Utah20Gflyer

I made my own plastic panel to go around my Johnson bar out of abs sheet I bought off Amazon. Those arent particularly difficult shapes to reproduce. That could be an option.

Maybe you have a crack in the system and when it gets cold the material shrinks and opens up the crack to the point the vacuum gets dumped? I'm far from a PC expert and actually I'm working on troubleshooting my system as we speak, but I would look for leaks in the lines or vacuum servos first, and then go from there. Preferably while it's cold since that is when the problem exhibits.

I’ve been doing oil analysis at every change at approximately 50 hours and they always come back with the oil being in good condition. This could be influenced by the fact that I am adding a quart every 6 hours, essentially I do an oil change between each oil change. If the oil analysis indicated the oil was in less than stellar condition at 50 hours I would shorten the interval until it did.

In my case I got 1 hour dual in a J model before I bought my G. I asked the insurance company if I could count it and they said no. Had to be my plane.

One of the downsides of the AV30 is the HSI doesn't provide vertical guidance. This may change in the future but that means you always have to have a separate CDI for any approach with vertical guidance. A bit of a bummer, but I guess if it's a VFR only plane it wouldn't be a big deal. I understand the precession issue was resolved but have no direct knowledge on the matter.

I printed 5 of these trying different settings. I have 2 black ones that look like functional parts. They are someone else's design so I can't sell them ethically but if you want them I will mail them to you. The print quality is not excellent but they look ok and seemed to fit my plane. FYI you will need slightly longer screws. If you want them send me a message with your address.

I got the seat belt extender yesterday so this morning I stopped by the airport to see if it works. Good news. Perfect fit. For 18 bucks seems like something useful to have available. link to the one I purchased https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PQN3CRY/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_N5MJNPYC1JGRGBGTSMYZ?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I was required to do 10 hours dual when I purchased my Mooney last year. It seems to be pretty standard now when transitioning to a new aircraft. In my case I needed to ferry the plane from Tucson AZ to Salt lake which we spent 5 hours doing, then the next day we flew 5 hours and I was done. Not a big deal.

Same for me, in fact I never even look at the lights. Gear down and locked is checked by tugging down on the j bar. The lights are a waste of time in my opinion.

I am not really sure if the one I ordered will work but it was only 18 dollars and the return policy is pretty easy with Amazon. It looks right based on the pics but who knows....

I actually just recently ordered a seat belt extension off Amazon which is supposed to arrive today. If it fits I'll post the details.

Mine work much better as well. I'm really enjoying the upgrade.

For many years the United States has ran massive trade deficits that allowed other countries to amass huge holdings in US dollars. Combine that with the weakening status of the US dollar as world reserve currency and you have a situation where those dollars are returning back to the United States. Primarily these dollars go into real estate and stocks first but the people who sell the real estate or stocks to these foreign interests are now flush with money and need something to buy, next step down from income assets are consumptive assets like airplanes or building a second home in Arizona, etc. That is the primary source of our inflation, essentially decades of deficit spending returning home. The secondary source is our governments current overspending. This was all predictable, too bad our politicians are greedy, immature, stupid sell outs.

I am not an aeronautical engineer but my take on it is calenders age doesn't matter much yet, its more of an issue of avoiding corrosion and the number of hours the airframe has actually been flown. My understanding is that aluminum fatigues from being flexed repeatedly - a function of the total time on the airframe. So if you have a Mooney from the 60s like mine with 3440 TT and no corrosion to speak of it should last a very long time. If you were looking at an airframe from the 60s with 20k TT then that could be of concern, but most Mooney's are owner flown and therefore rack up total time rather slowly. You don't see many with more than 6k TT. So to answer your question, find a plane that has no corrosion and reasonable total time and in 20 years it should be just fine.

Nice work, looks good!

How much priming did you do? When it’s warm my plane will start with 2 pumps of the throttle, when it’s cold it’s 10 or 12. If I try to start it with 2 or 5 when it’s really cold it takes a whole bunch of tries to start it. Preheating will make things a lot easier. Good luck

I would go with the 355 which is what I did in a very similar situation. You already have ADSB handled so with the 355 you get the WAAS GPS navigator but also get a com radio with a database of frequencies in it. Personally I like being able to select an airport and then select the frequency you want from a list. It eliminates looking up the frequency and having to dial it in. Just my personal preference though, the 375 is also nice and has it's benefits.

Most of the time I use a Ryobi cordless handheld vacuum. It works good for a little clean up here or there. When I wanted to get real serious I took a small generator and my large shop vac. I only did that once though right after I bought the plane. Handheld seems to do fine for regular clean up.

I just upped my insurance on a g model to 80k with slightly better avionics than the subject plane and the insurance company wasn't phased at all. If I wrecked my plane a smaller payout than that would put me in the price range of flying projects.

Rather than being surprised a C model could be worth so much you should be considering how our money could be worth so little. This is monetary devaluation aka inflation in action. Considering the complete incompetency and corruption of our political class I would expect this trend to continue. Do not be surprised when a C model Mooney is going for 200k and the average home is a cool million, it's likely not that far into the future.

I had the exact same problem, the solution for me was to mount the I pad lower. I noticed you are using the lowest connection point if you use the one in the middle of the I pad holder it will likely solve your issue, it did for me. I was worried it would conflict with my legs when I did it but I still had plenty of leg clearance. I put in a Garmin 355 and a 275 HSI last year and love them!

I probably should have mentioned that I just got my mags overhauled and installed a skytech starter which cranks much faster that it used to. The combined affect is my plane starts easier than it used to. So you have a good point that worn parts may be to blame. If primed correctly now it starts in about 2 blades regardless of the temperatures. I do preheat below 30 degrees though and I suspect I could get it started colder.

Lately I've been giving my plane 10-12 pumps of the throttle and then wait one minute and crank. It's been starting really fast on the first try doing that while its been really cold. Obviously every plane is a little different but it's an option.

I went from trainers (172s, Cherokees, DA40s, etc to an 200 hp Piper arrow at 115 hours, 15 hours later I bought my G model Mooney. 120 hours later in the Mooney it seems like a really easy plane to fly. My recommendation is to do something similar, transition to a complex airplane and get the complex rating while you are looking for a plane. Then when you do find the plane you like you'll have one less thing to do and will have some retractable time which may make your insurance company happier. I was really nervous about the transition before I purchased but looking back now it really wasn't nearly the big deal I thought it would be.

I don't see Elon being interested in a company that basically produces a 60 year old aircraft design. Yes, for the vintage Mooney's are excellent airplanes but they aren't state of the art. Elon didn't try to repurpose the Saturn V rocket or retrofit a Chevy to be an electric vehicle. I don't see him wanting to try to repurpose a Mooney. There are just too many compromises needed to retrofit an existing product versus a clean sheet design.