FloridaMan

Unrelated, I know, but I generally avoid wet footprints and I carry a PLB with me. I won't fly over Okeechobee. Supposedly when planes go down in that lake, they find the plane, but not those who were on-board.

Weather seems to claim a fair number of Mooneys. The guy out in Montana in the M20J with his sons. There was another M20J crash in Colorado in September with two experienced pilots. And then there's that latest airplane that disappeared over Yosemite. Different parts of the country have varying weather patterns. Here in FL we have the summer thunderstorms that can build up and out climb our airplanes before our very eyes. The risk is that you're in IMC and fly into a towering embedded thunderstorm. I had lunch with a bunch of pilots last weekend. One of the guys told me about his old M20J and how he was flying in IMC in FL one day at 6000 AGL and caught a downdraft that "instantly" pushed him down to 2000ft. ATC got on the horn and asked him what he was doing. The only time I've ever been caught off guard was flying out west in October. I had been warned that I may need to strap in and hold on for the ride by the guy that operates the G550 in my avatar. I talked to Parker Woodruff that morning when I was leaving KABQ. It was around 9AM, I guess, and there was a moderate turbulence AIRMET for the region. Parker suggested that I should have already left, but at any rate, should be departing as soon as possible. I'm flying along smoothly at 11,000MSL, facing a strong headwind. I notice that my phone had full signal strength and 4G service. I was surprised, being out in the middle of the desert and all. All of a sudden it was like my Mooney had been coupled to a roller coaster and it was all I could do to keep the sky above me and keep my airspeed in the green arc. It lasted about 15 seconds and then was gone. I suppose that sort of thing is common out there and most certainly gave me a healthy respect for something I'd never experienced before. I'd like to hear your stories, and where things happened, and whether these sorts of weather patterns are common in the vicinity. Knowledge of what can happen should help us make more informed decisions.

I bought a portable breathalyzer and keep it in my center console. If I read 0.08 or 0.09 I'll suffer through and wait an hour or two. If it's any higher, I take a cab or get a hotel. I also made my own breathalyzer as a personal project. It seems to be fairly accurate.

Not to hijack your thread, but how do you remove the rear seat and is it ok to fly with it out? Is there enough room to sleep in the plane with the seat out? I've always been concerned over these long cross country flights getting stuck at some airport at night in the rain and having to sleep in it like I'm trying to sleep in a VW Beetle.

I have this same mentality. I would not fly IMC until I had a backup. I bought a Dynon D1. Shortly thereafter, I flew to NYC from Tampa. From Norfolk on, it was solid IMC. As I advanced my prop on descent, my vacuum pump went out. I don't know of a single pilot with more than a few years flying who has never experienced a pump failure. With around 500 hours PIC time myself, I've lost two.

Thanks for posting this. Some of those things look pretty useful. I assume that's a radio altimeter gear warning system you have listed there with the STC.

I know it's west of you and a little further, but if you like oysters, I highly recommend flying down to Apalachicola (KAAF) and taking the crew car to Boss Oyster. I went last month and the raw oysters in the shell were the fattest oysters I've ever seen.

There was a fatal accident with a high time Mooney pilot in (I think) Massachusetts a couple years back. No clearly-defined cause was found, but the jackscrew was cited in the accident report as a possible factor.

When my vacuum pump died, I noticed a loss of performance and some air noise with the step down. I think that it was noticeable versus the later models with the welded step because of the size of the step and the big hole that it leaves open when it's down.

I fault the driver on this one. Driver did not stop at the stop mark. Driver was familiar with the airport. From the left seat of that 172, even if the pilot were looking out the right window, I doubt that SUV would have been visible. Skyhawks love to float once they get in ground effect and are a piece of cake to hold off with a shaved cunt hair's worth of power.

You could probably get a T-hangar at VDF for the month and save $0.50/gallon on fuel for the price of a tiedown anywhere else. SPG is a cooler airport, but quite a bit pricier for parking, but more than $1/gal cheaper on fuel. Sheltair just took over at KSPG and they're still ironing out issues. TPF is a nice airport as well with a very active weekend pilot community with lots of fun airplanes.

I wish I had access panels on mine. This is my '67 -- taken some time before I bought it:

Might be a little unrelated, but I'm under the impression that some newer designs, such as the DA-20 have their horizontal stabilizer canted slightly to counter-balance some of the effects created by the prop/engine.

My story I always tell is about when I got stuck in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee at 0A3 with a bad magneto on a Saturday. The local A&P who came to the rescue, a gentleman by the name of Burton Mason took excellent care of the airplane and the repair. I know he spent more time on it than he billed me for as he started with the plugs, checked the gap, tested the magneto coil as good, but was still suspicious. He also verified the wiring of the Slickstart system. When it was all said and done, if I remember correctly, he only billed me for fewer than six hours of labor, at a *very* reasonable rate -- cheaper than most auto shops. Considering what he did for diagnosis, starting and the plugs and working his way back, verifying the wiring of the Slickstart system, which included a few phone calls, and repairing the magneto there is no way he only spent that much time on the repair.

Looks like your plane may have a drug problem.

Look at car engines with cast iron or nickel-steel alloy blocks and aluminum heads and you'll see a very high incidence of cracked cylinder heads and blown head gaskets. Add in turbochargers and you'll see the failure rate go up significantly. Google : "cracked cylinder head dissimilar metals"

Here is my damage. You can barely see the indentation at the bottom of the rough area. You are looking up at the rear right-hand side of the truss in this photo.

I read somewhere that the profile was to provide greater authority at higher angles of attack. I'm thinking it may be so you can still have a larger rudder with less forward profile (as you said), and, at the same time, reduce the amount of force placed on the rudder at full deflection. I'm wondering if the technical aspects of the flying tail could have something to do with it as well. If you look at the profile of aerobatic aircraft rudders, you'll notice that they have more surface area near the elevator. I understand this as being there to compensate for the airflow interruption from the elevator.

I'm in south Florida and I doubt it gets cold enough for me to need to use the preheater that's on my engine. However, I could see it happening when I'm up north. At what temperature and for how long should I run the preheater? How do you handle it with an FBO? Is it an expected service in cold climate? Do you tip extra or anything?

Their line guy came out an inspected it and said they always inspect them before towing and it's not like what he's seen as bad. I know it's something new, but it's not very deep. The 3mm is diameter of the dimple, not the depth. The depth is barely discernable; you can feel it, but it may be less than 1/32". I took several photos and I'll post them as soon as I can find my damned SD card reader.

My wings have been resealed, but I have run the right tank dry in my '67F and it took 34 gallons to refill it. Please verify this, but I believe the POH specifies to run one tank for an hour, switch tanks, run the other tank dry, and then switch back to the tank you started with. There were no cautions about doing it any other way. I prefer to manage my fuel by starting on one tank, running it for a specified time to ensure reserves on the other tank and then switching as I don't want my reserve fuel split between tanks and I figure I'll have at least the time remaining on the second tank as I burned on the one I climbed out on. You'll see the fuel pressure drop off before the engine quits and that's when I switched over, but it stumbled for a couple seconds after the transition.

My second concern that I've posted in a week, I'm starting to feel like I'm claiming the sky is falling. I took a friend up for his first plane ride yesterday. On return, I taxied over to the tiedown area and an extremely pissed off line guy pulls up in a pickup truck and motions for me to follow him, which I did. The guy parking me was also in a bad mood. I tell them my intentions that I was leaving in the morning and they said that they would not move the airplane. They moved the plane. Whenever I leave it with anyone, I feel behind the turning assembly. It's always rough, but this time, it felt like there was a small, maybe 3mm indentation on the right (facing forward) side of the nose gear assembly where I guess it would hit. Is this something that I should be concerned over? A previous FBO claimed that there was damage as I posted in my topic about a bent tie down ring, but I think that was just them being overly cautious as there has always been a rough paint texture there, but never what I feel as a dimple. Is that dimple something to be concerned about? Is there anything else that I should take a closer look at?

My second concern that I've posted in a week, I'm starting to feel like I'm claiming the sky is falling. I took a friend up for his first plane ride yesterday. On return, I taxied over to the tiedown area and an extremely pissed off line guy pulls up in a pickup truck and motions for me to follow him, which I did. The guy parking me was also in a bad mood. I tell them my intentions that I was leaving in the morning and they said that they would not move the airplane. They moved the plane. Whenever I leave it with anyone, I feel behind the turning assembly. It's always rough, but this time, it felt like there was a small, maybe 3mm indentation on the right (facing forward) side of the nose gear assembly where I guess it would hit. Is this something that I should be concerned over? A previous FBO claimed that there was damage as I posted in my topic about a bent tie down ring, but I think that was just them being overly cautious as there has always been a rough paint texture there, but never what I feel as a dimple. Is that dimple something to be concerned about? Is there anything else that I should take a closer look at?

Mine are slicks. We were wondering why the EGTs were acting weird intermittently. Then the plane was extremely difficult to start (left mag failed and the plane is equipped with a Slickstart system). We didn't know it at the time, but Parker managed to hot start the airplane refueling -- possibly on just the right mag. We discovered the dead mag on the mag check. Interestingly enough, if we tested the mags at idle, both worked, but at runup RPM, regardless of mixture setting, the left mag would be dead. We were fortunate to have a local A&P come out and repair the plane during the week. He disassembled the magneto and found that even though the coil tested as good, it looked burned, so he replaced it which fixed the problem.

I've experienced a mag failure. The plane suffered a slight loss in performance and the EGTs read sky-high -- I'm guessing from fuel still burning as it entered the exhaust.