donkaye

I'm confused. The airplane listed under your name, N444HK, is an Ovation. Do you have a Bravo, too?

If it is the Bravo engine and not the -A, then except for a Turbo and Wastegate overhaul at about 1,300 hours, it should have made it to TBO from my experience.

I've had my Bravo for 31 years as of next week. During that time I have flown it 4,105 hours. I'm on my 3rd engine. The 1st one went 2,295 hours after the Bravo upgrade at 1,300. That engine never had an engine monitor. The 2nd one went 1,600 hours before an incident that occurred as the airplane was being Annualed presented me with the choice of an engine teardown or sacrificing the remaining 400 hours before TBO and buying a reman. I took the reman route, since I got a $50,000 discount on the engine replacement. All this is to say I know the Bravo engine well. The sweet spot for this engine using the key number of 53 is 75% power at 2400 rpm and 29 inches mp with cowl flaps closed. At that setting you should be using a quart of oil about every 10-12 hours. In 25 hours between oil changes I usually add 2 quarts. Using the MVP-50 as a guide, I run the engine at a maximum of 1595 TIT. At this setting I get 18 gph for the 1st hour and 17.5 gph thereafter. CHTs by the MVP-50 are all below 375°F. IAS at 4,500 feet at that setting is about 165 kts. At 17,000 TAS is between 195 and 205 knots. I do have GAMIs, but run my engine ROP only. Summary: you have a major engine problem and need to get it looked at immediately. No way you should be burning 1 quart an hour. Personally, I wouldn't fly the plane until this issue was resolved.

I had the EDM 700 for many years in my Bravo. It served its purpose at the time. When I decided to upgrade the panel in 2013 I did a lot of research as to which engine monitor I wanted. At the time the choice was between the EDM 930 and the MVP-50. I read numerous comparisons (see PDF below for one). In the end the multiple pages, character size, and added functionality of the MVP-50 won me over. If I had to choose today, even with the addition of the Garmin EIS into the mix, I wouldn't hesitate to make the same decision. I've attached the same picture I have shown here in the past, but concentrate on the MVP-50 in the lower left hand corner. The characters are just so much easier to read for me than on the 930, and the multiple ways the engine data can be presented (not shown) make it my engine monitor of choice. If you do decide on it, definitely don't get the fast response probes. They're unnecessary and go bad often. The standard probes work well. MVP-50P vs JPI EDM-930.pdf

Boy do I disagree with your comments. I have had my Bravo for 31 years and flown it over 4,100 hours and there is no way the maintenance is 1-2 hours for each hour flown. If it were that much, I'd have gotten rid of it long ago. And as Top Gun would attest, It gets everything it wants and then some. I don't skimp on anything.

2/10/2022 ORL-FPY-12J-CDH (Almost couldn't get the engine started there)-WDG-COS = 9.7 Hours. Quite a day! Unusual electronic ignition. Lucked out on the weather. Next day we just got to do a few landings before the snow came a calling. Sorry we couldn't do a full transition training. From that flight I learned not to necessarily stop at an airport in the middle of nowhere just because they had cheap fuel. If we couldn't 'have gotten the plane started... The Bravo is an amazing airplane. That plane got us more than half way across the country going westbound in one day--in the middle of winter.

I posted this to Beechtalk. Maybe it will help some here. This relates to Garmin VNAV. I use VNAV on virtually every flight I make now. What a benefit! Recently I found that, although not written up in any manual I could find, when vectored above the VNAV path, by enabling V/S and setting an appropriate vertical speed, VNAV would become armed from active, V/S would intercept the VNAV profile, VNAV would become active again and continue the automatic step-downs on the approach. This worked beautifully on both the RNAV approach at KOAR (Marina, California) and KHWD (Hayward, California) in actual conditions this past week.

I flew to Phoenix Commercial on July 2 to help a new student bring his newly purchased Acclaim Ultra back to Hayward. I knew there was a small window of opportunity to do it in one day. I planned to be off the ground by 11:00. Problems with the airplane shut that down. By 12:00 it was already 108°. The performance Charts end at 110° I let him know we weren't going that day. In the Acclaim accident 4 years ago the temperatures were in this vicinity. Luckily, there was a Best Western across the street from Atlantic and a good, though expensive, restaurant next door. As bad as California is politically, just walking to the hotel and restaurant by Scottsdale reminded me why I wouldn't want to live in the Phoenix area. How do you guys do it? We were off the ground at 6:00 am the next morning in "cool" conditions (that's a joke) when the tower opened and were back in Hayward a little over 3 hours later. Had a nice little tail wind of 10 knots going west and were truing out at around 235 Kts. at 14,000 feet. Went out IFR to avoid the Phoenix Airspace issues. Cancelled at Blythe. Beautiful flight back.

If you want to see what they look like here it is: https://donkaye.com/infamous-1500-back-spring

I've already talked to Don about this, but have not received a response.

We were really looking forward to attending MooneyMax 2023 again this year. We had made it to all the ones in the past. The trip to Texas has always been a great adventure and Maxwell Aviation in Longview has always put on a great show. All reservations were made and up to last week I still thought it was a possibility. At the last minute circumstances changed making it not possible for us to attend. I called Don and Jan with the disappointing news that we couldn't attend. It was then that I found out that the event would be streamed. I downloaded the Whova Application and jumped at the opportunity to attend in streaming mode. The lineup of speakers (including Bob Kromer) and variety of topics is top of the line. The event was extended an additional day this year, so there are still 2 more days of interesting topics. If you want to learn a lot more about your Mooney, avionics, news about the factory, risk management and a lot of other things, then I think it would be definitely worth it to sign up for the last 2 days. All the talks are being recorded so the first day's talks can be seen at a latter time. You can go to: https://www.mooneymax.com to register for the streaming. For the streaming it costs $149 and is a bargain at that price. I'm looking forward to all the talks over the next couple of days.

Time to weigh in. I can't believe it's been 10 years since I did my avionics upgrade. I further upgraded as new products came out. There is probably a reason the accident statistics don't show a relationship between glass and legacy instruments. Approximately 80% of accidents are pilot related and most of those come from poor aeronautical decision making. Whether a pilot has glass or legacy, a poor decision is a poor decision. It is surprising that with such good weather products on board and such good preflight information available today that so many of the accidents are weather related. I admit to really being spoiled with all the advanced equipment I have in the plane, especially the GFC 500. I repeat, especially the GFC 500. Gone are the days of "dive and drive" on a NP approach. Most LNAV approaches have +V now and even the traditional VOR approaches at many airport have +V attached to them. Knowing what to look for, I can brief an approach that I have never flown quickly, and run it to perfection with VNAV and GP. And on the missed approach having the ability to set up another approach to a different airport while still flying the original missed is not something that was available a few years ago. If you read the documentation before getting pro-training from an instructor who knows your systems backwards and forward, and then practice using it until it becomes second nature, then in my opinion the new glass makes for a safer and more comfortable flying experience. There are a couple of areas where I think the legacy instruments makes it easier. For example, for the Commercial Rating lazy eights and chandelles are easier with the round dials. But ATP smoothness and anticipation comprehension that these ratings lead towards comes with experience, and that experience can be gained with glass over time. I've been flying a lot of years and glass has made it possible to accomplish a lot more things in a given amount of time while flying, provides a greater picture of my surroundings for situational awareness, and makes possible better and faster appropriate decision making than ever could have been achieved with legacy instruments.

We are lucky in the Bay Area. Most summer days the Monterey Bay is overcast until about 11:00; if there's a 20°F inversion, then maybe longer. Those inversions are amazing. You sweat at 3,000 feet and chill at sea level on approach. I'll get up early and file from San Jose to Salinas. You can't file multiple airports, but with 4 airports all located within a few miles of each other and the same controller working all of them, it is easy to run multiple approaches to all of the airports by flying the missed approach and asking for an approach to another nearby airport. On the missed the controller will clear me to another airport where I'll do the same thing. I plan to ping pong off of various airports. There are a variety of approaches from which to choose, and I can usually do at least 6 approaches in less than 2 hours. Going into Monterey on the ILS often I'll be the only plane early in the morning when the airport is below minimums with other Commercial planes holding waiting for the minimums to rise. It doesn't hurt that for the moment Marina (KOAR) has the cheapest fuel around, so I plan an approach there as the last approach of the day. Getting out let's me practice Obstacle Departure Procedures and Void Time Clearances.

The latest system update to the G5 says ESP can be disabled (not temporarily disabled) by holding the A/P disconnect button for 5 seconds.

I always "condition" new brakes. 73 hours also surprised me, but that's what it was. Remember, with nearly 25% more mass than the J model a lot more energy needs to be dissipated in the Bravo as opposed to the J. J brakes on a Bravo didn't work so the brake system was improved from 27-107 onward. The new braking system was worth it to me. I should have done it sooner.

The original Bravo brakes thru serial number 27-106 were 2 puck just like the 201. My serial number is the 27-106 so I had the 2 puck system. The plane at gross weighs 623 pounds more than the 201. The 2 puck system was really inadequate. In the beginning of ownership, even treating the brakes gently, I had to replace the pucks every 73 hours. I still thought it was cheaper than buying the 4 puck brake kit at about $4,500. By 2016 labor rates and fuel prices had gone up so much that I revisited doing the brake update. The kit cost had increased to $8,000. I decided to do it anyway. Lead time from Mooney at the time was 6 weeks and they required upfront payment at time of shipping. Included in the kit were new axels and gear doors that needed to be fit. Labor was 20 hours. Total cost in May of 2016 was $10,353.81 and that include a 10% discount on the parts. The new brake pucks now need to be replaced about once a year. One other VERY IMPORTANT thing; you need the gear door stops discussed above. Failure to have them installed will result in multiple broken costly rods over time. They were NOT included in the kit and I spent an untold amount of money replacing rods over the next couple of years. My maintenance facility tried their best to figure out why the rods kept breaking. Finally with their approval last year, I flew down to Kerville and had Mike Knesse look at it. They found the problem in a couple of minutes because they still had a mechanic working there from 30 years before. The issue arose when Mooney went to the 4 puck system on the Ovation and were having many broken rods. The fix was adding the door stops to prevent the inner gear door from extending past vertical and thereby being exposed to excessive loads on retraction. They even had a Service Bulletin about it, but being 30 years old, it wasn't obvious to my service center that it existed. Luckily, Mooney still had a couple of them, and since being installed I've never had an issue with broken rods.

Example of how I manage the supplements in my airplane. This PDF is on my iPad and is updated as necessary. Using Adobe Acrobat for each item, bookmarks are automatically added to the combined PDF for easy access to an individual item. If I had to print it out and change it for every update, I'd have to change the printer ink a number of times and have pounds of paper to carry around, as the whole package is 481 pages. The actual hard copy POH is manageable with the original supplements that were not included in the panel update. In separate files, I have all of the latest Pilot Guides on the iPad for easy reference of all equipment in the plane. In a recent MFT with the FAA to renew my 2nd Class Medical due to the left eye not quite making the 20/20 requirement, the examiner reviewed ALL aircraft documentation and logs, including the below, and was quite happy with it. N9148W Airplane Flight Manual Supplements for Avionics Upgrade 4:5:2023.pdf

Since that was issued 4 years ago, that's not very promising. Of course an undesirable alternative is to remove the airconditioner. I did a transition training in an Ovation in Canada where the air conditioner was removed.

I went to the plane today and tested the lights as asked above. With the pulse lights on I turned on the split switch taxi lights. The pulsing did stop, the taxi lights remained on steady, and the recognition lights turned off. I then turned off the taxi lights and turned on the recognition lights. The recognition lights turned steady, but the taxi lights continued pulsing alone. The above is nice to know, but I'll continue to use my lights as I have in the past, as I don't see any benefit of using those configurations as opposed to the original methods.

I don't think mine work that way, but I'll try that the next time I'm at the airport.

The landing light in my system in not connected the pulse light system. The pulse lights can be pulsing and the landing light on solidly at the same time.

I've had this setup for so long, I can't remember all the combinations I tried a number of years ago. Bottom line it is really simple, with the top row of switches off, turning on the bottom Pulselight switch will pulse the lights as shown in the video. The pulse lights only work in the way shown. On final I can keep the pulse lights pulsing and additionally turn on the landing lights from the top row. If I want the landing lights, taxi lights and recognition lights on together (non pulsing of the taxi and recognition lights), I turn off the pulse lights and switch on the taxi and recognition lights from the upper row. This is the way the lights worked before the addition of the pulse lights. It's pretty versatile. I couldn't get back far enough to really show in the video how bright the new recognition lights are. I should have gone down to the airport at night to do the video. One thing I know is that they are too bright to look at head on and they really run cool.

I never had a rotating beacon. The upper row of lights from left to right: Landing lights, Taxi light, Recognition lights. The bottom row of lights: NAV lights, Strobe lights, Pulse lights.

I think when I got {won) my Pulselight System they cost $450. It seems like it has more flexibility, but at a lot more cost. It allows me to do everything I wanted in regards to lights, though. I'm glad I don't have to make the decision now because I think I'd be out the extra money.

From the image below all my lights are located in a group below the G500 TXi. The top row operates independently from the bottom row. That means all the split switches in the top row operate independently. The bottom row from left to right are the Nav lights for night flight, the strobes, and the Pulse lights. When cleared for takeoff, on the runway I use the neumonic "lights, camera, action". Lights mean Strobes and Pulse Lights On, camera mean Transponder to Alt (not needed anymore with Garmin Transponder), Action means add Power. With the LEDs I feel comfortable keeping the strobes and pulse lights on all the time except in the clouds. At night when on approach I also turn on the landing light. When off the runway, strobes and pulse lights go to Off, the landing lights stay on, and I turn on the taxi lights. With the new LED recognition lights, I would now feel comfortable turning on the recognition lights at night while taxiing. In the past that was not possible, since the old incandescent lights would burn a hole in the plastic covers. Not so with the LEDs.