exM20K

This may be. Mine will read 2700 on the G1000 tach, but it is flashing red. NBD, and the mini-tach is unobtrusive and inexpensive. -dan

Was $4600 in 2017. Governor and JPI mini-tach were a little more. -dan

Aero Accessories in Van Nuys did an o/h exchange on one of my mags. The exchange mag they send was faulty and resulted in kickback when I tried to start. While the shop that installed the mags accepted no responsibility for the obviously split timing on the impulse coupling, Aero Accessories did. They express shipped my original, now overhauled mag and paid for the kick back inspection, which was non-trivial. How a shop does when everything is good is fine, but how a shop behaves when things aren’t good says a lot. -dan

Great news: it appears on one page back in this thread that a well-regarded and recently disengaged member’s posts live on, only not with his name attached. So the tread continuity is intact. -dan

Climb over 12,000 feet is what the POH calls for. I do this and have had no issues. I also observe a drop in FF when engaging the pump to switch tanks, but I believe this doesn’t happen in a full power climb. I’ll look next time. it is hard for me to believe that a 10* difference in ground temperature would change anything in a system that is running probably 150*+ induction air. fuel system setup is very important in these planes and best done with two people: 1 looking at the pressure gauges and one in the cockpit running the engine, which will get high CHTs very quickly. When mine was set incorrectly, I’d get an over-rich stumble at the top of climb and 36+ GPH. Or, it would not idle well and was always on the cusp of shutting off. Now, it runs like a Singer sewing machine. -dan

@mike_elliott is your guy. -dan

Are the approaches clear? What is the field elevation? If so, you should be fine. I’m based at LL10, and runway there is 2550 with 250’ displaced on runway 36. Hot, light northwest or northeast winds are a no-go for me landing, but that is easy to plan around or to divert. One of the Mooney salesmen was based at Brighton, MI with no issues. If you don’t have the 310HP STC, I’d highly recommend it. Takeoff roll is noticeably shorter and climb is astounding: 12-1500 FPM at MTOW all the way up to 17,000. Congrats on your new plane. -dan

If you have an electronic version you could share, please PM me. I have one on a thumb drive with the logbooks, but I won’t be where they are for another couple of weeks. Thanks in advance -dan

I believe that was the internet-based product. They lost that vendor/product, and the current one frankly, sucks. They know. I hope they better the current internet radar feed because it does suck. -dan

Franklin County, where I am, has emergency re-entry hang tags that they will issue to residents and business people. You'd be wise to get one of these early if you don't have one. I presume other Florida counties/cities do the same, but maybe your area is simply too densely populated to do this. It seems like a good way to keep looters and lookers out during cleanup and recovery. I would not leave a plane outside if at all possible. It's not just the strength of your tiedown ropes that matters. the anchor can pull out of the ground, random debris can be thrown at your plane, the ramp can become inundated with salt water. A hangar is, of course no guarantee - they can and have collapsed. I was working the Diamond booth in 2011 when the tornado came through Sun-n-Fun. The planes were well staked down and survived without damage. My biggest concern was lack of cover for ourselves. hanging out in a 53' semi-trailer with debris and planes tumbling down the alley between us and Piper was not my favorite place to be. My second biggest concern was debris or another plane blowing into ours. My hangar at Apalachicola survived Michael as did all the adjacent rows, and that was a pretty hard hit, so I'm pretty confident it would survive. But in the event of a hurricane forecast to hit our area, that hangar will be keeping a car and a motorcycle dry, not my plane. -dan

Prelim is out. -dan

All these are very real costs and the non-hull value losses would have been incurred by you even if you were insured for replacement value. Additionally, there is loss of use and, in the state Illinois (with which i'm familiar and is maybe similar to Washington in this regard) you will pay sales tax on the full value of the replacement plane. Ouch. I will be reviewing my policies with an eye towards these uninsured losses. Perhaps you have homeowner's insurance that would cover the personal property, and often aviation policies will cover "recovery" of a downed plane, so could that include your trip home in the Germ Tube? Maybe - it's times like this that having a good agent on your side is so important. I wish you the best. -dan

How are the baffles, and are all the through-the-firewall grommets in place? definitely swap two probes to confirm it’s not an instrumentation issue. If the baffles are old and floppy, they can make a poor seal against the top cowling at the rear of the engine compartment, spilling cooling air out the back. Mine is currently a bit bimodal: #1, which is indicating cooler than #2, has excursions up and down about 15* as the baffle sags and goes Back to its seated position. It has done this for a long time, doesn’t keep me up at night, and I’ll eventually replace at least the rear baffle. How big is the delta between #1 and 2, and do they track each other and the other CHTs? -dan

A dab of this stuff will prevent the seals from sticking https://www.amazon.com/303-Rubber-Protectant-Conditioner-Weather/dp/B00T44D1R2 -dan

I agree 100%. It’s sad that factory new parts need to get worked to last.

Dunno if I’d call them similar: TSIO520 is bottom induction and single (?) turbo. TSIO550 dimensionally a stroked TSIO520 but with top induction and 2 turbos and intercoolers vs 1 (?). The top induction seems to make the 550 more easily capable of LOP OPS. TBO is also higher for the 550 for those that care about such things as TBO. Which leads to your questions….. it is the received wisdom of enlightened piston aviators that LOP is kinder to the top end than ROP. If there is a higher percentage TSIO 550 hours done LOP vs the TSIO520, then “our” liturgy favors 550 cylinder life. Here in the real world, disuse probably kills more engines or top ends than how you operate it. My one datapoint is the disuse-induced corrosion on my cylinders when I bought the plane. When oil consumption fell below 4hrs per quart, I had all six cylinders overhauled. CMI has had issues with improperly ground valve seats in the past. This is probably the same for both the 520 and 550 and has lead to many a cylinder coming off for leakage past the exhaust valve and burned valves. I dunno if their fancy new machine tools have corrected this deficiency. I did and would again overhaul one or more jugs on condition. They will tell you when they are done and usually without catastrophic failure. Burnt exhaust valves and low compression, corrosion and high oil consumption, cylinder/ring wear with high oil consumption, a pressurized crankcase blowing oil out of the breathers. These are all good reasons to fix one or more jugs. A borescope and careful attention to changes in oil consumption are your ally here. How to make sure the shop does it right and doesn’t kill you with a spun bearing after leaving a through bolt finger tight? Good question. Showing up a few times in the morning with a box of donuts or a pizza lunch can’t hurt. After my top, I found a dead EGT probe, a wrench sitting on top of one of the intercooler, and chased a MAP lapse issue that was finally diagnosed as as a cut in the MAP line going to the G1000 sender. It was cut when the tech snipped a zip tied bundle of wires sitting on top of it. oh, and I hit a bird in the pattern on the first test flight. Obviously that wasn’t the shop’s fault, and we’re still friends. Me and the shop, not me and the bird. bake a mid time top into your cake economically, and maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The cost and downtime aren’t nothing, but neither are they life-changing. -dan

Good grief. I deleted that post almost immediately after making it as I find the drift into insurance and liability for hypothetical events icky, given two airmen perished, people on the ground, including children, were likely traumatized, and one of our members lost his plane… I really didn’t want to contribute to the ickyness. There are two families dealing with the loss of loved ones. They may happen along here. Im trying to be a decent human being, so I deleted my post, which you quoted within seconds. Please do the same to yours, and I’ll delete this one. My comment, which I immediately deleted was in reference to yours: “And if you are underinsured you are screwed for no fault of your own.” That is simply not so. It is the owner’s responsibility to adequately insure their plane. Why would you suggest Im suggesting anything beyond that? But, seriously: this is a tragic event for all involved. I’m thankful that the OP and family are OK, but mostly saddened by the loss of life. -dan

Very glad to hear you and family escaped injury. Sorry about your plane. Any word on the involved pilots? -dan

It is worthwhile to practice an “icing conditions” approach. Minimum airspeed in icing conditions is 120 KIAS. Maximum flap extension if icing has been encountered is 120 KIAS. Practice would be something like an ILS or GPS approach flown at >120 KIAS, takeoff flaps only and a full stop landing also with takeoff flaps only. Do you know your approach and stall speeds in this configuration?. It’s very different from SOP for me and good to perform in benign weather before trying it “in anger” -dan

Unfortunately, these dates coincide with my daughter's college parents' weekend. I would like to support the event, though. Are there other ways to contribute? -dan

Craig Fuller was interviewed on a sporty’s podcast a couple of mo the ago. He talked about the Flying Magazine purchase in terms of the content library being the most valuable piece along with the brand. This is not so different than Sportys buying the rights to Air Facts. But Sportys is using content for inbound marketing, which I think is smart. Content for content’s sake is hard to monetize. Probably the vast catalog of Aviation Consumer content is what he’s after. While it’s not obvious to me how he will make it all pencil, he doesn’t appear to me to be a dumb guy, and if he makes a go of it, then I think that’s a win for all of us in GA. It is also not obvious that the current Belvoir / AvWeb model could continue, especially with Sporty’s turning into a content engine. Things change.. -dan

Hangars protect a plane from more than just the environment. I can’t imagine what a hangar costs or how long the waiting list is in Sandy Eggo, though. -dan

@Pmaxwell have your ears stopped ringing yet? -dan

looking good, team Mooney. My YouTube skills don’t include cueing it to a time stamp. Starts at 1:40 -dan

Disuse is the death of engines. If there is corrosion on the cylinder walls, then expect oil consumption to be elevated, if it is not already. If you can get a $17,000 concession from the seller, you should be safe financially. Mine was topped 800 hours ago, and I’ve had no issues since. There was a history of disuse and corrosion on all six jugs. IIRC, the top was $2000-2500 per cylinder six years ago, and that was with a re-honing of the cylinders, not replacement. LOP/SOP/ATT since, and compressions, borescope, and oil consumption are all good. -dan