donkaye

This has been discussed many, many times on this forum. I have owned my Bravo for almost 24 years now and have been through one engine replacement, so I have a pretty good handle on long term costs. Although expensive to maintain, they probably are no more expensive than any other plane of this type, and they are by far the greatest bargain in the marketplace today in my opinion. Fixed costs to consider are: Hangar (these airplanes should be hangared), insurance, property taxes if applicable, annual (inspection only), reserve for engine replacement, O2 tank replacement, fuel tank reseal, interior replacement and painting, tires, and shock discs. Variable costs include: Oil and filter changes every 25 hours, fuel, annual variable costs for repairs after inspection, unexpected maintenance, avionics upgrades. If you have a Bravo whose serial number is below 27-107, then figure on new brake pads every 70 hours. Airplane ownership is not cheap, but for me overwhelmingly worth it. I live in the Bay Area. Here are some of my representative annual costs of ownership: Hangar: 6,500 Insurance: 2,800 Taxes: 2,000 Annual Inspection only costs: 2,700 Annual costs above inspection average: 4,000 Fuel at 4.50/gal, 18 gal/hour, 150 hours: 12,150 Unexpected maintenance if you are lucky (really to be expected): 6,000 So that comes to 36,150. This doesn't include any reserves. Expect a reman engine installed to cost 75, 000, a new O2 tank every 15 years 2,200 installed, controller and turbocharger overhaul once per engine TBO 2,500, tank reseal 12,000, and on and on. Bottom line: Better keep some money in the bank, a lot of money. Last year, after some oil on the hangar floor, it turns out 2 cylinders needed new intake valve guides so needed to be overhauled: $5,000. After nearly 24 years I finally got tired of replacing brake pads every 70 hours at $400 a pop including fuel to Top Gun, so proactively bought the upgraded gear kit. Installed $10,000. Oh, and replaced the Plessey gear actuator (you don't want to hear the price) because the back springs are no longer manufactured. Do not buy a Bravo unless the actuator is not a Plessey or discount it by at least $15,000. And then there was the optional panel upgrade to the most sophisticated Mooney in the fleet at this time including all Acclaims (no TKS)--also not talking about that one. PS One thing you can do to mitigate the expenses if you really like flying and some adventure is to become a Mooney Specific Flight Instructor.

I was teaching in that Ovation 3. I, too, saw you holding short after landing. After 20 landings in KSMX we hopped up there for lunch. You came at a good time; after the lunch rush. We then flew down to Lompoc and did some more landings there. It's been very windy here the past week. I've had 2 O3 transition trainings this week, one in Hanford and one in Santa Maria. Sorry I missed you.

I'm not at home right now, but am out doing 2 initial Ovation 3 transition trainings right now. But one thing I can tell you until I get home on Friday and pull out the correct chart is that this is NOT the correct Chart for the TIO540AF1B engine. It was an insert into the book. ---And believe me when I say 34/2400 IS 100% rated power depending on temperature. If you are pulling 38/2400 get your checkbook out because I venture that you will not reach TBO.

You are SO wrong!!! 75% power is 29"/2400 rpm per the Lycoming Manual. There is a specific break-in procedure which should be followed to the tee. Running at 34"/2400 rpm is basically running the engine at 100% power. Go look at the Red Lycoming Manual for confirmation of what I am saying.

Victor, thanks for the comments! I can't believe it's been 8 years since the Down Under Tour. What a great time we all had! Have you done any upgrading you your J?

Periodically the MAPA Safety Foundation will offer a Mountain Flying Course in Colorado. It is usually scheduled in early July. It was very good at the time I was teaching for them. They will usually base out of Colorado Springs, but have gone to KBJC a few times. The normally aspirated planes would go in the morning and the turbos would go in the afternoon. Most airports we would visit would be over 7,000 ft altitude, and of course Leadville and Aspen would be a couple of them.

The ESI 500 can have one GPS AND one VOR/ILS, i.e. one of each. The Menu on the ESI 500 allows you to switch between them. I wanted to have both the GTN 750 and GTN 650 as sources, so I had a switch installed as part of the installation. 8 inputs 4 outputs. No lights; just labeled ESI 500 750 in one position and 650 in the other. You can see it in the pictures. It's the switch in the 2nd row on the right. For simplicity I did not go with the Mag 500 independent heading source, opting for the 429 of the G500. I recognize that that reduces the redundancy. At some point I might added it. I like that there is no difference in heading indication. I have previously posted pictures and videos of it in operation.

If you go to my website: www.donkaye.com and click on "Infamous Back Clutch Spring" I have some detailed pictures of the spring. This one had just come out of my airplane. It looks a little worn at the ends. This one had been in the plane for 1036 hours. The thing that bothers me about this spring is those little end pieces. If they were to break, it's all over relative to getting the gear to come down. Think of the fact that those little end pieces control the fate of your plane. So again, I recommend the 1,000 hour replacement. That little what I would call $.25 spring cost $1,500. They were available at the time.

Fun engineering classes? As electrical engineering students we were forced to take that class in either our sophomore or junior year. Not much fun for me.

The issue I was referring to was the backspring replacement.

Well, the first question I would ask if I were buying a Mooney is what type of gear actuator it had. If it was a Plessey, I would discount the plane by $18,000, the cost of a new actuator. Anyone buying it without the discount does so at their own peril. I would consider non disclosure of such an issue significant enough that I would never deal with a broker brokering it again. As for a Seller, I would consider him a crook. Putting my money where my mouth is, I went with a rebuilt actuator recently to eliminate the issue in my plane. Also, remind me not to fly with or try to teach anyone who pushes back on this type of issue. Sorry, but I personally question such judgment.

I think running LOP and using Camguard is just fine. My engine just won't run LOP well even with Gamis.

The problem is that if there was a 1% failure rate and you were the 1% then for you the failure rate is 100%. This is one of the few single point of failure items where, if the spring fails, the gear will neither come up or go down. In my opinion this is one area where an AMU should be spent.

I'm sorry, but you've got to be kidding. You would risk the safety of your family and/or yourself, the potential of a fire when scraping the belly of your plane, a $45,000 repair charge, the lack of use of your airplane, a devaluation of at least 10% due to accident history, a black mark on your certificate, a bruised ego, all because you didn't want to preemptively replace the back spring at a total cost of $1,000? That just seems like very poor aeronautical decision making from my point of view. I had a much worse situation cost wise. I had to replace the whole gear actuator, since it was a Plessey, and no more springs were available because Plessey went out of business. My spring gets replaced every 1000 hours--preemptively. "Failure to extend" DOES qualify as a disastrous failure to me.

From my observation taking the gear actuator apart to inspect it takes enough time that while it is apart I think it makes sense to just go ahead and replace it.

FWIW, the back spring being a single source of failure, means your gear will neither come up or go down in normal or backup mode if the spring fails. I have replace mine every 1,000 hours until there were no more back springs made for the Plessy Gear Actuator. The last spring for the Plessy cost $1,500 for the spring alone. I watched Tom Rouch take the actuator apart and replace the spring. It took him 3 hours. I WOULD ONLY HAVE AN EXPERIENCE PERSON DO THE REPLACEMENT. Since there were going to be no more back springs available, Tom made up a new gear actuator for me with springs that ARE available. The cost of the actuator was much less than a new one priced at $18,000. Typical rebuilt ones cost around $10,000. Mine was much less than that. Bottom line for me is that unlike Mike Bush's replace as needed philosophy, in this case I would stick to the recommended 1,000 hour replacement time. I'd hate to see an expensive airplane need $50,000 in repairs from a gear up landing when a $500 back spring could have saved it.

So I changed a couple of things today on the display. I felt the semi-transparent mask made the display seem smaller than it was, so I changed it to clear, and it does seem larger. I also changed the color of the Baro to green to distinguish it from the white altitude tape. I also took pictures of the terrain shading as I flew over the East Bay foothills to San Jose. The obstacles on the ESI 500 are block icons. The big antenna on top of the mountain shows up as Red. You can compare the G500 with the ESI 500. In this regard the ESI 500 displays better than its more expensive counter part. I hit a bump just as I snapped the picture, so it is a little out of focus. I also took picture of most of the panel. I'm really pleased at how the ESI installation turned out. Once again, I can thank Peter Casares of J and R Electronics in Livermore. He did it all.

Of course you are right regarding the certified Nav. I was referring to a Nav indicator, a second one of which I didn't have prior to the ESI 500. The GPS is not really in my field of view for secondary Nav. The ESI 500 is. Regarding cost, yes, it is a few $ more, but the Nav function is only about an additional $600. The SVT is more but was worth it to me. The support from L3 is excellent. Our questions were immediately answered. One other thing is really nice about the SVT. The terrain awareness color shading warning is much, much better than that the G500. As I came into San Jose yesterday over the foothills, the shading went to yellow with red in the distance, while nothing showed on the G500.

My ESI 500 installation was completed yesterday. Here are a couple of videos made on the way home. One is level flight and the other is on approach to Livermore. I have the SVT and NAV enabled.

That could be said for every switch on the G500. The options I'll have of any of 4 Nav inputs outweighs the unlikely failure of the switch. Even if it did fail, at least 2 inputs would be tied to the ESI 500 and it would be pretty easy to figure out which ones they were. On top of that, with the much more expensive ESI 2000 that is in there now I have no Nav inputs. I was able to sell the ESI 2000 for just a little less than I paid for it, so the swap is mostly labor, which is a 2 day affair.

One surprise that I hadn't counted on was that it only accepts one ILS/VOR input and One GPS input, therefore, I needed a rather elaborate switch to switch between the 750 and 650, since 4 wires are required for each Nav unit.

Then you'll want to see my latest upgrade that is supposed to be completed on Monday. I'm replacing my backup ESI 2000 with the ESI 500. Although a slightly smaller screen, it has Navigation (ILS/VOR/GPS/LPV) and SVT. With the G500 I had no certified backup Navigation. Now I will.

Yes. Turn on the Radio Master. Pull the GTN 750 circuit breaker. Hold the Home Button down and push in the circuit breaker. The unit will turn on the Configuration Page. Go to Charts and tap disable.

I've flown numerous approaches right after getting the update and had no issues---except, and this is only a software update for the GTN series, when flying VTF with the new system, all waypoints showed as expected on the GTN, but did not transfer over to the G500. It still shows only the Final Approach Fix and no preceding fixes. :-( Also, PTC doesn't work for me, but does for others. Garmin says send the GMA 35 back for repair. Another :-(

So far no one has reported on using the new software. I plan to have my units updated tomorrow if the weather permits. I'm used to debugging Garmin products. In talking with my avionics tech he says that if power to the unit is ever lost during any Garmin product update, the unit is bricked and must be sent back to Garmin, so the updates should be done using an external power supply. My ESI 500 has arrived, but it will be a couple of weeks before Peter has time to do the installation. I'll post pictures when it is completed. Now I'm thinking of exchanging out my GMA 35 for the GMA 35C, assuming pin for pin compatibility, which I think it has.