Kwixdraw

Don is from an era when right was right and everyone knew what right was. No PC, just use good manners and don't try to force your views on everyone else. If you chose to have a different opinion at least have the decency to have thick enough skin not to run for an ACLU lawyer when someone tells you where to stick it. Makes Don sound like a National Treasure doesn't it?

I used to wear a Tag GMT and found the zulu time hand helpful to me for flight planning but now that the coukpit has grown a bunch of sources for timekeeping I find I never wear a watch. My goofy tan line has gone away too. I guess if I was going to spend crazy money on a watch it would be the Rolex GMT just 'cause I've always wanted one. The Tag still works but the bezel tends to corrode to the case and it loses the ability to show the different time zones. Tag changes models too fast too.

Flitz is great stuff. Micromesh makes a kit for lens rehab or you can get sheets of it at Rockler or Woodcraft stores. The Micromesh works well on lenses that have gotten pitted/sandblasted.

I think we have missed another issue here. When the Aviation act passed back in 91 or so it set the limit for liability lawsuits at 18 years. There have been challenges to this and Lycoming is currently appealing an $89 mil judgement over a 20+ year old carburator which the NTSB said had nothing to do with the crash. Would any actual manufacturer want to refurb an old aircraft, call it new and buy back into all that liability? I could see them making upgrade kits or something for an authorized technician to install as a stop gap but I doubt they would want to reup for the liability issues they already sweated out. Keep in mind that a tremendous amount of the cost of new aircraft is product liability related. Even the repaiir cost is tied to the liability issue. One of my instructors tells a story about buying an o-ring at a local industrial o-ring supply house. The thing was purchased using an MS specification (priced at about $2.98) and he commented that it was about four times that from Hartzel. The clerk asked him if the o-ring was going in an aircraft and was about to refuse to sell it to him. My instructor quickly said it was going in something else , he just happened to know it was the same o-ring. Everyone is afraid of this industry so we won't get any breaks.

Thanks Sabermech. Like I said, I wasn't trying to poke a hornets nest, just trying to make sure these were OK to use. I just bought a set of the Mooney built ones and would sure have been able to use the extra cash to put into parts and supplies rather than the tooling but hey, they don't wear out. One of the things they are constantly hammering us about is the calibration and certification of tools and approved service documents and manuals. It's enough to make you go homebuilt for cryin' out loud.

Not trying to be a weenie or anything but I have a Question about this for any A&P IA types or FAA folks that might know. If you use these tools does it open you to problems since they are not "THE TOOL" specified in the service manual. I may just be hyper sensitive to this stuff since I'm doing the A&P classes but I don't want to see any of use find ourselves in a pickle with the feds over a technicality and we know how they can get once they find something to complain about. Lonestar Aero sells the factory tools and also rents them.

It seems to me that things could be done to make the aircraft more reasonably priced. Maybe some cost studies to see if landing gear could be made more economically. We were looking at the parts from my J in A&P class a couple weeks ago and the instructor was pointing out how much jigging and complicated welding was involved. Certainly the gear actuators are crazy expensive. I know a lot of these parts costs are insurance related but then again if you were to develop another source for the darn thing Eaton or whoever is building them now might be inclined to be more reasonable. Of course your supplier has to want to stay in the business. Anyone check the price for brake pads for old Goodyear brakes like on an old C-170 lately? $400+ for just the pads. Goodyear would rather you convert these planes to something else so they don't have the liability headache any more. Maybe just changing to some composit parts might help. For example the cabin and baggage doors. It's got to be cheaper to build those out of composits and probably lighter too. I hear that the way they are done now each one is a unique item that is a cut and test proposition to install. If you have 50 some odd people trying to keep the place going I would hope some of them are trying to improve the process for building the product.

Not sure if the situation is still the same but some years ago I had the mixture problem and couldn't get the packing through Mooney, just the complete cable. Go to a (choke, choke) Cessna dealer and they can get you the proper packing. I recall it as being a thick felt piece in my assembly. Be sure to check over all the pivot bushings in the ram air. That stuff takes a beating from vibration and tends to get pretty sloppy. I think there were a few instances of broken bits going into the intake and that's one of the reasons Mooney tries to get you to eliminate the system.

Piper and Cessna were really onto something in marketing trainers and getting the pilots started and moving them up once they knew what an aircraft could actually do for them. Seems to me we are counting on all these LSAs to do that for us but most of the public just sees them as a dangerous curiosity.

Dang, I wonder what you could buy a salvage stab for and have it shipped to you?

For the most part magazine writers are not much more than bovine scatologists. They just repeat what "everybody knows". I worked for Harley-Davidson a number of years ago (that translates to about 30) and had contact with a bunch of magazine types. I recall that one of these turkeys crashed a Sportster at the dragstrip when he rolled off the throttle and let the spinning rear tire catch traction. All of a sudden that poor old Sporty that had been portrayed as woefully feeble in the past three or four superbike shootouts was uncontrolable and prone to flip over and stomp on the unwary rider. No writer I ever ran across could admit to less than walking on water. You can bet your butt it wasn't Richard Collins doing the writing on the 201. The only time I got my dad to go up with me in 21h I rolled her on so smooth he claimed it was the best landing he had ever felt. He still wouldn't go up again though.

Quote: eaglebkh That is one option, but which one is correct - digital or round? I'm sure with the AI that your gyro was correct, as you can just verify level flight by noting any heading change or turn rate during coordinated flight. But with airspeed and alt, just calibrating one to the other doesn't garauntee the right answer. As annoying as it is, having 2 different answers is just the result have taking 2 independent measurements with different measuring devices...

Yeah and then after they saddle you with UL fuel and engines start having inflight problems with valves and pistons you will hear them cry, "Those little planes are just not safe...ban them." We better get off our duffs and find something that really works for all of us.

The vapor pressure issue is related to iceing and that alone would rule it out for me. Also you will have difficulty finding mogas that is unaduterated with ethanol or MTBE depending on location and time of year. Then again you have the 91 octane west coast vs. the 93 octane east coast. Too many variables for me.

Also check any ground straps or whatever is the return path for your setup. Sometimes you may have a ground strap from an engine or engine mount that will be loose or damaged. Check the service manual for these situations since it might be some other place.

Always good to hear it was something simple.

The Medeco locks are pretty secure as long as the bad guy is not willing to jack up the door skins. Otherwise they will just jamb a screwdriver in the slot and twist the whole darned lock cylinder to get the tab out of the slot. I put them on mine to keep my ex-wife from letting non authorized people in the plane. They worked ok for that.

The preload is what keeps the linkage braced to keep the landing gear from folding up under a load. Think of it as locking out your elbow to keep someone from putting an arm lock on you and you will have the concept. You need special tools and a good understanding of the landing gear to get this set properly. Doing it wrong or not checking it is a major reason for landing gear related incidents. Find someone at an MSC or at least Mooney experienced who will get it right before you have an incident.

I had a similar issue with my J some years back. Would pop the breaker on climbout when the gear started to retract. Would not reset and retract until in level flight but then was normal. Turned out to be a short in the wire from the gear switch behind the radio stack. It was shorting against the tube structure. The gear tested fine on jacks and an IA spent most of a week trying to find the problem w/ no luck. Take the glareshield out and look for white powder on and around the wire loom. You may need to clip a couple tie wraps to see very far down in there.

Just an opinion but I think it would be a good time to let an instrument repair shop check it over and see if you might be needing some work on the AI. I sure wouldn't want to be depending on one that is acting quirky.

Might not sound logical but haven't some of us had such problems from a bad baffle in the muffler? Might be worth a look. I'm led to believe that it has something to do with the exhaust outlet being blocked so the engine doesn't breathe correctly.

Quote: Magnum How do they get the intake balanced? Is there a mod available? Together with the powerflow exhaust the engine should run much better.

That would be a metal locknut. I don't happen to remember the AN #.( Working on my A&P now.) Get a copy of AC 43.13 approved methods and techniques of repair and you will have the answers to most any of these questions that pop up. Around $19 from Sportys or Spruce. You should have a copy around when doing any work on your bird along with the service manual.

If you are seriously considering coming to Southern Cal. to do your training I would highly recommend you check out Orange County Flight Center. Gary Sequiera is the owner and is a Mooney savvy guy with a good program. You can do a good chunk of your training in a simulator which will be safer, less costly, and will speed up the process. I did the King tapes to get the written out of the way before I started and it worked out well for me. They use Ralph Butchers' sylabus and you can get his books on-line in advance so you will have the program dialed in before you start. I really like the way Butcher's program is set up to deal with real world techniques for single pilot IFR. For me the real ahh haa moment was in the sim when my instructor "failed" the AI and I caught the bad instrument before getting into an unusual attitude situation. My confidence level went way up at that point. They are an established school and have nice equipment if you want to use their aircraft. Not the cheapest but good stuff rarely is. Good accomodations very close by too. You'll hate being near the beach.

See the "landings gone wild" post, it has the link to Don Maxwells publications where he explains the SB on the nose gear and how to check the rigging. I suspect it is just on the margin and the shimmy is when the weight comes off the gear and makes the trail just a bit too verticle to stay stable. The short body Jeeps do this too if you lift them and the caster gets too steep on the steering swivels.