AmigOne

Enough already?? in all honesty what can we do to change this absurd situation where experimental aircraft using these same systems can legally fly in the IFR system.

Any interest to do something similar in the VA-DC-MD area? We could gather somewhere west and meet a similar group coming from the west. Like a mini Kerrville. It might take some trial and error to plan the first one but after a while it could become an interesting way to meet The Comanche Society have "tribes" (NE, SE, etc) and they have regular events.

Flyboy, I actually think that your last post was not controversial to a reasonable person. But sadly there are people in the media, and many in Congress throwing all kind of wild stories and accusations these days and there are people ready and willing to believe them.

I forgot the pitot cover once but noticed it on the t/o run when the airspeed remained motionless and I aborted. I forgot the cowl plugs covers years ago when I was parked outside. I had started up and was ready to taxi when another pilot, parked on the opposite row a few planes down noticed the cowl plugs and called me on the frequency. How much of a coincidence, being a weekday, that another pilot, at the same time, was there looking in the right direction. It happened about 35 years ago but I remember it as if it had happened yesterday. I might have noticed the oil or cylinder head high temp or maybe not (I think most likely) with probably very bad consequences. But it was my day to be lucky. I have forgotten to untie the rear tiedown or remove the wheel chalks a few times but I haven't done it in a long time, kind of interesting since I'm not getting any younger. Although I'm hangared I always use a pitot cover to avoid bugs nesting inside and also use the cowl plugs.

OR75 Is your decision not to renew Foreflight because they only support Stratus because there are better units?. I am not familiar with any of the several external ADS units, so would you mind sharing with us in your opinion which ones are better than Stratus and why?. Thanks

Trimmed to fit from a Comanche 250 Ashby glareshield.

It looks that in the setup shown in Bennett's picture, the Ipad hides a good portion of the panel, the HSI in his case, the turn coordinator for me (in my older C panel) when I mount my 696 on the yoke and I don't like it. I thought about mounting it on the panel with major surgery by moving the radio stack from the center to the right and locating the 696 there but my radio shop refuses to do do it, says it is not legal. For my copilot I made a very basic but functional mount of aluminum using the pictures posted recently in this forum, for the iPad for now and the mini when and if they came out with a retina screen.

Well it did happen, in the Posted message the font looks normal, I still wonder why none of the buttons work.

HRM, First of all something is going on in this site (at least for me), when writing my font has changed and the Font pull down menu does not respond for me to change it. Also none of the other buttons work and the whole menu bar looks foggy just like when a particular button is not active. If somebody knows what is going on please let me know. Maybe something will change when I hit Post. Regarding your questions, nothing special about painting the door, I just removed the cover and sprayed it with Krylon Fusion. Regarding the grills that I could not remove, you would have to mask the whole interior, not just around the paint area because the spray mist travels everywhere. I could try to paint them with a brush, maybe when I have nothing else to do.

FWIW I had my airspeed indicator damaged during the last static check. It was an expensive deal for them which included round trip rental car to their shop, 200 miles away from my home. It is a good shop that is way I go that far even for an static check.

SpamPilot, fyi with that font and size your postings are hard to read, at least for me on my iMac. Maybe bold will help. Now on the matter of gear, on my C between 80-90 mph my gear is very easy and a little harder during the last 20-30 deg between 90-100 mph. Above 100 mph very hard but doable. Retracting use the momentum in a single motion, if you hesitate during the last 30 deg you'll have to push. For me it is easy to push down (retracting) than forward (gear down).

With more than 1500 hrs of Mooney time, 201 and C, I have botched my share of landings but only a handful of times I have gone around one of them at night (that was a 3 bouncer which the night made more scary) . Every landing can be recovered with proper technique. The videos showed a perfect example of pilots frozen at the controls not knowing what was going on. My normal technique: proper airspeed is obvious, never full flaps (I use t/o flaps) in my opinion full flaps make the airplane want to float in a level attitude. This is because if you have not trimmed properly to relieve back pressure the nose will want to go down while you are holding back pressure. Therefore it is very important to relieve this back pressure after setting the flaps. Near the ground make small but constant back pressure inputs. The tendency can be to make big ones and at that point trouble will start. At touchdown the nose will end up a lot higher than you think it should but this will ensure that the mains will contact first. My recovery when bouncing on the first landing is I immediately bringing the nose up and adding some power. This will keep the nose up and after contact you'll have enough speed to help the nose come down smoothly. In general if I have enough runway and there is something I don't like about the airplane's attitude I will add a bit of power until I get things right.

Here are a few before and after and side by side interior pictures showing what a can of Fusion (Krylon I believe) spray and some elbow grease can do. The overhead panel came out very nicely, unfortunately despite suggestions from this forum I was not able to remove the ventilation grills which also show well the before and after colors.

Thanks Ives, that was the only button I didn't check.

While I have some experience from my airplane RC hobby, it is not to difficult to repair cracked plastic interiors with epoxy and fiberglas cloth working from the back of the part. If some portions are missing, it is a bit more involved but not impossible. For painting there are some excellent paints specially formulated for plastics that will not peel off in a variety of nice colors. Two years ago I removed the vinyl covered arm rests to paint of a different colorthan the side panel and the paint has not faded or stained. Both surfaces are easy to clean. I could say w/o exaggeration that after repair and painting, my whole interior looks almost like new. While new interior replacement parts are available they are expensive and I have read that they often require a lot of trimming and some times the final fit is not as expected. My carpet was a bit stained in the area where all are: the place where you rest your feet, so but after cleaning it improved a lot and I just placed a good quality automobile rubber mat trimmed to fit to hide under my feet. I think I'm fuzzy about cosmetics and the do it yourself stuff is satisfying. BTW since we went to the new format I haven't yet figured out how to post pictures, if somebody tells me I'll post some of my interior. Thanks.

Congrats Heynes! I also own a 1968 C. It is my second C and my 3rd Mooney, the first one was a 1977 201 in partnership about 25 years ago. I fly often to Norfolk to visit my daughter and grand children and have all my radio work done at Bay Avionics at KPVG very near you. Ask for Jim, tell him Jose sent you, very knowledgeable and fair prices. You also are also near some of the cheapest avgas in Va if not in the whole country, $4.99 at Suffolk, I was there last week. BTW, despite my many hundred of hours of Mooney, I almost run off of the runway on my first landing. Unfamiliar with the quirks of this particular C and after owning a Cessna for 3 years, I landed a bit too fast and mistakenly while trying to steer the airplane I also pushed the brakes unevenly. That mistake pointed the airplane immediately straight for the weeds. So my technique is heels on the floor while steering the airplane, something I know from my taildragger days. If you ever want to get together to talk C let me know, I'm based at Culpeper, just outside the Washington SFRA about an hour from your airport. I also have all the tools needed to work on the airplane, including special tools to make oil changes and change the oil filter (if you have one) without making a mess.

I made a very nice and functional (to put stuff on top) glareshield for my 1968 Ranger from an Ashby Comanche 250 gshield that I had bought years ago but never installed in the 250 I used to own. I posted pictures and a brief how to description a few months ago. I had to manufacture some 90 deg angles to secure it in place but after a few months it began to sag a bit so I just added one strap from the center tube to the shield and now the problem is fixed and the gshield is firmly secured. Ashby specializes in the manufacture of gs so obviously it is made of tested fire retardant material. Just in case recently my mechanic inspected the installation and made a logbook entry.

The transducer in my 68 C for the JPI 450 is exactly located like in the picture posted by Perezhr. I also recall that the mechanic could not finish the installation until he got a special fitting, 90 deg I believe.

Tempest all the way, specially because I like the little magnet that is supposed to catch the ferrous parts. Does Champion have one? I was also impressed by the explanation of the differences between the two ( which I have forgotten but they sounded impressive at the time) give to me by the guy at Tempest booth a couple of years ago at Oshkosh.

Dr Bill and others said but is worth repeating, in my own experience on a 62 and a 68 M20C with proper rigging between 85-95 mph is a piece of a cake, over 100 mph the last 1/3 third is hard work. And I have semi permanent soreness in my right shoulder from rotator cuff surgery and lots of tennis, specially in summer. Another trick, try to maintain the momentum all the way through even thought the last third is where your wrist turns.

Very interesting, thank you. Amazing and scary how much I didn't know about this instrument. Perhaps because in all my years of flying I only had one AI failure, and it was after coming out of more than 2 hrs of solid IMC!! It was certainly news to me that the AI can be damaged by just moving the airplane after shutdown and I was also surprised by the amount of time required for the unit to work properly on very cold days. I'm based on a non-towered field and have launched into intruments certainly in much less than the 40' which the article states it can take for the AI to work properly. I will be using a borrowed Dynon D1 on my flight to Sun&Fun next week and I think I'll get one.

"The normal electrical conduction in the heart allows the impulse that is generated by the sinoatrial node (SA node) of the heart to be propagated to (and stimulate) the myocardium (Cardiac muscle). The myocardium contracts after stimulation. It is the ordered stimulation of the myocardium that allows efficient contraction of the heart, thereby allowing blood to be pumped throughout the body." Maybe you have a "big heart" with similarly "big" electric impulses that in the emotion of flight get outside your body...

For me there are two different routines depending whether I'm launching or landing VFR or IFR, the later longer and obviously more critical. I wholly concur that on a VFR approach the attention should be concentrated outside the cockpit keeping the distractions with the gadgets to a minimum. I always felt that way and specially since a tragic midair occurred a few miles from my airport. Initial reporting indicated that in one of the aircrafts one of the pilots was under the hood. Both pilots were very experienced. On landing I always make my first radio transmission 10 miles out, indicating distance, location and altitude and at 5 miles out I should be at pattern altitude, taking off I make sure that I report the direction of flight. I have the Mooney factory checklist both for t/o and landings attached on the left side panel right in front of my eyes and that is what I follow with a couple of rechecks on the landing gear and a visual check of the flaps.

I have camlocs but still is a PITA to put the cowling back so remove the cowling every 25 hrs oil changes. I have never found a loose hose/clamp between oil changes (or any other time for that matter). Other times I take the best look possible (with flashlight) through both cowl openings (have a 68C). I may take the side panels from time to time to check the bottom plugs. I believe that if anything serious is developing it would have shown up on the engine monitor, oil leaks would be on the hangar floor. Common problem are exhaust leaks but they are slow to develop and nothing serious will happen during the 25 hrs. In flight, like they say, I listen to the engine. Last week I found hydraulic fluid stains on the inside of the nose gear door, removed the bottom panel and found the left brake master cylinder leaking (very slow leak).

I just ordered the kit. The fittings to the cylinder still have the thread locks so I guess they are original because I doubt today's mechanics bother with that in such hidden location. If so it lasted 45 years, not bad.