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.

Edited post for brevity: We did drop the left flap as an initial attempt to fix the heavy wing, but no effect. Seems that this may be more effective for asymmetric wing drop with flap actuation.

Nice googling! So far I have come across: https://knr-inc.com/shoptalk-articles.html?view=article&id=75&catid=25 https://knr-inc.com/shoptalk-articles.html?view=article&id=106&catid=25 https://themooneyflyer.com/issues/2017-OctTMF.pdf https://www.themooneyflyer.com/issues/2012-JulTMF.pdf

I purchased an M20J this summer and have put 40 hours on it thus far. It has always banked left in cruise and the purpose of this thread is to journal the process to address and rectify the issue (ongoing) The issue: hands off cruise the plane starts banking left within 1-2 seconds and within 10 seconds the plane will be in a 15° left bank. Furthermore: stall practice has me hesitant as it consistently seems to want to drop the right wing. My reasoning tells me this is from the relatively higher AOA of the right wing needed to fly my plane straight into a stall, but I could be out to lunch on that. Diagnostic work thus far: I flew today for the purpose of evaluating the issue further following the flight test guidance found here: https://knr-inc.com/shoptalk-articles.html?view=article&id=75&catid=25 Conditions: just me in the plane (but it behaves this way with a passenger as well), full tanks (burning the left side first), 8500ft, WOT, 2500 RPM 8.5 GPH 117 KIAS Wings level test (using just aileron): turn coordinator ball slightly to the right of centre, just peeking past the white line. Wings level and ball centred test (used right aileron and right rudder to level wings and centre ball, then released aileron and kept rudder pressure): still banks left but not as dramatically as without rudder correction. In wings level cruise I will say that I *think* I could appreciate a slight positive angle upwards relative to the flap on the left aileron but tough to say for sure. So- my conclusion is that my plane is out of rig and both the left bank and yaw both need addressing. My mechanic is excellent, and I am confident he will be able to rig the plane, only thing is that he does not have the Mooney travel boards. I have read literally every thread on here about travel boards and rigging, so I feel that we should really try to get these to be confident in the static rigging before we start bending servo tabs. We are working to source them. I live in Alberta Canada which makes things more complicated if needing to source from the USA. I will keep this thread updated with my progress and experience with rigging my J partially as a place to journal my thoughts and also to help future riggers! James

Oh excellent! I will look into this. Thanks for the detailed reply Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I bought the mini 7 and ram mount for mini 6 and it fits well. I am not happy with the placement on pilot yoke, obstructs gauges and my alt static if it were to be needed so I keep it on the co-pilot yoke.

Hi Peter, I was happy with my broker. I'm in Alberta. c.winterburn@dulude-taylor.com.

Thanks, I just came across John’s post. Will look at MyGoFlight, Ram and other options. Cheers!

I have been waiting for the new mini to drop as I find my iPad Pro size a bit cumbersome. Just pre-ordered 256 GB wifi and did some fun customization with the engraving. Any suggestions on the best yoke mount option?

Re: Pitch trim My understanding is dynon would require a legacy pitch trim whereas garmin has a native and modern pitch trim. Correct me if I am wrong, but that seems like an advantage for garmin if trying to modernize the autopilot system. Thoughts?

Following! I also recently purchased a J with some rough paint spots including leading edges. I have been trying gentle wet sand (200-600 grit), a product called final wash, acid etch spray on primer and colour matched spray cans from a local auto body supplier. To answer someone’s earlier question : single colour no clear coat unless metallic is what I have been told for airplanes. Single stage “1K” paint (no catalyst needed) is how they mix up the spray cans for me. 2K paint needs a catalyst. So far I have made very little progress. Other challenges are doing this outdoors to avoid overspray to other aircraft, and the bugs that come with being outdoors. Any tips welcome! The remainder of the paint is flat and oxidized so going to have it buffed and see if I can avoid a paint job and put my money where it really counts… certified aircraft parts Quote on a paint job up here in Canada is $35k CAD ($26k USD) I am the exact opposite of an expert on this, so take everything above as hypothesis until you do your own fact checking