gsengle

When you get to the northeast... gsengle@gmail.com Greg

This is a desktop app that likely will only work on PC and Mac.

http://weather.aero/tools/desktopapps/flightpathtool worked for me...

One of the best tools I've ever found for planning cross country flights is one that it seems few people know about. Go to weather.aero, where you'll find an experimental adds site from faa / ncar (national center for atmospheric research). The site is good, but check out the flight path tool under desktop apps. It is a java app that works on mac or pc. The brilliance is that it gives you access to the 3 dimensional current/forecast model of the atmosphere. You put in a route of flight, and you can see VERTICAL cross sections as well as an area view for the weather aspect you choose. If you turn on relative humidity, for instance, you can see where the cloud layers and tops are forecast. It is brilliant. Anyone else been using this? it is the only way I've found to plan long trips particularly where there is imc with chances of icing I'd like to avoid... Greg

I'm going to post an fyi to the general forum. More people should know about it. I mean, more mooney drivers g

That is excellent news. That makes popping through a layer no big deal again. Hey, my favorite tool for evaluating the weather (and cloud tops on route of flight) is found at the experimental adds site. I may make a general post about this to see if others have better sources. If you go there, and go to desktop apps, flight path tool, there is a tool that shows you cross sections of the atmosphere in the future for your route of flight. (this is the supercomputer model noaa does forecasting from) Set it to relative humidity, and you'll be able to see where the clouds are, pick your altitudes, etc. Its really brilliant. g

So now, speaking strictly legally; my understanding is that currently the FAA considers it known ice when there is any visible moisture and below freezing temperature - i.e. clouds/IMC and below freezing. This basically means in the north, during the winter months, there no legal IMC without FIKI, even to pop through a layer. Legally speaking. Operationally I wouldn't personally have used TKS any differently if I were not FIKI, I try and stay out of any anticipated icing... but it happens... Mine is FIKI, so I know I'm legal. g

I believe the FIKI install has dual alternators, dual batt, dual fluid pumps, fluid for all leading edges, pilot windshield and slinger ring for prop, ice light on pilot side and heated pitot tube and heated stall warning. Not sure how much of that you get in non FIKI installs. One downside to installing LED landing lights is that there isnt heat generated from the LEDs that will melt ice; I dont think this is an aerodynamic issue as its a pretty small patch, but I suppose could be an issue with landing in icing conditions at night (a place I hope never to be). Greg

The parking I find is cheaper at KFRG, and the landing fee is I think $1.50, and closer to the LIRR than HPN is to Metro North, and Sheltair will drop you, no taxi required...

ooh, I was looking for somewhere to fly this sat... might just come, depending on weather...

oh, and not to mention that I believe LGA is one of the few airports (are there 5) like ORD that has a reservation system to get a landing slot... but hmmm, there is also a sheltair at jfk now, I'd guess the fees are similar though...

No no no, there is only one good answer! I live in queens (near your aunt) and have a mooney that I keep in new england but often fly home. The right and IMHO only right answer is KFRG, Farmingdale NY. It has good access to the railroad, has a great FBO (sheltair has been awesome to me) and the landing fee is I believe $1.50 for light singles. 30 min drive from your aunt if you rent a car. Busy airport, but not as busy as TEB - you don't need that hassle. And I've had the mooney into midway in chicago, and I'd never consider going into the insanity that is LGA! I'd go into JFK before I did that... Also, I did the transcon thing in the spring - was awesome. I second that Rapid City and Mount Rushmore is worth a stop. Also liked the museum of the US airforce near dayton... that was great. You could stop at first flight too... g

Funny; I had to rent an arrow to go fetch my sick bird down near Raleigh recently. First time I flew an arrow since I've had the m20r; was a great reminder of how much I love the upgrade! Also, before the Mooney, I owned a really nice '81 Arrow IV - honestly it flew incredibly nicely - the t tail made for nice handling in the air up and out of the prop wash. Just remember an Arrow IV is less of a short field machine as a result though, and you can't prematurely rotate. You have no prop wash on the elevator.

It seems to be one cylinder, sounds like I better inspect the ignition wiring...

I promised to update. Ok, I'm still skeptical, but it seems to be nothing more than a clogged injector, whew...

Let me add to the puzzle - at around the same time, my fuel totalizer was starting to act up. On a previous flight, and the last flight, at start up, I got abnormally high fuel flow readings, but that settled down before take off. I saw flows going up to 100 gph during a test run up, even as the engine was running fine (and clearly no huge pool of 100gph fuel under the cowl on shutdown). Anyone have their shadin start to break in this way, and could this be related? Piece of something getting stuck in the fuel lines downstream of the impeller? How do these things work? thanks, Greg

I need some suggestions from this group - I have a sick M20R, and we are puzzled. In flight last week at 12k feet cylinder #6 (which we later realized was mis-wired to the engine monitor so it was actually cylinder #1) on the IO-550 stopped firing. I had had a questionable run up earlier in the day, but seemed like a fouled plug, which cleared, so I departed. Rather than spend a ton of time diagnosing the problem, when it misfired 30 mins later in flight and I couldn't keep it firing (because of course, who knew what was going on) I declared an emergency and landed. I was in IMC, so I was pretty busy, but saw a couple of things. I was able to get the cylinder back for 15 seconds or so with mixture, but then it went out again. When the CHT went cold, on my descent, I noted that the EGT was a few hundred degrees hotter than the other cylinders - we think this was the unburnt fuel maybe burning as it hit the exhaust system? Unfortunately my landing was far from home at a remote field with no maintenance, so I flew back with my instructor/A&P a week later to see about repair/diagnosis, and maybe bringing the plane home. Everything looked fine and we pulled the plugs etc on what we thought was the bad cyl and those looked fine, so we ran it on the ground, and it ran like crap - same problem. So we went out and realized that the problem cylinder was a different one (#1 was cold, not #6). We pulled the plugs, and they looked badly fouled. The engine is high time and does burn some oil, so we thought, ok, this isn't common but we'll replace the plugs and see how it runs. It ran fine. So, thinking that we had solved the problem, we set out to fly back - I flew the 'chase plane' and my instructor flew the Ovation - on the theory if it acted up he had a great deal more experience to diagnose. Sure enough, the longer we flew (we had a 400 mile flight home) the more trouble the engine gave him. Evidently he had to run it pretty far ROP to keep that cylinder firing. The new plugs looked pretty ugly when we got home. Even more mysteriously though, the original two plugs while ugly, tested fine. So I suspect the plugs are not the root cause... So what could be going on here? 1) Bad fuel? nah, it is just 1 cyl. 2) Bad injector? Maybe? That would explain needing to run the whole engine rich, but would running overly lean on that cyl cause plugs to get ugly? 3) Rings? Too much oil in that cyl? 4) Valves? Seems unlikely since I was able to get immediate changes by playing with mixture. And up until this - my oil analysis has been fine 5) Spark? Seems unlikely since a bad mag wouldn't be one cyl would it, and would a misfire in that cyl cause these symptoms? It just goes dead cold on the CHT. I'm a layman here - but after having a similar issue in my Arrow a few years back (in that case was cam lobe spalling on one cyl intake valve) I know just enough to know that it can get expensive quickly if one isn't smart about diagnosis... So I turn to this groups collective wisdom for ideas! What causes a cyl to intermittently miss with these symptoms? thanks much in advance, Greg

Quote: aviatoreb I love the way that mounts - I wouldn't have guessed the FAA would allow it - it is practically panel mounted. Now that this company has gotten away with that - I suppose anyone can do it - why not make a handheld gps device like the Garmin Aera or 396 that is the same size/form as this Dynon attitude indicator that also mounts into a hole in the same way?

Quote: aviatoreb oh and here is the photo...

Quote: Mitch What the heck happened to your IO-550? I've got one of those!!

Quote: gsengle I LOVE mine. Looks great docked in the panel. The panel dock is really clever. g

Quote: Antares This is mine. Hopefully they sell well enough that next year they release their entire synthetic vision panel as a clip-on.

Quote: Piloto Two engine failures no less? That is not so encouraging but glad you are here to tell about it, with special mitigating circumstances. You do have many hours under your belt though I understand. Were these both in your current airplane.