Bunti

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.

6 minutes ago, Krawietz said:

Just found 2 more Tempest fine wires center electrodes missing in an IO550.  Found another one missing the electrode in an O-320.

Talked to Tempest, they asked for photo and issued RMA to return them for examination.  They did not offer a replacement.  Acted like this is the first they have heard about the problem. 

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!

2 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

PowerFlow recommends the use of a high temperature anti seize (MIL-A-907E or equivalent), but I use Mouse Milk every 25 to 30 hours when I change the oil.  16 years and no cracks so far.  

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.

Thanks. I already was in contact with him via personal message. The switches are still available. 

Are those switches still available? Are they new or used? I might be interested for my Mooney M20F. Thank you.

If you buy parts for your airplane you need to tell the shop before you pay your N-number and the 2740 LBS max TOW of your Mooney and ask for a sales tax free bill. They usually write the N number and the gross weight on the bill. 

I also own a M20F and did not pay sales tax on parts and labor since several years. 

 My A+P removed the pump, cleaned everything and replaced all the O-rings and seals. The kit came from LASAR. Works great now.

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. 

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.