donkaye

Only because you have a mono audio panel. With a stereo audio panel it can be in stereo.

Don, no matter whether you install the LHS, upgrading the audio panel is something that I think you should do. As you know, the KMA 24 is a mono audio panel, and more than 30 years old. Even before I did my major upgrade I did upgrade my audio panel to the PMA 7000B. What a difference! If you have a new stereo headset like the Bose A20, the difference is dramatic, including possibly having 3D audio depending the audio panel you get. Audio panels are reasonably inexpensive compared to other avionics. At our age a few thousand dollars either way for the benefits provided are well worth it in my opinion. I highly recommend getting the LHS working, hopefully with a more modern and useful audio panel. Two of the best and most reasonable items I have installed in my plane have been the Alpha Systems AOA and the Microkit LHS. I have recommended the LHS to all my students and the ones who purchased it have reported back excellent results.

I'll have to check on the circuit breaker question. I do know that I have turned off the G500TXi in visual conditions and successfully flew both an ILS and GPS approach to minimums with the G5 and GFC 500.

The G500/G500TXi will sync Baro and Heading to the G5 without the addition of the GMU 11. The downside is Heading is lost if the G500/G500TXi fails. I don't find that much of an issue, since Heading reverts to Track in that situation. I also like it better without the GMU11 because Heading on both are the same. With the GMU 11, since Heading is coming from two sources, it can vary a couple of degrees between the two systems. I'm not sure about the GI275, but think it is the same. I personally like the G5. The GI275 wasn't available when I did my upgrade. It is a little brighter, but the G5 is plenty bright. The G5 AI displays navigation source in use and, when on the ground, displays DA automatically. When interfaced to the GFC500 it does require the GAD 29B.

Sorry, I'm a Mac user. FlyGarmin does have a computer app that is required for the Mac when an update is available. Does the webpage flygarmin.com open?

I got my Commercial License the day before Christmas in 1969. I belonged to the Flying Country Club at Reid Hillview airport at the time. They had a number of new Cherokee Airplanes. Very rarely (I can't remember when we've had it since) we would have a very strong northerly wind strike the East Foothills and comes back as a strong crosswind in the middle of the runway at Reid. Being a young and over confident new Commercial Pilot I thought that would be a great day to go out and practice crosswind landings. I thought it strange that no one else was out practicing. I did the preflight, the runup, and was cleared for takeoff. The instant I left the ground and the crab was over 45° I knew the reason. What had I gotten myself into? Had I known the saying, "It was better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground", I would have said it applied to me that day. Anyway, when I came around and lined up with the runway, it was clear that I needed the swivel landing gear of a B52, the angle with the runway was that great. As I went into the flare I pushed the left rudder peddle so hard my leg was shaking uncontrollably. It didn't make any difference. I couldn't straighten it enough and went around. I went around 2 more times and still couldn't make the landing. The fourth time, with my leg still shaking from so much pressure on the left rudder, I was able to get it down. I let the Tower know I was done for the day, and taxied gingerly back to the tie down. My leg was still shaking as I got out of the plane. So here we are 52 years later and I still remember vividly that early morning flight that scared some sense and humility into me...

The method I discussed above will work in any model. The speeds, of course, will be different for the maximum 15° crab angle. Also, you need an appropriate runway length. Short runways and large crosswinds don't work.

Sometimes there is an error in the ASOS/AWOS. That is a hurricane wind and I've never seen one of those in San Diego. A couple of weeks ago during Thanksgiving I saw 50 knots at 15,000 feet direct crosswind during a Santa Ana condition flying down to Ramona, but it decreased on descent. If for some reason it were to be true, then even a bad pre-briefing would have shown that. In any event there is no way a Mooney should be flying if ground conditions were hurricane. The worst I have ever NOT experienced was ferrying an Acclaim from Santa Barbara to Du Page IL. about 6 years ago where, when the winds were 29G52, I stayed overnight on the other side of the front and waited until the next day for the winds to die down. It was very bumpy even then, but manageable. I did have 110 knot tailwind at 19,000 on the way there and was doing over 300 knots over the ground in level flight in smooth conditions. If the above was a joke showing a false AWOS, then mark me down as naive in responding in a serious manner.

For me flying over the Sierras even at 17,000 in VFR conditions, I'm uncomfortable for the 10 to 15 minutes where there are no good landing options. I've done an Ovation cross country with a student from Vancouver into the Canadian Rockys to CYVX where he had a home and the mountain are rough. I've done lots of mountain trainings with the Mooney PPP when they were doing mountain checkouts. I guess I like to have some options. Flying the Rockys single engine over an undercast with icing conditions (even with TKS that could and did fail) would be a little too much risk for my tastes. I'd save the flight for a VFR day. Symptom wise, add the bends in combination with low O2 saturation level as another possibility. I've had a passenger experience the bends at an altitude as low as 13,000 feet. By the time vision starts to go, it's time for a Hyperbaric chamber. I'm glad things worked out for you.

The downtime on a legacy to full glass panel upgrade was significant for me. The plane was down for 6 months. In hindsight other shops could have done it faster, but I had only 1 person do the whole thing. He was close by so I could look in on him weekly to see the progress. It was supposed to take 3 months. There was a time during the process where I wondered if I would ever get the plane flying again, especially since I was dependent on one person. As I was getting anxious, he told me that when the project was long done, I wouldn't remember how long it took to do it. That was 2014 and he was right, other than I remember it took a long time. He did several upgrades to the upgrades since that time. Those wouldn't have been possible with a G1000. So, I'm glad I have that option. I do like flying and teaching in the G1000 airplanes, though. The GFC 500 AP is a great improvement over the KFC 150, but I do think the GFC 700 is one of the best AP Garmin has built for small GA airplanes. While I think the G1000 NXi has TargetTrend for traffic, I don't think the early G1000 systems do. Correct me if I am wrong. TargetTrend is worth its weight in gold. Also, I don't think the early G1000 systems have bluetooth capability. It's a personal preference, but I like the system architecture and latest icon user interface of the touchscreens. The combination of touchscreen and knobs makes flying in turbulence a non issue. The G1000 UI and menu system is more cumbersome with all the buttons. My experience with older G1000 systems is that their displays dim so as to be almost unusable over time. at least when viewing from the right seat. Replacing the displays solves the issue, but at a cost. So far I have not seen the same with the newer displays. Smart Glide is not available for the G1000, yet. Yes, the older long body planes have a higher panel. That is something you just get used to. In fact it feels rather comfortable being in your little cocoon in IMC surrounded by the higher panel. Just a few thoughts about both systems having had a lot of experience with both...

Not in California, and your state may be even worse.

OK, Mitch, I deleted two words, but that doesn't change the truth of the matter.

BTW, I forgot to mention that the County (AKA the Government) will be taking over all fuel concessions. No private fuel concessions.

I got a letter yesterday from the director of airports at Reid Hillview and San Martin titled "No 100LL Available at RHV or E16 after 12/31/2021". With the liberals here in California and in particular Santa Clara County, and the even more liberals on the County Board of Supervisors who have been trying to get rid of Reid Hillview for years, this is the perfect way to help get rid of it sooner. As I said in an email to him today, "If the powers to be believe that 100 airplanes flying out of Reid Hillview can put enough lead into the atmosphere to have a meaningful impact on the health of the population, I have a bridge I'm willing to sell them." Listening to George Braly from Gami on Social Flight this evening we can expect to pay a minimum of an extra dollar a gallon for the new fuel, which isn't even available for the higher performance airplanes right now. He expects it to be a least a year until it's available for those aircraft. Your airport is next.....

That may be true, but why would you even need to control anything else when the GTN 750 controls everything that you mentioned and more with an elegant interface. From the GTN 750Xi you can change: 1. Transponder 2. All Radio frequencies from all radios, 3. Weather sources (XM, ADS-B, Stormscope). The TXi also has a GPSS roll steering guidance bug and displays height above terrain to 2500 feet adjacent to the altimeter. If you so choose, a field exits to display DME from a remote box such as the KN 63. I kept my KN 63 for that purpose.

We don't know what the future holds in avionics. While the G3X is a very capable glass display, its interface capabilities are rather limited. The interface of the G500TXi has more flexible capabilities for future developments. Those capabilities do come at a price, though. The TXi is more expensive than the G3X. For me, even though the G3X wasn't available when I did my installation, I'd have still gone with the G500 TXi. Since I wasn't going to upgrade to a turbine airplane, I decided that I would go all in for the best that Garmin had to offer. With the TXi, GTN 750 and 650 there is overlapping of data, but I find I can make use of all of it by putting different data in the various data fields on the different products. Unlike the G1000 where upgrades are either expensive or unavailable, I took advantage of the ability to upgrade my system from the GTN 750 and 650 to the Xi versions. It was simply an exchange and system upgrade. The connectors were the same. The upgrade from the G500 to the G500 TXi was a little more extensive, but only took a couple of days and a new left panel to adjust for the increase size of the TXi. Garmin also gave a discount for the upgrade if the display was returned. In regard to the G5 vs the GI275, the G5 has some additional data displayed, but the GI275 has a brighter display. That wasn't enough for me to want to upgrade to the 275. I'm very happy with the G5. A lot of people go with the GNC 255 in lieu of the GTN 650 as a second radio. I like the flexibility of having the second GPS. So, if you want to be a minimalist, go with 2 G5s. If you want a little more, then go for 2 GI275s; little more then the G3X. And finally, for the top of the line, go for the G500 TXi.

It did use the stock dimmer. It seems to dim well until the very end when it goes out, but that is very low level.

Yes. Mark just took out the bulbs from the original recessed lighting, then glued the strip in as far out as possible in the recessed area under the glare shield so the most light would shine on the panel. It looks like it was meant to be there and looks quite professional. He said if I didn't like the new strip I could just put the old lights back in, disconnect the blue strip and return to the way it was before without any other changes.

Well said. I will usually keep the lights low enroute, then turn them up on approach. However, even with the old lights turned up, some of the switches were not readable. With the new ones that will not be the case.

I'll have to find out from Mark.

I had my choice. I could have gone white, but thought the blue was more comfortable. If it turns out I don't like it over time, they easily come out and can be replaced with a different color. It is not as overwhelmingly blue as indicated in the picture. This set has only one color and the dimming works well.

For quite some time I have not been happy with the light provided by the standard glare shield lighting. I finally decided to do something about it. Mark, from Top Gun, ordered the new LED strip lights and did the installation in a few hours. I left the glare shield with him and came back a couple of days later to have him reinstall the glare shield with the new lighting. The LEDS are dimmable, but I have them on high in the picture. The pictures below show the panel with the lights off and on. What a difference!

The commonly written and taught method of taking off in crosswinds by holding aileron into the wind and lifting off the downwind main wheel first is nice in theory, but sometimes not so nice in practice, if winds are gusty. Lifting off at minimum speed in a gusty crosswind can produce undesirable results using the above technique. C83, Byron California, often has direct crosswinds in excess of 20 knots on its larger runway. It usually has the cheapest fuel in the Bay area. So, it has the double benefit of being able to practice crosswind takeoffs and landings and getting cheap fuel at the same time. Since it is rare to have strong crosswinds in the Bay Area proper, that's where I go and take students for crosswind practice. In a strong crosswind I prefer holding the airplane on the ground until beyond the normal takeoff speed with, of course, aileron into the wind, and "popping" the airplane off the ground with coordinated controls to crab into the wind. That excess speed should not be so large as to create a "wheelbarrowing" effect before takeoff. The excess lift generated before leaving the ground converts into a safety factor of not skidding across the runway downwind or not slamming into the ground by a downward gust, if the minimum takeoff speed is misjudged. To help further, I'd stay in ground effect until past Vx. Regarding crosswind landings, it's possible to land in crosswinds significantly greater than the maximum demonstrated crosswind stated in the POH. This requires practice with landings in progressively greater crosswinds. I determine flap setting in those situations by crabbing on final. I think crabbing is better on final than slipping both because it allows better continual evaluation of the crosswind strength and requires much less effort in flying the airplane. I use whatever flap setting and airspeed will keep the crab angle at less than 15° to the runway at the appropriate approach speed. Experience with the Bravo tells me that a direct crosswind of 30 knots will require no flaps and airspeed of close to 100 knots. That 100 knots WILL be the touchdown speed, meaning landing "gently" with power and gradually removing it while increasing aileron into the wind. If a point is reached during the slowdown where the runway cannot be held with full aileron, then immediate increase in power will lead to a successful takeoff. As yet, I have not found the limit where a go around has been necessary. Of course, a longer runway is necessary in these situations.

Without meaning to be sarcastic, it is time to upgrade to the GFC 500 if you don't want to spend a lot of money troubleshooting the KFC 150. The KFC 150 is over 30 years old and I'm sure some components were not temperature compensated at that time. Finding out which one could be time consuming. OTOH, if it is a known issue, an autopilot specialist like Bob Weber could assist. He can be found at 616-822-1999 M-F 8am-6pm Eastern Time or email at bobweber@webairconsulting.com.

Also, one of the best additions to the GFC 500, over the KFC 150.