A64Pilot

That’s still the original owner, you’ll find him. ‘FAA is apparently at least 60 days behind updating the database, after I become the registered owner, then I was going to ask you guys how easy or hard it is to find my name, not the LLC that’s the registered owner, but me. The company that is the Agent for the LLC supposedly provides anonymity and the State they are in apparently allows that, or they aren’t telling the truth, who knows?

On another thread we got to talking about privacy and among other things how anyone can see everywhere we fly by using Flight Aware and other agencies. ‘Well another member brought up LADD https://ladd.faa.gov ‘Well it’s free, painless, simply register on the above link and voila after the first Thursday of the month you will no longer be able to be tracked. ‘My tail number is N1141N go ahead and try to track me and see if you can, I’m sort of interested if you can, from my admittedly very limited computer skills, it seems that you can’t. ‘Maybe you guys already knew this, I didn’t to me it was a revelation

Compared to a Maule and a C-210, the pitch up was quite mild, of course it climbs flat, anything I’ve ever flown anyway will with full flap as flaps impart a nose down attitude. All I did was add full power pretty quickly, I don’t slam the throttle, I’ve got way more turbine time than piston and you just don’t slam a turbine. I’d guess about 2 sec from idle to full throttle. I didn’t re-trim just to see what kind of pitch up force I got, and it was quite mild. In short, in my opinion my Mooney will perform a go around with less than average drama of anything I’ve flown from a C-140 thru most Pipers and Cessna singles. ‘But don’t believe me, go out and try it for yourself, of course if you haven’t before, ease into it, don’t slam the throttle as yours may react differently. I know some get spoiled by the electric trim and will trim all the way into the flare, I don’t, I pull on the yoke. If you trimmed into the flare as opposing to pulling on the yoke, then yes you may have more pitch forces as your trimmed to flare, not fly, so your trimmed to stall, so add a bunch of power and it’s going to stall if you let it. But that’s not a Mooney fault, any aircraft will do that.

I was reading in the thread about why no touch and goes that there seemed to be an opinion that a J Model and I guess by extension that a Mooney with gear down and full flap won’t climb, that you need to reconfigure the aircraft at least to approach flaps to take off. ‘Well today I went to get a little instrument practice in, I’m very close to sea level so call it sea level and temps of 80F. On departure I climbed gear up, cowl flaps open at full throttle full rich and full prop at I guess about 110 knots and 1000 FPM, full fuel and just me. So I shot the ILS at Ocala and on go around left the gear down, full flaps, full rich, full power, full RPM and climbed at 85 to 90 kts at 1000 FPM, or a steeper climb than I did no flaps and gear up, but the same rate. ‘I think maybe some may be trying to climb at the same speed they do gear and flaps up, and of course the increased drag of the flaps and gear really kills the climb rate? Because honestly my J model went around just as well as any other aircraft I’ve flown, and didn’t have excess pitch forces at all, much less than most it seemed. ‘I was trimmed for power off, gear down, flaps down 80 kt approach speed, and on go around all I did was open the throttle and cowl flaps.

Your biggest voltage change isn’t from alternator on, it’s the drop for starting, but either way there isn’t much that’s on during engine start, I leave my strobes in all of the time, but that’s about all that isn’t on the Avionics switch, so nothing of any consequence sees a surge. But if you have a separate alternator switch, sure why not turn it off and on seperately

The reason B-55’s etc are so cheap and have been so for decades compared especially to a heavy single like an A36 or a 210 is because they don’t cost 50% more to own, they cost 300% more to own, your operating two engines and more complex systems, like a gas heater in the nose, and you had best maintain that gas heater. ‘If you could use the load hauling and believe it or not but a decent off airport STOL airplane, get the 210, if your the type that has to drive a Lexus, get the A36, but personally I wouldn’t touch one without a yaw dampener, andI don’t like it even then, arse end yawing around in any turbulence doesn’t inspire me with confidence, and it makes especially the back seaters sick. ‘It’s why I didn’t buy a Bonanza truth be told. If your doing mountain flying, your going to be happier with a turbo, yes it can be done without, but it’s done better with a turbo. ‘Lastly I’ll leave you with this, buying is about the cheapest thing about an airplane, buy a mid 60’s twin and maintenance will most likely soon eclipse purchase costs

I’m thinking unless expensive to just replace the thing, it ought not be too expensive as if it’s what I think it is, they are pretty common. it ought to be one for up and the other for down, if they are real expensive I guess I can swap them to verify the fault

Engine mount is strong, I used to lift my Maule with its IO-540 by the engine mount with straps to put my 29 tires on (that’s lifting the whole airplane). ‘I’ve seen a Lycoming broken trying to lift an airplane with a collapsed nose gear to get it off of the runway, pulled a chunk out of the case

I know, But I also know what Hank says is also true, Damned if you do and Damned if you don’t. ‘It’s not actually a lifting strap to the motor mount is it? I believe I saw either the engine lifting link, or the prop.

I’m going to have to get a look at these too I guess, from what I can tell in the logbook other than greasing and changing donuts once, there has never been anything done to the gear. How much weight is needed to hold the tail down? I’m thinking washtub on wheels full of concrete, or is there a better way?

What I thought you were saying, Is it item number 48 in the attached photo’s? if so source of supply? where do I get one? Are there two, one up one down?

gear contactor, is that a relay?

At first I thought it was just my perception, but it’s happened a few times. Place the gear switch to down, and there is a several second delay before the gear begin to come down. ‘It’s intermittent, usually the gear starts down as soon as I put the switch to down, I delay gear extension until I get into the white arc, so the only real indicator of gear in transit to me is the gear unsafe light, but today coming back from Breakfast it seemed there was a four of five second delay between selecting the switch to down and it starting down. ‘Anyone heard of this before? Once they start down they come down at the same speed, it’s just a delay in starting. 81 J Model, 2200 airframe hours

We change oil not because it’s broken down, but because it’s contaminated with fuel, carbon and lead. 245 degrees is a joke for modern oil, average car’s oil temp is 220 or so if driven normally and as high as 300 on a track day. OIl is cooled on my wife’s CTS-V by engine coolant that’s 195 degrees, you don’t get much cooling until oil is well above 200. We aren’t stressing a good oil. ‘The older an engine is, the more frequently it’s oil ought to be changed, the reason is increased blow by contaminates the oil faster., unfortunately it’s new engines that people will baby with frequent oil changes, and the old ones get ignored. ‘Oil is as good as its going to get the moment it leaves the bottle, from there it’s degrading, you decide how degraded it gets before you change it. ‘I’m normally against oil analysis, as it’s marketed as and people want to believe it’s an engine analysis. However this is what oil analysis is good for, what it was created for, determining the condition of the oil. So send in a sample at your oil change interval the book recommends, and based on that analysis determine if you should shorten oil change interval. ‘Don’t use analysis to extend oil change intervals, many do, but it’s not worth it in my opinion. I can’t make a case for running straight weight oil in one of our engines, maybe in a C-65 that loses oil pressure on a hot Summer day, but not a more modern high compression engine, even in Florida I think a good multi viscosity oil is better.

I would hope there is no inline fuse that if it blew I have a complete electrical failure, which is what happens if the master or it’s relay breaks. ‘The only inline fuse that there should be is one within 1 ft of the battery to keep a clock alive, I know I have counted 6 or 7 under my panel but I feel sure Mooney didn’t put them there. ‘A CB I can reset, if it’s in a panel, a hidden inline fuse or an inaccessible one? They shouldn’t be allowed, again my opinion.

LASAR plainly states the single master switch IS a switch / breaker. https://lasar.com/switches/rocker-switch-master-switch-circuit-breaker-880052-501 They do NOT make that statement for the split switch https://lasar.com/switches/master-switch-688-169 either their literature is incorrect or the single switch is in fact a breaker as well and the split is not. So in my opinion if you want a split switch, your going to have to meet the original’s specifications, and it appears that the split switch doesn’t. I would not think you would want the master to be a breaker, but I didn’t design the thing.

An aircraft with a “flying tail” can be stable, instability usually comes when the tail is at or near zero lift as it can easily go either way at that point, this usually corresponds to the stick force neutral point which is what it sounds like, no or very low forces are required to move the stick or yoke and no or little increasing effort with amplitude so not only is a aircraft unstable, its very easy to overstress one with little stick force. ‘Usually the prohibition of a flying or lifting tail is how does one recover from a tail stall? In a normal aircraft its self correcting, the nose drops, speed increases and the stall breaks, same for a canard. I don’t play with aerobatic airplanes but would be very surprised if any had tails that in normal level flight produced lift, I wouldn't be surprised if they fly close to the stick force neutral point, I’d expect them to, I’d be surprised if they didn’t. Maybe aerobatic airplanes have so much elevator authority that they can break a tail stall that way, the elevator simply overpowers the stall?

Fully symmetrical airfoils are often chosen because their center of pressure doesn’t change much with increasing angles of attack, where on asymmetrical airfoils it does. ‘Only older helicopter designs use fully symmetrical designs, newer ones use asymmetrical airfoils as they provide more lift for the same power In search of more (free) carrying capacity the Army in its infinite wisdom put asymmetrical blades on the AH-1, (Kaman 747 blades) the center of pressure moved with angle of attack and it fed forces back into the swash plate that it wasn’t designed to handle and some failed of course killing the occupants. As I didn’t fly Cobra’s, I don’t know what other than increased swash plate inspections was done. ‘There have been aircraft designed with flying tails as they would be more efficient, but almost always they end up with the name widomaker, if a tail is providing lift, what’s the corrective action if it stalls? Canards are more efficient largely because both wings provide lift, and of course a normal aircraft is faster and more efficient with aft CG, but more unstable, I believe modern airliners fly with so far an aft CG that they are very unstable, but the flight control computer provides artificial stability.

RE checklists, they came into being when on the fly off to decide which bomber would be bought by the Army, a Military test pilot along with a Boeing test pilot took off in the prototype B-17 but forgot to disengage the gust locks, killing them both and destroying the prototyoe, obviously no control check was performed ‘The B-17 lost the fly off as there wasn’t a prototype to fly, but Illegally if memory serves the Army ordered another fly off, because they had seen the superiority of the four engine bomber compared to the twins it flew against. We came very close to entering WWII without the B-17. ‘But checklists are only good if they are used, this was I believe one of the last certification test flights of the Caribou turbine conversion, and yes it took off with the gust locks, locked, and no control sweep was performed. In the Military we had two types of Emergencies, some required what we called immediate action steps, meaning if you didn’t do something now you were going to crash, others the checklist was allowed to be used as a back uo. ‘An example was ditching power off was immediate action, meaning each step was committed to memory, where as ditching power on wasn’t, for that the checklist was used. ‘I’m still a believer in checklist memorization, back it up of course with the written one when possible. That along with “blind cockpit drills” meaning sitting in the cockpit going through the emergency procedures and touching each switch, lever etc without looking, done repeatedly it becomes automatic

If elevator deflections changed, I’d expect to see an allowable CG range change. ‘If they were changed to correct some kind of lack of control response, I’d expect to see an AD requiring the change on other similar models. ‘In practice increasing negative elevator throw isn’t going to change anything, when was the last time you hit the down elevator stops in flight? The breaking a stall / spin is logical as of course to break a spin down elevator is used as is opposite rudder. ‘My guess why it’s not required of other models is that it was only found in this one model, you would expect the FAA to test every model if they find a discrepancy in one, but that often doesn’t happen. ‘What does drive the FAA is complaints and or accidents, and that actually makes some sense, if on a mature design, there are no complaints and no accidents, maybe there isn’t a problem?

I don’t believe I have a inspection hole on the leading edge. ‘I’m going to breakfast Sun morning, if I remember I’ll leave the gear down after takeoff and see if the timer starts with gear actuation. ‘I’ve seen stall warning switches mounted straight down in underwing inspection hole clovers that air would blow back to indicate flight, but I don’t member what they were for, what device they controlled. ‘Now I bet everything uses a GPS signal for speed to know flight

The M811B clock is still sold. it’s still a good product, I wouldn’t pay $500 for a clock myself, but I won’t throw away a perfect functioning one either, besides the flight timer is kind of neat, I believe it’s wired to the gear switch, not sure, but it does time flights accurately. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pnpages/11-05874.php?gclid=CjwKCAjwpKCDBhBPEiwAFgBzjztJ8ipMHS_mWSdim-MSWxeJEBdqWaBiq-vgtPfmC2bEx-tn60rh0RoCIMcQAvD_BwE

Several years ago I had a very similar device added to our type certificate, name of the company was Aglaser. There is some advantage in an Ag aircraft especially in training knowing exact height above the ground. Proper dispersal altitude is higher than you might think, and many fly too low and this decreases swath width. However laser altimeters can’t replace radar, they are too limited in range, they work extremely well at closer distances, not so good at telling you your at 500 feet though. ‘I say that never having seen the product you speak of, and basing it off or other products, most often devices like this, the laser transceiver is an off the shelf product bought to use, and the actual development is in the indicators and annunciators

Before I replaced the master I’d temporarily jumper it, this bypasses the switch and if it’s the switch it of course will fix the issue. ‘However you lose the CB functionality, if the master is a CB, I’m not sure it is, I wouldn’t think it is. I’m also having a fluctuating ammeter / voltmeter, cleaning the external contacts seemed to fix it, but then I thought I ought to do it the correct way and put some DC4 on them to prevent future corrosion, and it seems to have returned but at a much lower fluctuation, its intermittent meaning it only does it sometimes ‘So let me know what you do to fix yours. ‘Whether a split switch is a minor or a major is up to the installer to decide, I’d decide it’s a minor because you only changed from a single to a dual switch, but you should confirm the amp rating of the split switch is as high or higher than the single, for both sides, and confirm it’s not a breaker switch. ‘In Cessna’s I’ve flown the split switch is used as a single switch, meaning alternator off and on with the master. I had always thought it was split in the event of a malfunctioning voltage regulator that gets stuck wide open you have a way to turn off the alternator before it burns something up. Cessna’s seem to favor the type of CB that’s flush and you can’t pull them, I have no idea why perhaps they are cheaper? So you couldn’t pull the field CB on a Cessna, or at least not our old C-210.

I had forgotten I had this picture, notice the tail on one of them, anyone know it’s name?