A64Pilot

Good friend of mine who is gone now bought a whole bunch of Kruk crop dusters, I believe maybe 2 dozen of them, and in one of the transport containers was a trabant. That was I’m pretty sure the absolute worst polluting thing in existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant Left a cloud of blue smoke wherever it went, two stroke and I think 25 to 1 mix. Thousands of these things came into West Germany after the wall fell, they were two strokes and made out of some kind of plastic made I had heard from some kind of seeds, but the Germans couldn’t recycle this plastic, couldn’t “throw it away” I have no idea what became of the things. Anyway remember as a kid it was very common for older cars to leave a cloud of oil smoke leaving a stop light, but today it seems even the junkers don’t burn oil.

If you want a 200 HP NA Mooney and are the type that thinks a couple of kts in either purchase price or mods is worth tens of thousands of dollars then in my opinion you want a J. If you either don’t want to spend the cash, or can’t afford the buy in price, then you want an F. I wanted a J because it’s what I flew back in I think 92 to get my Commercial / Instrument, a couple of brand new AT’s and have wanted a Mooney ever since, but I needed tailwheel time when I Retired from the Army and bought a Maule instead, then had use of a C-210 so I didn’t need a Mooney. Interesting to me was the Maule and C-210 burned exactly the same amount of fuel over a distance, but the 210 was 25 kts faster and had two extra seats and lots more useful load. But then strange as this sounds but my J gets much better fuel mileage than a Piper Cub. I think best bang for the buck may be an F, but they are getting old, but then so are the J’s. I think by the time an airplane hits 30 or so age is irrelevant, then it’s condition and maybe airframe hours. If you have money and want speed, then I don’t think either an F or a J will do, you need a “Big Block” Mooney, because there isn’t any replacement for displacement

It’s one wire to mount a temp sensor to the neg post of the battery though, so it wouldn’t be hard, question is, is it necessary? But I suspect that the temp in the tailcone gets to close to what’s in the cabin over time, and that in truth temp compensation isn’t as important as dropping to float would be and yet we know that leaving the battery at a voltage that is really a state of constant overcharge doesn’t hurt much as they last for years like that, so if not dropping a whole volt doesn’t hurt, does not trimming .1 or .2V really matter? Old military helicopters OH-58, UH-1, Cobra etc had Ni-cad batteries and we would adjust the voltage regulators twice a year, a Winter and a Summer setting and they were frequently removed and the battery shop tore them apart, replaced individual cells when necessary etc., continual maintenance and expensive as Hell. AH-64 had lead acid SLAB or sealed lead acid battery that didn’t start anything, was really just to run things until you got the APU online and as an Emergency battery, and to be truthful I don’t remember one ever failing in 15 years even in the Desert. I guess they were checked in Phase or something or maybe a calendar change item. The old lead acid battery it seems requires very little attention, is extremely tolerant of abuse and yet lasts for years. There is a large number of modifications sold in Aviation and I won’t name them as many are so adamant on how they are necessary and I don’t want to start a battle, but in truth operationally they don’t really seem to make a whole lot of difference. I think a “Modern” precision voltage regulator just might fit that category. For whatever it’s worth I flew yesterday and looked after the flight with everything on my voltage at 700ish idle RPM measured by my Garmin 696 was 14.1, same as in cruise, everything means all Avionics and lights, but not pitot heat and landing light is LED. So my bone stock system holds set point at all RPM, once fully charged anyway.

Thanks, so in other words it can get very expensive or not depending on equipment. Sort of like the 520 to 550 STC in the 210. Had to replace the 520 anyway, but by the time the STC was purchased along with the new prop and engine instrumentation I decided the cost wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t trivial $$$, but many go that route and almost all are pleased. It sounds like to me that most of the benefit to the Mooney is T/O and the first 1,000 ft of climb?

Really should if they are quality components last almost indefinitely, everything is electronic now, every chain saw, weed eater, lawnmower etc and the electronics seem to be the most trouble free things. IF they are quality components and for the price they should be. I listed things that get hot and vibrate excessively and are cheap, but of course add automobiles, outboard motors etc. we are in my opinion decades beyond when we should have gone electronic. Magnetos work, but so does a stick to beat carpets, I prefer a vacuum and believe it or not but Mags are older than vacuum cleaners. Variable timing I’m not so sold on. I agree it certainly can make the engine operate more efficiently, but there are other considerations like the prop for example, when Hartzell or other manufacturers did the vibe survey it was done at the original engine timing spec and changing / varying timing can certainly change the vibration profile. It’s been years ago but I’ve spoken with Hartzell Engineers on this topic, I never had thought about it myself, but they indicated on some engine prop combinations it was a real issue. Plus some of our engines have swinging crankshaft counterweights, is it possible that variable timing could set up harmonics that could way down the road lead to fatigue and cracking crankshafts? I have no idea, but am sure no real testing has been done, analysis I hope so, but testing I don’t believe. It certainly could be a non issue. We can’t necessarily apply automotive “truths” to our aircraft engines, sometimes yes, but not always. Don’t fall into the trap of well it’s STC’d so the FAA has tested everything and found no problems, because that’s not how STC’s work. Or that x is a large technologically advanced corporation so no problem. I would have bet Lunch that Mobil-1’s Aviation oil would have been the best thing going, and I would have been wrong. Mag’s aren’t the best, but they are well known, tried and true if you will, kind of like the carpet stick. I would be hard pressed to buy new Mags though, I hope for me that’s years down the road. I have a (D) model engine

Does the F have the J’s induction and exhaust? The exhaust in particular impresses me, aircraft exhausts performance wise are usually junk, but the J’s isn’t.

They do as was said for the boating world, that’s because we had HUGE battery banks that cost bunches of money and wanted to charge them as fast as possible, but also to protect them as well as the alternator, a LifePo4 bank in particular will cook an alternator because it can accept way more than an alternator is capable of making. if your curious this is what I had on our sailboat https://balmar.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/MC-614-Installation-Operation-Manual.pdf It’s fully programmable three stage regulator with voltage compensation, ways to protect the drive belt if necessary and even a temp sensor that would turn down current when the alternator reached a certain temp to protect it. This one sensed battery not air temp and alternator temp directly with sensors Heck it’s the 21st Century, pretty much anything you can think of can be done. Modern Auto’s apparently I believe control the alternator with their computer and the program even is set to help pass pollution tests, I surmise it delays pulling a load until the motors pollution controls are working, many I believe have to reach operating temp.

A few years ago when I was doing the sailing thing I found out that the shipping lanes have different weather, much more frequent thunderstorms, one theory which I believe is it’s from the emissions from the ships. https://www.weathernationtv.com/news/study-finds-ocean-shipping-lanes-have-more-intense-thunderstorms Ships are horrible polluters, in fact I believe that the cruise ship fleet in Europe pollutes more than all of the cars in Europe. Seems it’s just Carnival’s ships, doesn’t mean others don’t pollute I’m sure they do at the same level, I don’t think this is a nut job site with an agenda, but you have to be careful because many are and it’s not just one sided https://www.businessinsider.com/cruise-ship-air-pollution-carnival-cars-europe-study-2023-6#:~:text=A June study from sustainable,cars in Europe in 2022. Actually Modern ICE cars are phenomenally clean, I’m sure there is room for improvement but compared to even just a few years ago they pollute very little.

Ah, the beauty of Home built

I thought it was way up there, Stratosphere high?

First time in Kuwait we had several black boxes failing, the Tech reps came out and put these temp a dot things on them to see how hot they were getting. I think the dots topped out at 100C, all of them were maxed out. We had to wear gloves to get into the aircraft, you would literally get blisters on your hand if you didn’t. I’ve never experienced hot like that

I would love to see the Aurora, I spent a couple of weeks in the UP of Wisconsin in Feb once, but didn’t see it.

Right now the Wife’s Tesla is chewing through its battery. I have it set so that it won’t let the interior heat more than 95 inside the car but because it’s parked on asphalt the car says it’s 101 outside. I don’t think the glass roof helps I could open the window but that would make it worse

I’m sure there is a lot of fake crap out there based on the sensitivity of the subject, but I trust JPL despite where it’s located

I have a completely unsupported theory, it’s that if one part is being flooded there is another in drought, that the total amount of rain doesn’t change much, but the distribution of it does. Like I said no science in that, just a belief.

I believe what your saying is in the JPL link I posted. I think surely the scientific community is talking about it, but the media not.

Your the first to bring up the unga bunga or whatever that volcano was. I know that’s not it’s name but when I first heard it I thought, really? As I think it’s the biggest eruption we have had since Krakatoa, I’ve been really surprised to not have heard about it on any news as I believe only the nuts don’t think big ones don’t have an effect, when it occurred I thought I wonder how this will affect climate. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere Years ago I believe the thought was that they threw so much ash etc into the atmosphere that they caused a tiny sort of a nuclear winter, now of course the thinking is different. But as a Retired guy with bad knees I do a lot of news watching and haven’t heard anything about it. In central Fl we have had a lot more rain than normal, I’ve had to pump water out of the pool twice and will again if we get another big rain, normally it seems evaporation and rain balance each other out,

I just saw this. I’d contact EI they are very responsive. @Jim Peace I’ve set up a bunch but don’t know the answer, if your data gets full it overwrites the old data so the last mucho number of hours are alway kept Here is a You tube that shows how to do it. Seems to be the same as older computer motherboards. I don’t have any recent experience with them either.

If they are for linseed oil, why are there two of them? You only need one to put oil in and drain it out.

Other aircraft have used pull rivets for this. OH-58 which is a Bell 206 did in its engine mount, they were Cherry max rivets. On the Thrush fuselage we used small hex socket plugs and used fuel tank sealer in the threads to make sure they didn’t leak. If you find the correct drive screws I’d still put a drop of fuel tank sealer on it, stuff works really well, can even keep fuel from leaking

If your maintaining 14V in flight, it’s charging as in not depleting the battery, if your significantly lower than that you have a problem that needs fixing, it’s unlikely you have exceeded alternator capacity because most can’t put out 100% continuously or they burn up, they don’t have a 100% duty cycle, or ones I’m familiar with don’t. ‘If your battery minder soon shows full charge that’s likely normal as they work that way, meaning they are looking for absorption voltage which is usually low 14’s but your battery is less than that so initially it comes on at absorption voltage for several minutes (amps are dropping but you don’t see that as you have no amp gauge on the charger) then once amps drop to set point charger drops to float voltage and shows fully charged. If your battery is truly depleted to 50% it will take likely until the next day for a minder to fully charge it as their output is very low, often just 1.5 amps or so. You can verify this theory simply by unplugging the battery minder then after a min of two plug it back in and see what it displays, if it shows fully charged in less than an hour battery wasn’t depleted by much if at all. If a charger is 100% efficient and nothing is, but a 1.5 amp minder can only put 1.5 amp hours back in one hour. I think modern glass is pretty efficient as in low amp draw, nothing at all compared to pitot heat or landing light and of course you can fly forever with those on.

Is that the one that ended their career? https://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/12/01/navy-aviators-who-drew-sky-phallus-have-been-punished.html I head from friends of mine that one of these resulted in a letter of reprimand, and those end careers

I think it may be depending on electrical load too, like if you have the old type landing light on. I don’t think my 14V system does it, but I do get a low vac light right about there.

I remember when skywriting involved a smoker, and yet this was never done. Come on guys do something difficult and maybe artistic, like a flower maybe? Daisy ought to be do-able, tough but do-able.

That’s it in a nutshell, it’s why I have insurence, to cover me. Of course my insurence company will pay me and make me “whole” then go after whoever they can to recover expenses, but hopefully not to try to make a profit. No need to involve Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe ambulance chasers, listening right now to one of their TV ads on how “I got in a wreck and Dan Newlin got me 1,000,000 dollars on TV” so ambulance chasing has gotten out of control, making lawyers rich and costing the rest of us a not insignificant amount of money, it’s time for reform, but guess who’s in charge of that? Lawyers, so it’s kind of the fox watching the hen house. For the younger crowd Dewey, Cheatem and Howe were make believe crooked Lawyers the three stooges would threaten others with. As that was roughly 80 years ago it seems crooked lawyers are nothing new, but I do think it’s gotten out of control. I’ve looked it up, the ambulance chasers usually get about 40%, and almost never go to court as that takes time and effort, almost always they settle for what they can get without putting much effort in it, their model is many, many settlements end up being a significant amount of money. I’m extremely suspicious with these excessive reward amounts you hear about continuously on TV and every billboard. 90% of people just don’t have either large insurence amounts nor large assets, the million dollars just doesn’t exist in most cases, so where do these large awards come from? Only 8.8 % in the US have 1 mil in assets or more. Actually Google says it’s somewhere between 2% and 8.8% different sites quote different numbers.