Jeff_S

There have been whole threads on this topic, so I would urge you to use the Search function and sniff them out. I was in this boat as well, but for my wife it was the lure of getting to the beach from Atlanta in 1/3 the time. That seems to be the general theme for getting any fearful flier into the air...the benefit has to outweigh the fear, and you just have to be patient and find that thing that will provide the benefit.

No, because you are only considering the oil temperature at the gauge where you get your readings. These temps are generally somewhat cooler than the oil in the main friction zones, so even if your gauge is showing less than 180 it's a good bet that the oil is still getting hot enough to evaporate the moisture. Plus, in most climates, the air is drier in the winter anyway so moisture and corrosion is less of a problem. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

I've done the camping thing at OSH and it's no doubt the definitive experience if you want to immerse yourself in airplanes and crowds for a few days. But given that I live in Atlanta and can make SnF a day trip, I kind of prefer that. You still get a kick-ass air show (and usually get either the Blue Angels or the T-Birds, which seldom do OSH) and you can check out pretty much all the same vendors in a single day. I hadn't thought about trying to coordinate it around a beach vacation for the wifey...she definitely loves her sun and sand. Perhaps I'll try that trick as well this year!

I think I end up about 10-20 LOP most of the time, but that's not my prime criteria for setting final fuel flow. I definitely use the LOP mode on my JPI to get to LOP, and turn it off when I've got it in the neighborhood of 10-20 degrees. But then I turn the JPI back to standard mode and just watch the CHTs. When things are working well, the #1 cylindar peaks last and I try to keep it at about 350 degrees, with the #2-#4 cylinders coming in between 320 and 340. Mostly I just look at the "missing bar" segment and want to see the second bar missing for #1 and the first bar missing for all the others. If that missing bar starts to go higher than 2nd segment on any cylinder than I enrich the mixture and start over again for the current conditions.

I want to credit this thread for helping me out during a flight last week. I took the bird up just to exercise the engine on one of the only nice days we had here during the holiday break. The flight was purely for fun and, as has been noted in another post, "to free my mind from the tyranny of petty thoughts." The only trouble came as I was landing back at the home drome of PDK. Since this is a towered field they pick the runway for you, and because they have so much traffic that they have to keep moving they don't "switch runways" easily. Which means you're often landing with slight tailwinds because hey, those jet jockeys have reverse thrust so who cares?! Anyway, I was on final flare and it just didn't want to come down, and for some reason I felt a little high. When it finally did come down the nose bounced into a true porpoise, and I didn't even wait around for the second one...just gunned the throttle and cleaned up for an honest, non-practice go-around. Of course I've trained for those and I'd like to think I would have done it anyway, but with this thread still in my mind it made the decision so much easier.

It's the latest full-sized iPad with Retina display and the newer, smaller dock connector.

I have an iPad 3 and I have been unenthused by the heat and battery life issues. When I have it turned on in the cockpit using the built-in GPS it seems to suck down 15% per hour, sometimes even more. My old iPad 1 could go 10 hours on a single charge. I haven't heard whether the iPad 4 does any better in this regard but it's way too soon to think of upgrading to that one. I do now use the Stratus ADS-B device with my iPad and since it is providing the GPS, I find I can just turn the iPad off and when I turn it back on it immediately reads the GPS from the Stratus so there's no delay in getting positioning again.

I have the Stratus for ForeFlight and it works very well in places where there is ADS-B coverage. However, I just took a trip from Atlanta to Kansas City, and from western TN all the way through MO there was no ADS-B coverage at all, right up until you get close to Kansas City where there are some broadcast towers. So for at least half my flight, I was very glad to have my XM WX as primary. ADS-B holds promise, but until they get coverage across the country it is still only a secondary system as far as I'm concerned.

I believe there is still some work to do on the panel because it's not a direct drop replacement. I also have an MX20 that so far is going strong but am looking at the GMX200 as a potential path in the future, so I'll be curious to see your results. Please keep this thread updated if you can. Thanks!

Well, there's no illusion of going faster in my case, as the TAS indicator from my Shadin air-data computer definitely shows an increase in TAS in cooler temps. But the air density does factor in and I would grant you that the engine is producing greater power, so perhaps I should explain my definition of power setting. I have never bothered trying to figure out a percent power output...to much math, and not really a valuable exercise when you can set your fuel flow using an engine monitor. So in my prior post I was considering just MP and RPM as the two factors in "power setting," which as I recall was what the OP had mentioned. And in this case, cooler temps always seem to yield a higher TAS for me. YMMV.

One other thing to consider re: your speed increase. It is undoubtedly cooler now then when you started your new technique, and cooler air will always yield faster TAS at a given altitude and power level. That's why flying in winter is so good for the ego!

I'm surmising that this was a gear up near landing, right? Based on your description of the propellor tips you still had to do an engine tear down did you not? Any impact to the propellor in motion requires this, unless I'm mistaken.

The landing that gave me the sickest feeling in my stomach happened 4 months after I got my J. I was doing an Angel Flight with a nice elderly gentleman in the passenger seat. A quick hop down to Macon from Atlanta, but I was still pretty new the plane and a bit nervous. The flight was fine, but on landing I really can't tell you exactly what happened. I think I was trying to hold it off, the nose got to high, and maybe a bit of a tailwind kicked in at the wrong moment. All I remember is that the nose dropped out of the sky and PLUNKED onto the pavement so hard I was sure I had bent metal somewhere. Luckily I didn't porpoise and I didn't even think about a go around. Once we taxied in and I sent my thankful passenger on his way (he sent me a thank you note later...maybe thankful he was still alive!) I did a thorough exam of all the nose gear parts and nothing looked out of place, so I flew it home. It has since passed three annual inspections so I know I didn't do any harm, but that one still rings out as my worst landing in the J.

Dang, I need the left one. Too bad!

I've noticed on several machines that the header logo at the masthead of the site is missing. Probably the link is broken of the graphic was corrupted or something.

I bought my J from a guy in Crete Nebraska. For the pre-buy, I consulted a few different sources, including Silverhawk Aviation in Lincoln which is an MSC. But I also talked to Greg Whisler at Whisler Aviation in Seward NE based on a recommendation. Greg makes a business of dismantling and moving airplanes around, among other things, so I figured that with the pre-buy inspection list I provided to him (which I got from MAPA) he could do a good job and for less money. I was very impressed with the thorough but fair assessement he made, and there have been no surprises in the plane since I purchased it. Some may call me a heretic for not saying "You must go to an MSC" but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Greg's number is 402-643-2226 if you want to give him a call. They have a website now too at http://www.whisleraviation.com.

My most interesting "hangar talks" always seem to occur over the phone, when I'm catching up with any of my pilot friends who I haven't seen in awhile. Then we regale each other with stories of our last flights, those awesome tailwinds (that only seem to occur during those conversations), how low the ceiling was when we shot that approach (in MVFR conditions) and any other lies we feel like telling at the time. Unfortunately where I'm berthed, there isn't a great deal of "hanging out" that gets done, although I am right across the aisle from one of the Biplanes Over Atlanta Wacos so I often go hang out there and chat with the A/P while he's fixing things up. It's fun to hang out around those planes and dream about owning one.

What does an Italian breakfast contain? Fritatas instead of omelets? Or is that Spanish?

Also on the app front, you could download and try CoPilot. This is a flight-planning tool that was way out ahead of it's time...I first used it on the old Palm Tréo device, but it migrated to the iPhone pretty quickly. It has a full featured W&B calculator, that can also be tied into a flight plan so you can see what your numbers are both on takeoff and landing, all plotted on the familiar W&B chart. I don't use the flight planning features anymore but I still do use the W&B whenever I am carrying more than my normal load.

I also consider ForeFlight my primary flight planning tool but part of this is because it is just so easy and readily available. Fltplan.com doesn't have a full-featured iPad app, so you still have to do everything at the real computer. Yes, the airplane profiles are more in-depth, but flying a J in the regular normally-aspirated altitudes doesn't change your overall time or fuel use characteristics that much, and I just have the model in ForeFlight set to use a slightly higher than normal fuel flow at cruise to make up for this. I find when I compare a ForeFlight and FltPlan nav log for an upcoming trip they are never more than a few minutes different. I do think if you are flying a higher-performance plane at altitudes then these differences could be more important.

Wow. Our Christmas Wish List thread introduces a little bit of soft-core porn into the Forum, but the the above post just uses pure old gutter slang. Seeing as we do have a multi-gender user base, perhaps we should back off just a bit from the vulgarity?

There are a few out there, but you can make your own. Just buy the bird you want and budget another $40K or so to buy the STC from M20Turbo and have your A/P install it. Several of us have contemplated doing that very thing with our J's but I don't think anyone has taken the plunge lately.

A lot has been written on this board over the last year so you should search out these topics. The general consensus is that any of the short body Mooneys (pre-J or -K) are perfectly fine on grass. The mid-body J is generally fine, although you may want to have the inner gear doors removed if you're going to land on any rougher or high-grass strips. The -K may start to be problematic because of the heavier nose, and any of the long-body Mooneys most people do not like to land on grass strips again because of the heavier nose and general weight characteristics. That said, I'm sure plenty of people will land anything on turf as long as they know the strip and are comfortable with their airplane. Search for videos by piperpainter on this forum to see some extreme examples! As to wear on the shock disks, if the field is not overly rough I don't think that's a big problem. Turf fields are softer than pavement and I think they put less strain on the shocks all else being equal...assuming you're not on a washboard or something.

I gotta' ask, why did you keep grabbing the down tube above your glare shield so much on climb out. I curious...

That's funny. The thumb switch on my yoke doesn't seem harder to push in one direction than the other. And my auto-pilot auto-trim has never complained. Oh, wait...you mean there's a manual trim wheel somewhere? Like in my old Warrior? Who'd a' thunk!?