FloridaMan

Also, I’d be concerned over the high security medeco ignition switch if you were to lose a key while traveling. A Mooney isn’t the type of plane someone wants to steal unless it’s the only option and the security of the lock would not defeat the standard way someone would go about stealing a plane, but it would make your life miserable when it came to getting a locksmith to make you a key with a blank and a file. Not to mention, Mooneys don’t have the combination of weight, speed and range that a Navajo or Aerostar does.

I think only the 100hr/annual inspections are required for flight schools under part 61 or 141.

The alternator field breaker tripped today in flight so I returned to base. With the engine off, the breaker trips immediately when I turn the master on. It’s a hartzell direct drive (no belt) alternator. The alternator is a bit noisy and on a recent flight I noticed it stopped charging briefly. My IA inspected the brushes and noted there was no filter on the output. I suspect a bad diode. I think all of this is related: Batteries seem weak and prop spins slowly with the starter. Cricket in the headset from alternator noise. It went away when the breaker tripped. Now the breaker trips as soon as the master goes on.

The most harm you can do to your engine comes from neglecting to fly it once a week and/or neglecting to change the oil frequently enough. Think about how much abuse flight school aircraft endure and it’s not uncommon to see those engines with 4000+ hours on them with original cylinders.

I would climb full power at 2700 RPM every time all the way to altitude in my m20f and would run 2700RPM above 15,000ft. End result. 200 hours past TBO and the engine started making metal from lifter spalling — likely related more to the 20+ years since overhaul. After one 2700 RPM trip, I started getting prop grease down the blades of the Hartzell, but I think that was related to the IA over greasing it at annual.

Here’s a new one. The alternator field breaker tripped today in flight so I returned to base. With the engine off, the breaker trips immediately when I turn the master on. It’s a hartzell direct drive (no belt) alternator. The alternator is a bit noisy and on a recent flight I noticed it stopped charging briefly. My IA inspected the brushes and noted there was no filter on the output. I’m starting to suspect that the battery discharge gremlin that I’m experiencing may just be bad batteries that could have also cooked my alternator, or an alternator that has been struggling to keep the batteries charged.

It was the stall warning vane. Went down to plane, raised and lowered it a few times and the noise went away. It sure was annoying.

Make sure that scratch in the prop blade gets smoothed out. It might not seem like much, but a sharp scratch is like the cut in the side of a single dose pack of Advil or a ketchup pack and significantly lessens the amount of force it takes to tear through metal. Same goes for any cuts that might have appeared on the spinner. I bet you’ll be checking this in preflight from now on.

If you take the southern route, stay in the flight levels and check your winds aloft before leaving. Winds and weather forecast would dictate my route. Double Eagle just west of ABQ has cheap O2 service ($25) and slightly higher fuel prices, but it’s good to know you can get O2 when you stop for fuel there. It’s also a horrible place to bed down for the night. Uber will usually stand you up and it took us over an hour to get to a hotel. The turbulence below 15,000 in NM can be terrifying. Cross that state first thing in the morning. When flying across the country, I always plan my stops for an AOG situation. Stop at fields that are close to reputable mechanics and major airports if you have to leave it for a while. If you have to overnight somewhere, try and plan stops where there is Uber and something to do. Carry a couple gallons of water and a locator beacon. I’m a fan of the Delorme Inreach because I can text enroute if I have a mechanical concern. You will LOVE the trip. I would do it every week if I could.

Clogged injector. I posted and was hated on not too long ago about pulling mixture if you lose power. What happens is your fuel system is metering for four cylinders and the clogged injector increases flow to the other three resulting in an over rich condition. Start by checking the #3 injector. I had an IA tell me once that “it’s almost always the #3 injector”

Make sure the dome fits very tightly against the hub. If you need the 201 spinner, do not get a used one. Call LASAR and spend the $2000 it costs for a new one with the new design. They have better prices than anyone on it and it will save you in the long run.

Come to think of it, I noticed the stall warning had been a bit hyperactive in flight and now I’m not noticing it at all in the flare. The DME is also INOP and it wasn’t when I first test flew the plane. I suspect something got bumped during prebuy and it could all be related. Is there anything other than stall, gear and AP that would beep in a 1981 m20k?

Working through some electrical gremlins in the new rocket. Here is the symptom of one of them: Battery fully charged. Master On. High pitch noise through overhead speaker. Avionics master on. Noise goes away. Battery less than fully charged (there is a drain we are still chasing). Master on. High pitch noise even louder. Avionics master on. Noise stays; doesn’t matter if engine is running or not. Battery so low it can’t start the engine. Master on. #2 COM illuminates even though avionics master is off. I suspect there is a lockout somewhere or an unusual relay circuit that piggybacks that depends on a reference or differential voltage that is allowing this. Noise does not appear tied to any radio or intercom. If I turn everything in the stack off, it stays. If I pull the 50A Aux bus breaker, it goes away.

I thought it odd for him to have mentioned an altitude compensator in a turbocharged engine. Although turbocharged automotive engines have external barometric pressure sensors. I assumed those were for measuring air density with airflow.

Spoke with my IA. He mentioned there’s an altitude compensator that is likely out of adjustment.

I’m thinking from the automotive side here, but could there be a leak in an air line to the fuel pressure regulator? That would have a more pronounced effect as altitude increased as more air would be relieved through such a leak when the outside pressure is lower.

I’ve put about 50 hours on the plane in the past six weeks. I’m still running conservatively rich and cool on the TIT until I get the engine monitor installed. I noticed that I cannot get book fuel flow in the climb. At takeoff with full power I’m showing 37gph, but when climbing in the flight levels at 2500/35” and the mixture full rich I’m only seeing 24gph at 1550 TIT with book showing 26-27gph and max 1500 TIT. At that point I stopped my climb and went to 55% running on the richer side at 14.5-15gph and 2200/26” and maybe 185-190KTAS at FL220. I noted that I had to be very gradual in tuning that setting as the RPM would fall off quickly; I’m guessing it was boost related. In the teens I attempted full mp to see if it affected fuel flow and noted around 27-28gph and a max of 37”. I paid for an expensive PPI at a reputable service center, but I am skeptical that they flew the plane because the 696 did not show flights between delivery and when I picked it up. My IA has recommended performing SID97-3 for fuel flow calibration and I know the cowl flaps are badly out of adjustment (hang about 4” when closed) and are likely creating some drag along with a lot of extra antennas.

Comanche 250

What everyone else said. The one thing that is kindof cool is you get to see all the fireworks shows for miles around.

if your mp is fluctuating, have your A&P drill out an AN fitting inline and insert one of these. Works perfectly to stabilize the manifold pressure.

I took off from KSQL to KVGT when I first got my Rocket. A Comanche took off at the same time, also bound for VGT. I was surprised when I landed that they had just arrived at the same time so I pull up our flights on FlightAware. They went direct across the Sierra Nevadas. I took the cautious route to the south and traveled 160 miles further than the Comanche in the same 2.5 hours and I was only flying in the teens.

I recommend the fish and chips

I've never messed with search engine optimization, but I can relate to the penalties. I built a couple social sites for college kids before MySpace or Facebook that were getting 60M+ hits/mo. When MySpace sold for 580M, I rebuilt the platform for scalability as I had two universities on it and had over half the student bodies of each as members and felt there could be money in it. I opted to rewrite the product and then promote at other universities, which was clearly a mistake in hindsight. At that time (2004/2005), Facebook struck me as one of the many mediocre copycat sites that I thought would go away like all the others (Moskovitz was from an hour north of here). Long story short, one of the many mistakes that I made was that I neglected to configure the SPF DNS record. I built a brand, put a ton of work developing marketing materials (I wrote the software and our promotions were solid grassroots) and some asshole goes in and scrapes all my usernames and starts spamming with senders as username@mydomain.com, and becomes a real pain in that all of the legitimate emails, such as user registration and notifications, get shipped off to peoples spam folders.

Would a plug and jump do the trick?

YES. Aero Engines of Winchester are excellent. They did my overhaul and my old Mooney was faster than ever.