PTK

Quote: fantom

Quote: fantom

Quote: Parker_Woodruff @ Allsmiles: Seems to me that AAA sells many planes that have been maintained by Don Maxwell, Dugosh, etc. I happen to have instructed in many of them as part of insurance transition training or delivering the aircraft to the new owners. Everyone has to do their own due diligence when buying. Whether from a dealer or an individual. When evaluating the value of a potential purchase, I price a lot into the history of the plane. I paid a few thousand more than I wanted to for my M20J back in 2009 due to the owner's meticulous care of the plane. That airplane is now flying with another owner and has accumulated more than 7200 hours on the airframe. As a buyer you have the final responsibility of weeding bad airplanes out. It seems to me that I have received an adequate picture of the overall history of planes from Jimmy and David on several occasions. At the end of the day, you shouldn't get burned if you set up the purchase on your terms. -Purchase price -Pay for prepurchase/annual -Seller deducts a/w squawks from purchase price -close the deal. Getting sellers to work on these terms can be a challenge. Sometimes they won't, and you'll have to walk.

Quote: Piloto It actually has hand braces on right left and bottom! The only concern I have, since I'm getting both remote units audio panel and transponder, if something goes wrong all three would be rendered inop?? I have to clarify this still. I'm a bit unclear. I would revert to my number 2 of course but no audio panel and no transponder? How is this going to happen??

Quote: aviatoreb Well, autopilot is buggy. KFC200. It oscillates in roll. Its a KFC200 on a M20K. Both HSI and attitude/director were overhauled about 150hrs ago and seem to be working well as far as I can tell. A shop recently retensioned the cables as a first line attempt to fix the problem but it didn't work. Now it looks like it will start to get expensive to find the problem. Will it be a matter of replacing one part after another until it is fixed and will I eventually be buying a brand new KFC200 one part at a time? I don't know and I have not been down this path so I would appreciate your advice and any stories of similar experiences. I suppose next in line would be to replace/overhaul roll servos? Or do they go after the AP computer next? Or should I skip all that and not risk throwing good money after bad and start to think about a whole new AP? As far as I can tell an STEC30 is functionally in terms of capability close to the KFC200 and so the least expensive on par new replacement. I see it looks like ~$12500 from PennAvionics installed using my current attitude/hsi (is that allowed?). Or does anyone know a AP shop in the east which can hunt down my problem relatively accurately. I don't really feel like I need an upgrade - I just want it to work.

The decision to purchase an airplane needs to have very strong foundations in this concept called confidence. Especially a used airplane which, I assume, is what we are talking about here. Confidence in the airplane you are buying and in the people representing it. In a used airplane the only thing you have to go by is its history as recorded in the logs. It is the only thing you have representing the airplane to confidently trust. So how do we go about maximizing this confidence? We start with an airplane that has solid maintenance history by trustworthy real experts. i.e. Dugosh, Maxwell, etc etc. (there are others) and it is being sold by its owner not a used sales outfit. We trust the owner more than the used salesman because the owner cared enough for his airplane to give it the best maintenance and service as depicted in the logs. We don't start by the used airplane saleman! Though most are the nicest folks on a personal level, professionally they are not looking for the buyer they are looking to sell the airplane. We as buyers should not rush and be swept up by sweet talk, but should take our time and actually scrutinize the airplane and its maintenance looking for reasons NOT to buy it. This is how you buy an airplane you can have confidence in. I have the utmost respect for Mr. Ronnie Kramer and Dugosh as well as Mr. Don Maxwell. Both on a personal and professional level. The reason I decided to buy my Mooney was because of Dugosh signatures and stamps all over the logs. 15 straight years' worth. I couldn't have made a better decision. Now due to distance I utilize a reputable MSC closer to me. I'm sure the folks at AAA are the nicest people on a personal level. Pofessionally as well they are probably very nice folks. Just don' place blind trust and send them any deposit funds directly. Utilize an escrow agent. Also have them annual the airplane at a MSC of your choice.

Quote: M016576 The GTN sounds every bit as amazing as I was hoping! Fantastic write up and glad to hear that it's the piece of gear we've all been waiting for!!! On the touch screen issue: We use one in the F-18E/F. At first I thought it would be difficult to use in chop, but after 1500 hours using one, I can tell you it a non-issue, even in moderate-heavy chop. Why? Well, you use your fingers to brace your hand on the right side of the display, then use your thumb to make the entries. Trust me on this... your hand is very stable when this happens, and you have no problems entering frequencies, changing the radalt, entering tacan info, etc. And our touchscreen is much smaller than the GTN750 screen... Along those lines, it looks like (and from the press releases states) that their is a hand brace on the right side of the device. Did you use the GTN750 in this fashion (ie bracing your fingers on the right side and using your thumb?)? Or did you just point and push? Again, awesome write up... I hope to get the funds to install a GTN750 myself some day! -Job

I'm happy to hear you are loving it! Hope you enjoy it and safe flying. Sounds like you are! I can't wait to get my hands on mine. I'll be picking it up the weekend of the 20th. How is the touch screen really in the chop you mention. Dis you find you had to use the knob instead?

Quote: M20F Anyone have some feedback on http://www.allamericanaircraft.com/default.htm from reviewing the forum postings seems to be generally positive. Any reccomendations for a pre-buy in that area?

Quote: jerry-N5911Q My 1983 IBM PC with 64K and dual floppy drives cost me $3000 new back then, and now the darn techs tell me it will cost that much to repair it! Where do they get off!?! They say it would be cheaper to buy something new...come on guys, the stuff in our Mooney panels is OLD, it can cost major money to fix and yet more to replace. Flew my 65C today from LA to SF in 3.1 hours and the Brittain wing leveler worked great now that I've rebuilt the yoke cut-out switch. Still, a $12K S-Tec 30 would be far, far better. Etc.

Quote: danb35 Well, I have to admit you're being honest--yes, it is more hand-waving. You don't have to convince me that Aspen displays have failed; I know that already. However, if you want to support your comments about their products in a rational way, you need to show that the rate of those failures (measured against time in service, number in service, or something) is higher than for whatever alternative you think is better. You've made no attempt to do this.

Find a very good autolilot shop and fix it. You have an excellent and solid ap. Don't even think of Century or Stec. I'm not an expert but I have done a lot of research to educate myself because I have the KFC 150. King ap's are the most sought after when people look to buy Mooneys and I'm sure other planes. There is an ap shop out west in CA I came acoss and called. I don't recall the name but the number is (918)836-6418. The gentleman's name is Bob. He is very busy but once he was able to get on the phone he stayed on the phone with me for about 45 minutes explaining in detail my ap intricancies. He gave me an education on exactly how it works and was to look for. He was very happy to answer my questions. Maybe it would be worth your while to just call him and get an opinion over the phone. If it is the computer you can ship it. If they need the whole airplane then maybe its not practicaL for you.

You want more?

Quote: danb35 ...and you post a link to a 91-page PDF which mentions the word "Aspen" once, in a footnote, that doesn't address failure rate. How, exactly, this this support your apparent belief that Aspen units are less reliable than steam gauges? Seems you're bringing up a completely unrelated issue so yes, you're right, it is more hand-waving.

Quote: peter Yep, and 75% of the time it happens everytime!!

Quote: Parker_Woodruff I'll chime in with real data from my flight experience. Let me think of my instrument equipment failures in just under 900 hours of flying. These failures are from 3 Cessna 172s and 3 Mooneys M20C - M20J. All had good maint history. 1. Electric turn coordinator while entering IMC after takeoff x 1 2. Vacuum based Attitude indicator total failure x 1 3. Vacuum based Attidude indicator caught starting to die in IMC x 1 and VMC x 1 - each time was leaning 10-15 degrees to the left or right. 4. Entire Vacuum system failure x 2 (read lost both AI and DG) 5. DG Failure x1 6. Failed Marker beacon panel (not a big deal) Yes, that is 7 failures in the standard 6-pack and one failure on the audio panel. G-500 Failures - 0 G-1000 Failures - 0

Quote: gsengle Thanks everyone, this has been an education! I'm sure there is a special spot in heaven (or hell) for anyone who sets off a thread like this. I suspect that our Mooney accident record is better than many other types is in large part the people who fly em. So I've decided after all this to overhaul my King AI, and that the only near term upgrade I will make is a standby electric AI. This is the least expensive path and maximizes my mission capability. And besides, I really like the way the King units look and I like my instrument scan. I'm no luddite, I'm a pretty young guy, and actually work in technology and software. But sometimes if it ain't (too) broke, don't fix it. Now, since the backup AI is just that a backup, can folks point me to what my best options are - i.e. cheapest. Refurbished? Model/Brand? Best source? I've never bought something like this before. thanks! Greg

Quote: gsengle Thanks everyone, this has been an education! I'm sure there is a special spot in heaven (or hell) for anyone who sets off a thread like this. I suspect that our Mooney accident record is better than many other types is in large part the people who fly em. So I've decided after all this to overhaul my King AI, and that the only near term upgrade I will make is a standby electric AI. This is the least expensive path and maximizes my mission capability. And besides, I really like the way the King units look and I like my instrument scan. I'm no luddite, I'm a pretty young guy, and actually work in technology and software. But sometimes if it ain't (too) broke, don't fix it. Now, since the backup AI is just that a backup, can folks point me to what my best options are - i.e. cheapest. Refurbished? Model/Brand? Best source? I've never bought something like this before. thanks! Greg

Quote: danb35 The complaint you've stated about Aspens is that they have failed, which is true. So has (or will) everything else. The problem is only if the Aspen devices have a significantly higher failure rate than other instruments, which neither you nor I know. Unless you have some kind of data that suggests this to be the case, your posts on the subject amount to nothing more than empty hand-waving.

I never said 100% reliability. You are saying that. You guys debate this if you must but I'm going fllying!

Quote: flight2000 You still didn't answer the question. How many units have failed and why? Your argument on why someone shouldn't add glass is based on these numbers. I can't find that data anywhere on the internet and I have done my due diligence when it comes to adding the Aspen unit or any avionics for that matter. Are there some failures, yes, but what was the cause? How many are truly the fault of the Aspen unit and how many are the avionics shops installation problems. To blame Aspen for those is simply not right, but the company still makes it right if something goes wrong. Only Aspen knows for sure how many they've sold and had returned for whatever reason. I would have done it during my last upgrade but decided that an autopilot with GPSS was the better choice this go around. I will add the Aspen once I rebuild my upgrade budget. I have confidence in the Aspen and Garmin G5/600 units. Sorry that you don't. I just don't plan on waiting forever for the next great thing to come out. To each their own and no, I do not expect perfection because in my mind, it does not exist.

Quote: gsengle I think we need to stick to all applesor all oranges! Yes they did come out with somrthing beter. The GTN 750. A huge improvement on the 430/530 boxes which in their own right were huge improvements on the RNAV boxes. But in this case we are talking about taking out perfectly capable King HSIs for what? Aspen or g500?? Where is the benefit. I don't see it. I callthis path a downgrade!

Quote: KSMooniac A single installed Aspen PFD costs no where near that... and in fact less than half of your estimate. While you call it a downgrade, go look at the price history on the used market for the King FD/HSI systems since Aspen and Garmin have entered that market and tell me that they can't fill those shoes... the market speaks loudly and clearly and it is valuing the mechanical King systems less and less with each passing year. I don't have a FD or HSI in my plane, but if I did and either of them shot craps I would not waste any money overhauling them and instead would spring for an Aspen. There is just too much upside for these modern systems IMO.

Installed probably very close to 25-30K !!! I neglected on my previous post, any "upgrade" has to be worthy of the airplane it is going in and also it has to be wothy of what it is replacing. In this case Aspen has some very big shoes to fill in replacing the King equipment. So big that it can't fill them and it shows. This is not bad by the way. Aspen is trying and so is Garmin. This is a good thing. There may come a time when these will be able to be called "upgrades". The time has not come yet.