AdamJD

Wow! That’s never fun. The T routes have really cut down on that for us low and slow planes. A lot of thought went into those even though some of them do send us “out and around”. Sometimes when I get the reroutes, I tell them “no need to spell” which they seem to appreciate. PS - was that Lake Gaston out in front of you - Roanoke Rapids? Looked familiar. That’s my geographical 1/2 way point.

From South to North - Wilmington NC to GAI - I have to fly right through the middle of the bravo to get to my airport north of the big airports. If I was going to the NE, an east route around DC airspace wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But GAI is smack dab in the middle of the top of the 3 combined bravos (think mickey mouse hat badge). I file the dulles east corridor IFR or VFR SFRA, which is BRV TICON TRING. My reroutes may be self-inflicted as I’m trying to get an IFR route that depends heavily on time of day, ATC willingness, etc. When I’m IFR, I get that direct corridor route 10% of the time, but it’s very worth it when I do. If I don’t get the corridor, I’ll get rerouted by Wash Ctr just before being handed off to Potomac at Richmond. 70% of the time, it’s a “candy cane” west route CSN MRB T356 WOOLY. 30% of the time, it’s an even longer “candy cane” east route which is usually POORK T291 RIPKN T356 WOOLY. Either of those add 20-40 mins to my trip depending on altitudes and winds. Both are designed to keep me out of arrivals and departures from either IAD, DCA, BWI or all three. There are usually no shortcuts once they put you on these, but occasionally I have been given more direct routing when I got closer. From North to South there is 0% chance they give you the corridor IFR. 100% of the time from my airport I get the candy cane east departure. If winds are strong from the ENE, I’ll ask for a west departure, which usually ends up being WOOLY T356 AIROW FAY ILM, which feels like flying to Tennessee to get to coastal NC. But they usually give me direct after Front Royal, so it’s about the same as the east candy cane. So heading north IFR, I’m filing corridor and mostly expecting a reroute which I can load from saved flight plans and push via flightstream to my GTN650 and the other ipad.

I’ll do that. It was working for overwater and then stopped. Only change I can loosely tie it to was an update to the 650 and 275 by the avionics shop. But it worked for a few weeks after that.

Flying through DC airspace from South weekly both IfR and VFR, I get route changes often. Either east around Baltimore, west around Dulles, or if I’m lucky, split Dulles and Reagan. It all depends on time of day, landing directions at the big airports, and weather. And having 2 iPads and the 650, it’s nice to change it in one place and they all update. My autopilot is following the 650. My eyeballs are following the iPad, which is a much better moving map.

Not bad idea to delete ForeFlight and reinstall on one of my iPads. Can’t hurt to try. I was also thinking about trying the 30-day Garmin pilot trial. If my flightstream is shot, I would rather learn Garmin pilot than pay $2k to replace flightstream.

Thank you. I tried only connecting to GI-275 and didn’t get the weather and traffic. From reading ForeFlight FAQs, this looks like a ForeFlight limitation. “Does ForeFlight work with the Garmin GI 275? Yes. ForeFlight can connect to the Garmin GI 275 via Bluetooth, enabling the following features: Supported Data Sharing GPS position and backup attitude information from the GI 275 can be shared with ForeFlight. Flight Plan Transfer Two-way flight plan transfer is supported when the GI 275 is connected to a compatible Garmin Navigator, such as: GPS 175 GNC 355 GNX 375 One-way flight plan transfer (from the panel to ForeFlight Mobile) is supported with appropriately configured GTN 750Xi/650Xi systems.”

I have two GI-275s, GFC-500, GTN-650xi, GTX-345, FlightStream 210 (sw version 2.91) and I use Foreflight. I have connected to the 650 via FS210 for several years and have not had a problem until recently. Over the past month I have had lost traffic and weather on both iPads after 20 minutes or so on multiple flights. When this happens, the upper left of my foreflight says Connext, NO TOWERS and stays that way for the remainder of my typical 2.5 hour flight. I fly in a fairly populated area and have added the map of ADSB towers to foreflight so I can see I am near towers when this happens. I have gone to “Devices" on the iPad and my “Garmin Connext” shows as Connected and says “Provides GPS, attitude, flight plan send/receive, cabin pressure, and ADS-B.” I then click on Connext and get the details which show I am connected via Flightstream 210, but under the DATA (ADS-B) group, the sub item Signal Status says “No Towers”. My GTN-650 still receives current weather and active traffic throughout the flight, even when it goes out for the iPads via Flightstream. So my GTX-345 is working and receiving traffic and weather. Also, I can still actively transfer flight plans from my ipad to 650 and vice versa when connected via Flightstream. So it would appear the Flightstream is still partially working. I have tried connecting to the GI-275 directly via bluetooth, but that only provides “Attitude and flight plan send/receive”. My option to connect directly to bluetooth on the GTX-345 is disabled with my current configuration. I know I need to visit my favorite Garmin dealer. However, in the meantime, I want to bypass the FS210 and connect directly to both the GTX-345 (for traffic & weather) and the GI-275 (for flight plan and AHRS). Has anyone done this and had success? If so, how do I enable Bluetooth on the GTX-345 so I can connect to it directly? Do I have to do this through the GTN650? Lastly, if this works, do we really need the FS210? I know the 510 does DB management as well. But the 210 does not. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated! Adam

Are you saying the spring that extends the grip and top button isn’t pushing the button up enough to seat firmly in the gear down block? If that’s the case, a new gear down block probably won’t fix that. Maybe @jetdriven knows how to disassemble the handle to inspect the spring. Also, when you say to have to do that to get it to engage the gear down light, is it otherwise firmly in the gear down block? If so, maybe the metal arm that engages the light is bent? It’s unlikely but I’d check it. However, if it’s barely engaging that arm, I’d be concerned about it the gear bar coming out of the block.

I have a 67 F with the electronic step. I put a switch in the cockpit. I love it. And yeah, it may be only a few knots. But this is one of the cool features of this vintage plane!! Its not that expensive to buy the electronic conversion and I have never had any problems with it.

I've done it. First year after owning the Mooney. Home airport was a bees nest as usual and the downwind was stretched to two miles. So I kept speed up on final and didn't bleed it in time. I was too fast and when the wheels touched, I popped back up off the runway and then the plane came back down slightly nose wheel first, which made the second bounce more pronounced. That's when I went around knowing the next bounce would have buried the nose. I was lucky and learned a lesson. Airspeed airspeed airspeed. And if you bounce a Mooney, it's not a 172. Go around. Not worth trying to save it.

You can get fine interior trim screws anywhere. Two months after I bought my F, I flew to Airventure. I went to the fly market with some sample screws and interior washers and bought a bunch dirt cheap. I then spent an evening in the north 40 sweating my baguettes off replacing every interior trim screw.

Did you sell this? Thanks.

See you there Parker!

I carry a multimeter with me. When I was having these issues, I used it with the engine running to check steady voltage to the power buss at the alternator circuit breaker. That’s how I figured out it wasn’t the alternator. From there it was a matter of following the connections after the alternator circuit breaker. If the alternator wasn’t steady at 14 or so at the breaker, I would have started looking at the field wire or voltage regulator.

Ditto for checking connections. I had the same issue. Would get low volt alert on JPI and then back up to 14 in a few mins or so. Sometimes longer. Replaced the voltage regulator and that did nothing. Wish we had tested output from the VR before we replaced it. Pretty easy to do. But the mechanic was convinced it was the VR. Anyway, it wasn't until I was hearing occasional popping in the headset that we determined a loose connection somewhere. Turned out to be a loose connection between the main buss and the avionics buss. After a few turns of the screw driver, the problem was solved.

Thanks for the continued ideas. I have a jpi 830 and a mechanical primary tachometer. They both agree and the JPI is pulling rpm from the mags. So I don’t think that’s the issue. But keep the ideas coming as we are stumped. Unfortunately I had to postpone todays flight so will have to wait a few days to do more troubleshooting.

The lowest I went was 2350 when I did the go-around test at altitude. I'll try to go to 2200 and back up to 2500+ this afternoon when I fly.

That was true on my most recent flight. But the flight before that I got it to surge to ~2650 at least once by pushing hard.

Same hours on the ATH, as the hub was done with the overhaul in 2012.

That's interesting. It doesn't take much movement to make a 150 RPM difference. We will definitely have to check that out. @jetdriven, what are your thoughts? We were wrenching on it a bit and it didn't seem like any of those 6 screws were loose - but we should check them. Might explain when sometimes you push hard, the RPMs go up to near 2700. Pushing hard may be rotating the whole thing a hair.

Don’t know how to rule that out, but I checked with my mechanic this afternoon and he doesn’t seem to think it’s the prop.

Appreciate all of the thoughts. Because I had all 4 cylinders rehoned I've been running straight Phillips mineral oil and running at high MP and lower altitudes, keeping power above 75%. I usually use Aeroshell W100 when not in breakin mode. I have about 12 hours since the cylinders were put back on. The problem appeared on the second flight, right after the first 2-hour break-in flight. However, for the break-in flight, I flew the first hour at 2650, so I didn't pull the prop back. For the second hour, I flew between 2450 and 2550, so it might still have had a problem and I didn't know it. I did try a simulated go around at altitude. Low MP, Low RPM, mixture full rich. When I firewalled everything, prop surged to 2600 and then back down to 2500. So the governor regulated back to 2500 instead of keeping it above 2600 (or the prop could be sticking as takair mentioned - not sure how to test that).

I don’t use vernier for takeoff. But do use it to pull back in cruise. But after experiencing this issue, I have pushed the prop back to full in cruise without using vernier. I will say that testing on the ground didn’t make a difference vernier or not. However, not using vernier at all is a good thing to test next flight to rule it out.

Hi all, I'm hoping Mooneyspace can work its magic and help my mechanic (@jetdriven) and I solve an RPM mystery. I'm having a problem where my RPMs go to ~2670 on takeoff, which is normal or just slightly low for my '67 M20F. At altitude, I pull the RPMs back to cruise RPM of ~2450 to ~2500. After this, I can no longer get the RPMs above ~2500, no matter how far forward I push the prop. A very few times, if I push hard enough, forcing the knob closer to the firewall, the RPMs would surge up to ~2670 or so. However, most times when I pushed the knob hard, it won't go above 2500. The cable is less than two years old and is a vernier-type control from McFarlane. The cable has cushion between the panel and the knob, so it does not reach the panel at full forward, which is correct. We've thoroughly inspected the cable to governor and the arm is travelling to the stop screw at full forward. The cable is firmly secured to the governor cable bracket and is not slipping. The prop governor is a PCU5000 model ATH-1. The governor expert we talked with doesn't think it's a traditional problem with the governor and thinks if we pull it to bench test it, it will pass, as it seems to be governing oil pressure to the prop ok. Prop hub was replaced in 2012 and has approx 1100 hours. No signs of any leaks in prop. This problem didn't exist until after an annual this February where I had all 4 cylinders rehoned, which is obviously not directly related to this issue, but may be indirectly related as things were moved around for the cylinder removal and install. Has anyone experienced anything similar? If so, what was the cause / outcome? Thanks, Adam

Unrelated but funny recent story. I had work done on my throttle cable. On departure, lifted off, pull the J-bar out to raise the gear and the damn horn is going off at full throttle. I fly the plane to 1,500 and then stick my finger in the gear down block to silence the horn. My gear horn breaker is the automatic / flush kind that can't be pulled to stop the horn. So now what? Fly for hours with my finger in the hole? Turn around and land? So I crumple up a piece of paper and stick it in the gear down block hole. Upon arrival, slowed down to gear speed, took the paper out, locked the J-bar in. Landed and later explained to the newish-to-Mooneys mechanic how to adjust the micro-switch correctly.