redbaron1982

It does seem to have good flow out of all surfaces, at least in flight both wings were wet. I did remove the inspection panel that gives me access to the proportioning valve in that wing and it was all dried, no leaks there.

I'm exercising my TKS to get it back in normal operation conditions. Today after a two hours flight, in which I ran the system for 45 minutes right after take off, when I put the airplane back in the hangar I notice that there was tks fluid dripping from an inspection panel on the left wing. I removed the inspection panel fwd of the one dripping and checked the TKS manifold and it was all dried and doesn't seem to be any leak. Is it possible that while in flight the fluid can get inside inspection panels and after landing some of them drip? Or should I start looking for a leak in the system?

I want to share my experience with Bevan Aviation, specifically with Jake. Long story short: I was having issues with my AP (KFC 150) altitulde hold and alt preselect. It was randomly failing. This has been a long standing issue, dating back to the previous owner who try to fix this several times, with no success. I did some diagnostic myself, trying to narrow down when the issue was happening. All this troubleshooting was done with the selfless help of Jake. Who at some poitn suggested me to send the flight computer to a shop near my location. So, up to this point, already amazing service. A ton of help, without any commercial interest. As I could never get a hold of the the shop he recommended, I asked Jake if I could ship my flight computer to him to take a look. He was not only able to reproduce the issue, but also fix it. I flew a couple of times after getting back the KC 192 and the AP is working to perfection. I cannot say enough good things about Jake and Bevan: He helped me troubleshoot the issue without any intention on selling me any service. He was able to fix an issue that many other shop tried and couldn´t. Communicaiton was super easy, he kept me updated through the repair process. I would 100% recommend them!

This looks great! Is it possible to get the BOM? I´d love to build one myself.

Is $85 for a hangar monthly fee realistic?! I'm paying $600 per month for my hangar!! I cannot give you my experience regarding costs because I had bad luck... but what I can tell you is that when I did the math myself, the breakeven point for renting vs owning was around 150 to 170 hours per year.

Yesterday I was debriefing my last flight with Cloudahoy and I saw that is calculating both IAS and TAS. I don't have any advanced avionics, so the information I'm uploading to Cloudahoy is just my stratus data. But I see that I get the three speeds GS (which is the only one that makes sense) and then TAS and IAS. Is Cloudahoy using information from Windaloft to calculate those speeds? To my surprise, they IAS/TAS were quite close to the values that I manually recorded during the flight.

Guys, I'm still trying to recover from this (could have a nice avionics upgrade or new paint, but instead, I had to fix corrosion (and so many others) issues). Don't keep bringing this topic back! Lol! My 2 cents after this year is, next time I'm not sure I'm doing a prebuy, I might, but I'm not going to expect them to find everything. I will go myself with a borescope, open up every single inspection panel, and look inside. How long can it take? 2 to 3 hours? Is not invasive, so I would expect the owner to be ok with it, and I think it would catch major issues. Would do the same with the engine, borescope all cylinders.

Thanks! My concern, more than with the altimeter itself was how off the IAS is going to be.

I've sent my autopilot out for repairs, while I wait for it to come back, what should I do in order to fly (legally)? Is not a required equipment, it is removed, so I should be fine, right? My concer is now I have the static input for the AP hanging there. It would be affecting the static pressure, I guess it would make it more like if I had the alternate static port open (cockpit pressure). What should I do to legally fly the airplane without the AP computer installed (KC 192).

Al Mooney designed Mooney for him and he was 6 5. I think you're going to be fine with 6 6. I guess the only problem might be if someone wants to sit behind you, most likely they won't have much leg room available.

This makes me think that I have something wrong with my J. I can do only 500fpm above 5k feet.

^^^ This, they are super easy to work with and they are very responsive. I had great experience with them so far.

Cruise speed wise, the MT 3 Blades runs a few knots slower than the original prop. You do get better climb performance though. I have a MT and the only negative thing I see is that the paint is piling off at the tip of the blades. I will have to have it refinished soon.

I wouldn´t assume that the only issues are oil leaks. If they engine was overhauled, and so many discrepancies are showing up now (as in several things loose), you should assume that more things could be hidden. For instance, and I'm not sure, just asking for others input, but having oil in the base of cylinders shouldn't be common for an engine that is only 70SMOH. Were all the thru bolts torqued properly?

Don't forget this one! Or you will have your lower cowl hanging from two wires! Ask me how I know... I did a checklist for myself so I don't forget now. In my case I have also the TKS light that illuminates the leading edge of the left wing.

I finally got to the root cause of this issue, it was the sonalert. I got confused because I have three sonalerts on the pilot foot well (one for the AP, the other two I'm not sure, and thought they were the gear and stall warnings). It turns out that the sonalerts for gear and stall warning were in the headliner, as the POH indicates. I replaced the stall one, and problem solved. Thanks God it was not the switch, because I think the only solution would have been to remove one of the TKS panels... take a look at the picture, no access from outside and the nearest inspection panel is too far to reach from the inside.

Is this the thread y'all are referencing to?

Thanks guys. I do not thing the issue is that the vane is bent. Between the time the stall warning was working ok, and now, the airplane has been always under my control, including refueling. Nothing happened that could result in the vane being bent. I will try first the troubleshooting that @EricJ suggested (grounding the negative terminal on the stall warning sonalert) and see what I find.

Cool, great idea on how to test it. I will do that tomorrow and continue trouble shoorting. I guess having TKS would make any work on the leading edge more difficult... :S

Hey, I'm having an issue with the stall horn in my M20J. A few months ago it start failing intermitently. Now it's not working at all. I was almost sure it was the sonalert. This not only because I think is the most likely element to fail, but also because when I moved the stall vane I could hear a quick "chirp" and then nothing. So my train of though was, the switch is making contact and the sonalert is dead and it just make a brief noise and then nothing. So yesterday I went and changed it with a brand new (which I tested before installing it) and nothing, same sympton. As I move the stall vane I hear a "chirp" and then nothing. I review the schematics and the circuit is dumb simple, basically wires, sonalert, fuse and the switch. So doesn´t seem to be too many things to trouble shoot. Any ideas?

The level indicator read 1.8 gal for months and many, many hours of flying. What should I ask CAV regarding running the pumps dry? I mean, doesn't make sense calling them and saying "Hey, just FYI, I run my pumps dry"

Nothing is for free. As with the engine monitoring data that you can upload for free, in this case you're paying with information that they can you to grow their business. I'm not seeing is bad, it seems that is a win-win for all parties.

So, I was fighting for several months trying to make the TKS wet the panels on my M20J. Many of you know that my airplane was down for more than a year because of some extensive repairs. So initially only the root of the wings were getting wet. I kept running the pumps for several hours (it was summer and I understand that can take some time for the fluid to reach all the extents of the wings). The TKS panel indicated 1.8 gal, which is above the 1 gal lower limit to consider the system fully operational. Last weekend I opened up the belly to see if there was anything that could explain the issue and to see how I could eventually hook up the device to test the panels when I saw that the hose at the exit of both tanks was empty. I bought 5 gal. of fluid, and put 4 gal. into the tank, now the level indicator is showing 5.8 gals. I turned on the windshield pump, in 30s it was getting fluid out into the windshield. I then ran the airframe pump in de-ice mode and in about 5 minutes all panels were dripping to their full extent. No area was dried. I made a mess in my hangar with all the TKS fluid dripping on the floor. So, the lesson learned for me is if TKS fluid is not coming out extensively in the panels in 5 minutes, it's not a matter of purging the system, but something is wrong, in my case, no fluid and a bad level indication. My main concern now is how much I wore out the airframe pump by running it for several hours without fluid. Also, how to fix the level indication to read correctly. On my next flight I'm going to use the system to check visually that all surfaces are getting wet.

Are these good quality?! They look really nice, and they are not crazy expensive.

I have done this just by mistake, I'm still sometimes coming in too high or too fast and I pop the speed brakes out to get down/slow. A few times, and I'm ashamed of it, I forgot to retract them. The result was that the airplane didn't want to keep flying as much as it was on the ground more decisively (which is good, as I'm coming in between 75kt to 80kt when landing). I don't think it is a great practice, as adds more workload in case of a go-around.