Ned Gravel

Uh - the seat belt buckle coming undone as the gear (in my hand) passess by me on its way to the downlock in the panel? That disadvantage......

Me too. That and a watch are my best fuel management tools.

Well done Trotter. First indication I have ever seen that another pilot also knows how to splice braided rope correctly. Do I detect a sailing background in there as well?

When I bought my E model, it did not have shoulder belts. I bought the Alpha Aviation shoulder belt set and installed them. After seven years of ownership and more than one instance of unlocking the belts during the gear swing for landing, I bought the newer versions of the Alpha Aviation belts with the push button and installed those. Now I have all the advantages of having a manual gear and none of the disadvantages.

For my manual E model, I do the same as Hank. Flaps and associated trim set before takeoff, depending on the planned departure configuration. On rotation, check wings are clear, fuel caps are still there, flaps are OK, then gear before the end of the runway. All below 100 mph. Climb at Vx. Flaps up at 1000'. Climb at Vy or Vy + 10. Trim after gear up. Trim after flaps up. Trim after transition to Vy.

I did not ask.

They may, but the ones with the Garmin name on the front plate meet the Garmin specs - and that is the problem.

I learned the hard way that Garmin does not shield the circuitry in their audio panels sufficiently to overcome the RF dirt put out by radios like the Narco 810 and Mk 12D. PS Engineering 8000 (plug and play replacement for the GMA 340) took care of the problem.

Tom: Is there no end in sight of the upgrades you are doing? Looks promising.

Erik: I leave for South Asia, then Southeast Asia on 21 May (next Sunday) and will not be back into Ottawa until the 25th of June. How about after I get back to North America, you fly up and I will let you buy me lunch. I will get hold of Yves as well.

All this (except my spare plugs are new) and a spare landing light bulb (HID light), an oil bottle funnel, windscreen cleaner, cloth rags, set of six most common bits for screwdriver, and magnet to find the lost screw or tinnerman. I used to carry a small torque wrench, but I replaced the oil filter screen with a real oil filter - no need for me to get to those nuts anymore.

I agree with Jolie: I have had a similar opportunity to Yooper's and the personal feeling I get during and after is worth every inconvenience I could ever receive. One of the moments I live for is watching the kid's face (the one in front) when you ask them if they want to fly the airplane. All the briefings done. Passage of control in the cockpit all briefed. Out of the pattern. Already in the practice area. They won't actually be in control, but they don't know that. The look on their faces when they think they are going to actually do the flying is priceless. Makes my day. Well done, Yooper. You not only inspired those kids, but you may also have inspired some of us.

How about we do that in Oshkosh? Are you flying with the Caravan this year? Better pic.

Much as I would love to sell the remainder and recoup a proportionate amount of the cost, we are talking about a Mooney Logo patch here guys - and I do not own the trademark for these. Mooney International does. Even if I am not making any money off of the deal, money is changing hands and that contravenes a bunch of Intellelectual property laws. Making them for myself is OK. Making them for others requires written permission from Mooney. If anyone has a way out of this - a lawyer? - then let's hear it.

Over the last few years, I have been looking to get some wings embroidered for my flight jackets. A couple of months ago, I got the idea of using our favourite logo as the set of wings I wear. Here is the result. Minimum order was for 25 and all I wanted was 10 or so. It will take some time to use them all up.

CYRO. Just across the river from Yves at CYND.

One of the things Yves and I learned from this incident is that an uncommanded gear drop is not sufficient reason for the wingman to call "blind" and then peel off to do a 360 and then catch up. Catching up takes another 10 minutes or so. That was my call at the time and we have decided that should such happen again, the wingman will simply slow down (and drop about 40 feet) to match the lead's speed (it will have to be quick without the wingman deploying their own speed brakes - gear) but is it doable.

Don't know if this question was already asked, but does it take AP inputs (or output to the AP) whichever is the way it is supposed to communicate with the AP?

Shane: I finally got the opportunity to go out and install it. Very good piece. Thank you very much. No hammering for the fuselage portion was needed at all. Closes smoothly and cleanly. Here it is installed. Can you see the countersink (chamfering) at the top?

Yah, I wanna fly with that guy ...........

We used to say: If you have time to spare, go by air.

I use my personal aircraft to fly to business destinations. (That is the sort of wording that keeps Transport Canada from accusing me of using my PPL for commercial purposes.) I publish a graphic on my website that states: If I can fly my aircraft to business locations within this circle, I will use my aircraft if at all possible. Beyond the circle, I will fly commercial. Dispatch rate depends primarily on good weather forecasting and understanding that delays are inevitable. The page is https://www.motiva-training.com/have-mooney-will-travel. The graphic looks like this.

When I commanded a strategic communication squadron in Quebec City from 1987 to 1989, I had my PPL, and would often rent one of the Piper Warriors from the flying school at the Ancienne Lorette Airport for pleasure and some business trips to Group Headquarters in St Hubert or to my communication detachments at stations like Bagotville (home of Eastern Canada's F-18 jocks). One of my Tech Sergeants was an owner of a 65 E model. During deployments of long term comms stations for the brigade rear links, I would often get offers from the local Tac Hel Sqn to fly out to see my deployed detachments - because the Hel Sqn was always doing LO flights between the deployed brigade and the base. One day, Sgt Panaski asked if I wanted to go with him because he had some maintenance to do on the det's radios. So I went with him to see my folks. 150 kts there and back. Try doing that in an OH-58 (Kiowa in Canada). I finally became an aircraft owner in October 2002 and the Arrow was ground looped the following March. I was the pilot. Some lessons learned here included not flying an RG in temps below -25 deg C. Others included not getting into partnership with 10 other people. The last one was about having a mechanical linkage between my right arm and the landing gear. Only one aircraft met that requirement. The following summer, I started looking for a Mooney and I looked at 2 C's and 3 E's. I paid a total of $500 for four good shops to do pre-purchase inspections on them. Three of them were declared unairworthy and one was given back because of non reporting of one of two gear up landings. The fifth one was looked at by Clarence in the Fall of 2004. The owner did not believe the list of things that needed attention until he went to see the aircraft and Clarence showed him the holes and other bits that no longer worked as they should. The owner swallowed the cost of fixing the airworthiness issues. I bought it in January 2005 and Clarence flew it to me in Ottawa in March of the same year. I have owned my E for twelve years.

Chrixxer: Thank you for the nice words. Not finished yet. Would like a CNX 80 or a Garmin 480 to replace my Trimble and Narco 810, and perhaps a JPI 900 to replace my JPI 700 (and the instrument cluster and the two gauges on the right side). As for the RAM mount configuration I used for the iPad, "under" seemed more pleasing by hiding the ram mount bits. It also seemed to ensure nothing blocking my view of the DG and the switches / knobs below the bottom row of the six pack.

Shane:Got it yesterday and I was preparing to install it tomorrow but I ran into an issue. I will PM you.