Jeff_S

Well, I got my external antenna over the weekend so we'll see if things are better. And do I think the MRX is flawless? No, of course not, but it hasn't been too bad, either. As to airliners, you may think it's missed them, but just because you can see it doesn't mean it's going to show on the device. Remember, it will only pick things up if it things there's a potential problem. I fly under A LOT of airliners in and around Hartsfield and it doesn't pick them up a lot, but they're also way more than 5 miles away. Does the MRX give direction? Not laterally, but it does give vertical direction and trend, and distance, so it's not hard to figure if something is getting closer or farther away. Still, I've found it to be a useful addition to at least keep me thinking about looking for traffic. Perhaps your unit is just a dud, or there's something about the RF environment in your cockpit which is unusuall challenging. One fellow wrote a comment about liking the Monroy better, but as I recall he also had it tied to an external blade antenna. You can do this with an MRX as well which will surely give you better results.

Funny you should ask. I live in Atlanta and put together a list of all the RTJ golf courses and the closest associated airport. Of all the airports listed below, the only ones I've flown into are 3M5 (Moontown, great grass strip, haven't tried it in the J), KGAD, KDHN, KEKY and KAUO. That said: Hampton Cove - 3M5 (or you could do KMDQ if you don't like grass, but Moontown is awesome!) Silver Lakes - KGAD Auburn/Opelika - KAUO (easy 5 minute drive to the Marriott courses, this is the only one I've actually done the fly-to-golf trip) Highland Oaks - KDHN (Dothan is a big airport, and friendly. Stop at Eufala for gas.) Muscle Shoals - KMSL Oxmoor and Ross Bridge - KEKY Capitol Hill - 1A9 Cambrian Ridge - KPRN Magnolia Grove - KMOB Lakewood GC - 4RY

In level flight, 2400/20 gets me to below landing gear speed. So I'll drop gear before glideslope intercept (or FAF) which generally gets me to flap speed. I may futz just a touch to get to flap speed, so on descent I can drop 10° flap, reduce MP to 17" and glide right on in. Mind you, it doesn't work perfectly every time, but that's always my initial target. It's great fun to fly a fully-coupled approach and just play with power to nail the airspeed I want, then let the A/P do the rest.

The POH does have tables, but who wants to have those printed out? They used to be silkscreened on the visor, but either those have been long replaced by a Rosen or are unreadable. And what's more, if you have a 4-cylinder engine monitor installed, then you can use that as your guide. With that in mind, here are my rules of thumb. Cruise Flight: <5500 Feet: 2400RPM/24", 20 LOP (or thereabouts, to keep CHTs <350) >5500 Feet: 2500RPM/WOT, 20 LOP (or thereabouts, to keep CHTs <350) Instrument approach: 2400RPM/20", in level flight this puts me at gear extension speed, then reduce manifold to 17" or thereabouts on decent with 10° flaps. Same basic settings for VFR in the pattern. Beyond these basic settings, I'm just futzing around to try stuff or deal with special situations.

The passive systems are prone to inconsistency, no doubt. I have a Zaon MRX which I thought did a great job in my Warrior, but on the glare shield of my J I have noticed that it doesn't pick up as much. I had forgotten that there is an external antenna you can use for this device, so I may order that to see if it improves things. But just the other night I was doing some night practice, and on final approach into my field (PDK, towered) the tower was tracking me and one other aircraft that was about 1 mile behind and 600 feet below me. Danged if my little MRX didn't read exactly the same thing. So they do work. Much depends on the strength of the transponder ping from the radar system as well as the response from all the other planes' xpdrs.

I have also experienced occasional position errors on the moving map. In my testing, I believe this has more to do with the mapping software and less with the GPS coordinates. ForeFlight's ability to quickly scroll and zoom maps in and out can sometimes cause the synch between maps coords and actual coords to get off track. When this happens, usually zooming out a bit will reset things.

That doesn't surprise me. The MX200 probably wasn't selling very well against a 530, which, while not as nice as an MFD, I'm sure gets the job done for most folks. The MX series made a lot of sense selling with a 480 (which is the setup I've got) or even a 430, but with the choices available now, e.g. mating a G500 with two 430s, or even Aspen as the competition, I'm sure they're not pushing too many MX200s. In fact, I know they've been offering a rebate for us MX20 users to upgrade to an MX200, but as I recall the price is still $6K-$8K which is a bit ridiculous given the other options.

Well, the most obvious question is whether or not your vacuum pump is actually operating. Since you have said two different AIs have exhibited this behavior, are you sure the main pump is still working? Are you getting adequate pressure readings? Even if you are getting adequate pressure readings, there could still be something in the lines that is preventing the airflow from fully activating the gyro in the AI. Just a thought.

Looks like I'll be jetting it back from LA on Friday, so my only option will be a day trip on either Saturday or Sunday. David, if you decide which day you're going drop me an email and maybe we can get together.

Yes, we had a great fly-in yesterday and I want to thank everyone for coming. I lost count at 17 Mooneys that showed up...we had to spread to the main FBO ramp and even sprinkle some around the grass in the hangar areas. And we got a count of 41 people from the Museum, so they definitely appreciated the business. (We even had a Bonanza show up as part of the group...I guess they know who the true party people are!) Photos are up on the Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=161723733722&aid=280129 Somehow with trying to keep everything organized I forgot one of my main missions for the day, which was to ferret out the true identity of Squirrel. But it occurred to me that one conversation I had might have been the clue: was that you I talked to over by the Trade-a-Plane exhibit in the museum? What fun it was, too, as people started to disperse and fire up the engines. Seeing one Mooney after another take off right over our heads into a clear blue sky was exhilarating...I could imagine what it would have been like at a WWII air base watching squadrons take off on a mission (probably louder, though!). Anyway, thanks again to all who joined in, and don't forget our next scheduled event as a Mooney Ambassador group at the Vidalia Onion Festival. I'll probably throw in a more casual lunch get-together in the interim, so stay tuned. Jeff

Quote: LFOD Thank you, someone finally said it with me. Seller is out of his mind.

Aviation Consumer did a test of tie-down options a few years ago. While the dog tie-downs are a popular and cheap choice, they fail miserably in terms of their ability to actually hold an airplane down if any real wind kicks up. I bought a set of the Sporty's augur-type tie-downs several years ago, and while these fared somewhat better, they do not work well in sandy soil which is what you'll find in Florida. So they're what I still use since I own them, but if I were to do it again I'd go ahead and invest the $100 in The Claw system which got the highest marks and was the only system that could withstand the required force to effectively secure an aircraft (I think it was 600lbs, if memory serves.) But it depends on your budget and how much you think you'll use them over the years. My MacGyver-esque buddy fabricated a system for his 172 from Home Depot, using two-foot threaded bolts and some rope and a hammer. Frankly, when those things are pounded in I think they could withstand about anything...getting them out is the problem.

Squirrel Squirrel Squirrel, You finally got yourself out of the doghouse for having purchased a new plane, and now you want to get some time with Ariel Tweeto? You do live dangerously, don't you?! (And besides, I would guess there's a pretty long line of dudes ahead of you in the Ariel fan club.)

Thanks to Squirrel for being our Weather-eye. Yes, it does look like tomorrow will be a nice day in the Southeast so at this point in time we can call the event a "go." The only potential issue I see is if the high pressure creates an inversion and lower ceilings in the morning, which can sometimes happen. But that's pretty localized, so folks will have to make their own decisions about that. Let's just hope for a CAVU day all around. If things take a dramatically different turn, I'll use the Facebook page, this Forum and the mailing lists to issue any updates. I'll try to get there by 10:30 to meet up with the group coordinator at the museum and organize all the other arrivals. See you there!

I bought one of the 3G versions when it first came out and have used it in the cockpit now for 9 months. I find the internal GPS actually does a good job. I have a Bad Elf external GPS and interestingly, with that plugged in, the readout never says better than "10 meter" accuracy, whereas with just the internal GPS it will often say "5 meter". However, if I watched this closely, I'm guessing it would only do this down low when the Assisted GPS kicks in and uses cell towers and WiFi to help with the location. I've also seen occasional glitches with the moving map, especially the Sectional map in an area where you are right on the edge of a TAC and Sectional. ForeFlight will automatically switch over to a TAC if you zoom in close enough (example, here in Atlanta) but if you're flying on the edge of airspace then you see a mixture of both TAC and Sectional and it can confuse the location of the airplane. Example: last weekend we were flying directly overhead Berry Hill airport, and the ForeFlight Sectional moving map had somehow gotten confused and showed us about 2 miles west, which would have put us inside the Class B airspace for Hartsfield. I just pinched the map to "de-zoom" it a bit and all of a sudden we snapped back to being right over Berry Hill. And this was with the Bad Elf GPS plugged in, so I don't think the problem was with the GPS coordinates per se, but rather with how they were transferred to the moving map. All of which to support the notion that the iPad is an awesome tool for situational awareness and a great way to banish paper from the cockpit, but not something to bet your life on. I have upgraded to the Pro version and will test the geo-referenced taxi diagrams this weekend. (I don't care as much about geo-referenced IAPs since my panel has an 480/MX-20 combo, but I can see where those still flying needles would enjoy some extra info.)

I have to admit that I've lost interest in the show for much the same reason cited above. Too much invented drama, although with a DVR I can easily skip past all the repetition that occurs after the commercial break. I am still recording it, but only to skip quickly to the flying scenes, and hopefully catch one more peak of Ariel in a bikini!

I took a screenshot from my Quicken which I use to track these things religiously. This was for 2010, and I purchased the bird in late January so it's a good example of a year. For pure operating costs look at fuel (~100 hours), Maintenance & Repair, and tie-down/taxes/insurance. "Other" is database subscriptions and various and sundry other things. Maintenance & Repair is higher because I: Had the prop dynamically balanced Had to repair the left-side brake master cylinder Installed all-new Goodyear FCIII tires Installed shock discs on mains Replaced S-TEK T/C But even with all that, operating costs were just $18K. Assuming no major repairs this year I expect that drop by at least $5K, so if I fly 130 hours that would be $100/hour. Time will tell...

There's always room for some debate of course, but I would argue that it could fall into a few different categories, such as: 12. Making small simple repairs to fairings, nonstructural cover plates, cowlings, and small patches and reinforcements not changing the contour so as to interfere with proper air flow. (The fuel gauge is inside a non-structural cover plate.) 26. Replacement or adjustment of nonstructural standard fasteners incidental to operations. (Not really a fastener per se, but certainly incidental to operations.) And my favorite... 29. Removing, checking, and replacing magnetic chip detectors. (I have no idea what this was originally intended for, but certainly the outside fuel gauge is EXACTLY a magnetic detector since it relies on a magnetic signal from the inside sender unit.)

Quote: danb35 You should be able to get them from your favorite Mooney Service Center fairly inexpensively--I'm pretty sure I've seen them for $35 or less. Replacement is an easy (but not legal) DIY job--pop the old gauge out of its socket with an icepick, clean out the RTV sealant, apply new sealant, and put the new gauge in place.

I don't have an MSE but I do have a '90J so it's essentially the same engine and airframe. Mine has a 3-blade Hartzell prop which will change things a bit, but brand new ECi Cerminil cylinders with high compressions. By all that I mean to say, your mileage will vary. But my numbers typically come close to Gary's, although I think my fuel flow at 100 ROP is higher. I never fly there, though...the engine runs real smooth at 20 LOP so I typically settle for whatever TAS I get at that rate. Also, my numbers assume 2500 RPM and WOT, which I assume is the same for Gary.

Okay, here's an update for this weekend. The museum is offering us these discounts for admission: Seniors 60 and over: $8.50 Regular Adults: $9.00 Children under 13: $5.00 The museum is located on the north side of the runway near the arrival end of Rwy 10, and they estimate they can park 20 Mooneys right on the parking ramp attached to the Museum. However, the main FBO is literally right next to it so there's plenty of parking. They will bring the fuel truck out to both places for anyone who wants a top-off. All we need now is good weather. Squirrel is clearly looking out for this as well!

I also got the Sempro solvent and wing walk refresher and did the job this afternoon. It was warm enough and slightly windy, but luckily the fuselage itself was a good wind break. I like the results!

Best rationale ever for a rate-based autopilot system. Not that they are fool proof, either, as my S-TEC System 55x relies on a special turn coordinator which I did have to replace this summer. But there's definitely safety in multiple backups. I noticed my vacuum reading on a flight Saturday was down near the bottom of the green arc where normally its square in the middle. ~400 hours on this pump, according to the logs, so it may be starting to go as well.

Hey all! We've got close to a dozen folks who are hoping to attend the SE Mooney fly-in next Saturday. If you're still interested, please let me know here or go to the Facebook link shown earlier in this thread and RSVP. The more folks we get the more I can knock a buck or two off the admission price. Cheers!

Quote: FlyingAggie My greatest frustration is busting altitudes in the sim. The sim is much harder to fly than the real airplane and it is so easy to knudge the yoke just a little while messing with the radio or something else, resulting in a 500-1000 fpm descent and busting through a limit. Anyone else having that problem and what have you learned to keep from doing it?