jamesyql

I was considering a garmin upgrade but instead (along with budget constraints) adding some sensors to my 730 for now. Interested to hear progress along the way here and thanks for sharing. Sorry you are going through this.

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments. This is exactly the type of opinions and discussion I was hoping to generate and it will help guide my decision making.

Great advice and I suspect my panel upgrade will happen after my instrument rating depending on how long it takes me. Timing of the panel upgrade will be based on cash available and convenient time for plane downtime.

Thanks Marc. I will see what the shop quotes the full vs partial job out at. This is definitely good food for thought.

Appreciate the reply I do plan on EIS with the initial upgrade For the VNAV this is just for approaches correct? As long as I get altitude hold I will be happy for now. Good thought on the #2 navcomm. It is elderly. I understand the majority of the cost will be in my first upgrade, I am trying to keep some coin in the bank for unexpected hiccups as I am in my early ownership years. Other option is to put off the upgrade as long as possible but my current autopilot setup is a bit janky. The century follows the CDI needle in a “reactive” manner and ends up “s-turning” along the GPS track. The pitch is misbehaving and I think needs attention as well.

Good news update. Plane is flying appreciably straighter now that the flaps and rudder have been adjusted with the travel boards. Slow flight and stalls have both been easier and more predictable. Cruise flight requires much less input. Thanks for everyone’s input. Bottom line, if your Mooney is not flying straight or behaving well in a stall, it’s worth the hassle to source travel boards and get it done right. And for what it’s worth, my mechanic is not an MSC and was able to get this done in approximately a 9 hours of labour (first time doing Mooney rigging).

Figured I would poll the audience as to whether this is an appropriate strategy for a panel upgrade. I am a new VFR pilot, doing night and IFR ratings in the next year. My immediate goal is to have a better autopilot for long cross country and improved engine monitoring. I have considered Dynon however I do not like the idea of keeping my legacy STEC Pitch trim as would be required. Current: Steam gauges, GNC530W, Century IIB, STEC 60 PSS, GTX335, GMA340, KX170B, JPI700 Future Goal: G3X G5 GFC500 GTN650 (or GNC355) GNC215 GMA345 (for bluetooth) Interim Solution: Keep current gps/nav/comm units. Just do the G3X, G5, GFC500 (3 axis, hold off on yaw damper until stage 2 upgrade). Then plan for remainder of panel down the road.

Thanks, yes this is great point. My mechanic levelled the plane on jacks and ensured the ball was centred as part of the rigging process.

Winter got the better of my initial plans at a test flight and I had to scrub the flight. Finally got up today and pleased to report that after the static rigging issues were addressed with the travel boards my left bank/yaw is much less pronounced. Winds were strong and gusty today and I was working with my instructor on exercises so will need another flight or two before I decide to start tweaking trailing edge tabs. What a great community we have here.

Thank you! I will report back how things go

Mechanic got my J in for rigging today. I was experiencing left roll AND yaw. He went through everything step by step as outlined in the maintenance manual with reference to the very helpful article here https://knr-inc.com/shoptalk-articles.html?view=article&id=106&catid=25 Main highlights were 1. rudder left of reference and 2. asymmetrical flaps, left too high, right too low. Both these make sense, and perhaps explain the issue. Test flight tomorrow will confirm if we are making headway

Fair enough. I am hoping that by addressing the static rigging many of the issues will resolve.

Secured travel board rental from nearby MSC. Correction: they only have the elevator board. The hunt continues. Mechanic going to chat with Lasar. Aaaaand, we found them locally(ish) after all. Will update back once we have had a chance to get the plane in the shop.

apologies, wrong lingo. Thanks for the clarification. I was referring to the aileron trailing edge which can be bent. Still learning all of this, new to plane ownership and Mooneys. Edited above post to avoid confusion to others.

I am hoping to source travel boards and have it done locally if possible. I don’t have much spare time to be travelling for maintenance and I trust my mechanic and have an excellent relationship with him. Even if it takes a bit longer than an MSC, it is worth it to me to keep everything in house. I should add that the right aileron [edit] trailing edge has also been bent downwards and correlates to a log book entry for a heavy left wing from years ago. My goal is to get the static rigging checked and adjusted since the plane is new to me and then I will have a better starting point if needing to modify tabs any further. Will also have engine mounts checked.