Shadrach

I’m glad Dr. Bruce is still in the game. He’s shepherded many pilots through the bureaucratic jungle and is a Mooney guy as well.

My comment was not meant as a defense of the OKC nor a criticism of Dev. It was simply me recognizing that they must have really done something to piss Dev off to elicit such a strongly worded rebuke. I experienced OKC through my dad's eyes and it was not a good experience. My dad was able to work through the SI process after bypass surgery. Several years later his PCP innocently prescribed him Metformin for elevated blood sugar levels; he was not a type II diabetic (and still isn't at 87) but was trending in the wrong direction. OKC's view was that a Metformin script equaled a diabetes diagnosis. He could not un-ring that bell even with a letter from his PCP, AME and blood work. I think it would have been possible to correct if he wasn't on an existing SI. He hung it up after a few years muddling through two SI's a year. He would start working on the next year's SI approval shortly after being issued his current SI. That was nearly 10 years ago. I'd hoped that things had improved.

Geez Dev, don’t mince words, tell us how you really feel! I’m sure that your feelings are justified. I’m sorry that you had a lousy experience.

Very good advice above. I fly an F which should have the same engine and cowling combo as your E, save for the cowl enclosure which I do not have. The only thing I can add to the comment above is that if indeed your CHTs are running in the mid to high 400s in cruise, that is much hotter than any angle valve Lycoming I've ever operated. In my experience, angle valve IO360s usually run considerably cooler than parallel valve O-360s. My IO360 runs low 300s in the Midatlantic summertime temps. In winter, #1 and #4 ure usually in the high 200s. Excursions to 400 are rare and would require hot OATs, low IAS, high deck angle and high power. It would require an extended period of inattention for any of my CHTs to exceed 375. Verify the instrument's accuracy before you anything.

I fly about 8-10 hours a month for work and usually only spend an hour or so on the ground at my destination. For this reason, I frequently fly both outbound and return legs under very similar conditions. That being said it’s nearly impossible to account for all the variables to get a true no wind block speed. Winds she. You might get additional vectors or asked to reduce speed or be given a 360 for spacing or have to extend you downwind as your cleared #3 for landing. The more data you have the less the noise matters.

UL is currently 1059lbs. She flys better than she looks…

I wasn’t trying to be a smart ass either. I should’ve included turbo singles in my list of potential upgrades to gain significant time compression. Indeed there is no question that a Type S has significant speed advantage over my little 4 cyl M20F. The challenge for me is that I also need payload for a family of four. So I can get more time compression or I can get better useful load or I can get more range from an NA single but if I want more of all three, it’s probably kerosene or high performance twin. I can put 800lbs in the cabin and go 500nm in under 3.5 hours with 1hr reserves. This leaves us room for the little ones to grow. That is the mission. I was not poo-pooing any one else’s aircraft choices only offering a rational for why 148kts is probably fine to live with and not worth obsessing over. My dad bought three Mooney’s from Henry Weber in the span of one decade. He has only nice things to say about the man.

When I was In college in the late 90s, I used to rent aircraft from Phoenix Aviation at KMTN. I saw lots of MD ANG, A10 formations perform overhead break approaches in to Martin. Were you there during that time?

I get it, it's the difference between cooking and using a recipe. A recipe is all we have initially. However, over time it's a good idea to learn how to make the dish and what makes it work. Knowing the granular details behind the task at hand not only makes for more effective performance of the task, it will also help identify when there's a secondary issue causing a problem, so that one doesn't sit there throwing fuel on an ignition problem just because the symptoms seem the same. If I had experienced an in-flight engine failure in my first several years of flying, I would have gone straight to the checklist. Now it's likely that the checklist would be my last step to ensure that I didn't miss anything while actually trouble shooting the problem rather than performing the rote...Mags on...check...Fuel selector both...check...Mixture rich...check.

Not necessarily. If the engine fires but doesn’t start (hot or cold) a shot of prime will facilitate easier starting on the next attempt. This is not rocket science nor is it Voodoo. Hot engines prime themselves when heat boils the fuel in the injector lines pushing it into the manifold. If that fuel is combusted or pushed into the exhaust before the engine starts, it will need to be replaced to provide a combustible mixture for the next attempt. There are several ways to accomplish this, but I think people would do best just to simply think about what’s happening underneath the cowl and act accordingly.

I removed the shock from my F model when I received a new nose truss from LASAR that did not have the upper boss for the shock. Maybe it served no useful purpose according to Mooney, but it definitely dampened the rebound in the nose gear suspension. I have a parking pad for the nose gear that essentially has two rounded chocks for parking locators. The nose gear suspension behaves completely differently on the rebound going over those chocks without the shock. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but it’s way less refined then it was with the shock. My shock is still flying on the nose of a C model near Stuttgart. The owner is based on grass and prefers the dampened nose gear on turf.

Well, if you can’t see where it’s coming from the only thing you can do is clean everything up and wait for a clearer (dirtier) picture to emerge.

When was the prop overhauled? Do you see any oil on the face (backside) of the prop blades? It’s hard to diagnose oil leaks online, but if I had to bet it would be on a blob of grease coming from the prop. Does not mean that the seals are herniated. Occasionally a prop hub will throw a little grease. It can atomize in the prop wash.

I think that’s a sub-optimal approach. I have seen flooded engines catch fire at the pump. I’m kidding. Starting an engine simply requires a combustible mix of fuel and air. I have never had to flood a Lycoming engine to get it to start.

You would expect people to have different experiences, given the differences between the Bendix RSA style fuel system and the Continental fuel system. Lycoming’s have no return line from the servo as there is with the Continental. This means that you cannot circulate fuel through the servo. It’s a one-way street from the tank to the injectors. This does not mean that it is difficult to hot start an injected Lycoming engine, it just means that one must use procedures oriented towards the Bedix RSA style fuel system. Challenging hot starts are often related to ignition issues. These engines really aren’t that hard to start when hot. I’m proof that it doesn’t take a genius.