapped and instead the Vega got that wonderful aluminum block in line 4 cyl. It was also I believe slated for the Monza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Rotary_Combustion_Engine

On the whether or not a Mooney sized pressurized turbine could be built. Of course it can, it’s been done before, and fully Certified in 1971 maybe? Interceptor 400, a Garrett powered Meyers 200 which I believe is still the fastest single engine NA piston civilian 4 pax aircraft, but the Interceptor 400 was supposedly a 300 kt airplane at fl 240, probably very optimistic as all marketing claims are, but I’m sure it was fast. For those that have not flown a Garrett they are a fine engine they are a little loud on the ground but quiet in the air and unlike a Pratt they respond instantly to throttle like a piston does. http://www.meyersaircraft.com/200D and 400 Intro.html It has a -6 Garrett which is a 750 SHP engine when put in a Thrush crop duster, but it was derated to 400 SHP in the Meyers, which was an Aero Commander airplane. Being derated so much I wouldn’t be surprised if it could carry 100% power in the flight levels, or if not it wouldn’t lose much. In fact you can buy it and put it in production https://www.flyingmag.com/interceptor-400-barn-discovery/

Can’t you fly with a broken arm? It only took me a couple weeks before I could fly with knee replacements.

Actual pickling is a lot more than merely putting preservative oil in it, and maybe others can tell the difference but to me it just looks like oil. Pickling amounts to following the directions on the oil, and sealing every air entry point into the engine including the intake and exhaust, as well as fogging the cylinders with preservative oil, and installing at least one dessicant plug in each cylinder, and the dessicant plugs should be monitored and the dessicant changed if it changes color. Usually there are several levels of preservation from flyable storage, short term, long term and permeant which means it comes off and goes into a sealed can, different levels require more and more work to preserve and de-preserve. For three or four months I’d just put the preseravitive oil in it following the directions on the oil, assuming of course it’s stored inside a hangar. Keep the oil it can be reused without any problem. You can even fly with the preservative oil for some number of hours I pickled my C-85 for over four years and has zero problems, I also stored two autos for the same four years in the same hangar and all I did for the cars was put Sta-bil in the tanks that were filled and disconnected the batteries, and both cars were fine. Both are currently in storage driven rarely and only in the neighborhood as they don’t have tags because I don’t want to pay insurance on cars in storage I’ve also seen engines that were literally filled to the top with the cheapest Auto oil, sit for years and were just fine. Preservative oil can be bought one of two ways, concentrated where you add 10% to regular oil and already mixed which is of course just that. Pretty good article, just be aware that our engines are NOT new engines, a broken in engine has a layer of varnish like material on its cylinder walls and is a whole lot less likely to rust than a “new” engine so don’t freak on the 2 day comment, that for zero time cylinders surely. https://www.cessnaflyer.org/magazine/article-archives/maintenance-technical/flying-interrupted-modern-engine-preservation.html Oh and somewhere near a half of my neighborhood just leaves their aircraft in the hangar and goes “home” up North every Summer and comes back about November and has done that for years with seemingly no harm.

See I’m even confused as to how a P-51 can be Experimental, yes I know many are hugely modified and not through the STC process because there is no Type Certificate to modify for one. But by what means are they Experimental? You can’t just make your Mooney Experimental, you can if your in search of an STC or are the manufacturer but I don’t think you can just because you want to race it for example, yet obviously they can old Warbirds. But the FAA had to do something because back before the Value Jet crash their mandate from Congress was to promote and regulate aviation, so rather than come up with an entire set of regulations just for old warbirds they tried to bend existing ones to fit is my theory, just a theory. After the Value Jet crash they are no longer required to promote Aviation, just regulate it. In the last six months or so the FAA has been giving Space-X a lot of trouble, which made me wonder what do they have to do with it, they are Aviation, shouldn’t the Space agency be the ones in charge of well you know space flight? So the roles and missions of the FAA often confuse me.

To come back to this, P-51’s aren’t Certified, they are flown in limited, exhibition whatever but not Certified. Not trying to be pedantic but with the FAA in particular words matter a lot. Now the FAA has a Military Certification office that Certifies Commercial derivative aircraft, which I think are for aircraft like the old Army U-21 which was pretty much a Queen Air with the King Air’s turbines for example, but again it wasn’t Certified as the Queen Air But for pure Military aircraft as far as the FAA is concerned there is no Certification at all, especially any aircraft that starts with an A or F or B Like Attack, Fighter or Bomber. I can show you Military laws that require all parts from those aircraft must be demilitarized, IE destroyed, never sold. Same for the Aircraft, they are never allowed out in the Civilian world, yet there are AH-1’s and I’m certain several obsolete fixed wing Attack and Fighters flown by Civilians, often on Government contract. As a Civilian Test Pilot working for the US Army Technical Testing Center I flew AH-64’s, but still had no type of pilots license. I did actually but it wasn’t required. I think if memory serves that strange as it sounds but that I had an FAA flight physical though. The FAA is good or bad if you will about taking an existing rule that doesn’t apply and using it, or pretty much ignoring an existing rule. Even something as silly as the Aircraft Airworthiness Cert must be carried in the aircraft at all times right? But in FAR 137 it allows a copy to be carried in the aircraft as long as the original is on file in the office which is different than what 91.203 says. The FAR’s seem clear as day when you read them, but trust me the FAA itself throws all kinds of exceptions in them yet doesn’t bother to say except for part 137 in my example, you just have to know.

One year won’t kill it, especially if you keep up with it, but are you going to be able to get a hangar in Sarasota in a year? From what I hear that’s unlikely. I’d look inland, a couple of hours drive and maybe you could find a hangar, yes a couple hours drive each way Sux, but at least then your hangared and the day you get one in Sarasota you move. My neighbor has built a house, apt or something in St Pete and has been looking for a hangar for a couple of years, no luck so far, and I believe he knows quite a few people as he used to own a few car dealerships there. Just did a quick internet search for hangar rental Sarasota Fl, https://flysrq.com/sites/default/files/2024-10/web thangar wait list 42' REV OCT 25 2024.pdf Neat thing is you can check the wait list for each size hangar, for the 42’ wide hangar which I think we would want the highest guy on the list was put on the list in 2021 if I read the list correctly? After him there are I think 122 people on the list that would cycle through before you could get one? I think there are 123 hangars so if yiu get on the list now your #123? Of course that’s just one place, I have no idea how many places there are. For those that want to live in Fl, consider an Air Park. No they aren’t usually on the beach, but where I live in Central Fl the beaches are 15 to 30 min flight away, and my airplane is 50 ft away from the house so I don’t have to drive anywhere to fly, fuel is delivered to our in hangar tanks monthly, and from what I hear others pay for tiny T hangars it’s a LOT cheaper too. What I hear others pay for hangar rent covers half my house and hangar payment

Many things influence EGT, mixture is one of course. It’s counterintuitive but lower compression runs a higher EGT, I think high compression is more efficient and it gets that way by harnessing more of the power from burning fuel and as these are heat engines it drops EGT. that’s my theory I don’t know if it’s correct or not. But I can’t imagine a cylinder moving at most a few thousands of an inch would have any effect.

We aren’t supposed to at mine, it’s prohibited in the covenants as in no aircraft are allowed to be based here that’s non resident. Having said that I know it’s done as our neighborhood is 20 years or so old there are a few Widows living here, who is going to tell them that their hangar has to remain empty and they can’t rent it out to help make ends meet? Would you? But unless you know the people that live here I’d say you have zero chances of finding out if you could or not. From my experience living in Fl I think an aircraft tied down near the coast has less than a 10 year life expectancy, well less actually. Some aircraft types do much better than others, unfortunately I don’t think Mooney’s do well. My advice that people don’t like is if your going to live on the coast of Fl, sell the airplane, it’s a great place to own a boat, or buy a Cirrus, they are still making those. I’ve had people tell me rather irritated that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that hangar rent was so high that it’s cheaper to just scrap an airplane and buy another every so many years, that is upsetting to me that some are knowingly depleting a limited resource, but it is what it is.

I hope that’s true but suspect it’s not. I just hope actuators aren’t going to be 10K or whatever now.

If springs are $3K, one wonders what overhauled actuators will cost now?

I believe only the aircraft models that were originally offered with manual gear can have manual gear installed because it’s in the TCDS, but for example a J model isn’t one of those. There really shouldn’t be any reverse Engineering, it should pretty much be wind me some springs just like this, and oh by the way don’t bend the tab on one that’s already heat treated, that would get you an OPP one. I’d be surprised if this spring is only used in an Eaton actuator, thats very uncommon, the trick would be of course to find it, and I have no idea how to do that.

This, I did the same for years, why would you want to blast them? But then I’m not blasting my massives either. It’s unlikely I’ll buy fine wires again, I can’t justify the price difference.

A quart in ten hours is nothing, I would in fact be concerned if it didn’t burn at least that. Most airplanes burn more than that, a great many quite a bit more.

Just saw this as I’m not on the forum every day. Couple of comments, first I don’t think the failure had anything to do with lower EGT. The amount of movement assuming the nuts didn’t back off is no more than the thickness of the paint, and that’s just not enough to affect combustion. Secondly departing jugs are and have been not uncommon on radials since long before I was born. Many retorque jugs on Radials every couple hundred hours and it’s not uncommon for them to torque up, that is get a little movement. Idea is to try to prevent blowing a jug of course. On them often before they blow they may start to leak a little oil, but as oil leaks are very common it’s often missed and not all do, some engines will continue to run with a blown jug, R-985 for one while the R-1340 will not. I would suspect a flat 4 cyl would not. If you’re going to go to the trouble of breaking torque to retorque and I’m not suggesting you do, but you should go all the way to removing the nuts, oiling the threads and retorque it. However on most flat engines there is usually a lot of “stuff” that has to be removed just to access all of the nuts to check torque, it’s the majority of the work required to pull the cylinders. With paint under the cylinders I don’t think retorqueing would have saved this motor, the fretting case halves make me think it lost torque long ago, maybe very soon after it was put into service. As with everything this is just my opinion. We all know these engines are very primitive designs, but I think due to weight they aren’t over built and they require a mechanic to keep things clean and be meticulous in assembly, frankly I’m surprised from what I see frequently that there aren’t more failures.

You certainly could use a PT6, the -21 is 550 SHP and 330 lbs, the IO-550 is over 500lbs, so no charlie weights and maybe the batteries up front. Weight you saved would almost certainly be eaten up by increased fuel capacity though but it ought to work out, be Hell for fast in the flight levels. Being 550 SHP you derate it to what the airframe can handle, say 315 SHP, but here’s the thing it could likely carry 315 SHP up to the flight levels, like a TBM can carry its power. I have no idea what the critical altitude for a TBM is, but it ought to be up there. There is precedence on the bigger turbine Mooney, the TBM, that has a 1600 SHP core but is derated to I think between 700 and 850 SHP, but don’t quote me on that. Problem is it’s likely to cost not too far off of whatever a TBM does, and who would buy a long body Mooney for close to TBM price. In actuality a small PT6 cost about the same to manufacture as a bigger one, the parts count is pretty much the same just bigger, Pratt does charge by the power though, there are models that are essentially the same just some data plates give a bigger number and the fuel controls are set to produce it, and of course the price is commensurate with the power. A PT6 is however a very primitive turbine, single stage gas producer and power turbine and doesn’t even have variable inlet guide vanes and it’s fuel consumption displays it’s primitive design, but then so is the baby Allison’s. The T-800 is a very advanced turbine with low fuel consumption, when I was at the Test Activity they put one in a UH-1 for testing, the old Huey couldn’t use the power of course but it’s endurance went from 2.5 hours to over 4. So far as I know the engine never made production, it was meant Comanche that was canceled, which was probably smart as we needed it about as bad as we needed an F-22. Rambling a little just know that in the smaller turboprop engines they are similar to out pistons, that is they were designed by our Grandfathers, first Pratt was 1963 and the design is pretty much the same, sure it’s been refined with single growth crystal turbine blades etc., but it’s design is the same. No real money in small turboprops as Pratt is pretty much it, the Garrett -10 was brought back into production, for the Reaper drone, but is it used in any new people aircraft? I think the T-800 was sit down expensive, it far eclipsed the T-701 in the Apache that was 1 Mil ea, 30 years ago, and that was the price when you bought I don’t know how many thousands as ea Apache and Blackhawk has two, and then you need spares

I disagree with a lot of what he sells to put it nicely, I think he goes too far, but I agree that the industry has also gone too far, repacking wheel bearings every year on an airplane that has flown ten hours and likely has ten miles on the bearings is I think excessive for instance. There are two types of Maintenance, preventative and reactive. In my Career I’ve seen preventative save bunches of money and I think lives. Reactive you of course fix things after they break, but in Aviation often we can’t wait until then.

Actually I believe two do, but they are deep up there. I had to get out in the sunlight to see them. I do have several picks I use to dig them out, but that would defeat the purpose of my experiment. I do pull the plugs Annually of course. I think from a deposit perspective that running excessively LOP helps, just almost all engines except for this angle valve just can’t. Everything else I’ve had I had to dig the carbon and lead out every 50 hours at oil change time. I’m against bead blasting even if using the correct media and glass beads isn’t the proper media. If I had a blasting cabinet with the proper media I would probably use it but I don’t. Blasting I think isn’t necessary, it does however make them look new. They probably should be gapped, logically of course they open up as they wear but I didn’t. I need to buy a gapping tool, I’ve always run fine wires up to this point and didn’t need one until now.

I’ve mentioned it a couple of times on the forum, but I’ve been running an experiment plug wise, as in not cleaning them and just running them until they exhibit misfire behavior during run -up. I’ve been doing this soon after I got the airplane three or four years ago and I think between 150 and 200 hours. I pulled the plugs yesterday and the pics are as pulled, no cleaning. They aren’t good pics but I think are good enough to show what I’m trying to. I rarely ever fly normal length flights, almost always well less than an hour and mostly low altitude as in 1,000 MSL and run DEEP LOP as in 50C lean of the factory EGT probe, in truth I don’t even bother peaking anymore as I fly at 55% power (8 GPH) and at that power you can’t hurt the engine with mixture so as soon as I level off I just set 23 squared and roll back the mixture to 8 GPH. Now I’m lean of best BSFC, but she runs butter smooth and gives me enough power for 135 kts which is enough for me, I’m primarily after long engine life and as I’m Retired I’m just not in the hurry I used to be, and it gives me great MPG. Anyway I’m just going to reinstall the plugs, don’t see any reason to clean them and continue monitoring them and keep running the same. Motor does burn oil of course and whike I haven’t monitored it I’m pretty sure she burns more than 1 qt in 10 hours, more like 7 or 8 maybe so normal rate, but there is no carbon fouling from the oil, it’s burns off completely it seems.