KSMooniac

How about a list? Off the top of my head, here is what I have: Reduce power on climb to "save the engine" Excess fuel cools the cylinders Running LOP will burn up your cylinders Don't descend with no- or low-power or you'll shock-cool the engine Don't run your engine "oversquare" ( MP > RPM/100 ) Idle your turbo engine after landing for 5 minutes to cool it down

I don't feel the need to have them on my J. I'd rather save the money and the useful load.

I'd rather kick over an ant hill! Or maybe swat a hornet's nest.

Don't hold your breath...I'm afraid. The tips you are talking about were a mod (can't remember who made them...maybe LASAR) so there won't be nearly as many out there as OEM tips. For the record, I don't believe they offer any performance benefit beyond nicer appearance, unless you move the nav antennae to the tips and you might gain a knot. It is an expensive change.

yeah, the soft market is a double-edged sword....great for buyers, not so great for sellers, and so-so for traders/upgraders. Best case would be if your plane got totaled out and had a higher-than-market insured hull value, and you could buy "more" airplane for the same money. In reality, that is quite difficult if you're talking about 20-50 year old planes with various degrees of upgrades/options over the years and you couldn't just run out and find what you want next week like you might with a recent SR-22 or Ovation. Job, if your plane gets totaled, insurance company will write a check to you (and the bank if there is a lein) and take the plane or whatever might be left of it. They will then turn the salvage over to auction or a salvage yard directly, and I think you might even have the first option to purchase the salvage at some price, but I'm not sure. It is unlikely you would get to buy select parts, though, and would likely have to get the entire thing. If you have a place to store it and the time to part it out, this might work out great, but it will take a lot of time and effort. Otherwise, you might work a deal with a salvage company to buy whatever you want at some price right then, and it would save them the trouble of removing/inspecting/storing/advertising/shipping/etc. If my hangar were to fall on my plane, I would try to get my avionics and autopilot at a minimum since replacement cost would be double what the installed value is currently.

I think renting for your PPL is probably the best course of action with today's insurance market. It sounds like it would be close to even, financially speaking, with no risk of damaging your potential Mooney. You will still need a good/experienced Mooney CFI for a transition down the road, but you can combine that with some Instrument training too. FYI, I've seen fixed-gear trainers with a fake gear switch, just to get students in the habit of lowering the gear, even if it is a ruse in a 152 or 172! You might put one in whatever plane you learn in just to get in the habit. (just taped/velcroed to the panel) Good luck!

Yes, the insurance company will pay up to the hull value as written in your policy, which is what you (and your broker/agent) choose to put in there. I got a good deal at the top of the market in 2007, but I've been upgrading as I go to, so I've increased my hull value over what I had in 2007 even though I've added 400 hours since then. I know I would have a hard time getting another J like mine at my insured value, though. I'd either have to wait and shop patiently (very difficult!) or buy one and start upgrading, which would likely wind up more expensive than my current insured value. The risk in putting too much hull value in your policy (aside from higher premiums) is that the insurance company will be more inclined to fix major damage instead of totaling the plane, leaving you with a plane that may fly again, but with potentially bad damage history that might impact the overall value of the plane and your ability to sell down the road. For some planes/values this isn't a huge deal (I don't think it is for my J) but for others, perhaps a mid-60s C model for example, it might be significant. Frankly, I'd rather see higher values just to avoid scrapping an otherwise good plane after a simple gear-up landing for example. I know of a newish Ovation that had a disastrous "hard landing" that bent the wing, breached the tanks, destroyed the gear, damaged the fuselage, etc. It was new enough that it made financial sense to repair it, though, whereas a plane like mine likely would have been scrapped. Bottom line, insure yours at a value that would get you close to what you have now if you had to buy another one, or buy & fix/upgrade one to get to the equivalent of your current plane. What is tricky is that the value of avionics or other upgrades is only about 50% of cost...so a $75K of Mooney + $50k of Garmins = $100k hull, more-or-less. Insuring to $125k might be overkill, but that is what you need to decide.

Ouch! Sorry to read about this. I suggest you get in touch with Ernie and go get his 252 pronto!

Fast is all relative....it takes several days per tank from what I understand, but that is indeed faster than 40-80 man hours scraping!

I believe that machine is circulating the Polygone fluid (in liquid form) through the tank and catching the debris with a filter. The gel formulation is useful for the hard-to-reach areas that need to be finished by hand from what I understand. It sure beats manual scraping!

You won't be disappointed! Willmar did mine in 2008 and I'm still happy and leak-free, as expected. You might consider adding the wing sight fuel gauges too "while you're in there."

Jim, I think my deal was just the electric motor only...I'm about to begin my annual this weekend and need to research my logs again and look for compliance. I don't have any major squawks or upgrades on my list this year, so perhaps I might need to put some dollars into that...I do know that Bruce J. at Willmar said I was very fortunate that my manual crank worked as intended when my motor gave up the ghost heading in to his shop. At least it picked a convenient time to die! He showed me pics of mis-rigged and worn-out systems that caused the gear to stay up.

Brian, nice work! I'm about to put my plane down for annual, but perhaps later in April we can have a rendezvous and photo session. There is a cluster of Mooney owners down here in Wichita and I have a couple of friends that are photo geeks and pilots, so we can work something out easily on a weekend! Also keep in mind the VMG fly-in for the 17th in Llano, TX...excellent BBQ and a great opportunity to do a group flight south from KS. I'm planning to have my plane back in service for that trip.

I can guarantee that an EDM will not fit above the clock on a J model. I installed a Davtron M655 OAT instrument in that location on my J, where the original analog OAT was, and it was a very tight fit for the 3.4" depth. I don't see how it would fit in the lower position, either, but apparently someone was able to do it since you found a pic. I think moving (or deleting) your second altimeter and placing it there makes the most sense...you'll have enough room and it is in a great location for your scan. You will be wanting to look at it regularly, and placing on the far left would not be optimal in my opinion. Mine is located where your ADF indicator is, and I think that is perfect. (pic in my photo gallery if you're interested)

My gear motor was rebuilt for ~$600, plus $300-$400 in labor for R&R/rigging at Willmar in 2008. The motor was sent to a shop in California for the rebuild, and I expect LASAR probably uses them too. I'm sure we have different motors, but $3000 sounds very high to me...but who knows. The 252's have all sorts of doo-dads and improvements over my early 201 that are more expensive, but I would really chase this down a bit further before committing to the work.

First of all, running 50 ROP is not a good power setting as we've beaten to death many times here. Now, the EGT difference function on the JPI really serves no useful purpose. The raw EGT values from one cylinder to another don't really tell you anything important. It sounds like you might have an issue, but you need a better handle on the data. Best practice with a JPI or similar is to establish your cruise setting (not at 50 ROP) and put the monitor into "normalize" mode, which will snap the EGT bars to the mid-point and more importantly, give you a better resolution on the display so you can catch small changes. If you see an EGT bar start to creep up or down relative to the others while in normalized mode, then you can start troubleshooting. You might be able to see something if you do a data-dump and plot it in a spreadsheet too, even if you didn't use the normalize mode.

I have done a little bit of work professionally in support of noise reduction improvements on Boeing engine nacelles, and as part of that work I got learn about sources of environmental noise that folks hear on the ground. Obviously the engines contribute most of it, but surprisingly the airframe can be "heard", especially in the landing configuration at low power. Flaps, slats, landing gear, gear doors, etc. all have noise contributions, so generally speaking an aerodynamically "clean" airframe will also be a quieter airframe. My main goal is drag reduction to get more efficient speed of course, but in the case of that clamshell vent, it literally sits a few inches away from the front-seaters' ears, so noise reduction is a secondary, but very welcome, benefit. There is a noticeable 1-2 knot loss from open to closed, and I expect there would be a 1-2 knot benefit to remove it entirely.

Jim, in my mind, it is drag reduction and improved ventilation if the anecdotal stories I hear are correct. It would also be slightly quieter vs. the clamshell. It would likely be a slight weight gain. In my case, I think I would have needed a new headliner plastic piece/plenum (maybe) in addition to the new top skin and the new ventilation plumbing from the rear to bring it forward. It sounds like Norm got really lucky with the top skin deal, but it still is expensive. At the time I bought my plane, getting into a J of any vintage was a budget stretch, but my plane came along at the right time and at a good price relative to what was installed, so I stretched to get it. I'm on record as not liking some of the '77 features like the throttle quadrant and square-tipped prop, but I just couldn't get into a later model. I do love my useful load, though, so I'm slowly improving the airframe to get it where I want it to be, while enjoying the installed equipment and general great condition. Sooner or later I'll upgrade props and install the smooth belly, and make my rear seat a quick folder. I'll probably continue to live with the clamshell vent.

Gary, upgrade fever is contagious! I expect you've already been exposed....

Norm, thanks for the details! I came close to buying the Dugosh carbon fiber belly last year before paint, but decided to wait when I learned that the install was much more involved than I had heard previously, and I didn't want to part with more cash in a questionable job market for aircraft folks like me. I'll likely add it in the next year or two, I expect, and I got some extra paint to match it. It appears to be weight-neutral over the OEM '77 configuration, so I like that. Useful load is precious! I opted to skip the root fairings and wingtips since I favored useful load over improved looks. I sorta wish I would have went ahead with the pain to convert the overhead vent, though! Definitely give me a shout whenever you find yourself in Wichita. I used to work for Boeing, and now Spirit. I expect you might have a reason to visit the remaining Boeing operations here sometime. I love Aerostars too, but can't ever imagine keeping one flying! They are complicated and expensive, but they can boogie.

Shock cooling is a myth, so you don't need to fret about cooling off the engine too fast. If it were a problem, shock heating would also be a problem, and we would be cracking cylinders on takeoff. I run WOT until setting up for an approach or within 5 miles of entering a pattern for a visual approach. If I'm flying instruments and just need an intermediate descent, then I'll just reduce MP to maintain a constant-airspeed descent, and then restore MP when reaching the target altitude so I won't have to mess with trim.

Here is the MT spec sheet: http://www.mt-propellerusa.com/pdf/stcflyer/FL034US.pdf 71" diameter, 46 lbs. Stainless steel leading edge strips...that is what I will choose whenever the time comes to upgrade.

Well, I might have learned something new then if the McCauley is indeed a smaller diameter...I remember looking at STC's a year or two ago and all of the 2- and 3-blade props (except the MT...don't remember) were 74" diameter.

Norm, that is amazing! You've done about everything I thought about doing, but I only opted for the modified dorsal fin/root, and hinge covers before paint last year. I decided not to go with the LoPresti after reading a mixed bag of comments. I would have liked to delete my pop-up cabin vent too and go with the later model system, but it seemed like a huge amount of work to do so... Did Lone Star do all of this work for you? Which smooth belly mod did you choose? What is your empty weight/useful load after all of these improvements? I'm still toying around with my own TN-system idea, and if that goes, I think I will make a new cowling system from scratch out of carbon fiber to offset some of the weight-gain of the turbo system. Losing ~10 lbs with an MT prop and perhaps 5-7 lbs in the cowl would help tremendously.

The 3-blade metal props on the market for Mooneys should not cut down on noise since they are the same diameter as the 2-blade options.