A64Pilot

I don’t see how it’s ripping off the taxpayer, 20 years after military Retirement I finally started VA disability claims. None of which would keep me from flying. I should have 20 years ago but I was too busy building a business and second career, there are a LOT of appts you have to make for the VA, too many to be building a second career. The issue isn’t that 2500 pilots 600 of which are Airline pilots have disqualifying medical issues, the issue is they didn’t self report. But how do you know what your supposed to report? There is or was anyway a laundry list of questions of do you or have you ever had the following you had to answer. I thought the list covered what the FAA considered important, or why is there a list? One day years ago I was getting my 2nd class medical, the examiner tells me due to my neck size and weight that he was going to have me have a sleep study, it was a new DOT requirement. I tell him I’ve been using a CPAP for years, he gets upset and says you should have told me that, I ask why, he says you need a special issuance, I ask how was I supposed to know, there is a laundry list of issues, if the FAA wanted to know if you were using a CPAP, why isn’t it on the list? An issue as I see it is we aren’t medical professionals how do we know what he or she needs to know? I get up to pee several times a night now, should I tell him that? What about my heel spurs / flat feet, degenerative joint disease, arthritis? If it was that important why don’t they go through my medical records, those are Government property it seems, I had to fill out a freedom of information request to get them, and of course it took six months for me to get my records, as they go back 40 years there was a whole lot I had forgotten to be truthful. This is someone who is making a name for themselves, advancing through the system and it made the news. If there had been any kind of increase in medical problems causing issues in pilots that would be one thing, but this isn’t that. You can have disabilities that don’t disqualify you from flying, like heel spurs, Plantar Fasciitis/ flat feet for example, it’s real, easily diagnosed and common for people who carried heavy loads in boots or ran a lot, especially over years of doing so. Even military retirement isn’t at all what it used to be. When I joined I was promised if I kept my nose clean and completed 20 years that I would retire on 50% pay and have free medical, dental and vision for life, this was to compensate me for likely getting killed, maimed etc and 20 years of moving any time I was told and living at times in conditions that Criminals can’t be kept in, and pay well less than my Civilian cohorts. So I did my 20, find out that the 50% retirement is really 25% because it’s only base pay, that the Dental and Vision are gone, 0% for those and my “free” medical, I pay 20% until I’ve paid out $4,000 out of pocket, then when you reach 65 you MUST purchase medicare part B at a cost of $175 or so a month or you have NO insurance, and that Retirement medical you stayed 20 years for? It’s just a Medicare supplement now. Oh and your Retirement pay is taxable income when it wasn’t supposed to be, you pay taxes on it, but it’s not included as income to determine your Social Security benefits. Does that sound right? Does anyone else pay taxes on an income that doesn’t count towards income for computing SS benefits? No, I’m sorry but Vets especially Retirees aren’t ripping off the government, it’s not a hard argument to make that they are being ripped off by the Government. You want to see who is ripping off the Government? Go to your local Social Security office, I did to sign up for part B because they had screwed that up and as of Dec this year I would have No medical insurance, but anyway I and one other were the only Retirement aged people in line, none in line were in a wheelchair or had a cane, crutches etc. Average age I’d guess was in the 30’s. Listening to them talk to each other apparently they were frequent visitors, talking about what day and time was least busy etc. That’s who’s ripping off the government. I’m not bitter, a little disappointed to be honest, but I sort of knew better to be truthful. The acronyms SNAFU, and BOHICA have existed at least since WWII and exist for a reason. I’ll adapt, improvise and overcome, because that was my training Mock up of Fat Man at the Airforce Museum ”Joint Army, Navy, Civilian F Up” There was no Air Force then.

That would be a difficult repair, surely you can find a factory tip, I thought they were available? If not try used, it’s going to have to be painted no matter what.

Yes your crazy, well not crazy but what your wanting usually doesn’t work out like you hope it would. If the intent is to build time towards getting someone to pay you to fly, do not buy an airplane, rent the cheapest thing you can, buy bulk time if possible, get your instrument and CFII and get others to pay for your time building even if you only make pennies instructing it’s still hours your not buying. Trust me buying time in a beater 152 / 172 will cost less than buying a Mooney by the time you add up all the costs. When renting availability is assured and costs are known What is probable is you buy the airplane and soon your putting every nickel you have to make it airworthy and even if you can afford it no sweat it’s likely to be down for months. When you do get a job being paid to fly it’s unlikely you will have the time and money to do a whole lot of personal flying. That comes later when you can afford a nice airplane and can enjoy the cheapest insurance rates. It’s a either have the money or have the time issue until you build seniority / experience. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear and it’s not the way I went, I had a rich Uncle pay for all my Certs, but still took years before a personal airplane made sense.

Auto air bags are way more powerful than most appreciate. I think the Amsafe are hybrid Good you might be a redneck if video

Any engine, whether it be a lawnmower, auto or aircraft motor loses power when they are “worn out”, power wise worn out refers to lost compression not excessive bearing clearances etc. Most that have had an engine overhauled or replaced if the old engine was worn out notice an increase in power. Yes I’ve heard of engines with low compression making good power, but take it with a grain of salt, and more to the point I don’t know what happens to their EGT. I bumped into the lower compression having markedly higher EGT quite by accident flying a friends low compression carbureted 235 HP 540 after flying my high compression IO-540, both were fresh motors making good power but his EGT was so much higher it scared me when I saw it, wanted to land right away thinking something must be wrong, but of course nothing was. On edit, after thinking about it I realized tgat a low compression motor is simply less efficient and this decrease in efficiency is reflected by higher EGT, a more efficient motor of course converts more heat to HP and has lower EGT

Yeah, I’m not saying your carb doesn’t need replacing, but that hopefully the intake was leak checked first or if not that it will be when the carb is replaced. Vacuum leaks often are the cause of drivability issues to use an automotive term. Idle not being able to be adjusted does point to idle circuit, but getting the proper RPM increase upon slowly pulling the mixture seems to indicate it’s good.

EGT’s really depend a lot on compression, high compression ratio engines like our angle valves run much lower EGT’s My little C-85 with its 6 to 1 compression ratio normally runs EGT’s that would be scary on my IO-360, and the Wife’s Model-T with 4 to 1 will have its exhaust manifold glowing bright red with its 4 to 1 compression. But the C-85 will run on 73 Octane fuel and the Ford likely can handle 40’s Octane. So take an old low compression motor that has high blow by (my C-85) and it’s EGT really gets up there, how high I don’t know it’s not instrumented, be interesting to know but not enough to instrument it. While you might can infer something from EGT for a normally aspirated engine the EGT number is irrelevant, only relevance to it is how much rich or lean of peak are you, the temp of peak isn’t relevant. You guys like Savvy, read this https://resources.savvyaviation.com/understanding-cht-and-egt-2/

Coughing and missing at low power can be indicative of an intake leak, intake leaks often only lean out one cylinder where the leak is and that one over lean cylinder can make it run rough, often intake leaks don’t really do much at high power because there is very little vacuum to leak, it’s low power when they show up. But yes un-metered air, that’s the fancy name for a leak, leans out the mixture. But primary reason to check is that it’s a common problem, very easy check that costs no money just a few minutes to check. I troubleshoot starting with easy and cheap stuff, even if it’s not the most likely problem, but sometimes it is, and when it is the fix was simple and relatively inexpensive, and it saves the spending big bucks to change a part to then find that the fix was easy and cheap. Sort of like buying new mags then finding out you had a bad spark plug(s).

On the Amsafe equipped aircraft there is a simple wire connection that has to be unplugged before you remove the seat, that will keep the system from deploying, it’s different than an auto airbags in that they aren’t pyrotechnic, they have a high pressure nitrogen tank that inflates the bags. You’re right to be concerned if you leave it connected and drop the seat the bags could deploy. It’s been a few years since I installed any but doubt they have changed

There are actually two considerations, first is W&B which has been covered, but in some aircraft, not a Mooney the seat is part of aircraft structure, not common but there are some, the one or two that I’ve seen don’t move. The reference article, there was obviously more to that story, had to have been. I’ve flown with only the pilots seat many times in different aircraft, even removed doors a time or two. I had to remove both the CP seat and back seats from the Maule to fit these helium tanks in. ”cargo” is often flown in Maules and Cherokee 6’s, I had a friend at the Army test activity that flew coffins in his Cherokee 6. People that die away from home are often flown home for burial apparently as he never wanted for business, and I’m sure to get a coffin in the seats had to come out.

Swave and deboner. From the book ChickenHawk which is a pretty good read, mostly for Army helicopter pilots, but it is an aviation novel. https://www.amazon.com/Chickenhawk-Robert-Mason/dp/0143035711 I’ve probably been called Redneck, Cracker, Whitey and a few others, but think of my self as “Southern Gentleman”

Close the hangar door on it, or tow it into something, hit it with your car, tug whatever. The definition of prop strike is surprisingly minor, if for example your a float plane and a wave comes over the float and the engine RPM sags with no visible damage, that’s a prop strike, or Anything that requires the prop to be removed for repair. But some aren’t done, been years ago but I saw a 172 at Sun-N-Fun taxing in rough ground at high taxi power, nose wheel dropped into a hole, prop hit the ground sand and grass went flying, engine stopped immediately. I started walking over there to talk to the pilot, but before I got there people had drug the nose gear out of the hole, pilot jumped in, started it and off they went. I’m assuming a rental. I didn’t run the N number, but was shocked to see that

These are old aircraft, with anything of this age you take your chances. It’s just part of the game. If we were buying 40 yr old cars probably similar results, difference being cost of the parts. I bought a 19 yr old house, I’ve had to replace the pool heat pump, had to have the house replumbed this year and the roof isn’t going to last much longer. Roof 40K, pool heat pump 4K, replumbing, 10K. Flip side to that is I’d guess average Mooney sells for 100 -200K, new similar airplane 1Mil. As a mechanic my guess is that likely the majority of flying engines if torn down will require parts as there will be some out of limits, now they continue to operate fine, but once a Certified mechanic disassemblies anything and finds non airworthy items they can’t put those parts back into an engine or airframe. I’ve had arguments with a few on this forum saying there is no requirement to inspect, they expect me to put beer googles on and not look at anything, but there is no way that I or any other competent mechanic would do that. If I were you I would have a talk to the engine builder of how much more would it cost to call it an overhaul, and reset the overhaul clock. But this is the exact scenario I try to get people to listen to that have to borrow money to purchase a 40 yr old airplane.

I’m sure they checked for intake leaks first?

Aircraft gain weight a little bit at a time, over time. A lot of it is the factory of course receives reports that this or that piece part is cracking as they age so they increase the thickness of the material in that part, some of it is increasing skin thickness because thicker skins are easier to work, less likely to wrinkle. I fought to keep the skin thickness from being increased in the flap bay area of the aircraft we manufactured because of wrinkling, turned out the material we were buying came off of a roll of metal, not flat sheets, purchasing saved a few bucks, flat sheets cost a little more. To be clear the metal we received all came as flat sheets, just some of it was cut from metal that was rolled but cut into sheets by the supplier. Then aircraft gain weight over time as they age from repairs, just plain dirt and especially from luxury interiors, that high grade of leather weighs a lot, more than you might think. I know it’s nice. Mine is heavy I suspect from equipment, it has every bell and whistle available back then, with of course DME, ADF etc removed but a 430 installed, but the Radar altimeter and Stormscope isn’t light to say nothing of the Century 41 autopilot, but she has her original interior. Best way in my opinion to lose weight is probably the starter, CG gets better, you get a better starter and price per pound is probably the least of any thing else. Ever picked up a vacuum pump? those things don’t weigh much at all, sure it’s weight but surprisingly not much. Maybe a three blade metal prop isn’t the best thing, the one on my Maule which is bigger than a Mooney prop, but it weighed 12 lbs more than the two blade it replaced and if anything I lost performance. It did look cool though with its Scimitar blades etc. so there is that I guess. You can spend a huge amount of money in the search of light weight. Weight wise for pretty much all aircraft the older ones with their original interiors, one without all the IFR gear and two blade prop even with the old heavy starter and generators are the lightest, put in a modern alternator, seemingly plane powers are among the lightest and starter and you have a very light aircraft. It’s the C-182’s that the difference is Huge, the old square tailed girls are stellar STOL airplanes, the newer ones with IO-540’s three blade props and 92 gls of fuel are I believe honestly more than 100 lbs heavier, actually fully fueled I think it’s hundreds of lbs but haven’t looked. OK I just looked at a quick glance it seems over the years the 182 has gained about 600 lbs empty weight and while the gross weight has been increased tremendously, it still has about the same useful load it always had, about 1100 ish lbs. That’s just a quick glance and could be wrong of course, but Damn 600 lbs? Surely that can’t be right? From this article https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/used-cessna-182-skylanes/#:~:text=Cessna specified an empty weight,only went up 300 pounds. Cessna specified an empty weight on the 1956 model at 1,560 pounds against a 2,550-pound gross, and the same parameter on the newer 182T was 1,860 pounds from a gross of 3,100 pounds. In other words, gross weight increased by 550 pounds, but useful load only went up 300 pounds.

The fuel system is complex enough and finicky enough, requiring special tools and experience with it that I’d suggest finding an expert on it, surely someone will be able to suggest someone in your area. Not saying for example that I couldn’t figure it out, but I’d make mistakes and probably have to re-do it a few times etc where if I was experienced I’d get it right first time.

I don’t think any logical person is saying fossil will go away or should completely, However I think most logical people do understand that fossil isn’t coming down in price but will continue to increase over time. Logically if we cut back on its consumption, we will have more of it, for longer. There are many things like ships for example and airplanes that we aren’t anywhere near being able to go electric, but just maybe we ought to be saving the fossil for those things where it’s needed that there just isn’t a realistic replacement for. I have all gas powered weed eaters, blowers, lawn mower, edgers etc. but when they wear out I don’t think I’ll replace them with gas power, electric ones have become viable, just like the cordless drill has. The one really big reason to go electric when it’s viable is efficiency, the model 3 is up to 95% efficient, has to be to travel 260 miles on the same BTU of 1.5 gls of gasoline, then the power grid is phenomenally efficient, by whatever means the electricity is generated, even if you burn fossil to make the electricity the power plant is far more efficient than an automobile. However we are going to have to increase generating capacity TANSTAAFL One way or another we as a Society will have to become more efficient, and if we are smart and adopt technology that works, we can be, but we are going to have to change some of our attitudes that are I believe driven by marketers to make money, not by any actual need. Truth is the average person doesn’t need a three row SUV, or a 3,000 sq ft house for example, you will see house and auto sizes decreasing. It’s inevitable So far I’m about 2 years into this electric car experiment, I’ve had zero problems with the car, zero required maintenance excepting tire rotation and the thing cost about 1/4 to charge of what it costs to fuel an average car. We have had to make zero changes in our driving habits, excepting never having to visit a gas station and traveling so far has been a non issue. If the next say 10 years work out as well as the first two then it will be great, only time will tell though. I don’t doubt the battery has enough cycles in it to get there, but I question what 10 years will do to it. There are over 10 year old EV’s but the battery chemistry is different Oh, and the darn thing is quick too, much better acceleration and cornering ability than average, the AC works just as well sitting at a stop light as it does going down the highway, and it’s pre-cooled before we get in, no more getting in a hot or cold car, you can leave the AC on to keep the dog in the car while you go out to eat or shop, many small but significant differences. It’s a lot like the Prius we had for ten years and put 250,000 miles on it. No maintenance excepting what was normal for a regular car, oil changes, coolant flush and change, spark plugs, air filter etc. However the difference in the cost of fuel that we didn’t burn as compared to the average car exceeded the purchase price of the Prius. It wasn’t only free but in a matter of thinking made us money. It was a sort of experiment for us too. I think an EV is the logical evolution of a hybrid ICE / electric auto, just had to evolve the batteries, our Prius used Nimh batteries, which wouldn’t have worked for an EV. The Prius had its share of detractors too, why I can’t figure that out, why do people care what others drive? In truth I figure the money I save in not putting gas in my Auto is gas I can put in my Mooney, having 150 gls of Avgas being delivered tomorrow in fact.

That is often the case

Ever tried to blast something at the “lowest pressure possible” for a max of 2 sec? Nothing is going to happen, I could do that to my finger, because what PSI is “lowest possible pressure”? By not giving a pressure they really didn’t tell you anything I never had a need, but then my engines didn’t burn excessive oil, and I cleaned and rotated them at each oil change.

My Mooney came with two flat spots on each main, they of course come from someone over braking determined to make a turn off. I ignored them, they will sort of go away as the tire wears down to the level of the flat spot, if you don’t over brake again anyway. I didn’t replace the tires until they were worn pretty much out. The flat spot didn’t seem to wear or if the did not as much as the rest of the tire. If they thump taxiing then you need to decide if the thump is annoying enough to replace them, I don’t think other than being annoying the thump does any harm. Mooney’s are way more susceptible than say Cessna’s, so don’t feel bad, your not the first and won’t be the last.

Contrary to popular belief nozzles do get dirty, not always the jet fuel flows through though, our nozzles also have an air bleed under the screen you can just see on them Our nozzles I believe are designed to mix air and fuel together and form a spray, if the air bleed gets a little dirty it can block airflow, that means the fuel won’t be as atomized and it can act as if it’s a richer mixture because combustion won’t be as efficient with a stream of fuel as it is if it’s nicely atomized, fuel burn is slower which drives EGT up and it will be richer as it gets more fuel flow from the divider. I won’t try to explain that I think the RSA manual does though and of course it’s very much more of a reliable source than I am. This is an excellent description of our fuel system, and I’ll admit that even though I’ve read it several times I still don’t fully have the thing down pat. P 17 discusses nozzles very well and what I’m talking about is discussed in the middle of the paragraph. A clogged air bleed screen is more noticeable at partial throttle due to the higher pressure differential between ambient and manifold pressure, but ac we aren’t studying EGT’s like we do when we lean got peak it’s not hard to miss it. https://precisionairmotive.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/15-812_b.pdf I’d cut-n-paste but the Ipad won’t do that with a .pdf? Personally if I clean one, I clean them all. I use Hoppes and an ultrasonic. I have four of the smallest baby food jar that I put maybe an ounce of Hoppes in each jar and then put them in the cleaner

Even in S Ga I used to pre-heat when the hangar got close to freezing. I took my little jet engine looking hangar heater and had it blow onto a piece of sheet metal that I placed under the Maule’s cowling exit, formed a ramp if you will from the floor to the cowling. I had the little heater anyway. Some may think it silly but I like the engine to be at or above 50F for starting, maybe not needed but at $50,000 or more for a motor I think excessive measures are justified, if 50K is petty cash to you as it is for some then of course don’t bother. Those though I’d bet are in a heated hangar anyway.

Same, I think over the years damage may be cumulative, it just seems logical to not operate them until voltage is stable. I cringe every time the power flickers at the house, wondering if I get to buy something. Many or maybe even most newer cars alternators are controlled by the engine computer and there is a delay before bringing them on line and they “soft start” in that they are brought up to voltage slowly. All turbines I’ve flown you don’t bring the generators on line until after engine / APU start, then you start bringing avionics on.

I don’t turn the Avionics on until well after starting, my theory is the voltage sags and spikes that occur at that time is bad for them, so for all I know what you have may be normal. I also shut down avionics prior to turning off the engine too

We had to cut the helmet visors for IHADDS helmets for the HDU to fit, it was different for each pilot, so it had to be custom cut. We found that a felt wheel in a dremel with some plastic polish gave a perfect polished edge quickly. I think a router with a tracer bit using the unbroken one as a pattern would quickly cut two prefect pieces. That’s how I cut the door windows for my C-140, worked perfect I think the biggest problem would be sourcing the dark plastic, if Lasar doesn’t have replacements, I’d call Don. He made my visors to my spec of course and the work is very good.