A64Pilot

Most of my cross country flying is to non towered airports and the majority of the time there is no traffic, so my approaches are usually to base or straight in depending on runway alignment. I don’t do that if there is any traffic, then I do the mid downwind thing. Being old and Retired I don’t do IFR anymore, wouldn’t do enough of it to maintain proficiency. I don’t think the average pilot that has a few years and thousand hours under their belt does T&G’s myself, it’s usually beginning pilots. I don’t think there is anything wrong with them myself, just don’t want to put the wear and tear on the gear to be honest.

It seems to me that T&G’s aren’t actually the root cause of most of Mooney gear-ups. It’s very junior pilots that in my opinion shouldn’t be in a complex aircraft, actually now I think of it the gear ups sort of make my point. Now I admit that anyone no matter how experienced can gear up, the FAA has a name for it, they call it SLOJ for sudden loss of judgement, but it’s something that is more likely for someone who is in over their head, if your having trouble landing, you are in over your head. A Mooney is actually I think a very forgiving and easy aircraft to fly and land, but it doesn’t land like a C-172.

That’s a really unusual outlier, some just feel like they are entitled, the world owes them I guess. Airplane like that you would think would be in a hangar somewhere. Most I think mean to fly but for some reason just don’t, the longer it’s been the harder it is to do, checkride lapses maybe they are working on getting their medical back after an event, annual lapses, maybe they were hit with financial issues, who knows, but it does hit a point of no return for them I would certainly buy the theory of it’s just a machine, except they aren’t being made anymore, by allowing one to rot away, your depriving the next generation, and while I admit the future of the average guy being able to fly GA is Experimental aircraft, I hade to see it. To be honest I hate seeing aircraft that aren’t transient tied down.

Abandonment is pretty common, for several reasons, maybe lost medical but that seems not as common as I would have thought, most it seems to me to be financial, aircraft goes out of annual etc, can’t afford it right now and of course it never gets cheaper. So why don’t they sell? I think it’s because they wanted their own airplane for a long time, finally got it and don’t want to give that up. Just my theory. Add to that the cost to get it ready to sell maybe? Lots of abandoned airplanes where I came from in S Georgia, and as I was paying $125 a month for a brand new T-hangar quite a few are hangared too. When they built the new T-hangars in Camilla the took any aircraft off the ramp and gave them the old shades I guess they are called, essentially T-hangars without doors. I don’t think they allow tie downs now. They needed all the ramp space for Biz-Jet parking as many come to hunt the Plantations.

I can’t prove it and honestly don’t know the 12 is correct, but his comment of it flew x number of hours for years got my attention. I guess it could have flown the exact number of hours per year for years, but what are the odds? Usually people don’t just divide the hour out and use the exact number, they usually make the hours differ. I’ve heard but have no personal experience that the mechanical tach’s aren’t any harder to change the reading than the 1960’s cars were. So some might add 100 hours so the hours per year look better. There are dishonest people out there. I’ve even sat and watched an old aircraft dealer take a razor blade and cut out a logbook page that he didn’t like. Was that illegal if the entry was over a year old? I’m no Laywer so I don’t know. I think airplanes that sit for years not flying and out of annual is pretty common. Someone buys them, sometimes “fixes” the books may or may not put some hours on it and sells it. My personal little C-140 sat for I think it was four years when we were living aboard a sailboat and cruising, difference was I pickled the engine, drained all the fuel out etc. Put an entry of what I did in the logbook and said “Aircraft placed into long time storage”, mine was planned most I don’t think are. I think anytime you find an older aircraft for sale it’s not at all unlikely that it might have years of sitting in its history, it’s not always terminal if it’s hangared etc., but left outside it might be. On the ramp at Crystal River Fl. I had to see them die like this, this one I’m certain is gone.

A neighbor bought a C-182 that was that way, except someone I think made Annual entries before the sale, my Neighbor brags on his low time 182 saying it flew 12 hours per year every year for the 8 before he bought it. Cylinders are low compression due to pitting, but other than that it’s been a good reliable airplane, he flies it several times a week for probably 6 or 8 hours a week. I think it flew 96 hours the last year before it was parked and never flew again and someone divided 96 by 8 and got 12. Pretty sloppy I think and somewhat obvious, but he didn’t realize it. This happens on more aircraft than you might imagine.

This, but the longer you keep it and fly it, the less the effect on resale it will have, it arguably could be an appreciating asset. I’m assuming it has log books, just no entries for the last couple of years? As an A&P/IA for me if the price and condition were right I’d do it, but then I don’t have to pay myself. Corrosion as always is the biggest concern, but that’s true on an aircraft with new avionics and engine etc too. Personally I believe avionics are overstated myself, something that will in time I believe change, quite a few of us don’t need or even want “glass”

Yes Part 91 I think 91.203 maybe. To me interestingly part 91 says or seems to indicate the original must be displayed, nothing about a legible copy. ‘But if your an Ag plane part 137 says you can carry a copy as long as the original is on file at the office

I think in 1946 DAMI’s (predecessors to IA’s) inspected the aircraft and issued an Airworthiness Certificate yearly, then in 1958 Maybe when the CAA became the FAA our “Modern” permanent Airworthiness Certificates became a thing. Prior to 46 I think periodic inspections were just recorded in the logbook and a CAA inspector issued a new Airworthiness cert yearly? Somehow I think periodic inspections were sort of accepted to be yearly, but it wasn’t until 1966 that the FAR was changed to require Annuals. I’m not positive of any of this but think it’s basically correct, some details may be wrong or missing.

Yes, it’s what we have turned into, from a Nation of producers, into one that makes money by playing with it.

I believe the VR heating is somewhat normal, it I believe functions by reducing voltage, before the solid state days that was often done by wasting the excess power as heat .Warm is I believe normal, smoking, burn your fingers hot is not.

If the gauge confirms good and if that’s below the green I’d be concerned, but personally before I started tearing into things I’d fly it with both gauges to be real darn sure the ancient stock gauge isn’t flakey. I’ve seen tens of thousands spent when all the problem was the gauge, it was a temp gauge but still it read incorrectly. If it’s in the green, then well sort of by definition it’s OK.

Shouldn’t, they usually last decades it seems When you fix it please report back, I think it helps the next person who has your problem

Being as it’s intermittent I’d be more likely to suspect the voltage regulator than the alternator. If memory serves and being older it’s not what it used to be but the voltage regulator is powered from the backside of the master switch, it uses spade terminals and they are prone to being loose, cleaning and a slight squeezing of the female spade (wire side) is all it takes if that’s the problem. Also check the field wire on the alternator for condition etc, but they usually break and of course that’s not intermittent.

I’m not sure what it’s called, maybe parallax error? But think of how someone wants to make the fish they caught look big, so they hold it out in front of them closer to the camera as an example. I think it’s just from a wide angle lens, and not a faked or doctored photo, maybe that’s what we are seeing here? A wide angle lens distorts the image

K&N’s also don’t filter very well, they have less restriction because they don’t filter as well. TANSTASFL It isn’t hard to properly service a K&N, but it can’t be done in one day as it takes 24 hours to completely dry before it’s oiled, plus it shouldn’t be dried in the sun as it’s cotton and that shrinks cotton, we used ones that were about 12 sq ft on the Thrush because for that application they were about the best thing going. You really don’t want to restrict the airflow to a turbine. Really cleaning and servicing a K&N is one of those things that’s so easy that it’s just foolish to pay someone else to do. ‘Pic is my Daughter years ago showing how to clean a Thrush intake air filter for a class I gave.

Just saw a video of the main XMSN and rotor assy. They were attached to a big chunk of the cabin roof, the 206L XMSN and it’s mounts are a little different than it’s little brothers but very similar, Seems the mount didn’t fail, the cabin roof did. So did the cabin roof failure cause the accident or was it a result of the accident? The cabin roof on the smaller 206 is a honeycomb assembly of aluminum and was very prone to voids, we had to shoot filler in the voids on Military OH-58’s, the voids significantly reduce the strength of the honeycomb, I assume the bigger L model is the same.

I know that but apparently what he has is a box or boxes of parts, case already split etc., lifters are out and not segregated as to where they came from, so no way to ensure they go back on the cam lobe they came from. You may get away with mixing lifters, to be truthful I have never tried as I’ve always heard it will eat the cam, lifters and the cam wear into each other, you can put new lifters on a used cam. but not used ones. So he either needs to buy new lifters, hopefully DLC ones or have what he has reground and renitrided. My advice would be to put new DLC lifters in. If a case is split DLC lifters seem to just be logical. I reread his post I assumed it was for an Experimental, but apparently not, he is going to have to have an A&P involved with this, and of course follow the Lycoming manual.

Do NOT mismatch lifters and the cam, if you don’t know which hole they came from they need to be reground. New or reground lifters can be put on a used cam It’s no different than a pushrod car used to be. Your not supposed to but push rods can be shortened by removing the tip, shortening it and reinstalling it. On assembly lubriplate the snot out of everything and ideally pre-lube it by putting pressurized oil into a galley before starting. Difference in breaking in an aircraft engine as opposed to a bike or car is you do not baby the aircraft engine, you run it full rich and hard.

Hovering is the trick, if you can hover you have it licked, flying it’s just like an airplane without the inherent stability is all

@DCarlton https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_23-27.pdf This AC applies to ALL Mooney’s regardless of date of manufacture. Ref “supervision” the FAA would prefer me take an exhaust system to a professional welder and have it TIG welded than say for me to use my Oxy Acetylene torch and do it myself. A problem can be if I held out that I Overhauled say an electric motor as that’s beyond my capabilities as an A&P/IA, however a repair is likely acceptable, to the FAA language is everything.

I would like to have a Hughes 269/300. It’s what I learned on in flight school, we called them LOB’s for little orange bastards. Slow as a Cub and about as powerful, but they were very responsive and fun. All Hughes helicopters are pilots aircraft, the 206 is not, it was made for the guy in the backseat.

One actually, it holds the rotor head on. I’ve never head of one failing, but if it did, it would be bad. There we’re a few Swashplate failures on the AH-1 Cobra, came from the Army installing Kaman 747 semi symmetrical rotor blades to increase useful load, problem is the center of pressure moves aft with increase in angle of attack on a semi symmetrical rotor blade, this back fed pressure into the swashplate that it wasn’t designed to handle. The rotating portion of the swashplate would stop rotating, the Pitch Change links would break, most likely blowback would have the rotor pitch up heavily, the tail boom is cut off and of course everybody dies. Except for the fact that the mast isn’t broken off, this NY 206 crash looks very much like the AH-1 failures, difference is I think that your not ripping out the main transmission of a Cobra, but there isn’t much holding in one on a 206, perhaps one of the inverted V braces that hold the tranny in broke? Or unlikely I think but the transmission seized?

A few things, the transmission on a 206 is held in by two inverted V braces, one on each side, then there is an elastormeric “box” right behind the transmission that dampens movement, connected to this link is a round pin that sits in a square hole, excessive movement cause the pin to hit the hole and is called “spike knock”, we dreaded spike knock, usually got it in a touchdown auto by not leveling the aircraft on touchdown, at Ft Rucker if you got spike knock you got to wear a RailRoad spike hung around you neck for all to see. It wasn’t common I never saw anyone wearing the spike. The engine isn’t connected to the transmission except by a driveshaft and it’s pretty much like a auto driveshaft, no structure to really hold the two together The instant the engine quits, you immediately lower the collective to maintain rotor RPM, then at the bottom of the Auto you first decel which adds energy into the rotors, then finally use collective to cushion the landing. Having said all that the Bell products generally have more mass in the rotor system than others meaning they are much more forgiving in an autorotation, it’s possible the pilot could have been completely stupid and not put the collective down, but unlikely if they were decently trained being a Commercial pilot surely they were. Two bladed rotor systems are semi-rigid underslung, meaning simply that neg G or low rotor can destabilize the rotor and it tester back and forth and “mast bump”, mast bumping may or may not tear the mast off, I believe newer Civilian Bell’s have big springs in the Hub to help prevent mast bumping, mostly during shut downs etc from wing gusts, and I think that could have help prevent the mast from being broken off, but if a swashplate fails, it sealed and the PC links break and the rotor will come off, maybe breaking the mast or maybe just tearing the transmission out. Yes the blades most certainly took the tail boom off, if they were at full RPM they had plenty of energy to do that likely without breaking. UH-1 Transmission is completely different, to begin with it’s about 8 feet tall, held into the Huey with four “candle sticks” and a Lift Link at the bottom, you can’t get “spike Knock” in a Huey and as such you don’t have to level the aircraft before a touchdown Auto, the 206 tranny sits on top of the cabin top where the Huey one goes almost to the bottom of the aircraft. I was a 67V, an OH-58 Crew Chief for five years and flew them in flight school, an OH-58 is essentially a 206

I’ll start the speculation based on no facts. I think either Swashplste failure or Pitch Change links failure, either would sever main rotor control which would lead to mast bumping and that means everybody dies.