Ned Gravel

I just got my 480 this year and I really like it. I will want to keep it going for some time. More than one of us may try and find unused spares to keep around "in-case." This announcement may have dropped the bottom out of the price for boxes being offered for sale (although I really doubt that is true). I know two friends that have spares now for just such contingencies and I may join them.

+1 for Skew-t Log Pro for the iPad.. Great app, sound investment. Confirms cloud tops and predictions for icing. This app and the Foreflight US icing predictive facility are what is keeping me here in Gaithersburg until at least tomorrow. The ipad app is dead stupid. Look for separation of the temp (red line) and the dew point (blue line). Good separation = no cloud at that altitude. Unless there is potential for clear air icing (which I have not yet figured out how to determine), when the lines are separated (even in the +5 to -20 deg range) there should be no cloud and no icing. For me, icing potential is defined as the two lines meeting in the blueish band that starts at 0 and goes to minus 20 (or so). No surprise that Buffalo may have been experiencing icing at 1500' to 2000' (as shown on the chart above). There is a real comprehensive course on how Skew-t Log charts are made and how to interpret them on https://pilotworkshop.com. I am 80% of the way through it now.

How do you deal with ice? You stay in a hotel in Gaithersburg (for two or three days) until the Nor’easter passes far enough East and North that the icing level is high enough to allow you to clear the mountains between you and home!!! Or it clears enough to allow VFR climbs over the tops on an IFR flight plan. Sheesh!

Robert: That puts you in BC. Welcome back to the "Fellowship of the Mooney." Have you ever considered flying the Mooney Caravan? Long haul, I know, from either the interior or the lower mainland, but our Caravan lead this year was from Okotoks.

Except maybe the airframe??

Except maybe in Chicago??

I really do not have anything to complain about but I expected to stay at Oxford Waterbury (KOXC) until tomorrow (Saturday), when they called me yesterday and told me that the contractor re-doing their taxiways and other maneuvering areas was going to paint the runway - closing it from Friday (today) noon until noon on the following Monday. Wha? So yesterday afternoon, I repositioned my Mooney to Bridgeport Airport (KBDR is a 15 min flight but 40 min drive from KOXC). I was working all day today, but I go finished early so I Uber'd my way back to Bridgeport, filed IFR and launched into 25 kt headwinds for Gaithersburg (KGAI). What do I see when I get here? More beavers at work. Again, working on the maneuvering areas. But I am very glad it is being done - just wish it wouldn't get in the way when I am flying. (OK complaining done...)

Since we are talking about mags here, I have noticed that one of my mags is not producing a 50 degree rise in temperature on my JPI during the mag check. The temperature increase is closer to 40 - 45 degrees F. First time in the 12 years I have had a JPI installed. Should I be concerned about this?

I feel your pain, in terms of distance from a good mechanic. I really like Don and he and I have spent some time discussing maintenance issues in Oshkosh, but shops competent enough to work on my Mooney in Canada are very rare. I am very lucky to have Clarence (@M20Doc) look after mine and he has maintained my E model for nearly 14 years. Like Don, Clarence's shop is run by a competent and dedicated mechanic who is uncompromising when it comes to his work. Unfortunately, his shop is 236 nm from my home drome, so I try to coincide my annuals with either a family vacation (siblings living in that area) or business.

+1 for these o rings. Clarence put a set on mine during the annual this year and I have not sumped a drop of water from the tanks since.

As of today-one operational E (mine), one F (the new guy), one J-not flown much any more, one K(231), and one busted up E leaning against a fence

Thanks Paul: I took the SFRA course in July 2011. I appreciate that there may be some things related to the SFRA that I am not aware of. But if you tell me that some system considered my lowly E model to be doing 230 kts, I am all for it. However the words "TFR" appeared on both my iPad and my 480. At that point I was just under 20 nm away from the closest point of the SFRA at 6000' and 10 miles outside the 30 nm ring. Tracon controller's reaction was to have me forget about EMI and proceed direct to KFDK. I was OK with that. I am at the FDA today and there appears to have been more than one other unintended consequence of this alarm test.

So.... no taking your phone on a stake-out?

Just got this from our International Code Council folks: As many of you may be aware, FEMA will be conducting a nationwide emergency alert system test this afternoon, October 3. Communications will be sent through cell phones, TV and radio broadcasts. This broadcasting system has been built as a means to warn the public about emergencies, particularly those on the national level. We just wanted to take the opportunity to let everyone know that they may receive these communications on their personal or business cell phones. There is nothing to do in response to these test messages. That answers the question of "why."

On a flight into Frederick, MD today (KROC EXALL EMI KFDK) (see https://flightaware.com/live/flight/CFSWR/history/20181003/1615Z/KROC/KFDK), I was between layers at 6000' near BINNS (17 nm north of EMI) when my 480 and Foreflight both flashed at me that I had violated a TFR. Got my attention. I chose this route to stay away from P-40 / R-4000 so I figured it was somewhere else. Asked Potomac approach to confirm. Two calls before he answered and he appeared swamped by something unexpected. That was half my answer right there. Then he cleared me direct to Frederick. Landed at Frederick and my iPhone goes off with a "Presidential Alert" for which "no action is required at this time." Whew!!! Nothing like coming south of the border to do business and then find myself in the middle of another war. If someone was to ask me, I would say an alert system test exposed some interesting side effects.

+ 1 for this check. We call it the dead mag check. End every flight with it.

I am going to offer a different opinion here, partly because training complex concepts is what I do now for a living - although not for flying. As well, we had the same ethos when I was wearing a uniform for a living - the kind that uprooted you to different places in the world to, as Von Clausewitz said: "participate in the continuation of government policy by Other Means." We were the "Other Means." Not learning what needed to be done in those days could result in very bad results. So we Trained what we Did. No exceptions. Training to a test was, and will always be for me, a poor second best to "acquisition of the required skill set." The type of training I do now is about folks producing technically valid results that allows regulators to declare, with some confidence, that things are safe for people to use - seat belts, drinking water, steel, concrete (you get the idea). Messing up produces bad results - although not normally as immediate as improper use of a military weapon, or a tactical procedure. So teaching to allow the student to demonstrate the required skill set has always been the goal for me. But that is just me, I guess.

+1 for Tri Flow

We just got word from COPA that they found the aircraft and the folks that were in it. So young. https://copanational.org/en/2018/09/13/wreckage-of-lost-mooney-found/

2. Looks like my own avatar.

Brian: I did not want to pronounce on the differences in the approaches available until I had the correct plates, but have a look at these. You can see the Allentown one is much more forgiving. I actually landed in 1000' ceiling, but with 700' scattered and I went through the scattered layer to actually see the runway. So while the METAR was 1000', to me it was more like 700'. But the minima on that approach are lower than the ones in Quakertown.

Brian: My experience is that the only Enterprise/NationalAlamo counters that are open on a Sunday are airport ones. Yours may be different, but I did not want to chance it.

Brian: I needed access to car rental agencies on the field, in case I would have to drive. I don't think KUKT has any.

Dan: When I had engine probs in Manchester last time, it was only for the manifold pressure line, so not as serious as yours, but still had to take the plane to Concord to their local shop. Took two hours to get it replaced. In Manchester, there is an itinerant mechanic that comes in to Signature on request, but he was not available for me two years ago. You may wish to ask Signature if their guy is still doing this or phone the shop in Concord to see if they know someone local. It was nice meeting you and I hope you get going OK. Personally, I had a great flight into demanding conditions when I flew out of Manchester, and I did not make it to my desired destination because of minima there. But I made it to the flight planned destination. I had to leave the plane in Allentown, PA, but I know it is OK. Hope yours gets to be OK soon. Good luck.

Training in DC was cancelled so going to Gaithersburg got binned. But the Mooney PPP in Manchester was great. Different focus this year. Allowed all to see how rusty my instrument performance is. OK so getting only 35 hours last year and buying a new GPS did not help, but no excuse. Fewer "scare the bejees out of me stalls" but still some. Haven't figured out how to have the autopilot take the info from the 480 through my G5 on ILS approaches - so I blew both of those. The RNAV was a piece of cake. However the weather over New England messed up all the plans and I did not make it to Frederick from Manchester today. I only made it as far as Allentown. Frederick was below minima for quite a bit of today. Here is a snapshot of vectors to SHAGY on the RNAV 06 approach to KABE, 5.1 nm from the threshold. It felt good to nail this one, but I am going to have to practice the ILS ones. Where we live, there are only two ILS left on 5 airports with a total of seven runways, so I will have to ask nicely. Advantage to RNAV approaches for me? GPS does all the work with the G5. All I have to do is the vertical guidance. So the rest of my journey is by rented car, until I get back to Allentown and pick up my bird up at the end of this week to fly home. Oh well......