Jeff_S

I've debated about posting this since I haven't had time to do my own thorough investigation and facts are sparse, but decided to open this up to see if others have thoughts. Here's the situation: Flying home from SnF on Saturday evening, my J was performing flawlessly running LOP at 8000' and purring like a kitten. As we near Atlanta we get step downs to 6000', then 4000', then finally 3000' for the last turn westbound to PDK. All of a sudden at 3000' a loud pulsing sound, accompanied by a vibration, immediately fills the cabin. JPI isn't showing anything dramatic but I put in full rich mixture and fiddle with the prop to see if I can get any change. The plane still seems to be making plenty of power but it's dark and we're only at 3000' by this time so I don't want to mess with throttle to experiment. We're only 8 minutes from home so the decision is easy just to take it in. We did notice that we'd turned into a massive headwind, as we were making 155KTAS but only 125 GS. I got preoccupied with just landing so I didn't notice at what point the sound and vibration dissipated but it seems like eventually they did. We landed fine, and I did a run-up before parking...no problem on either mag, propellor cycled correctly, etc. I was tired and it was dark so I didn't investigate too much more around the plane, but one thought I had was that it could have been something on the airframe vibrating. I did notice that the right cowl flap seems a bit loose in it's fully-closed position. Is it possible this could be fluttering? Other than that, I won't be able to get back for more investigation until later this week. Not much to go on, I realize, but any ideas?

I dream about them on my pre-MSE J but for the most part have realized I don't need them.

I've had two moments of "excitement" so far in the air. The first was on my very first solo x-country. I was over the destination airport, 70 miles from home when I got a "low battery" warning on the G430. For some reason the ALT circuit had switched off and I couldn't get it back on, and I hadn't noticed in time. I decided to abort my TnG and headed home practically NORDO although a Continental airliner overhead heard my plaintive cry for help and relayed back to the home Tower so they were expecting me. Luckily it was a CAVU day so pilotage wasn't a problem. You can bet a glance at the ammeter is now etched into my scan! The second was a bit more puckering. I had rented a Warrior to fly 150 miles up to look at another Warrior I wanted to (and eventually did) buy. On takeoff for the return home, that rental Warrior sputtered just 200' AGL and threatened to quit on me. I nosed over immediately and she caught back up, so I was able to enter the pattern and land safely to check things out. A full run-up and mag check revealed no anomolies so I took off again and flew home, although you can bet my ears were tuned for any engine roughness the whole way. The diagnosis at the time was that I probably just had some fouled plugs, but in retrospect I think conditions for carb ice were pretty good too so it could have been that. At any rate, while I was scared, the training did take over so I like to think that even if the engine did go completely I would still have lived through the ordeal.

Two that relate to aircraft ownership: 1) There's a fine line between "airworthy" and "spending money". 2) I know there's money in aviation because I put it there!

I would think that if the mice were drinking brake fluid I would see a lot of dead rodents with pink bellies! But I take your point that such a sudden disappearance of brake fluid may be indicative of a leak somewhere, to which I would have to agree. That's why it's part of a regular check now!

This may not quite be the same but I had a brake issue on Saturday. In my normal routine the first thing I do after I've strapped in is test the brakes. The right brake pedal went all the way to the floor and had NO resistance...clearly not a good thing. Luckily my A/P was working on a plane right next to mine and so we checked the brake fluid reservoir and it was completely empty...whoops! He bled the right brake line and we filled the reservoir and then all of a sudden I had more braking power than I could remember. This is a new plane for me as well so I'm getting used to what's normal and what's not. But I did a short refueling hop on Saturday after the fix, and on rollout at the gas-stop airport I actually locked up the brakes briefly because I had so much more braking power than usual. There is no evidence of a fluid leak anywhere but now one more think to look for on preflight. Oh joy...

Yeah, someone dropped the ball. If you don't get a clearance limit you have no instructions on what to do if you go NORDO so they don't know what to expect. Granted, it seems like the whole thing was assumed by ATC, but you should always confirm your clearance limit if you don't get one.

Okay, I was going to do a short rant about the correct spelling of the word "kerosene" but I decided to fact-check myself first. Sure enough, dictionary.com lists an alternate spelling of "kerosine". Go figure!

When I was looking for my first plane (which turned out to be a Warrior) I investigated using a buyer's agent for the very same reasons JMills mentions in the original post. Being new to aircraft ownership I was willing to pay a few bucks to make sure I didn't get taken for a ride. But the ones I talked to were asking for about $7,000 as the agent fee, and I figured that for a $50+K airplane that was a pretty steep amount to pay. I just used the AOPA material and talked to a lot of folks to get comfortable before purchasing on my own from a Controller.com listing. Another option is to use a dealer and I think in this thread and the other some of the better dealers in Mooneys have good reputations. I actually talked to Premier during this purchase process but they didn't have any inventory that interested me. Check your state tax laws to see if there is any advantage to purchasing directly from an owner rather than through a dealer. Some states don't charge sales tax if you purchase directly from an individual.

I don't have any stories comparing me to other planes in the sky just yet, but I've noticed that at Mooney speeds I need to think much earlier about descent planning compared to my Warrior. A few weeks ago I was cruising home to Atlanta from Kentucky at 8500'. Chattanooga went buy in a flash as we were admiring the topography of the Tennessee River basin, then I realized we were already past Dalton and I had to start getting down to stay below the ATL Bravo airspace. I still ended up a bit high and had to chop and drop to get down to pattern altitude. My next task is to get comfortable with how quickly I can bleed off speed and get to landing config on final. I'm sure the Tower people are a bit confused by me coming in with a Mooney and already at a slow 90 knots on 3-mile final. In my defense, I don't have speed brakes! ;-)

As I was preparing to sell my Warrior recently, I used the $7500 number for a 430W as part of the valuation I put together using both vRef and the valuator on Trade-a-Plane. Those came out to an average of $51,500 so that's the price I listed. I sold it for $51,500. So at least for me, that seemed to work pretty well.

Gentlemen, please check your calendar for today's date and re-read my post with that in mind!

I was coming in to land the other evening just after sunset. I base out of a Class D field with a lot of traffic, so the Tower has full command of which runways are in use. I was directed to land on 34 even though the wind had shifted and this was now a slight tailwind. Trying to keep good speed control, but the Mooney is still new to me so I was at 76 KIAS instead of my CFI-proscribed 75 KIAS and with the added tailwind, I flared and floated 3500' down the runway until I realized I didn't have enough space to stop before that Lear jet that was now lined to take off in the other direction so I powered up and did a go-around. Which was a good thing too since I quickly realized I'd forgotten to put the gear down. Whew!

Aerostar is a great plane from what I've heard, but can be somewhat tricky to fly. Don't they have a higher-than-normal accident rating? I'm going from memory here but it seems I've heard something like that.

Hey, I've recently joined the Mooney ranks and I'm a Mooney-lover just like everyone else, but having just transitioned from a Warrior I do think it's fair to point out some of the differences that Jason and others may need to consider when flying these planes. These are my thoughts and experiences after about 25 hours in my new mistress: 1) Controls are quite a bit stiffer than a Warrior/Skyhawk so at first I felt like I was struggling to maneuver the plane more. This shows up especially in the pattern, as it's a different feel turning downwind-base and base-final. 2) Maintaining strict adherence to chosen altitude in any kind of non-smooth air seems to take more focus. My plane just loves to catch a thermal and soar 200' up in the blink of an eye! 3) There are a few more things to do in every check-list stop, with the obvious one being gear but the less obvious being things like cowl flaps. I've seen even the experienced Mooniacs on this site talking about realizing they'd left the cowl flaps open 20 minutes into cruise flight (guilty as charged!). 4) I've not found landing speeds to be a problem to achieve or maintain, but the plane loves to fly so much I've learned to be much more gentle in the flare. Any sort of headwind gust can cause a balloon so be ready for that. 5) The site picture for touchdown on the mains is quite a bit more nose-up than in the Warrior, so I found myself doing 3-point landings several times before I figured that out.

The SE Mooniacs group keeps talking about a fly-in to Sun 'n Fun but I haven't heard much about it lately. They just had one this last Saturday to Huntsville AL, but for various reasons I couldn't make that trip. However, I'm thinking of scooting down to Sun 'n Fun on Friday for a day trip. Not sure if Mooney will even have a booth there, but they will be listed in the Exhibitors section of the website if they will.

I used to get magazines of many different sorts: Golf, Wired, MacWorld, etc. Now I still have the token Golf Digest but every month my drawer fills up with pages and pages of paper dedicated to things with wings. Here's what I get, and my opinion of each. I find it hard to pick a favorite, but I'll side with others above on both Aviation Consumer and AOPA Pilot as ones I look forward to most. Aviation Consumer: Usually very relevant, with at least one or two topics in each issue that really do help with decisions for buying equipment or maintaining your airplane. However, it's getting pricey...$69 to renew for a year! AOPA Pilot: Could be the best overall magazine for GA, with nice feature articles and a stylish layout. Flying: They've updated their look under new ownership and I still enjoy it a lot. It's also one of the least expensive, at only $16/year. While they do spend more time on bizjets than other GA magazines, it's fun to dream. And their columnists are top-notch: I especially love to read Martha Lunken's quirky take on things, Lane Wallace always describes aviation in ways others can't, and Les Abend's commentary on flying the big-iron is fun to get the perspective of what that's like. Plane & Pilot: I like this one, but may consider dropping it. It seems repetitive with AOPA Pilot quite a bit, and in recent years has gotten thin. Aviation Safety and IFR: Two other mags in the Belvoir group, both good for keeping flying skills sharp and refreshed. I've complained to both Jeff Van West and Paul Bertorelli that they should offer discounts for multiple subscriptions to Belvoir mags, and both these guys have agreed, but they don't run the business side of things. EAA Sport Aviation: This is the newest one to my library since I finally had to join EAA last year to camp at OSH. At first I just quickly scanned it and threw it away, as it was geared very much to the home builder. But they underwent a massive renovation this year, and frankly it is becoming a favorite. Feature articles are fresh and new, and though there is still quite a bit geared to the home builder, much of this transfers over to general plane maintenance as well so it's still relevant to me. Sorry for the tome...perhaps I should have been a book reviewer in a different life!

We've isolated this down to just a faulty needle in the gauge. A few slightly-more-than-gentle taps got it to register back where it should, but cycling the instrument breaker showed that it seems to be sticking so now we're investigating the repair/replace options.

I'm going to resurrect this thread because I'm having a similar issue. The fuel pressure gauge has a tendency to just drop to zero, and with gentle tapping it will come back up. I have long suspected a ground issue there. But recently I've noticed some weirdness with the oil pressure gauge. A few weeks ago, I noticed that it would just barely get into the green arc. Oil temps seemed fine on both the JPI and the regular gauge. The oil quantity had dropped to about 5 quarts which I know should still be fine, but all the same I added a quart and half to see what would happen. Sure enough, on my next flight, a short hop around the area, oil pressure got into the green and stayed there. Then a few days later, I did a 45 minute flight to visit my parents during which the oil pressure stayed in the green on the way out, but after a two hour lunch visit on the trip home it stayed just at the bottom of the green arc. Tonight, I wanted to do another test. Still 7 quarts of oil on the dipstick, but this time the oil pressure never got into the green, and stayed right at 50 lbs for the whole flight. Oil temps showed no abnormalities on either instrument. The oil pressure gauge isn't bouncing around the way the fuel pressure does, so it doesn't seem to me like just a bad ground. Any ideas what would cause this? I've called my A/P in to get things looked at, but I'm always open to the wisdom of the masses.

Let me know how that works, Jim. So far it hasn't been hot enough here for it to be a big problem, and the overhead vent provides plenty of air. But I'm sure as summer heats up here in Atlanta I'll want it blowing in from both sides.

I'll add a similar request, but this one about the lower ball-joint air vent by my knees. The ball joint is loose enough in the housing that if the vent is closed tightly, trying to open it just makes the whole unit twist. If I reach down and hold the ball joint to get the vent started open then I can open it the rest of the way, but it's an annoyance. How can I tighten the ball joint?

Yes, several discussions in the MAPA mailing list about whether or not the VFR-only pilot was legal to be above a solid cloud deck. Of course, we don't know how it all happened but from the article as presented, it seems to be either some poor aeronautical decision making or a really bad set of circumstances. The article talks about how the A-10 driver used his formation flying experience to help the pilot even in the clouds. That would take some guts, to fly formation with a VFR-only pilot who is obviously quite nervous about instrument work. But the outcome was good so I guess that's all that matters.

I've been using the POH specs for T/O and that seems comfortable. To rogerl's point about the use of flaps keeping the nose down, though, it seems he's thinking of only one part of the equation. Yes, with trim set to the T/O mark, having flaps in will cause the nose-down pitch to keep things in equilibrium. But there's no law that says trim has to be set at T/O level. One of the J's I test flew with an instructor was done entirely without use of flaps for T/O or landing. He just modified the way he used trim, and it seemed just fine to me. In fact, this is one thing I've noticed in the J compared to my old Warrior. Flaps have a much more noticeable nose-down pitching effect which causes much more need for trim. I'm feeling the need to practice no-flap landings much more in case I ever have an electrical outage that would require such a thing.

Hello all. I found and resurfaced this thread yesterday about hot starts: http://www.mooneyspace.com/index.cfm?mainaction=posts&forumid=2&threadid=211 But since it's in the Vintage forum perhaps many folks aren't going there, so in my interest of learning whether others have newer or different ideas about how to perform this procedure I thought I'd cross-post it here. If there's nothing more to say, so be it...just wanted to give folks the opportunity. Thanks!

I program my altitude preselector for a 500'/minute descent rate and the target altitude. Then I take the number of thousands of feet I have to lose and multiply by three to figure out how many miles out to start the descent. I usually add a few miles to that since I pick up speed in the descent. Then I just reduce MP gradually to keep the same MP I had at cruise, or to keep from zooming too high if there's turb, etc.