Bunti

AOPA cannot change prices Signature or others charge. They try to put pressure on them and on the local governments who have the contract with the FBOs. And they fight for publishing the fees. Thanks to AOPA, at several airports you can now park the airplane on non FBO property and save their fees, if you do not want to use their facilities. In my opinion, AOPA does a very good job on fighting for General Aviation. Again, look at the General Aviation in Europe years ago and now. We do not want to see the same negative development in the USA. We need an organization like AOPA and we have to pay them to work for us. ATC user fees, landing fees ... will for sure show up again on the agenda and without fighting we will lose.

As pilots here in the US, we have to have an organization which fights for us. AOPA is the voice of General Aviation. Basic Med, no user fees .... are just a few examples. And they fight very hard for keeping airports open for us. Without that advocacy we will end up like the pilots in Germany or Europe: High fuel taxes, high landing fees, approach and departure fees, no landings from noon to 3pm, no landings if the tower is not manned or in the dark, restrictions everywhere, no GPS approaches to most General Aviation airports, no ADS-B weather, noise restrictions (need of buying a new prop or muffler from time to time) no basic med, lots of parts are TBO limited and way more. Germany for example has an AOPA group but this group is so small that it has only very little political power. With AOPA in the US it is completely different. The organization with its 280,000 members has a powerful voice in Washington, at the FAA and everywhere else where decisions are done. I was also wondering about the high salary of Mark Baker, but this is not a reason for me to cancel my membership. I saw and still see Mark fighting hard for our pilots interests and rights on the political stage. This needs to be continued. I even would encourage more pilots to become a member. The bigger the group is, the stronger we are on the political stage and at the FAA.

Years ago, I flew to the shop to get the oil changed. This was time consuming and expensive. In between, I have a local mechanic but I also learned how to do it on my own. As others said before, it is a good time to check everything under the cowling including using my UV-light to check for leaks. I cut the filter and I even fill out the paperwork for the lab and bring the sample to the mailbox. At annual time, my local mechanic changes the oil and the filter and removes and cleans the oil screen. He charges his hourly rate for all the work, including the oil change. I provide oil and filter. I believe it adds no more than an hour to the annual bill because he anyhow has to open and inspect everything. The draining takes place in parallel to other work.

Make sure to confirm that the IO 360 A1A cylinders are narrow or wide deck. The Mooney is approved with a wide deck version or the narrow deck version of the engine. But you cannot use narrow deck cylinders on wide deck or wide deck cylinders on narrow deck.

The general problem is that even some good car or airplane shops try to charge more than estimated without prior approval of the customer. Lot's of customers accept that without asking and pay. This teaches the shops that this kind of behavior may be ok. But it is not!!!!! There is work which is really difficult to estimate. Troubleshooting failures may take long but I believe that resealing a fuel tank for a company who is doing nothing else every day is not difficult to estimate and easy to set up a fixed price before the work starts. Sure additional work may be needed, but this is easy for the shop: Call the customer and get approval. The final bill should not be a dime over the estimate plus pre approved additional work. My experience in aviation is that good customer oriented shops give you an estimate and do not ask for more at the end. Others try to find reasons why it should cost more. As a customer we should say no! I had an A+P who most of the time was below his estimates because it took less time to fix things. Another company was different: They even tried to charge for work they never did: They charged extra for doing certain ADs which were not applicable for my airplane. I told the owner of the shop about that and he deducted it from the bill immediately. Another problem is if a large shop lets the non Mooney expert work on your plane, he may need way more time than the expert and at the end they want more money.

Leaking screws in upper panels are really easy to seal as long as the tank is not full: Remove the screw and put in a new one with a good amount of sealant.

Badly leaking tanks are an airworthiness item. So if somebody with a leaking tank wants to sell his plane, he has to fix it before or give an appropriate discount that the new owner can fix it. A full reseal by a good shop may even increase the value a little bit because the new owner knows that he may have no leaks for the next few years. Also there may be a warranty which comes with the full reseal. We bought our plane more than 12 years ago. Over the time, it showed a few (non airworthy) sweeping spots. The local A+P got them fixed. One fix was done as a day-job by a MSC. I consider that as normal maintenance. To keep the tanks in good shape, we store the plane in an airconditioned hangar, we do not land on grass strips, we try to land smooth and we keep the fuel level at about 20 to 25 gallons each tank, if we do not fly for a few weeks. This keeps the sealant always somehow lubricated.

On our M20F, we installed only parts of the kit (https://mooney.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/SBM20-182.pdf). A Mooney Service Center installed the metal pieces in front of the cylinders but not the lower air scoop. After some flights, it was adjusted again and the metal piece in front of cylinder 2 was removed because we did not like the CHT 2 temp. Without the piece the CHT was a little lower. We have the Lasar cowl enclosure installed and the oil cooler relocated behind cylinder 4 instead of the front cowling. The Mooney kit 182 was designed somehow for the original big mouth without any enclosure and the standard front oil cooler. So the airstream and cooling efficiency with the complete kit installed is for sure different than originally anticipated. Our cruise CHTs are ok now. During LOP cruise we see CHT 2 and 3 at 327 F and CHT 4 at 306F and CHT1 at 302F. ROP cruise temps are up to 30 degrees higher. In my opinion, there is room for improvement in our oil temperature. It is climbing fast to 205F or so and wants to stay there. Also during taxi it is increasing fast. We changed the Vernatherm and overhauled the cooler. But I would like to see it a little lower. LOP cruise brings it a few degrees down, on longer flights to about 185F to 195F. Also a reduction in RPM helps when flying ROP. Mechanics and other pilots told me that the oil temps are normal in our hot Florida weather. On the ground, our hottest CHT is number 3, about 20F more than number 2. Typical values prior takeoff are: CHT3: 320 CHT2: 300, CHT1: 280 CHT4: 300 In flight, usually CHT 2 is a little hotter than number 3.

It looks to me that the SB-182 had been installed in this Mooney. https://mooney.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/SBM20-182.pdf That includes the pieces of metal in front of cylinder 1 and 2.

Tell them to put the pump back in, route an appropriate hose, put a vacuum gauge back in the panel and make it work. It is and was their fault. So they have to fix it. It cannot be a big problem. This is an hour or two of work. If the standby vacuum pump is still there and connected to the speed brakes it will be even easier. You just have to connect the engine driven pump in parallel. The shop has to come up with a solution which does not cost money for you and is acceptable. Another option would be getting a quote from another shop to get that fixed and deduct that amount from you avionics upgrade bill.

It should not be difficult to put the pump back in and reconnect the speedbrakes only.

My local mechanic removed the actuator and the motor from my plane. We sent it to Lasar in California. I paid them 2018 about 1200 $ for the overhaul of the motor and the install of the conversion kit. I delivered the kit as I bought the kit already 2013 from Don Maxwell for 1200 Dollar. That was about 2400 Dollar total for the kit, the install and the motor overhaul plus the removal and reinstall work of my local A+P. 2700 Dollar may be right if it includes the motor overhaul and the gear upgrade kit. Make sure that you also get the motor overhauled. And I think it is a good idea that you do not let your local A+P install the conversion kit into the actuator. This is best done by somebody who did it before: Lasar, Don Maxwell or other experienced Mooney shops. After doing that, the actuator and motor should be running fine for the next 50 years or so. This shall be only a one time investment.

Do not rely on the engine serial number. Look for the plates and the internal wrenching nuts which are unique to narrow deck cylinders. I know about an engine that has a wide deck serial number, but is needs narrow deck cylinders.

This is the original text from your Lycoming pdf: (a) Leaning to Exhaust Gas Temperature. (Normally aspirated engines with fuel injectors or carburetors) (1) Maximum Power Cruise (approximately 75% power) - Never lean beyond 150°F. on rich side of peak EGT unless aircraft operator’s manual shows otherwise. Monitor cylinder head temperatures. (2) Best Economy Cruise (approximately 75% power and below) - Operate at peak EGT. This says that you should never lean beyond 150F at 75 % power and in addition that you can fly at peak EGT below 75 %. There is no margin. That could mean: 150F rich of peak at 75 % is right and at 74.9 % peak would be ok. That makes no sense to me. My understanding of the engine experts and the red box theory is more like that you can lean to peak or so if you are below 65 %. Even leaning to peak minus 14 c (about 50F) ROP is not a good idea at 75 %. I have the IO360, but the recommendations from Lycoming are the same: If I fly with 75 % rich of peak, I usually lean to about peak minus 150F. Lean of peak, I prefer to fly somewhere between peak minus 20 to 50 F. The EDM930 shows a fuel flow of about 9 GPH and % power between 64 and 70.

Since about 4.5 years, I have a set of normal Desser tires (not the monster) installed on my Mooney M20F. In comparison to the tires I used before the Desser tires give me the impression that they last very long. It looks to me that the material the Dessers are made from is somehow better or harder. The old ones used some tread over the time and even developed a spot once in a while. If needed, I would replace them again with a set of Dessers.