Mooneymite

An interesting aside is "what is considered holding?". On many of my part 121 and part 135 sim checks, "holding" consisted of the initial turn to enter the hold. In most cases, I've rarely completed more than 90 degrees of the initial turn before being vectored elsewhere, but was credited with "holding". Some of these events were monitored by the FAA. I don't know if that makes it official, or not, but I certainly didn't complain.

Before adjusting your trim, check your engine's thrust angle. As the lord mounts age, your engine sags giving you more down thrust. Shimming the engine may be the solution instead. Just a suggestion.

My "other plane" is a Hatz....due to weight and balance considerations, the passenger can only be a blonde female weighing 125, or less. I fly it solo a lot.

This is a funny topic in our house. My wife is in that category which flies to get somewhere, not for the joy of flying, but we do fly a lot of places together. Even though we live in a fly-in community, she just isn't into planes and can't tell a Mooney from a DC-3. My wife has a horse. I'm not crazy about horses and can't pick her horse out of the herd, they all look the same to me; however, I have to admit, that if it was a question of walking into town, or riding a horse, I'd ride the stupid horse. One thing we both agree on, is that the horse isn't going anywhere in the Mooney.

As I recall, there is a small O-ring on the end of the plunger. I would be suspicious that the O-ring is bad. It is not sealing when released and it is obstructing flow when pulled. Good news: simple, simple, simple to replace. The toughest part is like so many Mooney repairs....getting access.

Does anyone ever overhaul alternators any more?

As I recall, Delta mechanics missed the hydraulic pumps (brakes) on a checklist to do an engine check on a brand-new B-757 back in 1988 and pushed the plane through some massive hangar doors. The aircraft was eventually repaired and your next Delta flight might be on that airplane! Makes the price of chocks look pretty reasonable!

Whew! After this week in the NE, everyone should be current! What a mess.

Okay....I'm a little confused (as usual). I know the difference between a barrel roll and a roll (aileron roll, if you prefer), but what the heck is an "inverted roll"? Did the OP mean "roll inverted", or does he mean you start from inverted flight, roll 360 degrees and return to inverted? I hope not! Not in a Mooney anyway.

There SHOULD be an exclusive section for those that need to be excluded! I think it's a great idea.

Here's what you need instead of that high-tech stuff....something simple that works: A Johnson airspeed indicator.....It will fit neatly on your Mooney N struts.

Welcome aboard..... Rhumbline I like that moniker: A rhumb line appears as a straight line on a Mercator projection map. Glad to have you back in the sky.

Bingo! This is the sad truth. When I started flying for an airline, kids always wanted to come to the cockpit and look around; by the time I retired, I couldn't remember the last time a young person wanted to see the cockpit, or ask a question about the airplane! Our life-blood is new blood and now, young people far prefer technology via screen to ho-hum airplanes. Add in the cost difference between "screen" technology and getting a private license and you have a pretty daunting up-hill battle for attracting young people. I now refer to them as "screen-agers". Those are the kids who used to be attracted to flying. Since retiring from the airline I've been flying biz-jets. Not a single young person has evinced any interest in aviation what-so-ever. All they want to do is take a seat in the back and play on their iPad/gameboy/DS, etc. The only aircraft capability they care about is, "Do you have wi-fi on board?" Aviation needs passionate people to keep it from becoming "just another job". Certainly there are still young individuals who have the bug, but it is not widespread. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm not optimistic. I suspect that U.S. aviation will look a lot like European aviation by the time we hang up our headsets.

Hmmmmm. Not to burst any bubbles, but.....The Citation I fly uses approach speeds of 109/115 kts for 90% of the landings and we typically slow to about 200 kts at the marker and then slow to 125 kts until close in. Even though I love to think of Mooneys as fast, I find it hard to believe any of them have to SLOW behind a Citation unless it is just to get the tower a little spacing to squeeze out a departure. Maybe it was a Slow-tation?

Hmmmm. My POH is probably older than yours and includes a "required equipment list" for VFR and IFR ops. Strange that yours does not. The minimum equipment list is almost always part of modern aircraft POH's. Perhaps it is listed elsewhere?

Caution! Thread creep..... Prior to waxing, I have found nothing works better for the belly/nasty areas than Crazy Clean. http://www.drugstore.com/popups/largerphoto/default.asp?pid=215543&catid=184274&size=500&trx=29888&trxp1=215543&trxp2=1 Spray it on, wipe all the mess off....it's that quick.

Check your POH. It is not listed as "Required Equipment" in my POH. However, it depends on what the POH specific to your aircraft says.

Without an AOA, airspeed indicator works fine. Without a stormscope, on-board radar is the only substitute for "real time" storm info. I'm not "dissing" your love affair with an AOA, but I fly planes with AOA and indexer lights and rarely refer to it except during stall practice in the sim. Just not that vitally important for routine ops. However, a stormscope will answer that all important question: "Can I safely go into this cloud?" AOA, or stormscope? Stormscope first, everytime. .

Two additional causes I can think of: .Running the engine (CHT's) too hot, glazed the cylinders and the rings no longer seal properly. Remove the cylinders, have them honed, reinstall, and sin no more. Your engine guy will tell you if the rings will need to be replaced as well. .Rust has formed on the cylinder walls and ruined the ring seal. You see this phenomenon (dramatic loss of compression) on engines stored (not run for extended period of time) without proper preservation measures. Since both low cylinders are the same side I'd suspect a baffling issue caused an over-heat. -

All thoughtful replies. To me, a huge factor is the involvement of "someone else" in flight ops and maintenance decisions. It makes the pilot view each situation as others see it, not just his own view which may be skewed by personal factors like "get-home-itis". The presence of another pilot, dispatcher, weather guru, a maintenance coordinator goes beyond the expertise they have. It makes the decision making process more formal and rational.

I had a Mooneymite (A-65) with Chrome cylinders....used a quart every 4 hours and there was always oily residue on the right side of the fuselage. I now have a Hatz (O-320) with chrome cylinders and, as far as I can tell, it uses 1 qt every 10-11 hours. Lore is that chrome is great if the break-in is just right, otherwise plan on high consumption. The two different O-360 engines I've had in my C model with original Lyc steel cylinders have had identical consumption...about 10 hrs/qt.

I use the fltplan.com wt/bal app on my andoid device. Don't they also have an iPad version? It's free and it works great on my C model once I got the pre-sets done. A nice feature is that it's available on any FBO Internet computer even if I don't have my tablet with me.

Tire wear? What's that? More than half my landings are on grass, so my sidewalls dry-rot before the tread wears out! Same brake pucks for 15 years.....but they are getting a little thin. :-)

Complex question. If you decide you are going to keep the plane forever and let your heirs sell it, the actual condition of the plane is paramount and history is not particularly important except as it affects how the plane flies. However, most of us know we'll be sellers "someday". Even though age of the aircraft, time since repair, type of repair, etc all are factors, you just can't get away from the market reality that damage history is important. While there are no hard guidelines to quantify damage history, ultimately you have to ask yourself how much you will be willing to discount your selling price for that damage history when that time comes.