RJBrown

Only one that can change it from a GB to an LB is Continental. Continental changes every GB they get into a LB. No one else can. not a lot of difference between the 2 versions. MB on the other hand is a big difference. or so I was told when I had my GB magically transformed into a TSIO520NB.

Where you live and fly makes a difference also. My flying is in the inter mountain west where MEAs were 16,600’ 10 mile west of my house. 6-13-92 was my first lesson. 10-14 92 I got my ticket. 11-2-93 I got my IFR. 11-10-94 and with 400 hour in the logbook I bought my first plane. A 1980 Mooney 231. Over those 400 hours I flew every type plane available to me in the Denver area. I fell in love with Mooneys and in particular N9136N a 92 MSE. I was looking at Js when I found my K. Fly all you can. Buying the wrong plane is more expensive than renting. Get your IFR as quickly as you can. A J is a great airplane. But. After owning a turbo for over 1000 hours I sold it for business reasons. A few years later I was in the market again for my “last” airplane. Something to fly through retirement. I bought a 1990 MSE willing to put up with less speed to get more efficiency. Wrong, you can never go backwards. Without the ability to get into the flight levels I hated that plane. Sold it and now will have to wait to get another Rocket.

Rockets are slightly nose heavy empty. Airplanes are more stable nose heavy. If you don’t run out of elevator on landing you are not too nose heavy. It would be tough to load a Rocket too tail heavy without being over gross. That said a tail heavy airplane is more efficient as it takes less aerodynamic downforce on the tail. But if out of envelope tail heavy the plane is less stable. That is the “Bonanza” problem. As they burn fuel they get More tail heavy. Rockets don’t. The balance point moves forward as fuel burns. Another reason Mooneys are much safer to fly. Equipped properly with the correct amount of bob weights a Mooney with 2 standard people won’t be out of balance forward. More fuel will not move it out of balance rearward. 100 gallons/600 lbs fuel 340 in the front seats and less than 120 in the baggage compartment will always be within balance. But depending on equipment it could be over gross. Mine had about 1050 useful. If your math argues with this statement something is wrong with either your math or your paperwork. PS as long as not out of balance to the rear (very hard to do) a Rocket is pretty happy at 3600 lbs. (unless you are landing) or so I’ve been told.

I put about 1000 hours on a Rocket. Usually 73% 20 GPH that gave 200 knots @12,000. Faster higher. The Rocket supplied chart was spot on at every altitude and power setting. Those numbers came from real world flight tests not the “sales department” I owned it from 1994 until 2004 with totally stock avionics and their attendant antennas. If a Rocket does not match Rocket’s data something is wrong. (No data or experience with TKS) She climbed like a homesick angel. On two different occasions I flight tested major work up to 26,000’. Both times at about 2900 pounds she was still climbing at over 1500’ per at 26. There is nothing like it.

I’ve had 3 Mooney Rebuilt engines. A Continental TSIO52NB installed by Rocket during the conversion. It lasted 88 hours. Whoever assembled it forgot to bend the tabs under the bolts that hold the alternator drive gear to the crank. When they came loose the destroyed the alternator and filled the engine with metal. The second factory reman went 1000 hour with no issues when I sold it. The third was an overhaul by Western Skyways on a 1990 MSE. No trouble sold airplane after only 200 hours on engine. The moral of the story is longevity depends on how careful the individual building your engine was. Infant mortality is real. You may not be able to improve your lot statistically over what you have.

Every engine has a oil pressure relief valve. A simple poppet and spring. As pressure rises, especially if oil is too cold, the spring compressed and it opens a hole to dump oil pressure. I’ve seen them stick cold and split a oil filter from over pressure, in cars. If they stick open you won’t get enough oil pressure hot and could starve an engine. Not something to ignore, this is a picture of your valve. not sure how accessible it is but removal and cleaning could not hurt.

Ancient history for me but. A memory from 1994. Before my K became a Rocket I flew it about 100 hours. The oil temperature gauge was an important part of the scan. Oil temp would start up first if there was any heating issue, kind of the canary in the coal mine. if you adjusted to reduce temp when oil started to heat nothing else got out of hand. ALWAYS full rich to climb. Alway open the cowl flaps to climb. But close cowl flap before you allow the plane to speed up at altitude. The cowl flap is held open by an over center device. Too fast and it gets so hard to move that you could bend the mechanism.

I’ve found the best way to deal with the cold is to move to Arizona. Joking aside, when in Denver, APA (outside under a shelter) I would plug in the Tanis (oil pan pad and each cylinder) heater the night before. Then use a hot air through the cowl flaps in the morning. Never really felt the need to preheat the interior.

So it sounds like you are asking if at 15 hours but about 1 year should you change oil and filter. yes, both. what you are doing is making sure acids and water are removed from the lubrications system. So after 15 hours the oil should not be broken down. The reason for change is moisture and acids. My personal opinion is oil and filter every 50 hours or a maximum of one year. But hey, I like my vehicles to last. Oil and filters are cheap, engines are not. If it has been a year I want the cowling off to inspect inside anyway. In reality for me this means I do the oil and filter change at 6 months and have the oil changed at annual. Oil analysis with annual not mid year unless prior trends indicates or there is metal in the filter. Cutting open and inspecting the filter every change is a good reason to change it.

For a simple explanation of alignment look here, https://townfairtire.com/information/wheel-alignment/caster-camber-and-toe-alignments/index.shtml Toe in self corrects and keeps a vehicle going straight. Each tire turn the vehicle toward the other tire. Wears from outside in in a feathered pattern. Toe out causes a pull to the side that has the most traction. The tires are turning away from each other. Not self correcting, heads you toward the weeds, car or plane. Wears tires from the inside out in a feathered pattern. Even negative camber creates higher traction in turns and tends to be self correctin directionally. It wears the inside edge of the tire. Even positive camber causes a directional pull is not self correcting and wears the outside edge of the tire. a car set up with 1/8” toe in and 1/4 degree negative camber will be stable and won’t wear tires excessively. Caster is a bit more esoteric and hard to describe. Think of a shopping cart the center of the wheel is behind the turning point of the suspension. It makes the wheel follow. It is what centers the wheel when you release the steering wheel. Caster does Not cause tire wear but if uneven it causes a pull to the side with more caster. A shopping cart has 15 degrees of caster while a car has about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 degrees. Too much caster causes the wheel to wobble with increased speed. If you run with a shopping cart you will see them wobble. Here most roads are crowned. A crowned road will cause a car to pull to the right side. (Gravity sucks) A slight amount more caster on the left tire can compensate for the crown. as steering components wear additional toe in will help compensate for the looseness. When loading and unloading a trailing landing gear like a Mooney the suspension absorbs the load by changing caster. The tire points straight forward on our Mooneys no toe in. The tire sits vertically, no camber. This is why our tires wear more evenly than Cessna aircraft. Spring gear is used on Cessna, the above mentioned Grumman, Vans kit planes, and Cubs etc. Spring gear uses the flex of the landing gear arm to absorb the weight of landing. As the gear arm flexes the alignment angle of the tire changes. The unloaded gear will have positive camber. As the gear arm flexes the tire will be pulled to negative camber. Toe also pulls out as weight is added. To maintain directional control they need to be toed in further to begin with. This effect is worse on a tail dragger. If a tail dragger is toed out it will be hard to keep on the runway. The slight camber wear on the above Grumman is normal. The under inflation is the wear problem.

Quit guessing the wear pattern was caused by under inflation with a bit of camber to increase wear towards the center and decrease at the outer edge. no technique would cause this. This one is very very obvious. Guesses only serve to confuse the issue. if the tire was aired up properly the camber issue would be insignificant. BUY A TIRE GAUGE AND USE IT. PERIOD NOTHING ELSE. I don’t want to be rude but this is very simple and obvious to anyone who has been around tires at all. yes Robert camber is as you describe. It accounts for the uneven side to side wear.

Toe scuffs tires and leaves a feathered edge. This wear is not toe. this wear is caused by sever under inflation. the concave area where the cords show was flat on the ground. The difference between the inner edge and the outer edge is due to camber.

Yes, tires need air. Too little air and they wear on both sides. time for a new tire for the plane and a tire pressure gauge for you.

A log book is a BOOK. any e log is no more than a temporary backup. NOTHING is ever permanent in a computer. ‘if it was “stored” on a 8088 it can never be accessed again.

First a statement of condescension Accused Shadrach of acting like a victim when no such feeling was expressed. then an insult to his intelligence. Who teaches this behavior and why is it so common. this type of self righteous arrogant behavior in the first paragraph explains the slant of the whole diatribe and renders it irrelevant. Key the “angry, white, male etc ridicule” helps you to avoid independent thought.

Your comment underlines mine. The above Covid comments get no push back if they support the “narrative” those that don’t get questioned. Covid is an important issue for travel. Travel has been severely restricted, are the reasons in the “narrative” real? why the censorship by you?

Mask as mandated do nothing. another thread where being “politically correct” is ok and not offensive or inflammatory. but independent thought is. Covid was man made. Who participated in its creation? Covid was also “released” , it didn’t sneak out on its own. Why the bat lies initially? What are the political results and were they intentional? Why is the current level of censorship deemed necessary? who gained from its release? Answer questions rationally. No personal attacks instead of thought. Don’t simply dismiss the tin foil hat with ridicule, give real answers. Again why the censorship? Is independent thought a threat? Who is it a threat to? Why?

A cabin class twin C414 or C421 will cost 4-5 times as much to operate as a normally aspirated Mooney. Their cost is roughly 250 with run out engines 500 with fairly new engines. All are about 40 years old and 6000 hours + by now. A fairly new Acclaim would cost less overall. a turbo charged Mooney will cost about 1 and 1/2 times as much as N/A to operate. Per hour, not necessarily per mile. A turbo charged Mooney will have much better dispatch reliability than N/A. FIKI is more important further North and especially North east. I was based in Colorado and in 1000 hours of Mooney time never had enough cause to go FIKI. I rarely flew north of Colorado. I rented and trained mostly in Cessnas. I got my Instrument rating 1 year and 200 hours later. Only had about 30 Mooney hours when I first bought. First plane was a 231 for 100 hours then same plane with a Rocket conversion for the next 900 hours. A 231 can do most of what a Rocket can do just a bit slower. N/A restricts your options greatly. It not the raw speed I missed as much as the ability to get to altitude. Loved flying N/A Mooneys before owning turbocharged. Hated my J that came after. I bought a J for retirement and hated being stuck down low. Sold it. I’m now in Arizona, my next plane will be turbocharged but not FIKI. Turbocharged because I hate being stuck low and no ice because of cost and weight penalty. Flying a freind’s a J now. He stores it in my hangar in exchange for flight time. Jlunseth above has great advice.

Georgetown lake off I-70 just east of Georgetown Colorado has been hosting ice racing for 45 years. https://ourgangiceracing.com/

My father in law is an old B52 Jock. (SAC Chrome dome. Arc light. Linebacker11, you name it if a B52 did it before 1980 he was there) He is one of my heroes and a great stick. The Colonel retired in 1980 and never got a civilian ticket. I took him flying every chance we could. He was the smoothest pilot I ever flew with and greased every landing. Some pilots just “have it” He hadn’t flown in over 10 years when we first met and I was amazed when he flew. I really enjoyed just watching him fly. Only man I ever sat right seat in my own plane for. He just turned 85 last week. Love you Dad. Charles W on the left.

Airport naming has gotten crazy lately. Between politics and pretentious promoters it’s hard to say who is worse. APA was Arapahoe County Airport, it’s now Centennial. FTG was Front Range airport it’s now Colorado Air and Space Port. BJC was Jefferson County Airport now it’s Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. even little U42 got pretentious, Salt Lake #2 is now South Valley Regional. LEE in Florida got in the act also. Who would have guessed there was an International airport on the banks of Lake Harris. I think my favorite is 48U, a dirt strip in Wyoming, officially named Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport. Ridiculous, I knew where Las Vegas was but who knows where Swamp Politician International is. But HillBilly international does have an appropriate ring to it.

Working from 25 year old memories. I was unaware of a 6 cyl change for the J. All my research back then was K related as that is what I owned at the time. Yes it does seem odd to me to put a more expensive shorter TBO engine into the J without a significant power change. I was involved with Rocket Engineering back about 1996. The slight cost difference between the Rocket and the 262 conversions made the Rocket conversion way more worthwhile. My 231 was converted to a Rocket. Their Missile conversion where a IO 550 was installed in a J was a significant upgrade.

I used to schedule an annual flight with my CFI. Not with a young time builder looking for his first “real” pilot job but a committed CFII there for my flight every year. This was a standing appointment for the first week of October for us. That flight would always include a Biannual review and a Instrument Competency Check. In doing so I was never even close to an expired Biannual and it really helped keep me IFR safe, not just legal. It sounds like late January would be a perfect time for you to brush up.

This 1980 231 had the light pictured above added to the left wing by Mod Works in 1998. they are no longer around to ask about what made it legal.