redbaron1982

My only experience with TKS is of a recent buyer of an airplane that has it. As many of you know, in the first annual inspection intergranular corrosion was found in the left aft stub wing spar bottom cap. I'm not sure if this was due to TKS. Everything seemed quite clean in the airplane, except for that spot that had intergranular corrosion. Maybe it was a another the cause for it. As an additional point, while Don Maxwell was doing this repair, they found corrosion also in the panel where the TKS tank is sitting. Something I really will put focus on learning as a new owner of a Mooney with TKS is proper maintenance to avoid corrosion. I will be doing IMC flying so TKS is something that will be used from time to time.

I do understand that is not very (or at all) viable for the previous owner to take responsibility. I understand also that even if a shop doing a prebuy made no mistake, can also be hidden problems. My question is, how can we protect ourselves against dishonest sellers or shops who basically take the money of a prebuy, do a crappy inspection and then they are not liable for their mistakes? Maybe the answer is that we cannot protect ourselves and that would render a prebuy more or less useless except you do it with a mechanic that you already know and absolutely trust. And I don't mean trusting the shop's brand but the actual human being that will be doing the prebuy.

Being a PITA is a bit extreme, and I didn't mean to be that annoying, but supervising the inspection I think is a must. Regarding being financially responsible, isn't there insurance for that? Seriously, if a shop is not financially responsible, then basically they do whatever they want and all is cool? You're pointing out an extreme, I give you a more mundane example: my prebuy didn't find things that were marked in the prebuy checklist as checked and found ok, for instance, interior lights not working, elevator trim switch not working, etc. How I protect myself from that? You can say "don't use that shop anymore", yeah, that's an option. I think is not enough. Again, shops should be financially responsible for their wrongdoing, from their pocket or through an insurance.

Thanks Pete for the heads-up, I was not aware of that bug. Anyway in my particular case I think it does not apply because I have only an EIS.

Yes, my advise would be: Legal part: either have a buy agreement with previous owner that any airworthiness findings in the next x months are going to be covered by him or have a prebuy inspection contract that says that any error or omission by the shop that results in you have to pay to repair an item that was not found in the inspection but was listed in the prebuy inspection checklist is going to be covered by the shop. Technical part: I don't know much, my experience was with corrosion, so that should be in the checklist. Engine too (oil test, compression, boroscope). Test flight and autopilot I think too. AD compliance. Also an advice, get the prebuy inspection to be done in a place where so you can be around while the shop is doing it, and be a PITA with the shop doing it to make sure that they check everything and they don't just mark the boxes in the checklist without actually doing the inspection.

I can recommend where not to take it: flight level aviation.

Thanks! That's super reasonable, would be in my quick wins list.

Hey guys, thanks a lot for the quick responses. Yeah, I think I will need a software update. I think my 275 is from early 2021 so it might not have the new version. Does anyone know how much should I expect to be charged for a software update on the Garmin 275 EIS?

Hey, today I finally got after 14 month to fly my Mooney back to it's new home. A lot of things still to work on, but slowly I will keep improving it. For sure I'll flood MS with questions. Here goes the first one: I was really disappointed by the GI275 EIS. The screen were basic nothing close to the ad picture where you see the tank levels, cht, eht, mp, rpm all in one screen. On the contrary this unit was showing cht in one screen, eht in another, flue flow just by itself in another screen. Is this something that pilots can customize? Is there a firmware update? Don't tell me that I have an old unit that I need to throw away because that would make me feel sad. Lol.

I'm not sure if I would generalize, of course there is sort of a "I'm not sure what I want but I want it right now" thing with most of young people, but that's not for sure something we can generalize to all. I have been greatly surprised by a lot of people in their 20's working their a** off to grow and waiting for things to happen and not rushing everything. Oversimplifying things saying "any teenager can do it" is not accurate, but on the opposite side is not accurate either to say "I've been in the business for 30 years, no one can teach me anything and any idea if they are not coming from me are bs". Shops with 30 years in the business (any business) can still improve significantly and also not any teenager can help a shop get better with communication.

Lol. Not really. But I think that the original post was sarcastic about selling the shop. I think that some people consider themselves heroes or doing a social work by owning a shop. We live in a open market economy, at least in the US, so if you own a shop and you don't like it just sell it or close it. But don't get into "hey this is all I can do and you should be grateful for it". Grateful for what? You own a business and you're here to make money. So if I should be grateful for a shop being open then the shop should be grateful for me taking my business to then.

Where do you have it posted? I'm interested in seeing the details and how much are you asking for it.

I'm not so sure about people "not wanting to drive" is an issue. Automation is a blessing for repetitive tasks (from my point of view), I would have a self driving car for sure (someone that works, not the Tesla cr4p) for commuting. I used to commute 3hs per day in my previous work. Being able to reclaim that time and use it for reading a book, start to work earlier checking emails, or just sleeping would be a huge advantage. But for fun stuff, like doing a road trip, I would continue driving. For me GA is mostly about fun (this is a personal thing, I know people use GA for commuting) and would continue to do so. I think the issue with GA is that it is extremely expensive for the average guy, I still don't understand the economics of way an aircraft cost 800k and a car 40k. Is it because of all the regulations? Is it because the small volumes? For sure it is not because of technology, because except for avionics GA is a 1950's technology for the most part. There is another factor that is that most of people don't like STEM, and to get into a so technical think like GA where you need to know why an aircraft flies, what is a gyroscope, how it works, what is a Bernoulli principle, etc. put GA into the umbrella of STEM, and people just don't want to go that way.

Still waiting on the plane, the shop that is currently working on it email me 2 weeks ago to go and pick it up but three days after they called me to say they have flown the aircraft and it was pulling to the left and they need to check the rigging. Two weeks after that, still radio silence, so I don't know how many weeks, months or years is going to take to rig the airplane. BTW: I'm starting to truly believe that GA industry is totally broken. I'm not talking about parts availability or things that are hard to fix, but customer service is a disaster, my two experience so far, one of which is with a highly renowned shop for Mooneys, is crappy in regards of customer service. Total lack of communication, and I'm not talking about daily communication, I'm talking about not answering emails or not giving an estimate on when a job is going to be finished or even started after they have had my aircraft for 10 months now. My point is that it doesn't cost money to fix customer service, it's just replying an email, having a schedule for the shop and giving precise information.

This looks super cool. Hopefully very soon I should finally get my plane (my first plane!) and I'm thinking ways to start making it my own. When I initially bought I was thinking on doing some panel upgrades (removing the vacuum system, adding two GI275 as AI+HSI, removing com/nav 2 with a second nav/com/gps unit) but then reality kicked in and I had a really bad first annual. Now I'm looking to some not so expensive upgrades, and the interior is one of them... it seems that with some personal labor plus 5k you can do some descent upgrades to the interior.

And alternative would be getting a new aircraft? That will guarantee 100% "up time"? I don't know, maybe it's just bad luck, but my experience is that buying an aircraft is not without problems usually. If I'm decided to do an avionics upgrade, I rather have my aircraft down for 3 months, knowing exactly what aircraft I'm going to have when the upgrade finishes, rather than going through the hurdle of selling mine, buying a new one, and hoping for the best.

Yeah, probably is what you are saying. But for instance, anything relating to instrument approaches, clearances, etc., I think are covered and you're expected to use as reference the FAR/AIM. As you said, a question about what type of engine your aircraft has, I think you would be ok if you refer to the POH and show the DPE that you know exactly which section of the POH you need to look that info in.

That's what I understand and what a couple of DPE told me, that only FAR/AIM can be used.

For me the best books are the instrument flying handbook and of course the far/aim. Studying from the far/aim is key so you get comfortable with it as it is the only reference material you can use during your practical test. If you want to go the "easy" way, Kings School has a great instrument written and practical exam prep course.

As long as we are talking about avionics upgrade "only" and moving to a turbo and/or FIKI Mooney is not a factor, how is it better to buy a new aircraft (with all it's uncertainties) rather than upgrading an airplane that you're already familiar with (in the sense of how well it's maintained)? You also get to have exactly the layout and stuff you want, how you want it. The only downside on upgrading is the time that it will be grounded.

I like classics... and it would be a good match for my Shelby Cobra.

Yes, my point is, if the shop says "hey, there is not corrosion" and then 2 weeks later, after you closed the deal, they say now "hey, there was corrosion, sorry for not catching it sooner". In my case, with the contract that I had, they would be liable up to the 2k cost of the inspection, but I would be left with a 15k (hopefully) bill and 1 year the aircraft without flying.

I agree that the best approach is to start with the big stuff, the one that would probably will make you walk out of the deal, down to the most trivial stuff and stop whenever a big airworthiness thing appear and asses before continuing with the inspection. Also I agree on taking the annual inspection as a baseline, removing all the non inspection items, and then make the shop complete the annual inspection if the deal is completed. One *big* thing in my experience is all the legal wording to put into the contract with the shop. As many of you know I had a terrible experience with my first buy and I did follow, on the phone, this things. I asked the shop to do all the inspection part of the annual inspection as the prebuy, so if the deal was completed then they would just complete the inspection without any possibility for big discrepancies. I talk all of this on the phone, no writing in any of the contracts (my bad!). Then, after a nice prebuy, the annual inspection found one week after, corrosion in the wing spar. The shop did not take any responsibility (Flight Level Aviation is the shop and Chris LaPlante the maintenance director there, stay away of those guys). So, hopefully, I'm going to end up spending over 30k of unexpected repairs. I think if the contract with the shop stated that the prebuy was going to be performed using the annual inspection as template, and even better include the list of items to be inspected, for sure the outcome would have been different: either the corrosion would have been found during prebuy or they shop would have to take responsibility for the damage. Also, in my case, the contract for the prebuy said that the shop was responsible up to the amount of the inspection itself, but nor more. This is also something important, because if you have that clause, and they did a shitty inspection, at most you will get back the money of the inspection, but you will still have to take care of a huge repair bill.

And if GAMI wouldn't have an alternative, people that is complaining should consider that a worse scenario could be possible: EPA/FAA banning 100LL and you would be left with the option of either scrapping your aircraft of hoping for someone to develop a diesel engine for Mooney, oh, and BTW, that would also require a STC, plus a new engine.

I really don't get the ones that are complaining about GAMI buisness model of selling the STC. Hey, if you don't want to use G100UL don't pay for the STC, that's it. All the people complaining sounds more like they are desperate to get G100UL but they don't want to pay for it, quite childish. GAMI initiative of investing to develop this is quite risky, a lot of things can go wrong. All the aiports I know (not many) have the possibility to handle one type of AvGas, getting them to switch to G100UL when not everyone is getting the STC is losing clients. Switching a whole infrastructure that has been running with one type of fuel to another type of fuel that, although technically possible, from a legal point of view cannot be used in any aircraft is paramount. If there is any one to blame here is the FAA, who should have approved G100UL without the need of a STC, I don't know how that can be handled from a legal stand point (placards, different specific weight) but they should have come up with a solution that do not require a STC. Then any aircraft that previously used 100LL could now use G100UL, without any bureaucratics. And then airports/FBO could have an easy way to go to G100UL, for sure starting in those areas where 100LL is already banned.