laytonl

I use suction cup shades from Amazon. The ones I bought are big enough to cover most of one side of the windshield or all of a side window. I use two in the Mooney and they work fine. Lee

Don, I know that is a tough decision. I knew an older gentleman - CFI who gave my son his primary instruction - who was flying around early one Saturday morning while I was doing likewise. After landing I happen to drive by his hangar and he was standing outside of the hangar, looking at his Cardinal. I stopped to see if he was okay and he said this was his last flight. He just wanted to fly it one more time before walking away. He said it was time to let go. I will always remember his emotional state as he walked away. We hope you will stay connected with Mooneyspace. Lee

I charge mine overnight about once per month and I replace the batteries every 8-years. Lee

What is this lever on the sidewall? Lee

My technique for the plastic is to use fiberglass cloth and PVC (plumbers glue). The PVC glue melts the fiberglass into the plastic. It’s an easy and cheap process. You can buy abs sticks from McMaster Carr to fill in voids. I have pretty much glassed all of my panels using this technique. Obviously, the glue and glass goes on the back side of the panel. Lee

I agree, cap it off and go digital. E-I’s digital tach is reasonable and probably numerous units on eBay. Lee

I’ve used both Weep No More and Edison at FXE (two different Mooneys). Both were excellent. Lee

My wife has been flying with me for 50 years with flights all over the county. She has ridden through extremely rough weather, lots of approaches to minimums, icing, and 25kt crosswind landings. She sees the airplane as our mode of traveling and just assumes we are flying unless weather dictates otherwise. And, she would hop in the airplane in an instant if we needed to go pickup a grandchild. However, she now insists on ‘no bump’ flights which is severely limiting the type of weather we fly in. And at age 70, that makes sense for me too. She is okay with clouds as long as it is smooth. No flights around any convective activity, which limits the flying times in the Southeast. My IfR minimums are now 500-2 for a “go decision”. We tend to fly 2.5 hour legs - no ports-Johns for her. Solo, I will do 3.5 hour legs.

The culprit turned out to be a (unrelated) loose ground wire contacting the breaker contact. Apparently my avionics shop didn’t remove some of the old wiring when we upgraded the autopilot. Several wires were let connected to unused CBs and some grounded wires were left near the breaker panels. All is good now. Lee

Great looking panel! What did aerocomfort do to spruce up your glare shield? lee

Thanks Skip. I had already disconnected the speaker and the annunciator panel and that didn’t change anything, so it must be the breaker or something in the wiring in the belly. It will be awhile before I can dig in though. Lee

I'm having trouble with my gear warning circuit in my 1992 MSE. The Gear warning breaker is tripping. It has a tripped a few times in the past couple of months. In the past, the CB trip only occurred when the gear was lowered. Now the CB does not hold at all. I suspect it is a bad breaker. Any other thoughts before I dig into the bowels of the breaker panel? Note this is just the gear warning circuit; the gear is operating fine. The Gear Warning CB only impacts the floor light, annunciator light, and audible alert. Lee

I’ve done this several times. Usually short stops. I shut down, disembark passenger, remove the chock. Also, one time I took off with a tie-down rope still attached. The rope was in such a bad condition I didn’t even notice it until I landed a couple hours later. lee

Y’all are all going the cheap route! Install a g3x; it has a clock built in. Lee

For me it’s 2000’ because that’s the altitude where radio reception is sufficient to pick up the clearance. With Less than 2,000’, I have to do the phone call routine. Lee

I don’t think their plan is going to play out well. Lee

I’ve had good luck using fiberglass cloth and PVC pipe cement. It melts the fiberglass cloth into the abs plastic. I do this on the backside of the trim to add strength. I then use some pvc putty to fill the larger cracks on the front side. Sand and then paint and it looks like new. Lee

I like the Trig radio. I have one in my Citabria along with a Garmin GTN 650. The Trig audio is better than the Garmin radio. The trig is remote mounted and tied into the PS engineering intercom/com. Lee

I had the pitch servo fail two weeks after installing the GTC-500. That was three years ago. I had another pitch servo fail last week and they did a warranty replacement on the second one too. Lee

I had the same thing happen to me recently. The pin slipped out of three of 2700’s. I never had that happen before. Lee

Concerning checklist, I used the ‘ACE Editor’ app on my iPad and found it to be relatively easy to use. Lee

Did you notice the rust around the fuel tank filler neck? I suspect the airplane has significant corrosion. Lee

Me too. I always spray the screws with LPS before reinstalling. Rarely have any problems. Lee

I have my Mooney, Citabria, and my son’s ski boat in my 50x50 hangar. The taildragger is a little difficult since the tail cannot be moved over something lower such as a wing or boat trailer. Works fine though. Lee

I live on a 3,000’ grass strip with my M20J. I collected data for a couple of years on all the factors influencing performance. I found that ground roll is within about 5% of a paved runway when the grass is dry and recently mowed. Otherwise about 10% variance. Lee