AndreiC

No, sorry. I don't even know if I have one (see below). The back story is that a year ago I ordered one boot to keep as a spare (my own one is in good shape). I received mine about 4 months ago. I did not know there are more people with this problem, sorry. I told @Hradec that I would be willing to sell him mine for the cost of what LASAR charges for a new one, since I do not expect to need to use mine for the next half a year or so. @varlajo and @Hradec -- What did Heather at LASAR tell you about the one you are on the waiting list for? How much are they charging for a new one, and when do they expect to ship new ones if you order one now? (I was going to call her on Monday.) If the answer is that they don't know when they are making new ones, I might end up holding on to the one I have.

Check your messages, I have one that I could “lend” to you.

As the OP, maybe I should give some background. I got my pilot license 30 years ago, and the instrument ticket 24 years ago. I have about 1500 hours, of which about 100 actual and 100 simulated IFR. My instrument rating was done in a Cherokee 140 with two VORs, one ILS, and nothing else. (Certainly no autopilot. A primitive handheld GPS on the yoke.) When I got my instrument ticket I was very gung ho, flew a lot in that Cherokee including in low instrument conditions, and managed to scare myself badly enough a few times to decide that this is not the way to go. Flying instruments single pilot, in hard IFR, by hand, on a regular basis was just beyond my risk level. So I quit flying instruments completely for about 15 years. Three years ago I sold another Cherokee and got the Mooney, and decided to give it a go again in the new environment with a WAAS navigator and an autopilot. I went with a very experienced CFII for about 5 hours of lessons, and at the end he said I did much better than was expected for someone who did not fly instruments in 20 years. He cleared me to fly again IFR. Since then I've used the instrument rating a fair bit (especially on a trip to CA and back, and for 4 months in CA a year ago). As I said, I feel that if the autopilot were to give up the ghost in the soup I'd be able to get the plane down safely, but treating it as an emergency. With job, kids, etc., I cannot find enough time to be at the level where I fly instruments often enough to feel I can do a good enough flying without the autopilot in the soup smoothly. It is just what it is. My question (and several people answered it, thanks) is if flying this way but maintaining the instrument rating is a reasonable thing to do. Seems that the consensus is that IFR-lite is ok, as long as you know your limitations.

Thanks all for the mix of comments, this is very helpful. Here is my main question. Given the type of flying I do -- about 100-150 hours per year, all of it recreational, I can cancel any flight if the weather does not seem right to me, probably 95% of it VFR, very rarely approaches to minima -- what is a good frequency with which to go up with an instructor to shoot approaches hand-flying? One option: with what I do I can stay current (barely) by going out once every couple of months when the weather is like yesterday and shooting 3-4 approaches in actual, with the autopilot on (to be safe), maybe shoot one approach by hand and call it a day. Since I don't ever plan to fly actual IFR when I don't need to without a functioning autopilot, this seemed (until yesterday) like a reasonable option. I prove to myself that if the autopilot kicks the bucket in hard IFR I can get myself on the ground by hand, treating it more like an emergency. I would ask ATC to divert to a place with the easiest approach possible (LPV or ILS, never anything without vertical guidance), with good weather well above minima, etc. Option two: go out regularly with an instructor, enough to stay current on instruments to be able to fly by hand confidently. Of course this would be better, though with the existing availability of instructors it seems hard to do. Also, I found that under the hood work does not feel the same way to me as actual IFR, and I am not confident that if I do everything right with an instructor under the hood, this will translate to perfect flying in actual. (And good IFR weather is not often happening here -- either it is good VFR, or bad TSRA or icing...) What do people do in situations like these? Should I call it a day on IFR flying, like @A64Pilot? That is very limiting... Is it ok to say I have an IFR-lite rating?

Today was a great IFR training day around here (ceilings 400'-800', no turbulence, solid IFR, good VFR weather nearby if ceilings were to go down more) so I went to do some IFR practice by myself. The first two approaches, flown with the help of the autopilot, were great, rock solid, very happy with them. (RNAVs; the A/P is STEC 30 coupled to GNS430W). Then I thought let's try a few flown by hand. Boy, was I in for a surprise. I felt behind the airplane most of the time, occasionally finding myself on a heading 20 degrees off what I wanted, etc. The 4 approaches I tried worked out eventually, but I was definitely not proud of myself. I felt all the time like a juggler who is at their limit because even one simple thing I was doing (turning a knob on the GPS or adjusting the DG) was bound to throw my scan off. I know what I am supposed to do, go back up under the hood with an instructor and shake off some rust. But is it just this, being rusty? I did an IPC maybe a year ago, and I did very well on it, all without an autopilot. I don't fly actual IFR all that much, probably just barely the 6 required approaches in 6 months, and mostly just going through a layer on my way up or down, almost always with the A/P on. Advice? How do others handle this?

I find this hilarious. Aren't we all discussing the Church of Mooney in these forums... Deeply religious

I ended up doing what was suggested and moved the sensor to the first forward outboard inspection panel past the wheel well. Running the wires through the front of the wing was more difficult, mainly because my forearm was too thick to fit through the inspection hole (to fish the wire out). Luckily my wife agreed to help. I have not test run the plane yet, but I suspect this is a good location for the sensor. (The JPI provided wire was just long enough for what I needed, in the end.)

The reason I asked is that I *think* in my plane there aren't any wires running through there, or at least I did not see them when I opened that access panel. I'll check again this evening. (In fact I've always wondered where the pitot tube heating and the wingtip light wires are routed through...)

@N201MKTurbo I understand now what you mean. Can you please confirm though that if I were to run the wires through the front of the wing, the wire would go behind that inspection panel you were talking about (for the aileron tube)? If so, how do you keep the wire from getting tangled with the aileron tube?

Can you guys please clarify where the factory probe on the J is? I don't think my E came with a factory OAT probe (or if it did it is long gone). A picture would sure help, but right now I was leaning towards the location @Ragsf15e suggested -- in a small panel on the wing, just outside the wing root.

My OAT sensor was installed by a previous owner in the NACA air scoop on the pilot side. Unfortunately warm air from the engine appears to affect it — it usually shows about 10 dF warmer than it should, making it useless for knowing how close to icing I am. I want to move it. I thought I’d move it to an inspection panel on the left wing, but it appears to be complicated to do this (for one, the wire provided by JPI is not long enough and I don’t want to go to the trouble of getting new wire, crimping new pins, etc.) I’ve narrowed it down to two locations. One would be on top of the cabin, where ADF antenna was attached in the past, about 4” in front of the VHF antenna. The advantage of this would be that it is relatively easy to run the wire, and there is already a hole drilled from the ADF. A second option would be to put it either in front or after the battery inspection panel on the left side pf the fuselage. But this involves removing more of the interior to run the wire, and drilling a new hole. Any opinions/suggestions? Thanks.

Interesting experience, I guess (to say the least). Was the engine toast, or did it just need a new cylinder? For the experts out there, is such a valve failure caused by high operating temps, or manufacturer's defect? How many hours were on that cylinder?

I wonder what can cause an engine failure in cruise like this. The plane was flown very regularly. Fuel exhaustion? Some other mechanical failure?

Unless you have a wet vacuum pump (unlikely, from what I know), the dry pumps either work or they don’t. When they fail they fail catastrophically. So if it still shows 4.2” it means the pump is probably still good.

If it was tumbling and spinning like crazy I think it may be more likely the vacuum pump. The AI does not need to go crazy. Easiest to check would be to turn the engine back on, revv it up to 1500-1800 rpm, and look at your vacuum gauge. If it is not showing 5” your pump is toast. I was in your situation not long ago, and chose to replace my DG with a good used one. (In my case it was the DG that was bad, but only in the sense that it had a lot of precession). I paid about $400 for a used one, and compared to the cost to install a G5, especially as a DG to interface with the autopilot, I felt it was a steal. But I am happy to stay with steam gauges for a while, people have been flying with them for decades and planes were not falling put of the sky because of this.