Dave Morris

I’ve known Monroe McDonald since the 1980’s as a ham operator I used to talk to every day on the way to and from work. I recognized his distinctive voice on the LiveATC recording. I flew in the BD-4 he built way back then and kept at a hangar in Addison in the days when you could afford one there . He was very familiar with the entire area around Addison. Most people may not know he’s the guy who proved with tufting that the airflow in an M20C is OUT of the oil cooler and had built a plexiglass duct to mount on front of the oil cooler intake hole to force the air to flow IN. The last ADS-B datapoint I saw showed a 1000fpm climb rate and a very slow ground speed. The accident occurred near the end of civil twilight IIRC. I’ll let the investigation play out. Rest in peace Monroe, K5DUS SK

News media confirm it was N1204X and I heard the LiveATC.net comms with Addison tower. It sounded like Monroe to me. Really sad. I met him in ham radio as K5DUS back in the 80's and rode in his BD-4 when you could still afford a hangar at Addison.

I think that's Monroe McDonald's plane. Gee I hope that wasn't him!

My 68C just got out of annual and on the first flight afterward, on climbout, my EI voice annuciator said the dreaded "Check Bus Voltage", and a quick glance showed 11.7V which meant my alternator quit. The JPI started resetting, and my Aspen also showed 11V and switched to internal battery power. I have had a generator fail in flight on my M20A over Santa Rosa NM and I flew just fine to Double Eagle II and had the mechanic replace an el-cheapo ring terminal that was probably original equipment, and I was on my way again. I wasn't at all stressed because I had been performing battery load tests and had a small chart with the current draw of each item in the cockpit, so I knew I had plenty of battery to make it to the airport. On this 68 C model however the alternator has about 600 hours on it since overhaul in 2007, so I'm thinking it's going to be more serious than just a flaky terminal. TO answer the original question, no I don't think you'll get any warning or indication of reduced voltage or anything like that. It may be a 500 hour inspection or replacement of the brushes and bearings may be the best preventive maintenance.

Bob Nuckolls debunks the old wives' tale about voltage spikes and about modern avionics not being able to handle an engine being cranked, but suggests anyone who is fearful just turn off the radios individually. The complexities of adding more switches and relays and stuff to invert the master switch are just more points of failure. The later Mooneys with an essential bus are the right way to go, but what's a 1968 airplane owner to do except try to eliminate single points of failure, because we all know that switches eventually fail. He has massive amounts of information on that web site for people building experimentals who want to have the most robust and modern electrical systems.

Or get rid of that thing that's a single-point-of-failure for your entire stack called the "avionics master switch". Here's what an avionics guru says about it: http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/avmaster.pdf

On my A model (N1960), the Britain Accu-Flite servos were mounted under the instrument panel, so no work required in the wing.

With regard to using the PTT at the same time as you are pressing the PC button, this will teach you to make short, crisp radio calls. "Terrell Traffic, Mooney final 18 Terrell". 2.49 seconds.

However, the O-360-A1A and A1D are NOT included, so the entire line of M20A through M20C are excluded from this list, the way I read it.

My plane is down for annual, but I'm driving in to socialize.

The early Mooney cowl is legendarily tight. I want to have a JPI fuel flow transducer mounted ahead of the carb, and both JPI and EI say to mount it on a length of hose, not directly to the carb. And if the transducer ends up higher than the carb, there's even supposed to be an upward loop in that hose. Do any of you have photos of a proper (working!) installation that I can use for reference when I talk to my A&P about creative routing options? (I think my A model actually had more space in the cowl to route those giant hoses!)

I just bought a C model that had sat in Las Vegas for 6 years unflown. It needed all new rubber and a new engine OH, despite still having several hundred hours left before MOH.

LED landing lights are not unapproved, they don't interfere with radios, and I don't believe they are controversial anymore. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pdf/parmetheus46stc.pdf https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/43.3 See paragraph g https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/appendix-A_to_part_43 See (c)(17)

After reading all this and watching the video, it strikes me that Vx climb puts you above the airport in a position from which you must make much steeper turns, 270, and then 90, and if you overshoot as the pilot in the video did, back and forth to line up with the runway again. A 40 degree banked turn adds 12mph to your stall speed. Maybe it's a good idea to think not in terms of "altitude is better" but rather how far out would I want to be in order that a best glide return to the runway can be accomplished without having to make dangerous maneuvers.

What we need is for an experimental builder to mold a fiberglass plenum we can all use. There are probably only about 10,000 guys who have done it.

Hey, why doesn't someone organize a fly-in whose primary purpose is to conduct, not a "race", but a "performance run", where the aircraft take off in reverse alphabetical order (K-J-G-F-E-C-B-A) to fly a triangular course with observers at each corner, and each "contestant" entering all of their speed factors into a big spreadsheet, so we can finally see what a reversed brake cylinder with flap seals and landing light fairing and a fresh wax job with mouse milk in cylinder #3 will actually do to increase speed, and we won't have these endless conjectures. Anybody got any experience organizing a rally?

If it's any datapoint, they still support my Apollo/UPS/Garmin GX-60 with flat rate repairs. And there must be 100,000 times as many 430W's out there as GX-60's. I think they will support the 430 for a long time.

I have the Accu-Flite and there was no manual with mine. Ask me any question about it. I've been flying with it for many years. Dave

From another forum (I think it was Piper), "the more you need to change out, the more the Dynon makes sense". Brittain is no more. So anyone with a Brittain vacuum-based autopilot is now on borrowed time. If you also need ADS-B and don't already have a WAAS navigator, that's another datapoint. If you want to remove your entire vacuum system for weight savings, there's another datapoint. So, having replaced all your flight instruments, most of your radios, all your fuel computing and engine monitoring with what the industry might call a "single point of failure", how risky is that? I guess it depends on how much you trust Dynon. They've been building stuff for experimentals for a long, long time. Maybe looking at failures in the experimental community would give us a clue.

My GUMPS: G = Gear U = Undercarriage (Gear) M = Maybe I forgot the Gear P = Perhaps I should check the Gear light too S = Say, is the Gear handle in the block?

I use a checklist only after annual to make sure everything is set back to the normal setup that I always use. Since nobody else flies my airplane, and I don't fly any other airplanes, that's the only time things might have been left out of kilter. After that, it's HATS for pre-taxi. Heading, Altimeter, Transponder, Switches. Pre-runup, it's FMP (I won't say what it stands for, but it's a shoe) Flaps, Mixture, Pump. The only time I came very close to a gear-up landing was with an extremely experienced instructor when we were practicing landings at different slope angles because he felt I was doing all my landings a bit steep. He was making notes right before the flare, and I just felt I was coming in too hot, so I said "I don't like this speed" and did a go-around. When I went to raise the gear in the climbout, I realized it was already up. That OH SH*T moment. I just kept quiet, and didn't tell him. Until about 3 months later. The main takeaway I got from it was that gear-up landings are most likely to occur when you are doing something differently, or are distracted. If the speed in the flare seems high, don't hesitate to goaround and then check your gear

I'll address a few of the things you guys have asked about. It is true that absolute EGT doesn't mean anything, but my engine monitor checks for the differential between CHTs and EGTs, and will warn me if the spread between any 2 cylinders' EGT is over 200 degrees. This happens all the time at lower altitudes. My M20A manual suggests flying at 9,000 to 13,000 ft as "the most efficient altitude range for fuel economy and speed", and indeed I rarely fly below 7,500 at all if I'm going anywhere more than an hour away, just because I like to lean the engine and reduce drag. At that altitude, the induction system seems to do a better job of fuel distribution between the cylinders, so I don't get bitched at by my engine monitor. I always fly full throttle, with the prop backed off to just around 2,500 RPM. At 8,500 MSL I can get a fuel flow of around 10-10.5gph at 143-145kts TAS. I believe the M20A and the M20C are probably nearly indistinguishable in terms of Lycoming carbureted performance and icing possibilities. I'm about a couple knots faster than an M20C just because of the smooth wings, lack of rivets, and minor things like that. I have outrun a 201 in a balls-to-the-wall race around Lake Powell. This is really a cautionary tale about flying in clouds with rain and 100% humidity with a carbureted engine. I believe the way the carb is mounted directly to the O-360 transfers enough heat to prevent carb icing in almost any other situation, including the many landings I've done in Florida with high humidity. But I spent a lot of time in the clouds, in the rain, and misinterpreted the signals the engine was sending me, because I had never seen that kind of insidiously slow power loss. MPG is right, I was indeed super lucky to have noticed it before the carb iced up totally, the engine quit, and would have quit producing enough heat to the carb heat box to melt it quickly before I reached the ground. I always had the mantra in mind in the event of a sudden engine failure "Carb heat on, fuel pump on, switch tanks", but if this slow icing had gone to the point of engine stoppage, even that would not have saved me.

80 knot headwind? On April 14th I was sitting on the ground at Dickson TN as a cold front moved through, bringing thunderstorm cells and lightning and some serious downpours with it. I knew if I waited a few hours, it would be gone and the only thing between me and my home base of KTRL near Dallas would be light rain, IMC, and very strong headwinds. The forecast was for 40 knot headwinds. I was not looking forward to my 2.5 hour flight turning into 3 hours, but I was willing to accept it as a necessary evil. I filed my IFR flight plan, got my clearance, and took off into the clouds, climbing to my cruising altitude of 8000 feet in mist and light rain. The ground was sort of visible below, but water streaked the windscreen. (I should mention here that I can hear you saying "you dork, why not fly at 4000 feet and take a 20 kt reduction in headwind?" My answer is that my M20A doesn't like to fly that low. It produces > 200 degree differences in EGT between cylinders because of the lousy job Lycoming did designing the intakes, and that sets off my EI engine monitor alarm. I never fly that low.) So upon reaching cruising altitude, trimming everything up, and leaning, I settled in for my 3 hour leg to KSUZ outside of Little Rock. And I started watching my ground speed to see if the 40kt predictions were correct. But instead of seeing something like 105 kts of groundspeed, I was seeing 90, then 80 knots. Then 70 knots. My GPS was telling me it would be 3 and a half hours flying time. I was getting more and more amazed at the hellacious headwinds. Then my Bitchin' Betty voice annunciator interrupted me as she spoke into my headset "Check Engine Analyzer". I quickly glanced at the engine analyzer and noticed that the #3 cylinder was running over 200 degrees richer than the rest. I tweaked the mixture control, but it didn't make much difference. "Check Engine Analyzer" she said again. At this point I looked at the manifold pressure gauge. Wow, 15 inches. The airspeed indicator said 115mph. Ground speed was down to 65mph. Hey wait a minute, I should be seeing a lot higher indicated airspeed and MP at 8000 feet. I quickly concluded there was something wrong with cylinder #3 and that was robbing my engine of power. This was not an 80 knot headwind. This was an engine problem! Many of us learned to fly in a Cessna 152. I still remember how the approach to landing power reduction was drilled into my head by my CFI, Bill Riggins, in 1983: Abeam the numbers, pull carb heat, reduce throttle to 1500 RPM, hold altitude until the airspeed drops inside the white arc, then lower one notch of flaps. Yada yada. When I started transition training in my M20A, my instructors told me I will rarely ever need carb heat during approach to landing. And indeed, in 12 years of flying, I have never needed carb heat. But I remembered someone saying, if you're having difficulty in a carbureted Mooney getting the cylinders to have a more balanced mixture, try adding carb heat. So I did. And I watched the manifold pressure climb. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. And the airspeed climbed. And the groundspeed climbed. And the #3 cylinder EGT rose. I looked at the outside air temperature gauge. 56 degrees. Couldn't be carb ice. Could it? I turned off the carb heat and watched the engine power slowly begin to drop. 19", 18", 17". OK, carb heat it is. I flew with carb heat on until I popped out of the clouds. At that point, I tested carb heat and found it wasn't needed anymore, and I continued my flight as usual. Greg Ellis reminded me of the graph showing severe carb icing possible from 25 degrees to 60 degrees with humidity levels around 75-100%. I was in probably 100% humidity at 56 degrees OAT, so very much in the danger zone. I'm not used to needing carb heat at cruise power settings, but in IMC in that temperature range, it may be worth thinking about this a lot more frequently in flight. A friend of mine crashed and burned in his Pietenpol in Florida because of carb ice. In Florida. It can happen anywhere if the conditions inside the venturi are suitable for ice formation. In this case it happened fairly slowly, but I suppose it could also be much more abrupt. "Take heed of thine airspeed, lest the ground rise up and smite thee. And take heed of thine dewpoint, lest the carb ice up and smite thee!"

I'm not sure they gave up quite 10 kts going to the metal wing, however 2 anecdotes: 1. I raced a 201 around Lake Powell in my M20A and consistently outran it, and 2. I took off behind a C model in Houston which climbed to 6500 on the way to Dallas, while I climbed to 8500 and I overtook it before reaching College Station.