Bunti

It looks like that you have your own, German registered Mooney. I suggest that you do the theoretical part via a long distance learning school in Germany and then do the flight training in Germany with your airplane at a German flight school. This saves you a good amount of money for the airplane rental, hotel, air fare to the USA .... If you want to use your license also in the US, you can transfer it later. This needs a written test, some introduction flight training with a CFII resulting in a final endorsement for an instrument proficiency check and an instrument proficiency check. All based on the assumption that you already have a FAA private pilot license. If you do the training in the USA, you would have to transfer the license to the EASA later on. The steps are similar as the steps from the EASA license to the FAA license.

The Mooney is a certified airplane. The manual describes where to find the indicator lights. My understanding is that you cannot remove the power boost light. Instead of removing it, you may wire it in parallel to the Garmin 3X.

With the installation of my Aspen, my VSI was removed to declutter the panel. I never missed the steam instrument. The Aspen VSI works fine, no problems.

I never have locked the baggage door before a flight. In my Mooney M20F, it cannot be opened from the inside. But in case of an emergency, it can be opened easily from the outside by anybody on the ground with no tools.

My understanding is that Tempest had a quality issue with the center electrodes a while ago and it had been solved in between. See the detailed information in the post from the Tempest company.

This is not the first time they have heard of it. I had the same problem with one cylinder of my IO360 A1A engine and a Tempest fine wire spark plug!

Do you have the PowerFlow installed? Do you remove the whole exhaust for the lubrication with Mouse Milk? Or is there a better (less time consuming) way to perform the lubrication? I am just asking because I also have the PowerFlow installed. I am looking for any suggestions to keep it in good shape. Thanks.

My understanding is that the lateral and (if no obstacles are in the way) the vertical guidance is available on both the GTN 650 and the 750. i have the 750 in my Mooney and like the function very much. The prerequisite is that the airport is in the database and that the runway threshold and the final track data are available in a certain format. This is the reason why the function is not available for some airports. In addition, the databases from Garmin and from Jeppesen are different. A good example is the River Ranch airport in Florida (2RR). With the Garmin database, I do not get any guidance for the extended centerline. With the Jeppesen database in the same GTN 750 navigator, it works fine.

I have the same filter in my Mooney. Usually it is cleaned and recharged at annual time by the mechanic who does the annual. The mechanics I worked with knew about the procedure. I did it also a few times by myself prior to the annual and informed the mechanic that it is already done. Here is the related information from the Challenger website. I assume that the STC text states the same. Q: How do I know when to clean the air filter? A: Filter must be cleaned every calendar year, 100 hours or sooner in dusty conditions.

As I bought my 1967 M20F, it came with weight and balance and equipment records from day one. All included.

I had a very good experience with Aeromotors. They overhauled mine about 3 years ago. It is working fine since then. It looks like the other company charges almost twice as much, if you compare to Aeromotors.

Don Maxwell did my rigging a few years ago and the plane is still flying straight without autopilot. His rigging process was to fly the airplane first and see how it is doing. Afterwards he put the plane on jacks and rigged everything in regard to the travel boards and his flying experience. At the end he did another flight to check again and to adjust more things

My Whelen was drop in. Very easy. But be aware that LED lights have to be connected with the correct polarity. If the shop installs + and - back wrong after an annual, it will not work. I had that more than one time and landed with no landing light at night. Always check that the light is working after it may have been disconnected.

I own an EDM930. It had some issues several years ago. JPI was always friendly and helpful solving the problems. Turnaround at their facility was always fast. I even had a conversation with the owner / CEO once at Sun and Fun. He was helpful and is for sure standing behind his products. The EDM930 is a wonderful piece of equipment. I removed all the old gauges as it is primary. It works well. Just once in a while a sensor must be exchanged. But this will be the same with any other engine monitor. And the time indication in the EDM930 is always drifting a little bit away since it was new. But this is not a problem for me. I just update the time once in a while. A while ago, I bought a faulty new EGT sensor. As I called them, they were surprised. I mailed the sensor to them. They tested it, confirmed the fault and they sent me a new one (without a fault) back.

My advice is: Find a plane which has the equipment you want and need. Don’t by too cheap or even expensive with old equipment. Narco radios are nice but they do not fly GPS approaches. I exchanged mine for Garmin radios 10 years ago. In my opinion, a good Waas GPS, an Aspen PFD or some other glass panel with a good autopilot shall be the basic equipment today. A good trransponder with ADSB in and out is also important. Problem with the avionics is that it is very expensive to install. Especially with the old panels, most of the time you also have to rebuild the whole panel. So updating outdated avionics is always a very expensive task. The final costs and downtime are not really predictable. I would not care so much about the interior. This is very psersonal and can be upgraded easily. You can even do some of the work yourself. This is from my own experience. I bought a M20F for a good price with outdated avionics, panel, interior. If I add up my investments for speed mods, avionics …. I could have easily bought a very well equipped J model and left additional money in the bank. My F flyes wonderfully and is not slower than most of the Js, but the upgrades took not only money, there was also downtime needed.