donkaye

I love having the vernier throttle. Having had it for the 32 years I've owned my airplane and teaching over the past 30 years with so many airplanes that have it, I don't give it a second thought except to appreciate having it. I never have to worry about throttle movement if I take my hand off of it to fly a precise soft field takeoff. All the arguments above don't hold a bit of water for me. If you're not flying aerobics, there is no reason to have to "smash" the throttle full forward. The throttle can be "smoothly" increased with the palm of your hand on the "button" and your forefinger used on the throttle end to control the rate of throttle addition. On landing the proficient pilot never "cuts" the throttle. That will immediately unstabilize the approach. On a stabilized approach the throttle is rolled off at the same rate as the airplane is flared. Power is much more precisely adjusted with it than with the push/pull throttle. For formation flying my mechanic designed a cover for the throttle end that keeps the button "in" and allows push/pull operations.

The road and traffic going by KRHV is terrible now as the result of a new construction project bring apparently overhead rail to the South Bay. The project is massive and looks to continue for several years.

For an airport that is supposedly going away in a few years, a whole lot of money was just spent upgrading the runways.

I like the potential benefits of G100UL. I'll follow the fueling guidelines. I've read all the documentation that came with the STC and have listened to George Braly's comments both in person and online and find them compelling. My tanks were resealed by Paul at Weep no More in Willmar 8 years ago. I was impressed by their process. Notwithstanding some of the comments in this thread, I'll continue to use G100UL.

I checked back on my upgrade from the G500 to the G500TXi. I was charged 11 hours labor. There was also the charge for the new panel and power coating and painting it. Garmin gave an exchange discount of several thousand dollars if you sent your old G500 back to them. The Hardware net cost was $11,450. 11 hours at $80/hour (6 years ago when labor was cheaper) =$880. Since you don't have to have a new panel made, you don't have those costs.

"Life is short" is a term we hear often. When we're young and say the term, I don't think most of us really grasp the concept. Life seems infinite. However---one day you will wakeup and say, "Wait a minute, just yesterday I was 20 years old and everyone around me is older. Where did the last 60 years go?" It happens just that fast. My recommendation? Don't wait too long to go after the things you want. Time waits for no-one.

Before I had my tanks sealed, I had 100LL stains on the bottom of the wing that I couldn't remove easily. The same would go for the G100UL. Bottom line, if your tanks are leaking, they should be resealed. If not, then the staining is comparable and really can't be seen unless you got under the wing and looked. Regarding the STC, I'm not sure what GAMI will do in the long run, but if you were based at an airport that just got G100UL the STC cost $0. For those of us at nearby airports, we got 25 gallons of fuel free, so that gave a pretty good discount on the STC cost. Face it. One way or another 100LL is eventually going the way of the dinosaur. With the unleaded fuel, you should have a much cleaner engine internally, which should lead to longer TBO times.

The G100UL works great. It's been mixed with 100LL in my plane, so its benefits won't show up until I use it alone all the time, and that's not anytime soon, since so few airports have it right now. It does weigh a little more than 100LL at 6.15-6.30 lb/gal. GAMI says to use 6.25 lb/gal for weight and balance calculations. The fuel has "slightly higher volumetric density" so has about 1% more energy. I've found FF to be slightly less at cruise power to get the same TIT. One thing to be aware of is the necessity to carry an absorbent towel with you when fueling or dumping fuel back into the tank after checking for water. The fuel will stain the paint if not wiped up immediately. So far the price is fair at $6.99/gallon.

I don't understand why someone would want to remove the Miniflo-L from their panel even when upgrading it. If there is one item where multiplicity of function is useful it is fuel quantity and fuel computations. Even though I installed the MVP-50 in my upgrade, I kept the Miniflo-L due to its usefulness. When my display goes out again, the unit is going in for repair, not removal.

As an option, you could send yours back to Shadin to have the display replace, if they are still doing them. I had my display replaced by them a number of years ago.

No fire? No fuel?

Complexity? A complete non issue. In heavy turbulence I turn the AP off because I can fly the airplane better than the autopilot, but the YD stays on because the multiple Garmin inputs* to it can better anticipate yaw changes than I can. To me one of the most important inputs is Lateral Acceleration, which is the rate of change of lateral motion. It's one thing to adjust to lateral motion. It's quite another to adjust to the rate of change of lateral motion. To me these multiple inputs make it better than other YDs with single inputs. *Per Garmin: "The yaw servo provides Dutch roll damping and turn coordination in response to yaw rate, roll angle, lateral acceleration, and airspeed."

I bought my airplane 32 years ago before my "perspective" change. I think my airplane may be one of the best equipped Mooneys in the fleet. The G1000 and G1000NXi are great products, but I like the flexibility of being able to modify my airplane as new and exciting technology comes to market. That can't be done with any G1000/NXi equipped airplane. I happily accept the 20 knot speed difference between my airplane and the Acclaims for the extra benefits I have with mine.

As I get older, I have a different perspective on money. Whether it's a small improvement or not, if I'm going to spend the money on an upgrade, I want the best. That means all 4 servos--and the improvement in the Bravo is not small.

Sitting at the table in our Condo on the Big Island of Hawaii overlooking what some might call "Paradise", I sit back and summarize my simplistic observations on the above "discussion". 1. Why make things more complicated than they need to be? 2. Avoid simple brain overload and most importantly, 3. Just update your databases monthly.