Utah20Gflyer

How many hours would a proper endorsement be? I did one hour of ground and a one hour flight. If you understand the concepts isn’t it just following a new checklist with a couple more steps and knowing how to do the emergency gear extension for that particular aircraft? Maybe I got the shaft when it came to check outs, but then again I have hundreds of hours of complex time now without issue. So maybe I’m ok?

I started with Avemco and had 15 hours in an Arrow when I bought my Mooney. They required 10 hours of dual in the aircraft I purchased before I could solo it. I’m sure that is what Avemco is offering you. I think you are misunderstanding that you have to have 10 hours complex before you can do your 10 hours of dual for transition training in the Mooney. It’s likely JUST the 10 hours of transition training. Call Avemco and verify of course.

I suggest you run the prop at the lowest RPM that is reasonable when in cruise. There is a big difference in noise between 2700 rpm and 2300rpm. Also you should save gas and some wear on the engine. Extra sound proofing is only going to make a marginal difference. IE you can probably realize a bigger drop in decibels by reducing prop rpm another 100 rpm than all the sound proofing you could stuff in a Mooney.

I removed a KI 214 that worked with a localizer and glideslope but was way off when using it with a VOR. It went in the trash when I put in a GI 275 HSI and a GNC255. I do have a KN75 glideslope receiver I’d sell to you cheap though. I considered using it but decided a modern digital radio was worth the extra money.

I think it’s a waste of time. Get oil analysis to get objective information about the quality of oil at the time you change it. If it tests fine then continue on. If it doesn’t then shorten your oil change interval. The practice of trying to get every drop of oil out of the engine is based on emotion in my opinion rather than a logic. Engines that get ran a lot will last a long time. The engines that sit don’t last. That last bit of old oil just doesn’t matter.

How much metal did you find and what kind was it? It may be pre mature to tear down an engine without knowing exactly where the metal is coming from.

If you have shower of sparks you might need to go to at least one electronic ignition to get rid of that system. I don’t believe the switches are well suited for SOS.

Looks like KAKO would be a 3 hour and 15 minute flight. A bit farther than I wanted to fly but I might prefer to pay for avgas rather than pay more for the ECI. Thanks for the heads up.

I wish I lived closer to Texas!

Hello everyone, It’s time for another 100 hour eddy current inspection for my Hartzell prop and so far I have two options. One is to fly my plane to Boise and pay 345 dollars- flat rate. The other is to fly to Duncan aviation in Provo and pay somewhere between 300 and 445 for the inspection. I can’t get an exact number from Duncan. I was told 260 for the actual inspection and 195 an hour for whatever time it takes to get to the plane and write the report. I’m a little dubious on Duncan because of the variable component. I wouldn’t expect if my plane was parked next to their building but if they claim it took two hours to write the report I don’t have much recourse. My question for all of you is - do I have any other options? I would prefer cheap, fixed cost and close but I am willing to accept reality for what ever it is. Thanks!

Interesting, The two horns I’m familiar with both look like the upper one, so maybe there are three horns? Or maybe one of the ones I dealt with had been rebuilt with oversized hardware? They are probably compatible but I can’t say for sure and based on how expensive they tend to be you’ll definitely want to verify with someone with more knowledge on that issue. The lower one looks like a better design as it has less moving parts and therefore fewer places to wear. If it worked I would choose that one.

I’ve had this exact issue before and it was caused by a seal failure. In my case the seal had come off and was allowing hot air to bypass the flapper. I found the seal in the scat tube. There are two different heat boxes, the flapper and the slider. Both are simple, you just need to open it up and see what’s going on.

There was one photo of the interior and one of the panel that I saw on the ad. The interior picture show the interior trim is falling off. That might not be a big deal except that someone who cared about their airplane would fix that. Florida is always concerning because of corrosion. How long has it been there and how much has it been flying? How has it been stored? I agree that log books would provide a lot of useful information, including how much maintenance it has been getting. I don’t think the high TT is a huge issue as long as it wasn’t being used as a trainer or rental. You’ll want to look at the logs for 100 hour inspections to check for that. This Mooney has the electric gear which means it has some risk if the gear motor goes bad in both money and time. They are expensive and hard to get. Some of us prefer the Johnson bar for that reason. Based on the price I suspect it will require some catch up maintenance.

None available as far as I know. While there are mogas approvals for the O360 the Mooney airframe has never been approved.

LASAR may be able to repair the nose gear dent and update it if it doesn’t have the stops. They also may have an exchange unit. The big issue is sometimes they have exchange units and sometimes they will repair and sometimes they don’t/won’t. So you’ll have to call them to find out. They are also a good source for all the bushings, hardware etc.

I rebuilt my steering horn using new bushings. Whether that is possible depends on the location of the wear. I believe the two different steering horns can be interchanged as complete units but the sub assemblies may not be interchangeable. I.E. can’t take half of one and splice together with half of the other type.

I’d second this hypothesis. How did the mechanic isolate the play to the tail of the plane?

The consensus seems to be don’t use a mechanic who has done work for the owner previously. I have mixed feelings about that strategy because the mechanic the owner is using might be very good and the one you try to find who wasn’t used might not be good. It’s really difficult to know the difference between good and bad until after the fact. While I think a prebuy is prudent I almost think vetting the owner and their attitude toward aircraft ownership is more important than the prebuy. A person who is constantly proactively fixing things on their plane and trying to improve it will have a plane that is going to be lower risk than a person who puts the bare minimum in to keep the plane airworthy. This shows up pretty easily. Also if an owner gives you a lot of “I don’t knows” to your questions then that’s concerning. I’m not saying an owner should know everything but they should know quite a bit about their plane. All planes come with risk though so you are only trying to reduce risk, you can’t eliminate it.

That will be a nice set up! Congratulations

This is an important consideration. Many individuals are reporting downtimes of a year because of parts availability issues and shop backlogs. What you want to do is find a plane that flies a lot because that is going to minimize the likelihood of needing an overhaul in the near future. This would apply to low, mid or high time engines. The higher time engines are lower risk in my opinion given its being flown a lot because a low time engine can need an overhaul and it’s difficult to determine that during a prebuy.

I fly some for work and it has worked out well. For my particular application I have a great deal of flexibility which is what makes it possible. I can easily move my trip forward or back on my schedule several days and in most cases I could probably bump as much as a week. Generally within a weeks time there will be a good day for flying. Of course there is always the option to drive as my trips are usually around 250 miles or less. I’ve done that a few times but not for weather but because my plane was down for annual. If I had to be at location X at exactly 8 am on March 1 or there would be consequences then I don’t think general aviation would work.

Yeah, I get what you’re going for but let me give you an example of why renting can be more efficient than owning. A couple weeks back the oil change came due for my plane and since I work really hard during the week the only time I had time to do it would be the weekend. So I didn’t fly the following week and then did the oil change over the weekend and then didn’t have time to fly again until the following weekend. Yesterday I was at my plane updating databases after work but the GI 275 database update failed and so I’ll need to go back tomorrow. Last weekend I spent an hour under my plane cleaning oil residue off the belly. I flew a little that day (to do a VOR check) but spent more time cleaning than flying. I still need to send off the oil sample from the oil change and need to cut and inspect the filter. I’m trying to arrange a prop ECI inspection in the next week or two to clear an AD and am starting to prep for an annual in a month. I’ve got to research parts and order them as well as coordinate that with the mechanic. Like I said, owning a plane is a part time job. I also have a full time job to pay the bills and a family that needs attention. Add some training and it’s pretty difficult. I’d like a partner just so I could split all the plane work.

I would personally suggest getting your instrument rating before buying the Mooney because owning an airplane is a part time job and will likely make it more difficult to get the instrument rating over renting a plane. I know this from personal experience. Also with your instrument ticket and more hours your insurance rate will be better. There are a few people here who encourage people to buy their forever plane early, I’m not one of those people. I think a high performance and complex airplane like the 252 is too much plane for a newer pilot. I don’t disagree that it’s possible to do it safely but there is also a lengthy track record of low time pilots killing themselves in high performance planes. When you are a new pilot it’s easy to get task saturated and a plane like a 252 has a lot of extra tasks, especially when flying single pilot IFR. There will still be 252s around a year or two from now.

I did very similar upgrades but did the HSI first and then the ADI as phase 2. The HSI does not disappoint. My phase 3 is the autopilot and will complete my upgrades unless my older audio panel goes kaput.

Part of the issue is the yoke is aluminum which I think creates a higher chance of a problem. aluminum and thread lock can be a bad combo. The main reason I ended up using a small amount of thread lock was I tried tightening once without it and it came loose almost immediately. I agree there is some risk and would say if one uses it to use the absolute minimum amount you can. I understand that the yoke will not come off with the set screw loose but I absolutely can’t stand the feel of a loose yoke and I worry that it would create additional shock loads on the shaft. I have a couple hundred hours until my next yoke shaft inspection so I guess I’ll see then if I made a big mistake. What was the solution to getting the stuck set screw out?