knute

I've been a MAPA member since 2006 when I purchased my E, and will continue to be for the forseeable future. An annual membership that costs as much as a couple of gallons of avgas is cheap at the price for an organization that promotes Mooney-related knowledge,provides a monthly magazine, and offers another collaborative haven for Mooney owners and specialists. Having said that, I do think MAPA needs to change to survive. If MAPA lacks in-house web experience, surely there are qualified webmasters from among our ranks that can assist? An updated and comprehensive calendar would go a long way towards projecting vitality, and the classifieds are underutilized. I was among those that attended the last MAPA homecoming, and was frustrated that in spite of flying all the way to the mother ship at Kerrville from Northern California, it was decided that a tour of a closed factory would send the wrong message, so there was no contact with or even presentations by anyone from Mooney. (We very much enjoyed hearing Bill Wheat, but he doesn't work for Mooney anymore). Instead of having the ice cream social at the hotel, I would have preferred to have the social mixer at the airport walking the line of aircraft that flew in and talking to other owners about mods & maintenance. I'm almost wondering if the model of a "national" fly-in conference even works anymore; there was not nearly enough compelling content to be worth the expense of flying that far to attend. Some of the content was downright baffling, like the presentation from Aero Resources that was much more about a website directory interface they might be building than it was about the mooney mods they produce. I would rather spend my travel budget on Oshkosh, but MAPA doesn't even have a presence there anymore. I understand that financial concerns are one of the core problems, but it's chicken and egg- if there is no representation at the big events, the organization keeps losing vitality. I don't know the vagaries of the booth restrictions at Oshkosh, but wouldn't it be great if there could be a collaborative Mooney booth with representation by MAPA, Mooney, Mooney Service Centers, Mooney Ambassadors, VMG, Mooneyspace, etc- none of those groups should be in competition, and they more pilots they meet, the better. Heck, I'd even be willing to chip in towards the cost of a booth to make that possible, as long as there was space for a lemonade cooler and some chairs so that we could drop in and meet other Mooney pilots. I look to an organization like MAPA for several things: information on maintenance or other mooney (or general flying) issues, and also as an advocacy group to help communicate effectively with Mooney on behalf of owners. I do read the magazine, and I have made purchases influenced by advertisements in the MAPA LOG. This same struggle of "what does the organization provide to ME" is not unique to MAPA; I've seen it also with the BMW car club of America, and countless other organizations I'm involved in. Even AOPA and EAA don't make everybody happy by a longshot. In spite of MAPA being a "for profit" entity, they do perform a service that is useful and beneficial to us as Mooney owners, and I would challenge anyone who is not happy with the content of the MAPA Log to write an article and get involved. If one of the concerns is that MAPA is not member-driven, maybe the members should do more to drive it. If Trey isn't receptive to that, _then_ we have a problem, but I do believe Trey is sincere in his efforts to keep MAPA running and provide as much useful content as possible; he just needs some help in these challenging times for aviation in general. I have no plans at present to attend the next MAPA convention, but it would make me sad if it died out.

Asked and answered! Here's the post-flyin writeup in case anyone else was also looking for it. http://www.vintagemooneygroup.com/VMGWest/VMG%20MHV%20Report.pdf

Any reports on the event? I was really excited about flying down for it, but the weather didn't cooperate. The forecasts I looked at called for snow over Tehachapi, and with rain and freezing rain through the central valley, I made the prudent (but sad!) decision to stay home in the SF Bay Area. Many thanks to the organizers- sorry 66Q couldn't be there!

[...]

I'd love to go through the formation flying clinic, but I don't think I'll be able to fly to OSH this year (maybe another year); are the clinics open to all interested? Looking at the calendar and locations, I'm interested in joining the B2OSH session at MCC (Sacramento). Thanks for posting the info!

Quote: omega708 Her car seat is rear-facing, so we have tried putting it in the co-pilot seat and mom sits in the back seat behind her so that she can easily reach her if necessary, and that seems to fit nicely.

Aviation Consumer has some good articles on this, including hard empirical corrosion tests they did with metal coupons and various combinations of oil and additives. For oil without additional additives Exxon Elite won for corrosion protection, but Camguard bumped the other oils up to similar protection. They also have other articles that address wear, including statistical trend information from Blackstone across large numbers of aircraft and interviews with some of the top engine rebuilders (RAM, Penn Yan, etc.) that supported Camguard's wear reduction claims. The legitimacy of Camguard isn't smoke, it's more an issue of whether the benefits outweigh the cost. Clarifying edit- Exxon Elite won the corrosion test with plain water, Aeroshell won the test with salt spray.

Quote: Mitch Has anyone acutally experienced a cracked/broken insulator on a Champion fine wire? Just removed our 8 for inspection and found one with a broken insulator. 367 hours on plugs since new. They are UHRM38S.

I don't know what the drug references in the google search results are all about, but the domain name registry of mooneyspace.com, mooneyspace.net, and mooneyspace.org is the same- they're all owned by our very own Craig McGregor, and all three point to the same IP address for the server. That's actually a smart move, proactively preventing others from diverting traffic by registering all three domain names.

Quote: 201er Still shows my last major flight from September. I thought it was a factor of departing an airport with a clearance delivery (B/C/D).

Quote: carusoam They're all m20s. But ATC gives us one identifier M20P (propeller). Best regards, -a-

[duplicate post]

Argh! That's a pain; sorry to hear that. -Knute '66 M20E - N6066Q - KSQL (San Carlos, CA)

Quote: Has anyone ever heard of a Johnson Bar failure to extend? Not that it failed on landing because it wasn't excatly locked in place with a worn block, but a Johnson Bar Mooney with the gear jammed up that could not even partially extend. I have never heard of that.

I'm intrigued by GAMI's apparent stance on fine wire plugs for LOP, since Champion fine wire plugs are standard equipment on most Cirrus SR22s, which use the TAT turbo system for which GAMI did the R&D. Do a search on Mooneyspace for fine wire plugs, and you'll find another thread or two that suggests that they do just fine LOP, and my own experience (>60 hours so far on Tempest fine wire plugs) is very positive- I can run smooth at 80% power (low altitude to get that) well past 100 deg LOP before it stumbles, and I could never get close to that with the previous massive plugs even when freshly cleaned & gapped. (Distracting side note- GAMI has issued a service bulletin related to ceramic cracking on Champion fine wire plugs in the Cirrus application, but there is no evidence of this on the Tempest fine wire plugs, nor has evidence been presented that this is an issue with fine wire plugs in general; manufacturing defect?) -Knute '66 M20E - N6066Q - KSQL (San Carlos, CA)

I spotted this forward on another list I read, and thought it might be of interest to some here too... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: [sARL-Racers] Fwd: [c-a] RENO AIR RACES MAY FLY AGAIN! Date: October 3, 2011 9:08:35 PM CDT To: SARL Sport Air Racing League <SARL-Racers@yahoogroups.com> Bobby Graham says... Good News for the future of air racing. Our new crew member, Matt Jackson, is not only a race pilot, aircraft business owner and aircraft owner (he also takes care of Tom Cruises P-51) but he is also the VP of the Unlimited Racing Class and head of the Safety Committee. We had a long talk about the Reno crash on the way to Mojave today. Matt believes the cause of the crash was due to The Galloping Ghost having a CG [center of gravity] too close to the aft limit which resulted in pitch instability. There are instructions on the P-51 regarding no combat missions with the aft fuel tank full resulting in an aft CG problem. Instructions specify to empty the aft fuel tank first in flight. During qualifying Matt watched Galloping Ghost from inside the cockpit of Furias and could not believe how much trouble Leeward was having in keeping the Ghost in a stable pattern around the course. Since Leeward lives in Florida and the Galloping Ghost was modified for racing in Calif., when Leeward picked up the Ghost for the Reno races at the last minute, a complete flight test program had not been done based on available information. There is a video of the entire last lap of the Ghost before the crash which Matt showed me. As Leeward was coming around pylon #8 at about 480 mph after passing Rare Bear, he hit turbulence which pitched his left wing down, Leeward corrected with hard right rudder and aileron. Just as the aircraft was straightening out, he hit a second mountain of turbulence which caused the tail to 'dig in' resulting in a 10+ G climb rendering Leeward unconscious instantly and resulted in the tail wheel falling out. (broken tail wheel support structure was found on the course). As the Ghost shot upward the LH aileron trim tab broke loose. This can be heard on the tape, so the trim tab did not cause the accident. Since the Ghost was racing at 480 mph with full right rudder and the stick full right, this is where everything stayed when Leeward blacked out. Cockpit camera film that was salvaged from the wreck shows Leeward slumped over to the right in the cockpit. As a result, the Ghost climbed up and to the right, rolled over on her back and then headed for the box seats. Most in the box seats never saw it coming because it came in from behind them. Matt has had long conversations with the NTSB who call the accident a 'fluke'. They are not going to recommend canceling future races. He has also talked to the insurance companies covering the races for Reno and they also say they are not going to cancel their coverage of future races. Now we wait for the FAA to make a decision. Ironically, Matt bought box seats tickets for his good friends who stayed with him for a few days before the races. They were the husband and wife who were killed.

Quote: PilotDerek Scott Not sure how you can say the STec isn't worth anything. Have you priced a new STEC-30 out or the JPI 930? Unless his photo was from when all his avionics were first installed a few years ago, they are all in very good if not excellent condition. He, of course, cannot get new prices but far more reasonable than what you priced them out for. I don't disagree that when all is said and done selling whole might be the better way to go. I know I for one would sell it whole, but I also do not have the time, storage, or patience to part out a plane. If someone does buy it whole I will be happy that a Mooney was saved, but a little sad that I cannot take advantage of good avionics/parts at a good price.

Relatively stock but with ARI cowl closure I saw about 152-153kts high speed cruise, and after upgrading to a 201 windshield (SWTA) I see 157-160kts depending on outside temperature. Flat out, down low (1,500 MSL), smooth air, I've seen 163 kts TAS. -Knute '66 M20E - KSQL (San Carlos, CA)

According to their website (I haven't tried it- I use Foreflight) WingX Pro 7 is supposed to be capable of using the ADSB data from the SkyRadar ADSB receiver, which would be a nice marriage. The SkyRadar app on the iPad did not impress me; very rough. But if the data can be piped to a nav app with a much cleaner interface & charts, what's not to love? -Knute

LASAR installed one of the newer door-mounted seals from aircraftdoorseals.com on my plane a couple of weeks ago, and I love it. Seals great, looks good, very quiet, and they said it was easy to install because the contour of the seal fit the door shape perfectly. They spent 3 hrs removing the old seal and adhesive, and 45 minutes installing the new. I have no experience with the older style from aircraftdoorseal.com, but they changed the design and got a new PMA a couple of years ago, which is fairly recent. The one I have is durable foam with a "v" shaped extrusion cross section. Just my .02 but I'm very happy so far. Previous seal was the factory rubber seal, and it only lasted 5 years before losing useful pliability and "sponginess" and made wind noise for the last 2 years.

Now, the specifics of this kit? I'm not so sure--their website indicates it's a fixed wastegate, but also makes it sound like you don't need to adjust throttle with altitude to maintain 30". I'm not sure how both of those could be true, but I could be missing something. From reading their website, the wastegate on the hot exhaust gas side of things is fixed, but they have another mechanism on the fresh air side of things to limit MP. They tout this as an advantage, since moving parts in the hot exhaust environment degrade much more quickly than having moving parts on the intake air side. Off the top of my head, while I see the maintenance advantages, I expect that there is some efficiency loss with this approach since you would be compressing intake air (fixed wastegate) that you then vent some of to keep it under 30" of manifold pressure at altitudes below critical.

I'm not sure what you're asking- you don't like the "push to start" function? (My '66 E has the 10-126680 in it, and it seems to work fine) What would the problem be with replacing the 10-126680 with a newer 10-357210-1, which is the current TCM cross reference? Bendix SB-583 addresses the cross reference of the newer switches that supercede the older no-longer-in-production ones, and also points out that it is not recommended at this point to service the old ones beyond replacing the contacts. (repair kit w/ support plate and contacts is 10-357515 for both the 10-126680 and the newer 10-357210-1) When mine eventually goes out, I plan to put in 10-357210-1, and thought I was going to have to this last fall but the problem turned out to be instead a bad Shower of Sparks, which had to be replaced. Starts like a champ now. In case it's helpful, SB-583 can be found at: http://www.csobeech.com/files/Bendix_SB-583.pdf

Thanks for the heads up on the ebay listing! I saw that one, but unfortunately the ones that are cracking for me are the "outer" frequency selector knobs that sit right below the smaller ones on the concentric shaft.