Jeff_S

I am beginning to form a committee to consider the possibility of running for...no, I mean...selling my J and upgrading to something with a little more horse under the cowling. Mine is a 1990 model that is pretty well decked out with a Garmin 480 WAAS, S-TEC 55 A/P and many other bells and whistles. Frankly, it has all the features of those fancy new glass panels, just with equipment that predates those panels by only a few years. (It's amazing the changes that occurred between 2006 and 2010.) Anyway, I'd be willing to share the details with you. Drop me a PM with your info.

Paul, coincidentally, I was just thinking about moving up to an Ovation. I sent you a PM with my contact details.

Used TACAir a couple of years ago and had a great experience. Prices were reasonable for a larger airport FBO.

Let me approach from a different angle. You say you want to take your family around. My first question is, how big is your family? And how far are you trying to take them? The reason I ask is that you may not be looking at the right airplane for your mission. Don't get me wrong. I have an M20J that I bought after about 400 hours in a Warrior, and I love it. I fly it all over the southeast and have made longer trips to Denver, etc. But it's either just me, or me and my wife with plenty of room for luggage and gas. Once you start adding a third or fourth person of any size, and the associated luggage, you might start to max out on the load handling capabilities you need. So that's just food for thought. If it's you, the wife one or two young children, a J may last you for a few years. But any more than that and you should perhaps start thinking about something else, whether that be in or outside the Mooney line.

I find it odd that a shop won't work on your K...it's a pretty standard electrical system. But yes, Joey Cole is probably a good bet to at least recommend someone. There are no MSC's listed on the Mooney site for either South or North Carolina, so Joey might be your best option to get started.

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about engine parts, but am I the only one who thinks the above sentence is more than slightly pornographic?

From my experience, the people who have trouble with Mooneys are those with bad knees. I'm 6'2" and have no trouble getting in or out and once in I really like the feeling of the sports-car interior. It makes you feel one with the airplane. And yet, there is more room between the seats for two large people than there was in my Piper Warrior; in that plane I would rub shoulders with a larger passenger. As I said above, the only real challenge for some folks is ingress and egress. Climbing up on the wing and then down into the seats, and then lifting yourself out of the seats to get back onto the wing, can be a challenge for the elderly or those with less leg strength, knee strength and flexibility. The solution I discovered with my 82 year old father (who suffers from all of the above!) is to have him sit on the front of the wing and scoot on his fanny back along the wing walk until he could rotate his feet around and into the door. Then he scoots himself back up the wing walk until he can lift himself over the threshold and into the seat. It looks funny, but it works.

I used it yesterday with no problems, other than my new Stratus 2 AHRS wasn't calibrated and I couldn't find the instructions for lining it up. I was just futzing with it anyway to test some things out, so it was no big deal. I did find the calibration instructions in the ForeFlight Guide a little while later.

Hank, we actually have a Southeast Mooney group, but we need to inject some new vigor into it. I've tried to keep things going and have arranged a few events but it's time consuming. There's a mailing list as well, but the guy who runs it has dropped off the map and I can't get him to add any more names. But we have a Facebook page as well, just go to Facebook and look for "mooniacs" and that's it. Also, not updated recently because I haven't had a lot of time for it. If you would like to step in and start helping out that would be most welcome.

Hey, I didn't go to Auburn but I've adopted them as my favorite college football team. Can I chime in with an honorary WAR EAGLE? (Don't want to be sacrilegious!)

S-TEC are rate-driven autopilots so they are completely independent of the AI. They perform all altitude functions as a result of pressure transducers in the pitot-static system and turn functions result from an independent gyro in the turn coordinator. In fact, the vacuum pump on my plane only drives a stupid little independent AI that I seldom look at unless I'm practicing my commercial maneuvers. Sure is fun to see that thing slew over to 60 degrees on steep turns though!

Hi Hank, I take it you'll be on flight following which is why you care about any of this? My recommendation is to cancel flight following if they start to vector you around and just go low underneath the Bravo airspace. I cruise around out there all the time at 3000'-4000' and it's a great way to see the scenery and enjoy the flight. Doesn't seem like it will be too bumpy down low these next few days, either.

Some of those questions were downright impossible to answer, but I tried to be very honest based on my feelings today. The quiz came back and said I should be in a G36 Bonanza. Perhaps because I wanted to fly in Today's era rather than in the 80s, and I wanted to drive the Ferrari rather than the Porsche.

I figured there had to be an air leak in there somewhere...as I said, that's what my major cause was. I still do get some oscillation in very still air. This was quite noticeable on both my legs to-from Sun n Fun last week, cruising in rock still air I would start to get those oscillations again. When there is any degree of turbulence, even just a very light chop, it evens right out. I'm in for my IFR cert next month so I'll have them check again for leaks.

Hey all, Sorry for the cross posting but just wanted to let folks know I posted my Stratus 1 for sale in the other Forum here. Check it out and let me know if you're interested. Thanks. Jeff

Hello all, I am selling my Stratus 1 with the suction cup mount. There is one currently listed on eBay with one bid for $400. I'll sell it for $350 plus shipping to someone here if they want it. I'll wait a few days before posting it on eBay. Send me a PM if interested. Thanks. Jeff

I will say that part of the problem seems to be my Internet Explorer v11 browser that I use on my work machine. While our internet at work is blazingly fast, that browser I have learned is a slow-poke. I visited the site from my home internet using Mac Safari and found the site to be much more usable. Chalk another one up to crappy Windows.

In a gesture of international cooperation and solidarity, the U.S. Navy announced at Sun ‘n Fun that its famed Blue Angels flight demo team will, on a trial basis, merge with the Royal Canadian Air Force Snowbirds team for the remainder of the 2014 season. The new combined team will be called the Snow Angels and will fly its first show in Chicago in May with a last-minute appearance at AirVenture as a possibility. A spokesman for both teams said the name Bluebirds was originally considered but rejected as “too obvious and not nearly butch enough.” You read it here first...or more accurately, you read it HERE first!

+1 on all the Mike Busch webinar series. He really knows what he's talking about with piston engines, and he follows all the latest thinking and techniques for how to get the most out of your engine while also not spending any more than is necessary. One of his pet peeves has always been the compression check, which was used as a primary diagnostic for many years but now should just be one of the things that gets analyzed. For more of Mike's webinars go to his website at http://www.savvymx.com and go tot he Resources section.

I agree...not much of an improvement in my view. It takes forever to repaint a page, and using that home page map is not intuitive at all. I fear that it is yet another example of a government-run service that hasn't quite figured out how to deal with the modern technology. I've never been to healthcare.gov but from what I read about it's early days, this seems to behave in a similar manner.

I believe fully that the OP (also named Jeff, it appears) felt he was doing everything correct and did not suspect his plane would be found to have such issues. After all, unless we are trained as A/Ps ourselves, we are at the mercy of what our trusted mechanics and Inspectors tell us. That said, having seen the photographs, I have to seriously question the judgment of those people who kept passing this plane through inspections. Corroded wing tips with gaps in the sheet metal. A crinkled up elevator corner. A laughable dataplate with a stick-on label. Having seen plenty of photographs of warbirds coming home from the front with gaping holes and torn-off vertical stabs, we know that most planes are engineered to fly even when not in perfect condition. But you don't TAKE OFF with those kinds of problems! If I were the litigious type (which I'm not) I'd start venting my anger on the aforementioned mechanics/inspectors who let these things slide. But most of them don't have much money so that would be a futile gesture I suppose. This seems to be one of those times when you just have to chalk it up to a painful lesson learned.

I have an S-TEC 55 as well, and was experiencing some porpoising in altitude hold. Upon inspection, the vinyl tubing that was connecting the air pressure parts was old and cracked and screwing up the built-in altimeter, and this air leakage was causing the porpoise. So have that all checked out as well. (Disclaimer: I'm sure I messed up some of the terminology there but hopefully you get the gist.)

It would take a year to figure out all those gauges...but it certainly looks cool.

Downwind gets high points for ambience if you can sit out on the deck or at least the covered patio. Food is usually okay, but certainly not gourmet dining. Better food is at the 57th Fighter Group but prices are higher. It also has a good outdoor seating area if the weather allows.

It's interesting that they did a ramp check without you even being there. What could they actually ascertain? They aren't allowed to get into your airplane, so what would a visual outside inspection possibly reveal? If you suspect somebody put them onto you, there must be a reason. Do you have enemies? Perhaps an early April Fools joke?