toomany

I fly a bravo and a comanche - both w 540's, one turbo'd the other NA. My concern w the turbo is if you loose a seal you can pump all your oil out the exhaust and not know it until youre out of oil. I've got some time flying across the states in both, and to mexico and the bahamas, but i dont think id be too keen on flying across large expanses of water or dense jungle or woodlands. The problem with trees is that they normally rip your airplane apart and give the occupants severe injury. Then once the ride stops your covered up by the canopy making search and rescue rather difficult. Throw in some bears or cats and it could really get interesting. I used to live in ecuador and never saw any pistons flying in the higher elevations except for a 172 in quito that did sporadic training - i dont think they even carried 100LL on the field. Field elevation at the old airport was somewhere around 14000 msl i think. The new one in the puembo area is a little lower i think but not considerably so. I also used to ride offroad motorcyles to very remote places in ecuador and can remember riding through the andes where a small plane flew through a cloud with a big rock in the middle - there was no way of even remotely identifying what type of airplane it was. I imagine you'll probably stay out of the cordilleras for the most part, and having a knowledgeable local is certainly key, but the nature of your mission inevitably will leave you close to the folds of the envelope at some point in time - be it fuel, wind thats not as advertised (fuel again) or large distances that only an albatross could make without power. That said, the original owner of the bravo used to frequent venezuela - it has monroy tanks, so about 5.5 -6 hrs useable. That same engine grenaded at 1999 hrs from a failed lifter. After i saw how thin the engine cases are from the holes blown out of it from engine parts, i wasn't too enthusiastic about flying the bravo or any other piston single over bast expanses of water or remote wooded areas. I still do on occasion but im always looking/planning for the engine out. I also carry a survival pack and flares now, something the younger, pre fragmented engine version of me would have thought pointless. As much as i loathe commercial aviation, and dont use it unless its absolutely 100% necessary, i probably wouldnt take the mooney to south america unless it was mostly over land and in the low country for the majority of the trip. Flying high with a turbo is nice as long as youre with the wind, when youre not it sucks. Ive seen 80kt ground speeds in the bravo going west over arizona at only 15000'. As far as any argument b/t lycoming or continental goes - theyre both absolute junk. They are nothing more than severely over priced ancient relics of design and engineering that have capitalized on the faa's unwillingness to allow newer technology to occupy the most critical real estate of the plane. If i were needing an aircraft to fit the mission you describe i would probably consider a turbine lancair, or a murphy bull moose - unfortunately i cant think of anything in the middle. Not sure if columbia or peru allow experimentals in, but i think mexico may have recently changed their view on experimentals so there may be a little precedence from another latin country if that is an issue. Regardless - best of luck on your search and most of all take your time and have fun. If you need a spanish speaking right seat i could probably be convinced with a cold beer.

fixed the issue on the bravo - it turns out the surefly mag we installed last year failed. sent unit back to the mfr and was told a red wire broke loose on the circuit board. I was disappointed to learn that the mag was faulty after only approx 200 hrs of use. I will say that surefly had great customer svc and was very thorough on troubleshooting. I had to order and pay for a new mag replacement and send in the one of the mooney. if a fault was determined through bench testing i would keep the new mag and surefly would issue a refund check - which is exactly what happened. havent gotten the refund chwck yet but im sure its on its way. as an aside - if anyone is looking for a very thorough ia in the east/mid west, chris at kpov in eastern ohio is fantastic and very reasonable. i would highly recommend him. also very familiar w mooney's. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

thank you Lance, i really appreciate that - the engine wasnt running rough and i could tell by the consistencies in egt's/cht's as well as oil pressure/fuel pressure that the engine's internal health was fine. if there were outliers i would have considered putting it down. also, if i was over heavily wooded terrain or a densely populated area i would have elected to divert. However, when i initially observed the abnormalities in temps i was over densely wooded mountainous terrain w LIFR below me. The last thing i wanted to do was shoot an approach to mins under these conditions knowing that if it was fuel related a power setting change could severely alter the engine performance. i elected to try for pittsburgh and eastern ohio where i would have long runways and good coverage - once there, the situation was not getting worse and i had plenty of flat open fields beneath me and vfr. my destination was a mere 14 min past youngstown and i kept altitude until i knew i could make the field. given the set of circumstances i dont think i would have changed anything. thanks again for your input. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

rpm's were at 2350 not 2850 - that was a typo. The factory mag will be gone over today - the mag may very well be the issue and it sounds more and more like that is the case. plugs were pulled yesterday and there was abnormal amounts of carbon at the 12o'clock position which coincides with no fire there. I didnt consider a mag check while airborne - i'm sure that would have proven worthwhile. ill post here what we find out on the mag. thanks to all for the input. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

thank you Steve - I'll pull the bendix mag and have it bench tested. Did you also get higher egt's and tit? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

its having fuel servo diaphragm inspected as well as turbo compensators. im thinking servo diaphragm may be the issue. turbo amd compensators were redone by tornado alley 400 hrs ago. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

flew the bravo for an hour and a half this morning and about 1/2 hr into the flight i noticed the tit running away past 1650° then coming back down. i went through all of the egt's and they were doing the same thing - i enriched to keep tit around 1550-1600 but could notice a significant reduction in power. map stayed constant and didnt fluctuate. there were a few moments when the power reduction was coupled w a slight stumble or miss. i was in cruise at 29.5/2380 19.1gpm at 6000' the entire flight. once in the pattern i reduced power accordingly for landing amd didnt notice any surging - i might add that at the end of the flight, last 45 min. i was full rich, map 28.5 and 2850 rpm's. switching tanks made no difference, turning on boost pump made no difference, wagging the wings to dislodge and particulate or water made no difference. mag check pre flight was normal. aircraft has a surefly mag and had performed flawlessly since its install until now. my guess is it sometging in the fuel servo allowing air into the fuel but i can't explain why it would decrease in power then return to set power on occasion. when power would return to set power egt's/tit would could quickly into the high 1400's. any help is greatly appreciated. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

small update after surefly installation - flew 5-6 hrs this week w 5 starts (cold,hot, lukewarm, cold). all starts were as i would expect them to be, especially given that we're not living in the 40's anymore. every start was within 3 turns of a blade and most without priming. a couple stone cold starts were done with a couple of blades and feeding fuel after a stumble. if 3-6 seconds of prime is given starts are guaranteed smooth and w/o incident. what i would give to see v-8's w/ fadec in GA. egt's and cht's seem to be running cooler too. hottest (cylinders 5&6) would normally run 360's to high 370's, but are now 340-350's on cht. egt's seem to be about 10° cooler overall. engine seems smoother in cruise, but it will take more than an electronic ignition to get me comfortable with an oversize wwII era volkswagen engine pulling me through the air. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

heading to mexico once from raton nm (rtn) we hit severe mtn wave over the san mateo range. our groundspeed was 80kts, sometimes less. realizing the winds aloft weren't as advertised, and noticing that our fuel was quickly running out relative to the rate of foreward progression, we decided to land for fuel instead of risking putting it down in the mountains on empty tanks.. we were over show low (sow) when the decision was made that we either got fuel or took the risk of not making it to yuma or even pheonix. when i tuned in the awos winds were around 170°, from what i recall, at 45 gusting 54. i thought it was possibly ground equip error so i tuned in nearby white mtn lake and got the same winds - i think they use the same information. not believing what i was hearing i asked atc if they had any wx reports at sow - they told me the same thing the awos had and that a pilatus just tried to make it into sow and couldn't. not to be deterred from a sound decision that we needed fuel or we'd be hiking out of mountains we went for rnwy 22. i made the approach at probably 110-120 kts w no flaps and my best dancing shoes on. we ate up quite a bit of rnwy before i was able to push jt onto the tarmac. the ground roll was pretty short as i recall and i used full control forces on all surfaces at least once during the approach and landing, but we made it. as we were on approach guys who were listening to the unicom started coming out of their hangars to watch the idiot trying to land in gale force winds. luckily i didnt give them much of a show. when we were taxiing to the fbo, gravel, not sand, was sandblasting us - that was probably the worst part of the whole experience, hearing the gravel hitting the aircraft. once inside the airport the mgr told us that atc just called and was asking if we made it in - i really appreciate those guys. later a meridian made it in and must've been getting sand blasted as well because he had the fbo park fuel trucks around his airplane. we took on fuel and waited for about an hour or so and flew to yuma - when we were in range of pheonix i did the math and we most likely would have ended up leaving a bent airplane in the mountains just east of the pheonix area. i certainly don't recommend anything close to those winds under normal circumstances, but for what it is worth the airframe is highly capable. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

i use foreflight for filing and wingx pro for flying. i like wingx because you can download the entire US approach charts database and dont have to "pack" for every flight. wingx used to be a lot better - they just got rid of winds aloft and before that they nixed the fbo information. i use it primarily for simplicity and ease of ise due to familiarity Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

thanks John - so far w the surefly starts are immediate w only 2-3 seconds of prime. i havent had the chance to really run it at cruise power in the mid teens, but once i do ill update here on any differences in temps./fuel flow. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes - the surefly does draw more, not sure if its 11a as the inline fuse for its dc power is a 10a. i'd imagine it pulls 3-8a under normal ops. re milliamp draws - i was thinking of, but disn't mention, electronic mgt systems found in automobiles and many racing/performance applications. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

got the bravo back today after the surefly was installed. starts right up w/ less than 3 seconds of prime. orbitted lns at 10,000 and held 1300-1500 fpm on way up - da and oat were low thoigh. cht's and egt's seemed a little cooler but won't know until i get it settled in at altitude for an hr or two. its times like these that you reslize we've been kept in the dark ages by the faa, lycoming and continental - we're in 2024 and get excited about electronic ignition. please spare any comments on how reliable 1930's magnetos are - they are absolute junk in my opinion w too many moving parts to be considered a reliable form of ignition in this day amd age - especially when we have electronic ignition/fadec systems that draw on the order of miiliamps

N69YA - on an rv in indiana Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

who makes the vinyl?^. I agree - looks good, durable and easy cleaning Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk