AndreiC

On a Cherokee I used to own before the Mooney we we installed something that came in like a sheet of sandpaper and was glued to the wing. Worked out well.

I have heard good things about Jason at Jed-Aire at KBBB (Benson, MN) which is reasonably close to MSP (Minneapolis-St Paul airport, major commercial hub). I do not have first hand experience with them, but a guy here with a M20J MSE was taking his plane to Jason religiously and was happy with the results.

After flying quite a few approaches with GPS guidance from my GNS430W, which the autopilot (STEC/30) followed very well, I thought a few days ago to try an ILS. Luckily I was in good weather and only tried it for fun. The autopilot gets very easily confused, and either hunts badly (going from the left to the right of the localizer and back, never intercepting properly) or loses track of it completely (needle goes all the way to one side, and if I was not in good weather I'd have to go missed). What I did was fly by hand until I had the localizer needle centered, put the heading bug on the runway heading, and engaged either TRK LO or TRK HI modes. The behavior above happened in both TRK LO and TRK HI modes. (I tried flying an ILS or a LOC approach 3-4 times.) My system has a GNS430W coupled to the autopilot via an STEC GPSS unit, but I thought that only affects the HDG mode. (In any case, the GPSS unit was on HDG mode.) Am I doing something wrong, or is this autopilot known to be bad at tracking a localizer signal? In my previous plane, a Piper Cherokee, I had a Century autopilot which did very well on a localizer signal, so it's not just that it is an older analog autopilot.

I thought so, and I did try this a few days ago with one lead disconnected. It did not budge with my ohmmeter at any range. So my guess is the meter is toast. (Or maybe just jammed? Can this happen?)

This is correct. Do you happen to know what voltage range is it supposed to measure? I was going to try to hook up a 1.5v battery to it and see if it moves (after disconnecting one lead from it) but I don't want to fry it if it is a super-sensitive voltmeter.

I think it’s important for every one to know their limitations. I know that if I do it I will mess up somewhere, and that defect, while probably invisible for everyone else, will bother me every single time. OCD, I guess… so I’ll let someone else mess it up, and then *I* won’t notice it! More seriously though, just applying a protectant won’t do it for my plane. The difference between the patch that the guy buffed out professionally and the rest of the paint is quite clear. The reflections are way more obvious. So the fading, oxidation, and dirt have to come out before any other coating will be applied. And I’m not doing it for the reasons mentioned above. Here is a picture showing the difference. Notice how easily you can see the hangar truss reflecting in the polished area, but not in the surrounding parts

This is a pretty bad picture but it shows the instrument pack at the top.

I don't think the ammeter gauge is showing anything on my 1970 M20E. It never moves at all, even if I turn on the pitot heat without the engine running, which should be drawing a significant charge. I suspect it is the gauge itself, not the wiring. Can the gauge in the six-gauge linear cluster be replaced alone? Or are there whole clusters available for sale? Or does anyone refurbish these? The gauge is not needed for flight, and my EDM-700 shows me voltage, so I have pretty much the information needed about the electrical system, but it would be nice to not have an inop gauge in the panel.

As they say, the only time you have too much fuel is when you are on fire…

I used to own a Cherokee 140 with one VOR/ILS head and a second nav com with VOR indicator only. I did my IFR training in it, and got my instrument ticket with it. It would still be legal to fly that thing IFR. But that was long before RNAV approaches became common. Nowadays if you actually want to use your instrument ticket you really want to have a GPS navigator certified for LPV approaches. Almost every small airport has got RNAV approaches and nothing else. Without that GPS you will be stuck with shooting ILS approaches to big airports, or go to the few airports that still have a VOR approach.

You can fill to the tops. The tabs are there so you have a good idea what you have in the tanks if you ever do not want to fill up to the top, for example if you would exceed maximum take off weight with some passengers if had the tanks full all the way. But filling to the top is the usual SOP.

Okay, I've narrowed things down to two choices. One option is to go to a guy who is highly recommended in Green Bay. Works in his own large heated hangar, it is a well-established business which mostly does bizjets but wants to get more customers by penetrating into the smaller planes market. Recommended by my mechanic. But it is quite expensive -- 5 AMU for doing the whole plane with some fancy ceramic coating which should last 5 years +. This guy seemed to know what he is doing, he explained to me all the details of what he would do, did a test patch which came out very nice, etc. The other choice is a mobile guy recommended by the mechanics at Poplar Grove. He travels for these jobs in his C150, and works in your own hangar. I don't know what kind of polishing he would do, and what kind of ceramic coating he uses. The Poplar Grove people said they had seen some of his work and that it was good, but that's all I know. 1.5-1.8 AMU. Since my hangar is not heated it'll have to wait until April or May. What would you guys choose? Really could use some help deciding... Thanks.

Jimmy Garrison (contact him through gmaxamericanaircraft.com) publishes every few years a pricing guide for Mooneys, and it is quite accurate. He does not make the document fully public, but if you contact him he will email it to you. That will give you a very good idea of what you should ask for.

If your FBO has a preheater (or can put the plane in a heated hangar for an hour or two before you leave) I’d recommend that. I am not familiar with the Reiff XP, but a typical Reiff or Tanis will not be enough in temps below 20F. (When I say a preheater, I mean one of those gas burning blower devices they hook up to your air intake.) A blanket is a must. Also make sure your battery is up to it, in these temps you may get one shot only to start it. in my E when it was similarly cold I used aluminum tape over the oil cooler, covering about 2/3 of it. Worked well. Inside the cabin was fine (I was in the front seat, so can’t comment on back seats).

Forgot to attach the interconnect diagram.

I recently pulled out my perfectly functioning STEC 30 autopilot head from the panel (to gain access to the DG) and when I put it back in it failed to start up. When I checked the connector, it turns out I had bent two pins. However, even after straightening out the two pins and making sure they now go in correctly, still the A/P does not start up. What it does is that the gyro is spinning up as it should, and when I flick on the A/P switch I can hear the servo in the back go through the motions, but I get no lights on the autopilot face to light up. One other thing -- when I opened up the connector to inspect it, there is one loose black wire that I suspect is a ground that appears to have been disconnected. But I don't know if this has been like this for a long time, or it is from me messing around with it. A local avionics shop offered me to put together a small harness with just two powers and two grounds (for the A/P and for the gyro, which are independent) and see if it lights up on their bench. My question -- do you guys know if these autopilots show any signs of life (like lights coming on) before they go through their self-test? Would the test proposed by the avionics guys show me anything, or is it the case that if the system does not power up on their bench it means nothing (like, it went through self test and did not find responsive servos, etc. so it shows nothing?) Another question -- I attach here the interconnect diagram I have found for the STEC 30 autopilot. Can you guys tell which one is the autopilot ground connection? Is it the main one on pin 34, or is that just a safety grounding pin and there is something else going on? If I were to take a wild guess, I'd assume that the autopilot head is not getting power (but the pitch computer is, hence I can hear the trim servo being initialized), and the most natural guess would be that the ground line (the black line I found in the connector) is disconnected. But when I checked the connector, there definitely is a black wire going to pin 34. Thanks.

Also, flying above a class B should not be an issue for an F. The top of O’Hare’s class B is at 10k. I’ve had my NA E model at 16500 and would have had no issues climbing further. (True, I was alone, but with a decent amount of baggage and full tanks.)

Somehow, I don’t know how, I managed to put an unpleasant scratch in my windshield. It is an area of maybe 1/2” x 1/2” that is now hazy, and if you feel it with your finger you can clearly feel it’s not smooth (it’s on the outside). Can something like this be polished out without messing up the whole windshield? I can live with it as it is, but it is in my field of vision and it will bother me every time I fly. But replacing the whole windshield (which probably is at least a 1 AMU endeavor, if not more) sounds stupid for such a small scratch. I was hoping that maybe the kind of treatment that removes haze from car headlights would fix it. But I don’t know if it works, if it does not make it worse, and if I can do it in just one localized spot or if I need to polish the whole windshield.

I am using Aviation Insurance Resources, (301) 682-6200. Victoria Neuville is my agent and I have been happy with what she finds for me. Have been using them for 15 years at least. When I moved to Mooney two years ago (after a long time in Cherokees) that got me insured for $2715 with only 5 hours in make and model, hull value of $85k. But I did already have over 1200 hours, instrument rated, and had over 150 hours in retractable gear (Comanche, long time ago). After one year and crossing the 100 hours in M&M the insurance price dropped to $2041 on hull value of $90k.

I'm interested to hear more about this. My plane has an ancient King KA-134 audio panel, and I am concerned that sometimes after you use the speaker button the audio panel loses all functionality (the audio from the radios goes neither to the headsets nor to the speaker). Lately I decided to never use the speaker button any more. I was thinking of getting a PMA7000BT installed in its place. I think the extra 1/3" can be found somewhere above, without having to move the entire stack. (The KA134 is 1" tall, while the PMA is 1.33".) My question is to what extent this is something that can be done by my A&P, with my help, instead of having to go to an expensive avionics shop; and also if it is possible to do the work in two stages, a first one that only involves installing the new tray and rewiring the plugs in the back, while reusing the mono wires that go to the headset plugs, and a second stage replacing the headset wires and plugs. Does any of this make any sense? The problem is that my avionics shop quoted 2.5-3 AMU for a complete install of a nice audio panel...

The instructor who did my Mooney transition training (ex-official Mooney factory instructor) advised me to use the round hole of the front landing gear to attach the ground, and I've been doing this ever since. (I mean the sides of the hole where you insert the towbar into the front gear.)

If you were at 4500 you should be able to get around a 25" MP maximum. (At sea level the pressure is more or less 30" -- standard is 29.92" -- and you lose 1" of MP for every 1000' of altitude. This is not precise, as the engine is not 100% efficient, but should be close enough.) Certainly 19" is very low. Is your throttle control rigged properly? If that is correct, then the culprit could be the MP gauge itself.

What I do not understand is -- if you already have $225k ready to pay for an airplane, why not buy a really nice MSE that has a low-time engine and good avionics? There are quite a few on Controller around $200k. Then you have your plane ready to go on day one. The only downsides of that plan I can see are -- 1) you don't control the overhaul process, and don't get a warranty on the engine; and 2) the panel you get is not exactly what you want. For me, not having the plane down for a year or more for maintenance would be more important. But everyone's priorities are different.

I am happy to put as much elbow grease into polishing/buffing the plane as I can, but every time I tried to do it the results have been disappointing. I don't know if it is my technique, the materials I use, or the fact that maybe my paint is shot. One option of course will be to just go to the guys that quoted me 5 AMU and let them do a small patch, observe what they do and how they do it, and see if I can do it myself (or if not, have them do it). One thing I was trying to gauge on the list here is if the 5 AMU price was within the normal range (given that someone said 2 AMU it seems to have gone up a lot, or that this place is really pricey), and what people thought, if 5 AMU was worth it or not.

I just saw the offer below from a company affiliated with Amazon, so presumably it is not a flaky one. I was wondering if this appliance could easily be adapted to push/pull a Mooney in/out of a hangar. What do you guys think? https://tools.woot.com/offers/superhandy-electric-trailer-dolly-14?ref=cnt_wp_0_27&fbclid=IwY2xjawG8BKNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHdiXibls7qtKarO_TRA6sBnI_Z4_F-ZGlGwzFAoSvkDhfg0abvYzF7quqQ_aem__gttZBtgh2uMc7lFdyfaoQ