John Pleisse

The 55X is a great AP. Extremely reliable and serviceable. It's only fault is it tends to hunt and overshoot more than King and Century. Seven years ago, it ran me 24AMU's. The alt preselct is not necessary unless you are in the FL's in a 231. Most gadgets like the Aspen, etc have alt preselect and GPSS built in. The Stec 30 is REALLY a great value and helps with workload while forcing the pilot to be attentive. The 55X has full functioning intercept and coupling, where the Stec 30 does not. A precision approach requires the pilot to center within 1 degree +/- before engaging. Then, you have to watch and babysit the throttle. I actually liked this better. Makes you less of an AP addict. I have owned the 30 and 55X...they are both great. KSMoniac is right....it may be four more years, but a Part 23 re-write may happen. My advice, all being equal? Spend 24 AMU's on an Aspen and an Stec 30 before getting the 55X. Tighter on cashish? Spend 5 fixing up the Acctrack and get an Aspen. My $.02

Careful.......some covers hold water or people missuse them by having them strapped too tight, which traps water (especially wing and long fuselage covers). If you want to be outside, yes, the cover can help.

Wuh??? I have done a top and bought factory new. 50 hour min-oil break-in and both times satbilized at over 10 hours. That's just wrong.

18.2 on my J. I have a Shadin Minflow...it's great. Check the clamps and seal on you FF X-ducer?

IRAN works well if you enjoy elevated risk and down time. Talk to flight schools and traffic pilots.....they go after it before it even has a chance of becoming a problem, as everyone should.

Upper deck controller or stuck waste gate?

OK...this isn't the gospel. It didn't say "production" aircraft and a break out of factory OH's vs. field OH's would be interesting to see. The 0-499 rate should not be taken as glaring as it appears. Oh, I would also bet all the tea in China that the 0-499 rate is disproportionately Continental....at least by a third. Just a hunch.

IO360? More than 20 years old? Major it, if it is giving you problems. Mike Bush's analysis is pretty basic stuff everyone should know. Things is...it's a sub par analysis. It supposes many of these well known criteria are a path to flying until something breaks, rather than taking them as warning signs. If you were a good little boy at 1500 TT, installed new cylinders, sent your fuel injection servo out for a bench test, serviced your lines and nozzles, R&R your mags and harness, checked all of your seals including intake tube o-rings, did a bore scope, you had ongoing oil analysis and you were willing to accept poor valuation and sales outcome ........then yeah.....fly it well past tbo. Here's the inverse logic of tbo. People stop putting money into their engines at.....let's say.........1450 SMOH, because they have a systemic belief they would be throwing good money after bad, given a 2000 tbo. If it was y-o-u-r engine for those 1450 HRS and you know it's background and care, then one should continue the investment. Top it and service it properly for another 800 hour run........... then step back. The bottom end on the 360's are good for 3500 TT, conservatively estimating.

I recently put my bird back outside. Getting a hangar in the DC area is like winning the lottery, then entry level rent begins at $400 per mo. Here is what you will be enjoying, before you decide to give up your hangar: 1) FULL pre-flight action....every single time 2) Frost and ice on your wings making early morn departures tough 3) Worry over water in your gasoline 4) No access to electric for engine pre-heating 5) People seeing all of your fancy GPS antenna's, then deciding to take a peak under the cover 6) Cover, and plugs for front and rear openings 7) UV Damage to glass. Most covers aren't even SPF 50 8) Worry over risk of hail and wind damage. 9) Quantifiable acceleration of paint wear. This was just my first week outside in November. Can you sublet for a year while waiting for your bird?

Where's the damn bird??? I want parrot poop!!!

Is the flight engineer cert still attainable?

I have the same DG in the Bo......it is pretty cheesy for an Stec product. Mine won't hold heading for 10 minutes. Please follow-up with your OH experience. I am headed in that direction.

Yes.

-Running tanks dry in cruise requiring engine restart. -LOP descents -Anything with the search words...."Savvy" and........"Old Wives Tales" -Also, there is a horror section with great titles like "Red Box", "Flying Past TBO" and "Using Unapproved Parts". Most of these threads have been spurred on by aviation writers who have found a way to make a buck reinventing the proverbial "commonsense wheel" or owners who want to save a buck.

Is that a yellow Gatorade in that snow pile (look closely), dare you to take a sip.

Only a few......jigs for re-skinning surfaces, landing gear donut stuff and rigging boards...that's it.

I have a great IA...works out of his truck and has his own shop and private runway in nearby West VA. He knows everything....one of the best. We went round and round on a prop governor recently with a mysterious oil leak. Not surprisingly, it was a simple seal issue that was Mooney 201 specific. The vernier actuator bracket required sealant in six separate screw holes. This is dissimilar to Arrows with the same engine and governor, as well as C, E and F Mooneys. It really is a simple thing, but by the time we revisited the situation 4 times and flew the 201 to an engine shop run by a close friend of my IA, costs ballooned and actually exceeded a one time repair at a Mooney Service Center. If I had taken this problem to Weber Aircraft or Airmod, it is something they have seen 1000 times and would have identified in one minute. Am I disappointed in my IA who works out of his truck? No way...the guy is talented and worth every penny. I will use him for installing STC's and expensive work like installing new glass, seat belts, etc. Stuff a Mooney Service Center would kill me on. In the end, any Mooney service center will work with you on the costs of making your airframe right, by deferring some items and offering other cost effective solutions. However, they don't do this for one time customers. You have to be a repeat customer and establish a relationship. Have them get to know your bird. In the end, all monies will become equal. Weber or Airmod. I had a 12 year relationship with Weber. They are fair and have talented A&P's. Dorn Claire is the head IA. Dave Mathieson at Airmod is legend and is a fair, reasonable guy, too. They are both great.

It's a drain hole and has nothing to do with air getting in or out. Baggage door has one too.

We did for a very short time. Bill Clinton was President. We were tripping over dot com millionaires thanks to the advent of the internet and the microprocessor. Mr. Clinton and Dems revel in these great times of a balanced budget, smugly taking credit for it. It was Bill Gates, not Bill Clinton who should have full credit. Clinton almost screwed it up with regulation and hostile anti-trust litigation. Funny, American business, ingenuity and success rarely get credit. It was overrated in a political sense. It was embraced for what it was.......... massive revenues under the largest American expansion since the 1880's and Clinton almost fu%$ked it up.

Yeah.....aggregated to include Wyoming, Idaho and New Mexico. A neurosurgeon or an orthopedist spinal surgeon in NY State pays just a teeensie bit more. OK Azel-whatever!!!! Your saying that 99% of all medical costs have nothing to do with medical liability. I'll let that one stand on it's own. /:-)

The spigot is about to be turned off. Yes....all these great times with our gov printing mon.........uh I mean......"quantitative easing". Europe is already freaking out. Get ready for $10 for a gallon of milk.

Well this is a cesspool of political thought. The only difference between our annual cost per patient vs France or England is tort reform, birthing babies of illegals and reasonable regulation of insurers. Germany has already learned the perils of socialized medicine and they are now moving to non-profits. Have your hugged your trial lawyer today? This law will not resemble even a tenth of its original intent or author within 3 years. This law is not about solving the problem, it is about fairness, equality and comparative life expectancy.......that's it. A feeble, ill-conceived attempt and fairness. It is an Arron Sorkin, West Wing, liberal wet dream. You know why the President is pushing immigration before the end of the year? A political maneuvering shit screen to bait the Republican Congress away from 5 million people being dumped into the exchanges. And guess what? The 5 million illegals the POTUS admits by E-O this year will be on Obamacare this time next year. It's Healthcare dummy.......Healthcare.........

Very well done. Hate seeing no roll cage in the 10 series.