AndreiC

I was very excited yesterday because I found an almost new Hartzell scimitar prop for sale. I negotiated a good price with the seller, and was about to start worrying about payment and shipping. But, I called Hartzell to see what it would take to get the STC paperwork. At first it seemed like a pure formality -- pay $500, get the papers that you put in your binder, done. But then they asked for the serial number, and stopped dead in the tracks. Their statement was the following: -- yes this is the same exact propeller as we would have sold to you for your Mooney; -- but, because it was sold for an experimental airplane (it was used on a Glasair), we never issued an STC for it, so now we cannot issue an exchange STC to go from the Glasair to your Mooney. So basically this prop, despite being exactly the same prop that can be installed on my plane, will never be able to be installed on a certified plane. Ugh! All this trouble for nothing.

In about 1500 hours I’ve had the following: 1) Two vacuum pump failures, about 4-500 hours on each of them. Non-issues, I was in clear VMC each time. One of them I thought may have been caused by a mechanic washing the engine with solvent without sealing the pump intake port (pump failed one hour after the wash). 2) One mag failure in flight, about 20 miles from home base. Mag had about 500 hours from overhaul. Knew right away as my electronic tach gave me a red light warning. Mechanic had to drive to my field, take out the mag and send it out for refresh. 3) Alternator failure that happened a few times (and took several trips to the shop to diagnose properly). Turned out to be a bad field wire that kept shorting and tripping the CB. Not in IMC (and until was resolved did not fly IFR). No big issue. 4) I repeatedly had problems on a Cherokee I owned with the starter, once leaving me stranded at a remote field and requiring starting by hand propping, which was a bit scary. Was fixed by replacing the old aluminum wires with copper.

My take, based on recommendation from old timers with a lot of experience here in the Upper Midwest (cold weather) is that usually above freezing heating is not needed, and between 20-32 about an hour is enough with a blanket and cowl plugs. If you can go to the airport with one hour to spare I would do that. Leaving it plugged in for several days seems overkill to me.

What the hell happened at KEFT (Monroe) around that date? Not only was there that gear up, but there was also a TBM 700 that crashed on missed approach killing two on Nov 24... Weather has been very shitty the last two weeks, but that should not really explain these two incidents.

My understanding was that the issue would be if the crud got into the servo but not left it -- that it could clog things up there. Isn't it the case that silicon that would show up in oil would be from whatever crap the plane picked up that did make its way out of the servo? I am not that concerned about that stuff, more about the stuff that is stuck in the servo.

@EricJ My mechanic just discovered that my ram air door cable has been broken for the best part of a year (the time since my last annual), thus the door has stayed open during all this time, including during ground operations. (1970 E.) I operated only from paved runways in this time, and not particularly badly crumbling ones. Should I be concerned that I got crud in the servo? So far the engine has been running like a top, no complaints, so other than your comments above I have no reasons to suspect a bad servo. What should I do at this point? Sorry to be changing the topic of this thread.

@Cruiser73, I'll take it if it is still available. DM sent.

I don't know anything about Horton so can't answer that. Price-wise, I think it depends how deep they will go into the inspection. Around here (upper Midwest) $3500 is the price of an annual if they don't find serious things that need addressing. (I.e., never; but the things that need addressing are extra.) In my mind an annual is more extensive than a prepurchase inspection, but I may be wrong (for example on an annual with a mechanic that already knows the plane they don't need to review the logbooks from the beginning onwards; while on a ppi they may not need to swing the gear). How to factor in West Coast prices is also an unknown. So in conclusion my gut feeling is that the price is high, but not obscenely high.

@Igor_U That panel is beautiful, that is the kind of thing I was hoping to get to... How many hours of work on your part do you estimate that was to install it (not counting the CAD design time)?

Well, since it seems there has been at least one person who did this @Igor_U, was the juice worth the squeeze? Can you perhaps share pics of the after results?

I got a crazy idea, and I am sure I'll be told off soon about this. But hear me out. My plane (1970 E) has the standard six pack with modest avionics (JPI 700 engine monitor, GNS430W/KX155/KT78, original engine instrumentation). Nonetheless I am happy with their functionality and don't want to change anything. However, I dislike the way the whole thing is laid out, it all look very scattershot; rearranging things would make things better. My question: what would it cost to have someone cut me a nice one piece panel that I would design? And how much would it cost to have it installed? Can I do some or most of the work myself, under supervision of an A&P, or do I need an avionics shop for this? Has anyone done anything similar to this, or is this a crazy idea?

Going back to the OP's posting, and with the caveat that without pictures it is much harder to assess paint and interior condition, I would guess that the plane as described should fetch around $75-80k in a private party sale, perhaps a bit more if Jimmy Garrison was selling it. I am calculating this against my own plane which I think would normally sell for around $75k (1970 E with 650 hours on a good overhaul with new cylinders). -- The one the OP is selling has a lower timed engine from a reputable shop so that would count for more, maybe +$10k. -- No autopilot and no engine monitor lower the value, at least for me they are a must -- -$10k (50% of cost to install new ones) -- I don't know how to price the Rayjay turbo -- I'm sure it is great for high altitude takeoffs (not important for me as a low-lander), and probably gets you higher speeds at altitude, but at the expense of more maintenance -- $0 -- There is no mention on high cost items like tank reseals, landing gear shock disks; any damage history; hours flown in the last 2/5/10 years? I did not put a value on this, but this could add or subtract quite a bit.

As the OP of this post I should have said what I decided: I went with the Artex 345, and so far (1 year in) it’s all good.

Hello all, during my coming annual I was hoping to get my front seats redone. The covering on them is still fine, and I'd like to keep it (it matches with the rest of the interior), but the foam underneath is compressed; I would also like to get the seating position to be higher by maybe one inch by putting more foam in. Problem is that I called Oregon Aero, and they quoted me an incredible price, around $2200 per seat just to make cushions for me. (Without any installation or anything, just to have the molded foam cut.) That is way way too expensive for what I want to do. My question is what other options do I have? Is there a way to source aviation-approved foam to install in the seats? The plane is a 1970 M20E. Thanks.

Wow, your F really is a wonderful machine. What is the useful load? Over 1000 lbs? In my E if I put 800 lbs in the cabin I can barely fly 1 hour with 1 hour reserve... (but I have bladders and 3-blade prop, both of which add to the weight).