Immelman

- How often, really how often, do you fly an approach where the AP tracking the glideslope is necessary? Once every ____ ? Ask yourself if that is worth it. - % power is easily derived from fuel flow if you run LOP. Use a calculator. do you have fuel flow? accurate fuel flow solves the fuel at destination problem. Use a calculator. - ammeter/voltmeter are pretty useful - DME, seems unnecessary with IFR GPS, if it works with your 155 you have a good backup nav system - If I ever do a primary engine gauge replacement I'd want to do capacitive fuel senders and display on the electronic primary.

Rich, Thank you for those thoughts. I didn't know about the pigtail, I saw what looked like the coax soldered onto the racks making a swap difficult, but pigtais/BNC would make that easier, maybe I just needed to look further. Un-bundling would be some work (interior, clamps). I imagine making the ground plane larger less work. So those would be good non-invasive starting points. It also makes me think, if I do keep the plane and do a major upgrade, perhaps try to remove all antennae from the fiberglass belly (well, maybe transponder only). ADF/Marker/DME, all would leave the airplane anyway. GPS or comm on top where the loran whip is... That is part of what I'm trying to understand with this bug.

That is only an educated guess, as I didn't gear up the plane and put the belly on. Late 1980/early 90s: panel is re-done with high end (At the time) King avionics. 155, 165, hsi, dme, loran, autopilot. High end stuff for the era. Plane owned by a business in the pac NW, set up for IFR. Done by a major shop in the area. I would guess things worked properly. Mid 2000s, different owner: gear up, fiberglass belly. A year or so later, I bought it. It took quite a while to figure out the HSI issue, I even had the gyro OH'd many years ago, wasted money. Easy fix: Use #2 for normal comms, #1 for atis/guard. Now #2 is getting a bit weak. So I am looking at this again.

I'm not going to spend $5K chasing this. I was thinking more like $5 of foil and some solder, going on a hunch. But I would also like to learn more about ground planes. If/when I do an avionics upgrade, yes, the mech HSI is out, as is the vacuum system etc....basically the whole panel is dumped. But wait, I have two decent king radios, perhaps one is worth keeping? .... then this issue, if it is somewhere between the coax and antenna for a comm, might cause some other issue unless that is done anew, so learning about this stuff helps make the best decisions if I do a major upgrade.

King KCS55 HSI (Don't laugh, it still works Transmitting from the #1 rack/antenna: during a turn, on most frequencies: the heading indicator stops turning. Ground or flight, same behavior. Transmitting from the #2 rack/antenna: no problem Again the problem follows the rack/cable/antenna, not the radio. Remote gyro is installed aft part of fuselage. Big wire bundle panel to back there including several antenna coax cables.

Thanks - I have 2 comms, and 2 antennas. I swapped radios between the two trays. The problem does not follow the radio, it follows the tray/antenna. So yes could be anything between the problem tray and the antenna I suppose.

@PT20J & @Yetti, Thanks for the ideas and size info. 201Steve..... no... see my original post. Antennas come out the bottom of the fiberglass belly. Ground plane material on the top of it, surrounding each antenna mount, out of the airstream and normal view, but it is there.

The radio works fine. Good tx & rx. The issue is interference with other (old) avionics while transmitting. The history of the airplane leads me to believe this is likely something that came about with the belly mod, shortly before I bought the plane. Maybe its the belly mod, maybe not. But after examining the ground plane and referencing the FAA guidance I thought its a likely source of issues. So more I'm after whether anyone else has this combination and what ground plane setup is sufficient.

I have had a radio gremlin that's existed for an embarrassingly long time I am finally tracking down. Before I purchased my airplane it had a gear up landing and the LASAR one piece fiberglass belly mod. The various belly antennae were installed into it. The installer used copper tape surrounding each antenna to form a ground plane around each antenna, adhered to the upper side of the fiberglass belly mod. Most of that functions okay, with the exception of a strange comm radio interference issue I get when transmitting using my lower comm antenna. I suspect the ground plane is insufficient. For anyone who has the belly mod and a lower comm antenna, I am curious if you can describe or post a photo of how the ground plane was installed. FAA AC 43-13 gives some examples of this, but due to the position of the (long, bent whip) comm antenna being close to the edge of the belly panel, copper area is not as long as suggested in the AC.

I can't help you on the part. but on my 1966E the same area around the flap and trim indicators were coming apart. I removed and patched/repaired (from the rear side) with fiberglass. Sand paint done. It came out decently. My surfboard repair skills while not the best came in handy. the most difficult part was dealing with the cables and fasteners for the flap/trim indicators.

I have an STEC 50. Similar observation. Great for en route to follow a heading. IMO once you're set up, and all that is left to do is fly the approach, its just more fun to hand fly an ILS.

Aye, and at my airline I have within arm's reach a burn bag for electronic devices. Specifically our iPad pros. In the cabin, an even larger burn bag designed to fit a passenger's laptop computer or other device. These are rather robust, heavy duty bags that come with their own set of high temperature gloves to handle the device with. They are quite robust and would take a fair amount of room in the confines of a GA airplane.

There is no one size fits all answer here, it depends on the terrain, obstacles, and visibility, and does the weather change in a particular direction? Better? Worse? What is a safe ceiling in one environment may not be in many others. Be ready to safely go VFR for a ways.

1966 E here. Cowl flaps are placarded to be closed @ 150mph. Could that be the confusion? Max flap extension speed (top of white arc) most definitely tops out at 100mph.

Take the cowl off and inspect all the things. Go around and ensure all the access panels and fairings removed for normal annual servicing are installed correctly. Other inspection commensurate to work done.

That depends: Exactly how many shares of Mooney stock will exist after the buyout?

A crafty A&P/IA might be able to take it apart while the airplane is jacked with the gear broken over, and adjust the spring force, perhaps with a new spring, perhaps a washer stack or similar.

So they're selling what? An equity stake in lasar? No? Well what, then? Frankly the website smells of a scam artist. YGBSM....

I have the same feeling. The annual inspection and servicing seems about right, double for those smaller* discrepancies.... ? *I havent had any valve work done, not sure on #6.

Having tried this in the past.... and when watching this, there is one thing I'm not certain of: the startle factor and time required to overcome that, recognize the issue, make the decision, start the maneuver. Pulling the throttle and immediately rolling into the turn back, is that a fair test? Maybe, maybe not....

I put an item on my before takeoff checklist for this: floor..... clear. I put it there after a similar moment!

Before doing anything with the pump, I would look closely at the rigging of the cable that connects to the retraction lever in the cockpit to the small pivoting arm on the side of the flap pump. On my E, the cable is clamped to the pump lever with a screw. As I recall it was tricky to get the positioning correct on this. Will the flaps stay down if you disconnect the cable, and have someone manually position the arm on the pump to various places along its travel? This would help isolate rigging vs pump. By all means do this before taking the pump apart and having to re-bleed the system.

That has been my style for some time now. Fly it until something big happens. The engine is still in good health. The radios are starting to give me fits and that has me thinking... This past week I did that precise trip, 3.5 hrs Mooney time each way. It was awesome. Those trips aren't happening that often, though. Mostly I just go up and fart around, do a few T&Gs, and still enjoy it.

I've owned my 1966E since 2007. Over 1000 tach hours of flying, minimal problems. But I think I am at or quickly approaching a fork in the road: On my last trip the airframe and engine did wonderful.... cruising along 11,500, 8gph, 160-165mph true... What its all about! But the panel is talking... radio gremlins... new comms, a GPS, new engine gauges, remove vacuum, etc.... that would cost. And at some point, the engine will start talking. - Engine 1900+ SMOH which was in 2004 - Panel late 80s, beyond its useful life. On the last trip I had enough radio oddities to start thinking its time... - Paint late 80s, serviceable, minor corrosion spots. Some hangar rash from before my time I never addressed.. - Interior decent - Longer trips, I can fly anywhere on an airliner for free, space available - Shorter trips, 3-5 hours of driving: Honestly its better to drive... ground transport and logistics - Family of 3, but we seldom fly together. Occasionally my daughter and I, wife has lost some interest, though we did plenty of travels in years past, before child. Kid is approaching 8, showing some interest in aviation. Too early to really tell, and I do not want to push the kid... but if they were interested that is a reason to keep a plane. Facing the music, my airplane is largely a toy. It has brought years of enjoyment and helped me build the time to launch a successful flying career without much fuss and I am very grateful for that. But I also feel that I've "done all the things". I've had the thought that its time to move on, but then I go flying and still love it. Its been easy to keep it since the cost to keep going has been minimal. What would you do?

Such an easy question to have when you're relaxing in front of a keyboard with a moment to pause and think. As opposed to the shock of touching down with a scrape.