FloridaMan

I recommend this solution as well. Mine is mounted in front of the right seat which requires a warning light in front of me to be installed because of the distance from my line of sight. There are conditions where I will get an occasional red or yellow warning light that requires me to be distracted and verify it's not something critical (i.e., pulling throttle to idle on short final often yields a yellow oil pressure warning). Your installer will also likely remove all of those factory instruments at the top and need to make a panel to go in place of them. I don't know if the J has the same system as the F where an oil and fuel line run through the firewall and directly to the instruments in the panel, but we discovered my fuel pressure line was the original braided one from 1967 behind my panel.

I didn't have the best experience with him and his shop either. He is certainly very knowledgeable, but there were some things that were done competently, and some things that I considered to be reckless and irresponsible.

Not to derail my own topic, but I even carry my PLB when I’m hiking in fair weather. Even on well traveled trails there exists the chance of injuring yourself or finding someone who is injured and it can take hours for someone to hike down and find help. On that note, I also carry MREs, water, a life straw and a small survival hit.

I’m going to buy a raft for my Mooney. What is the standard raft that those of you who have them use?

Check your control surfaces too and make sure you’re not sticking to a gap seal or something.

It's an easy enough mistake to make. I'm glad everybody made it out ok. We lost a member here (Patrick) almost six years ago under similar circumstances. There's no Martin-Baker necktie club among Mooney owners, but a number of us, myself included, have walked away from off airport landings that occurred shortly after takeoff.

Mine is over the door. We got ramp checked when we were bringing the plane to Willmar. The owner told the FSDO guys that it only need be visible from the ground and they accepted it. In software, there's a term called a "duck" that I believe may apply here: " 5. A Duck kyoryu A feature added for no other reason than to draw management attention and be removed, thus avoiding unnecessary changes in other aspects of the product. I don't know if I actually invented this term or not, but I am certainly not the originator of the story that spawned it. This started as a piece of Interplay corporate lore. It was well known that producers (a game industry position, roughly equivalent to PMs) had to make a change to everything that was done. The assumption was that subconsciously they felt that if they didn't, they weren't adding value. The artist working on the queen animations for Battle Chess was aware of this tendency, and came up with an innovative solution. He did the animations for the queen the way that he felt would be best, with one addition: he gave the queen a pet duck. He animated this duck through all of the queen's animations, had it flapping around the corners. He also took great care to make sure that it never overlapped the "actual" animation. Eventually, it came time for the producer to review the animation set for the queen. The producer sat down and watched all of the animations. When they were done, he turned to the artist and said, "that looks great. Just one thing - get rid of the duck." https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/

I carry 32 gallons on each side (really, closer to 33-34 when I've run a tank dry). I used to run 3 hours on the tank that I took off with and then switch to the other side. Rarely would it start to sputter by then. My rationale was that if something was drastically wrong with fuel flow, that the tank I climbed out on would burn a lot more than the other side and if I could get 3 hours of that side that the other would be good for three hours. Now that I have a fuel totalizer, I'm more confident in my fuel consumption. I also have wing mounted gauges that appear to be pretty accurate in flight above 10 gallons. Now, with the fuel totalizer, when starting with full tanks, I burn 16 gallons on one side, 32 on the other, and then switch back to the side that I started with. If I'm down to less than, say 10, on that full tank, I'll switch it back to the tank with 16 gallons as I start my descent or approach -- especially if I'm in IMC, I want to minimize things to worry about when under heavy workload. A lot of pilots talk about switching every 10 gallons or every hour. I don't like the idea of having reserve fuel split between tanks. If you're to go every 10 gallons, it seems to be the same effect to go 10 gallons for the first switch, and then every 20 gallons to keep the balance within 10.

Looks like I'll miss it unless annual is finished on Saturday, which is unlikely.

I lost my engine post maintenance at 200ft leaving a reputable MSC. Shit happens. I declined an intersection departure and was able to land in the field at the end of the runway without injury or airframe damage. The cause was FOD that was never found, but evidenced by the spark plugs in the #4 cylinder being smashed. There were no symptoms or evidence during the long taxi, run up or takeoff roll.

It did, but it was at night, the pilot was intoxicated and ran out of gas. I don't think it was related to the history at all.

Yes. Absolutely. I believe this is the primary reason for the increase in performance from the LoPresti cowling: prop pressure. I gain between 1 and 2 inches of MP at altitude with the ram air open. Also, you should get an engine monitor. I would not have noticed the sudden 5psi drop in oil pressure that led me to inspect the oil filter, where I found metal, and then when the engine was torn down the shop found the main bearing that had spun.

That's great. It looks like the complete SkyView HDX package is on the list for an STC and will be going for $16,000, which includes a 2-axis AP, ADS-B out and engine monitor.

I've heard that corrosion-X is not the best choice because it can seep into rivets and allow them to rotate, exposing fresh metal and allow for intergranular corrosion to start.

I know several Mooney pilots who are over 6' tall, myself included. I have flown in the backseat of M20J's and K's and have no issue with a 32" inseam. I don't think the backseat of anything before an F would be comfortable for me. I've had four adults in my plane with partial fuel without issue. You'll be a good 20kts faster in the Mooney than you will in the Arrow. That's 10% better fuel economy and 10% more distance traveled between engine overhauls, not to mention, with 6 hours of fuel (if you have 64 gallon tanks), that gives you another hour of endurance over the Arrow, which can save you from having to make a fuel stop, and, if you realize you're going slower than expected, give you many more options in range at your faster speeds to stop and fuel or spend the night.

Landmark at RDU damaged mine. I don't have the extra stops and have heard that it's better to not have them because that just moves the damage elsewhere. As far as "having no choice", the FAA spells it out that you can handle (and fuel) your own aircraft. Granted, we've all been in situations where you understand the FBO is managing a somewhat difficult handling arrangement for busy events, et cetera, and we want to help accommodate them. If things ever get heated, refer to the following documents: https://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/publications/orders/compliance_5190_6/media/5190_6b_chap11.pdf https://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/publications/orders/compliance_5190_6/media/5190_6b_chap8.pdf

Prop shop just picked up the prop today

And I just got word that they are done with the overhaul. I need to wire them the second half of the payment and they'll ship it out. The core left the shop in Florida on 6/26 and there was a holiday weekend in between.

It was a factory overhaul

Not to mention, sometimes there are waves and turbulence that grab the airplane and force it somewhere the pilot does not intend to go.

I am strongly of the opinion that something historically went very wrong when it comes to powerplant and propulsion for light aircraft -- sortof like how supposedly American aircraft design had stagnated prior to WW1.

I suspect there's a possibility that the crankshaft may have been moved with the cylinder off. The reason is that the cylinder that was last replaced was the one that had the FOD go through it when I had the engine failure (both spark plugs were destroyed some time between runup and 10 seconds after I started my climb). I suspect that the IA who recovered the airplane spent a lot of time looking around for the cause. I never saw the parts that came off that engine and am only going off of what I was told. Thus far it seems that selecting Aero Engines of Winchester, VA was a good decision for the overhaul. They're swapping cases with me and solong as the old case comes back, they said they won't charge me for it. Air Power said that if I ordered a factory overhauled engine from them, that there would be no surprises if they found anything in the engine, but, frankly, I didn't believe them. Too many maintenance shops, not just engine shops, said that if I went with a factory overhaul and they found a bad crank, that I'd get charged for it, and I've heard builders say that dealing with Air Power for cylinder warranty has been a nightmare at times. The large flight school that referred me to Aero Engines specifically mentioned that they're pretty good about helping customers save money on the big ticket parts that many of the other shops won't do. Another thing that's unbelievably fortunate: Out of nowhere, right as this all started, a colleague that I've worked with over the past 15 or so years comes to me with a fixed price project to pay me an extra chunk of money to write an app for the iPhone and Android for a major chain of restaurants, which should offset a good part of this. I'm like the Winston Wolf of software development: I get things done and occasionally I get a call. It would've been nice to put that towards a Rocket, but I also would have felt horrible handing off my old F to someone who had a budget for an M20F: likely, a first time buyer like I was, and at the time I bought my F, weathering an engine would've been difficult, but part of the reason I bought an F and not a J or K was that I could afford the plane and, if I had to buy an engine, I wouldn't like doing it, but I could swing it.

There's a touch of the invulnerability hazardous attitude in this post. I purchased the plane in 2012 with ~1100 SFOH. I flew between 200 and 300 hours per year since then and the engine had just made TBO. The plane was maintained by IA/A&P/MSCs of the highest reputation. At one point I had an engine failure on takeoff at 200ft leaving a reputable MSC; I don't know whether the failure was the result of maintenance that had just been performed or if it was coincidental, but either way, I stuck to preplanned decisions on maintenance and operation and still experienced an engine failure; my point being that even if the big names maintain your bird, it doesn't mean bad things can't still happen. I still declined an intersection departure that day, which likely saved the airframe and possibly our lives. I performed oil changes every 25 hours and filter changes either every change, or every other change, and I inspected the filters each and every time. I pulled the filter this time and inspected it as I noticed a couple psi drop in oil pressure that had been trending downwards for months. If I did not have a graphic engine monitor, I would likely have not even noticed it. The oil pressure was still in the green and had dropped 5-8 psi in cruise over the course of around 100-150 hours or so. In the last 20 hours, I noticed another 1-2psi drop and inspected the filter. Aside from a one-time even with a few small specs at annual 100 hours prior, there was no sign of metal in any previous oil change. The center main bearing spun. A friend who has a Cardinal mentioned that a number of Cardinal owners have had bearings spin after a cylinder has been replaced, believed to be the result of the torque across the case halves being relieved.