A64Pilot

I don’t think Camguard is intended or advertised to be a friction modifier. I think it’s intended to be a corrosion preventative, but I’m no expert on oils. I only know what I read, I have had no formal education on oil. But I’ve not dug into it so I don’t know. Corrosion is I’m sure one reason why cams fail, but I suspect it’s not a very big reason or I’d suspect that there would be a huge difference in cam failures in aircraft in Arizona and Florida or no failures in flight school aircraft that fly several times a week, but they fail too. The odd thing is I feel certain that “back in the day” they didn’t fail, why? Can it be as simple as age? Back then they weren’t that old? Fuel changed, 100LL is different than the fuel it replaced, could that be a factor? I suspicion part of it is the cams themselves are different somehow, meaning it’s the newer cams that are failing, that would explain why the Snowbirds in my neighborhood aren’t losing cams, vast majority of their aircraft are antiques, with antique engines, or maybe on the old cams the ones that were going to fail did so years ago, leaving only the ones that don’t fail in service? About at least 1/3 of my neighborhood are snowbirds, that is “Home” is up North and they go home every Summer, and they all own aircraft and none of them that I’m aware of preserve their engines and most are Lycomings. They do this every year, none fly their airplanes home. For some reason none have lost cams, a few I think have ended up with polished bores of course, but most haven’t. Frankly I can’t explain Lycoming cam failures, I can’t find any higher incidence in failures based on well, anything. I have never seen any evidence of internal corrosion of engines that haven’t spent long periods of time not being flown, and oddly sometimes no or only light corrosion in engines that haven’t flown in years while others literally right next door have serious corrosion. There are several airplanes in my neighborhood that have sat for years, sometimes the Husband dies and it’s years before the Wife sells his airplane. One a year or so ago was a very pristine twin Comanche, sat for years, bought by a couple of A&P’s. One cylinder had light corrosion, both cams were fine, they pulled a couple of cylinders to inspect. There is a C-140 that has sat for about the same time, it’s Continental is rusted so bad it’s seized. Same neighborhood both in dry as in no leaks hangers. My Wife inherited a 1923 Ford Model-T. Without getting too deep into it I’m nearly certain the car wasn’t operated likely since 1938 when I think it was restored. Anyway it had a couple of leaking valves and I pulled the head to re-cut valve seats and replace the valves. Car had been stored in several locations mostly Ohio in a barn type building then several years in a garage in Al and in a car transport trailer. Anyway there was zero as in no corrosion in the engine or cam. I expected pretty severe corrosion of course but there was none, not light corrosion but none. I can’t explain why. It had sat unused and no preserving for over 80 years. Then take boats, just about every larger boat that sits in salt water has salt water in the exhaust system, many sit for months at a time or longer, yet significant internal corrosion is very rare? I can’t explain that either. I mean they sit and some cylinder of course has an open exh valve and there is salt water in the exhaust, why don’t they rust solid? There is nothing special about their engines, they aren’t built from special metals, many are just “marinized” car and little tractor / forklift etc engines, sailboats that have little motors anyway. So why do airplane engines often rust if unused? They do, I’ve seen too many rusted and pitted cylinders so I know they do, but everything from farm tractors to boats, lawnmowers etc unless they get water in the cylinder, don’t. Why is that? Most every lawnmower sits unused for months at a time every year, some just under tarps or whatever, yet they don’t rust or some do I’m sure but most don’t. Sorry for the long post, engine corrosion is something that I have wondered about for years and it seems you can’t say for sure until you inspect. So does Cam Guard help? Who knows, if I flew infrequently I’d probably use it, but I feel pretty sure that’s it’s been out long enough and used by enough people that if it caused any problems that we would know by now. I wish there was an “energy conserving” airplane oil though as I think reducing friction would likely make our engines last longer, perhaps it’s the ashless requirement that keeps that from being possible, or maybe the amount of oil sold doesn’t support spending $$$ on improving the oil?

I can believe that, I took the first post to mean initial rate as in low altitude climb. The RV’s are little airplanes with big motors, so of course they climb quickly, but that short thick wing is actually a high drag wing they get their speed from brute force not low drag, I imagine they aren’t stellar gliders. Mooney does do better at higher altitudes than down low, to me they just aren’t stellar climbers, I think due to their relatively low HP per size / weight of aircraft. It is only a 200 HP airplane, but then my Maule was only 235 and I don’t think many are going to try to claim a 4 cyl Mooney can climb with an M-6 235 Maule, but at high altitude it just might. Maule’s wing isn’t nearly as efficient by a long shot. Surprisingly the Mooney wing looks long but really isn’t longer than many. All 100 series Cessna’s from the lowly 172 and on have 36’ wings I believe, so real close to ours. The Bo has relatively short wings at 33’ , but has more wing area, even the 172 has more wing area than a Mooney, not by a whole lot

C-182 will out climb my aircraft at least in angle. I can’t climb with them, but I don’t climb at max angle speed either, or max rate for that matter. Bonanza isn’t 200 HP but will leave me in a climb as will a Viking that leaves the Bo, even a 180 HP 172 does or a C-180, lots of others, I might could climb at his angle but I won’t due to engine temps, I’m no where near the red of course but I won’t push it there, some routinely do push redlines but other than RPM I won’t. This is sort of like the argument of you can get into a field you can’t get out of, quoting distance to break ground as “proof” but the battle isn’t over in most tight fields when you break ground, it begins then, it’s over when you clear the tall trees at the end of the runway. 4 cyl Mooney’s aren’t stellar climbers, but that’s OK, they are likely the fastest 4 cyl Certified four seat airplane and quite possibly capable of the most ground covered for the least amount of fuel. I can only image the 300 HP Mooney’s are likely stellar climbers, it’s a HP thing. Same thing about arguing that a Mooney isn’t more cramped than a Bo or C-182 etc by pointing to some measurement, he’ll just sit in a C-182 and try to honestly say it not roomier, but that too is OK, because even with its higher HP and fuel burn, it’s slower. I have to leave now for a VA appt in my Miata, guess what, it’s more cramped than a Suburban, but that is OK because it’s a lot more fun to drive.

Weight has a lot to do with it, if you don’t compare aircraft at gross then your not comparing apples to apples. Temp of course has an effect, but even back in the late 80’s when I was flying two brand new M20AT’s they just didn’t climb as well as the other aircraft in their training fleet, nor did they descend as well either, both a function of drag. Pull the power on a Cherokee and it drops like a rock, which can be an attribute. I can’t think of another widely available Certified GA airplane that’s as fast as a Mooney that’s not pretty close to 300 HP, or at least well over 200.

Your doing fine, But maybe do use full throttle and full RPM, 200 RPM isn’t negligible. Our little motor Mooney’s just aren’t great climbers, climb is of course a function of excess horsepower, and we just don’t have all that much excess HP, most aircraft with our cruise speeds have much higher HP the power is where the speed comes from, a 4 cyl Mooney gets its speed from a lack of drag not high power With constant speed props you can’t lean for highest RPM at a high altitude airport like you can a fixed prop. You have to go by EGT if the airport is high enough, I think 5,000 DA is the break point, DA not MSL, but anyway in my opinion you likely know about what your temp at peak is, lean to 100F or a little more than that, I’d say a little more. 100F ROP is max power but a little extra gives you cooling and the power loss is very small. DA can be tricky, you can be at a 2,000 MSL airport on a hot Summer day and be above 5,000 DA, the engine only “knows” DA of course as the engines power is related to air density not actual altitude.

In my chamber ride at Ft Rucker 40 years ago I was the first guy who wanted to go back on O2. I think I was functioning OK, I just didn’t like the feeling at all. Going back on the mask gave me the opportunity to watch the others too. I don’t remember how high we went, but I’ve been to Fl 250 in a crop duster, does that count? 180 in a helicopter, the helicopter you could really feel the control difference and the rotor got rough.

Maybe, I use blo-proof gaskets and they don’t blow, just as the name says, or I’ve not had one yet, nothing is perfect but I suspect that they do last longer. I don’t know what’s on my J though as I’ve not yet had to pull the exhaust, I should be able to tell by looking as the blo-proof ones are thick, but I have not looked. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/eppages/bloproofehaustgaskets.php Ones I have used are I believe spiral wound, I can’t attest as to what’s best https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/eppages/rapcoexhaustgas.php

A KT-76C can usually be had for not much money at all, they look a lot better being digital and match the radios if yiu have King radios, plus it displays the pressure altitude your xponder is transmitting. Besides there is no modification required, they slide into the existing tray and everything works.

Rods can be restraightned and even plated and machined back to size or maybe a new one made. None of this would make sense if a MC were $200 of course, but does at over $3K. The O-rings can be had for pennies, it’s the Stat -O- Seal that’s tough to find. I did find a source of non aviation ones, not abdicating their use though. https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productselection.asp?Product=3245&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=3245&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAw6yuBhDrARIsACf94RW4rt-NqlBo5OT9zIMgdUywTPRcGbf7I379ytRiYHw1eun4pSFAxAEaAlLuEALw_wcB

A problem with flying with just a little alcohol in your system, not even enough to be legally impaired is if you go to altitude apparently your impairment can increase significantly. There are many studies that refute this and I think they are looking to see a blood alcohol content increase which of course there isn’t, it’s well known that supplemental O2 even at levels lower than required helps prevent cognitive impairment, so combine slight alcohol impairment with slight hypoxia impairment and you may be messed up. Same with age, us old farts might ought to get on O2 at lower levels than we used to.

J-3 is even worse, by worse I mean realistically you can’t go anywhere. Can’t is a strong word because there is no where in the US that you can’t walk to, so by can’t I mean people don’t because they are so slow, get there faster by driving, and their fuel burn over distance travelled sux. Yeah people go places in a Cub, but they do so so they can talk about doing it. It’s a 15 min flight for me pulled back to 135 kts to fly to breakfast Sun morning, the Cubs it takes over a half hour. My C-140 with the same engine will cruise at 110 MPH, but 105 is a relaxed 2400 RPM with the C-85, a J-3 70 mph or so? Many J-3’s have been converted to 0-200’s due to unavailability of engine parts, the C-85’s except for crankshafts aren’t so bad but cranks are like unicorn horns, A series engines the Jugs I believe don’t exist anymore. So if you looking at any of the old Continental powered airplanes it would behoove you to find one either that has the 0-200 conversion, or the 0-200 crank in a C-85 case as parts are drying up and conversions can run the value of the airplane or higher. The Cubs for some to me illogical reason have a cult following, maybe it’s the cute name or some think a yellow Cub is cute, but they are slow as dogs, don’t really fly very well, can’t carry anything and aren’t comfortable, they don’t even have a heater and the engines are over cooled which doesn't help life, especially cylinder. I got my seaplane rating in one as have thousands I’m sure. If you want a Cubish airplane made by Piper look hard at the PA-12 Super Cruiser, a Super Cub is most probably higher priced than many want to pay. The Super Cruiser especially if it has either a 150 or 160 engine is usable. To build time cheaply means buying something that you can sell easily, but more importantly something that can burn auto fuel as most can, burning car gas is where you save money. I’m not a Cub fan, WAY overpriced for what you get.

Ask the Nazis who had complete trust in Enigma how that worked out, the Poles if memory serves had it cracked way in advance of WWII, years. I believe it was actually the poles who gave up all their data to the Brits before being invaded is why the Brits could carry on with the work. Even after the Nazis added the fourth rotor supposedly making it mathematically impossible to break, it was broken by a brilliant Brit mathematician in short order. History has shown us over and over that “unbreakable” codes are always broken. But it’s deeper than that, anything that broadcasts can both be tracked and targeted. The A model back in the 80’s when I flew it had a Doppler nav system four legs if you will were constantly being broadcasted and they sensed movement based on frequency shifts, this dipper system updated the inertial nav system on movement, plus we had a radar altimeter. Any even moderately advanced air defense system could use that and shoot you down in several different ways, and trust me the Russians even back in the 80’s have extraordinarily advanced systems, way more advanced than we do. The A model we could turn both off and fly in a degraded mode, the D model got GPS of course a dual ring laser INU’s so no more Doppler. If nothing else I’m sure blue force tracker, can be tracked, even though I’m sure they are very short data bursts. All the data on our internal network was transmitted in a single click over our Singcars com radio, if you listened and there was no noise you could hear a tick sound every now and again. Even our helmet microphones were tempest shielded, it seems that even from a significant distance the RF that leaks from a microphone can be intercepted and every word you say can be heard even without any radio transmissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) ‘What can be done is WAY beyond science fiction, trust me.

I remember that prop used to be expensive, anyone have an estimate of what it costs now? That inlet sure looks almost exactly like a turbine ram air recovery inlet. Perhaps some of the reason for it is curb appeal, marketing?

No it won’t. Neighbors Legend cub burns 6 GPH and cruises at 80 kts I think which gives it 13.3 MPG. My J at 21 squared and LOP burns 6 GPH also, but is at 120 kts, giving it 20 MPG. The Mooney can fly slower of course but even 120 Kts just feels to slow to me, but if you really needed for some reason to extend time aloft it will I’m sure fly at 5 GPH, maybe less, I don’t really know, whatever gives you 90 kts I believe that’s best glide speed? We would be looking for max endurance speed, but is that published for our aircraft? Sometimes on a lazy Summer afternoon when there is no destination, the mission is just to fly I’ll fly at 120 Kts, but I usually drag the 140 out on those days and fly it instead. Point is if you want to you can fly at 6 GPH in a J model and get 20 MPG, or you can fly faster and burn more fuel, while the Cub you can’t fly much faster than 80 kts. I’m it sure about the 80 kts, but think that’s about right, but it’s not breaking 100 kts in level flight I’m sure of that. I’m faster in my C-140 than the Cubs and it’s only a 90 kt airplane. Point is, is it’s their airplane and if they choose to fly a Mooney slow why not? Just keep the temps in the green

With enough money any issue can be solved, and that’s the rub, having enough money to solve them. I would think the only logical course of action is to put them on new OEM aircraft, then once that business is established and you have cash flow, to look at which aircraft that you could make money on conversions, and that’s likely the 172 to start with based on the conversions of the past sold well, but many were burnt now owning orphaned engines, so now they have to pay again to have the aircraft converted back? I think maybe the market is a little more careful nowadays. I think myself if I had the cash I’d like to see the engine put on new aircraft and be on them for 5 years until I got a warm fuzzy that they will stay in business. I Certified a new aircraft with the then new General Electric turbine, I felt confident since it had the blue GE meatball on it that it would stay in business, GE had spent God knows how much building a new factory etc and they were GE for Gods sake, the worlds largest turbine manufacturer. GE can’t afford the bad press on orphaning an engine and GE has more money than probably even Elon Musk. Guess what? The engine wasn’t put on the Cessna Caravan and a couple of others, Pratt went to Cessna with a sweetheart deal and GE I think has dropped the engine and no longer supports it. But I retired before that so I’m not sure. Pratt came to us and offered to pay all expenses to get their new engine the 140 Certified on the aircraft and the idiot owner of the plant ran them off. Pratt wanted GE’s little turbines to fail, they wanted to keep their monopoly. If GE can cut bait and orphan engine, well nothing is assured in my opinion. An issue that I can see is the major market is likely Europe and EASA I don’t believe EASA automatically accepts US STC’s like it used to. So maybe EASA would come first? Unless there is a major issue to push us to Jet-A I don’t think they would sell enough conversions to the Mooney community to break even on the cost to procure the STC, but that’s an opinion of course. If you have to both pay expenses and turn a profit on say 25 aircraft, then your going to have to have a pretty darned high price. But if the OEM aircraft manufacturer pays all costs associated with Certifying the engine on their aircraft elf well them you may be able to be competitive with legacy engines and still turn a profit.

You could vibro engrave a serial number and part number if you felt the need, chrome is hard but I think you could. I don’t think you need to though, instruments / radios have serial numbers as do the prop and engine, but not much else. I don’t think crankshaft, rods, pistons etc do though. I assume serial numbers etc are there more as a warranty issue than FAA required. I’m pretty sure any life limited item is required to be serialized. Here is an AC that covers parts marking https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circular/ac_43-213a.pdf

Mine is marked on the bottom just like the above picture, but nothing on the side. Mine is difficult to read now I’m not aware of any requirement of having to have serial and part numbers on a part, unless maybe it’s annotated by serial number in the aircraft’s equipment list, and even then the chances of it being a problem are nearly zero. I believe the logbook entry would cover you in the one in a million chance. Military wise it’s a no go, I have probably a $100,000 AH-64 main rotor blade grip made from titanium that I use as a door stop because the data plate fell off and even though I had historical records showing it’s data I had to scrap it, but this isn’t the Army. I’m no chromer but I’m nearly certain the process requires the part to be chromed to have all corrosion removed and then polished to a nearly mirror finish, if not then I I think it may not stick and have that perfect finish I’m sure we are after, if so no way on mine will those markings survive. I even have a chrome pitot mast that needs re-chroming, wonder how much more for that?

That’s pretty much most Diesels, they have a tendency to be rough on truck power trains too, especially clutches, the use of dual mass flywheels helps tame the impulses. But I think wood props are very tolerant, the wood dampens out the vibrations, and an MT is essentially a wood prop, I don’t know about pure composites though, maybe? I would think the more the impulses per revolution would help, not hinder.

I don’t see how, I think just the prep work for chroming alone would remove them, this is the one I have that came off of my Maule years ago, then I worked in an aircraft factory and we had tube type pitot tubes in stock that we didn’t use anymore so I just replaced it, but as you can see it could use some chrome plating. If I were concerned about part / serial number I’d record that in the logbook. “removed part number / serial number pitot for refinishing, reinstalled part / serial number after refinishing” I wouldn’t specify plating, calling it refinishing isn’t a lie I don’t think.

One argument is I believe if not done correctly that chroming doesn’t hide cracks but can cause them. Maybe hydrogen embrittlement? I know that’s a steel thing, but maybe aluminum too? This is a decent article about it, biased I think towards chroming, but I think brings up salient points. https://www.aviationperformanceproducts.com/chrome-it.cfm Often the FAA position is you can’t do something because the manufacturer doesn’t say you can, basically it goes towards “approved data” which is a big deal in the Certified world. To chrome spinners without problem would I believe require an STC. Personally I don’t see any issue with a Pitot tube myself, back to the discretion of the A&P who determines airworthiness upon installation I think. Plating causing problems is real, sometimes it does. I remember reading about someone who built an Experimental helicopter, the swash plate was aluminum so he had it anodized to make it look good, well apparently anodizing changes the properties of aluminum somehow, the swash plate failed killing the pilot / builder. I didn’t find the swash plate failure but did find this that explains Anodizing’s effect on 7,000 series aluminum https://www.kitplanes.com/error-chain-15/

Personally I wouldn’t worry about small items like gear pucks, tires, brake pads they are a wear item and I’ve not heard of any accidents attributed to them. An argument can be made however if they are worn it points to shoddy maintenance, maybe or maybe not who knows? CORROSION is the big issue, it’s an airplane killer, pretty much everything else can be fixed but significant corrosion and you bought very expensive scrap. In my opinion talk to whoever is doing the pre-buy after day one they should be able to have an opinion if it’s worth going any further or not, if they say you found a good airplane, turn it into an Annual, if not we’ll keep looking, no need to continue and spend money on something that has issues. There are several threads in this forum where the airplane passed the pre-buy but the first Annual is a nightmare. Another opinion but as an IA I believe it’s because a pre-buy doesn’t exist in FAA vocabulary, but an Annual is required and therefore very well defined in what has to be checked. A pre-buy can be more through than an Annual, or it can be a kick the tires and a looks good to me. If they miss something really big and pretty obvious on a pre-buy you have no recourse. I believe an Annual is first requires an IA, and as they can get into trouble from the FAA they may take them more seriously. There is a reason why I’ve seen more than one or two threads about the nightmare first Annual. Ideally you have the pre-buy / Annual done by whomever will be taking care of the airplane in the future, this should prevent the nightmare first annual, or at least you get to ask why didn’t you find that last year? If at all possible take time off work and participate in the inspection, tell them your willing and able to do all the grunt work, washing, pulling panels, interior seats, cowlings etc while they are scrubbing books, and beside you can run grab lunch for everyone. Your really, really need to be there if you can swing it. I was an A&P before I was an airplane owner and as an owner I have never dealt with big shops, those I expect won’t allow you to participate. Do you know now who will be doing your work / Annuals? Do NOT buy something thinking I’ll redo this and that etc right away, most likely first year ain’t going to be cheap so don’t spend money on shiny things the first year, and secondly you really don’t know exactly what you need as opposed to what you have read are must haves, after the first year you will have a handle on what your needs really are. Myself I worry much more about the bones and engine and prop and wear on gear, total time, age on tank sealing or maybe bladders etc than I do about interior and paint. In fact I’ve found that the real deals are on ugly birds so to speak. People can have a run out engine and prop etc., but have glass and pretty paint and think they have something that will bring top dollar

Interested in hearing where this is going, if you find a place and get a price, let me know. I have an old one in the wall locker that I would like to get chromed. I know there is hard chroming which I think would be best, but it’s not as pretty as the I guess I’ll call it show chroming. So long as it still gets hot and doesn’t plug any holes I don’t see it affecting airworthiness. Biggest argument I think on the spinner is pretty spurious and that’s that the manufacturer doesn’t specify chrome plating, just polishing and painting. But you can’t fight City Hall

Did you read why it was flying? Go out and look for something and sometimes you find it. They were very luck and good. I think from memory that 8 ft was cut off of the tail after the determination was made that making it strong enough would be too heavy and about the same time the ailerons were disabled, a Buff has no aileron control anymore. I think the ailerons were fatiguing the spars and it was a life extension issue. All this is from memory so I could be way off.

I don’t know if it had anything to do with Boeing overbuilding rudders or not, but a few early model B-52’s broke up in air in turbulence when the rudder came off, they weren’t walking the rudder, turbulence broke it off. They used to fly the Chrome Dome missions out of my home town, and one of those on the way back home got into bad weather, broke up I think maybe in North Carolina and of course it was armed with nuke(s). Several of the crew members made it out and I think from memory a couple survived the parachute ride but froze to death because it was Winter. I think Part of the fix was to remove several feet of the vertical. The old adage is you can’t give a pilot too much tail and I think Boeing was a firm believer, most of their designs had huge verticals. Found it, it was Maryland. I think this crash ended Chrome Dome and Nukes were no longer continuously airborne. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/48311

They are out there though, personally I won’t do an Annual unless the owner does all of the grunt work, but then I’m retired and don’t charge either. Oddly it seems here most have their favorite IA or honestly I suspicion they are too lazy and would rather just pay someone, so I get very few requests. Plus I don’t want to step on toes