Slick Nick

Aside from a visual inspection, what’s the best indicator someone could look for to determine if the old baffles need replacement?

Give it a rest man, now you’re just splitting hairs… “the soup” is a metaphor for IMC conditions. I didn’t come up with the term, I’m sure it harks back to the dawn of aviation. Back to contact approaches for a moment, would you rather have no guidance at all, or at the very least some sort of runway centerline when conducting a contact type of approach? I hate to break it to you, but especially at underserved remote airports here in the great white north, you simply can’t just fly radar vectors from ILS beam to ILS beam. It takes some airmanship, skill, and solid decision making to get in sometimes. More so “back in the day” before GNSS approaches were mainstream as they are today.

Don’t think in terms of cloud layers. It has everything to do with visibility. I suppose I could have been more clear by saying “straight in approaches” but I didn’t think the mere idea of giving yourself a nice approach reference would cause so much.. Controversy. The OBS function is a great tool to have when the situation warrants. Give it a try sometime and you’ll see it works really well!

I never said any of that. You are making an awful lot of assumptions. A contact approach requires intimate local knowledge of the surrounding terrain, especially when it comes to assuring terrain and obstruction clearance on your vertical descent path. In Canada, you are still required to have a published approach to the airport, but if that happened to only be an NDB with a procedure turn and circling minima, doing a contact approach straight in to the runway instead was orders of magnitude more safe. Flying is all about risk mitigation. Do what makes the most sense.

Perfectly legal in Canada, (and safe when used appropriately.) Must have 1 statute mile visibility. A strong knowledge of the airport and surrounding terrain is a good idea. Search “contact approach.”

I remember doing that almost 15 years ago now in the old King Airs and 99’s up north to airports that had no approaches. We affectionately called it the “Mexican ILS:” OBS the runway, and use the 3:1 rule to get you down through the soup. Worked like a hot damn!

I come from the airline world, so maybe that’s where this mentality comes from, but I always found it crazy how someone could operate a piece of equipment and not know every function and feature. That’s how we end up with idiots like the “my iPad died” guy who can’t even activate an approach.

CYBW is my home airport. It's the closest one to Banff. Banff is maintained but for emergency use only, since it's inside the national park. You can park and tie down at Springbank, rent a car, and be in Banff within an hour.

In the POH for my J it says the cabin and baggage lighting are always hot and not connected to the master switch.

From an old "FLYING" magazine I have, apparently the claimed 201mph top speed was achieved by a prototype with the step removed.

I never assumed I could install it myself. The point of the thread was asking what exactly is involved in an autopilot install, as far as reusing any of the factory components. A consideration for me, since my plane wasn’t equipped with electric trim or AP from the factory. I’m not an avionics guy, so I had no idea if any of that stuff was generally reused.

Looking at this thread here: It could even be an MSE limited. The chronology listed here: https://www.mooneyevents.com/chrono.htm Going by my serial number, says that in 1991 there were only MSE’s and MSE Limited’s produced. No AT’s until well outside my serial number range, and not until 1992. Dual brakes and manual cowl flaps were options on MSE Limited’s… My head hurts…

Thank you for the help. I only mentioned the “lean machine” because that was the only version besides the AT that I knew to have no autopilot. I believe now that it is an AT, (original post edited to reflect) however a search of the serial number on a few spreadsheets I found online list it as an MSE, and outside the window of AT’s manufactured for 1991. I’ve found conflicting info on the 205’s as well. Perhaps someone here can help me clear it up? It’s got the round windows, landing lights in the wings instead of lower cowl, and enclosed wingtips. A Flying magazine I have lists the round windows as features of the 205, unless this became standard later on on all 201’s and AT’s? (July 2010 issue.) The things that lead me to believe it’s an AT, is that the engine gauges are large, and located in the center panel, just to the left of the radios, instead of over by the circuit breakers. Dual brakes. No electric trim or autopilot as mentioned before, and manual cowl flaps. came equipped with HSI, CDI and RMI for round dials, and dual altimeters. I’m not sure if this layout has anything to do with the AT, or if it’s just how it was spec’d when it left the factory. The instrument panel is the same cream color as the MSE’’s, however the yokes just have the mooney logo and not the “special edition” badging, for what it’s worth. Interestingly, the original POH is not for the advanced trainer version, (those have AT printed in the top centre of the page) as well I believe the certified gross weight of the AT’s was 2740, vs the 2900 that I’ve got. Hopefully someone somewhere can shed some light on some of this one day because it’s clear as mud to me.

That is exactly the information I was looking for. Thanks!

Appreciate the reply. I’m more interested in the logistics of installing an autopilot in the plane, as opposed to whether or not I should. I’m not an avionics guy, so I don’t know what’s involved. If there are a ton of actuators, trim motors, etc required (that I don’t currently have) it might change which direction I go with an avionics package.

I just picked up a 1991 J model, (AT / MSE?) it's still got the factory avionics in it. All Bendix King stuff. My plane never had autopilot or electric trim installed when it left the factory. How much work would it be to install an autopilot or electric trim system? I’m planning on eventually doing a full Garmin stack, but for now I just want to get an idea of how much extra work is involved installing an autopilot on a plane that never had electric trim from the factory, vs one that did. Has anyone ever updated any of the “lean machines” of that era to use an autopilot? I’ve found lots of info here on retrofitting the classic Mooneys, but not much with a later model J. I should add that autopilot isn’t a must for me, but if it was something that could easily be added when I do the stack, it might be worth considering.