rocketman

My oil pressure does drop with lower RPM.

I just called lycoming and talked to tech support. They said they not aware of any tapper issue with these engines. I’m not inclined to believe them. My engine was made in 2015 so it would fit into the time frame. I never paid much attention to altitude but I know what I’m going to do next week when I fly it next. Yep get my o2 masks on and check it.

I have checked with Origin management and the best weekend to have the formation clinic will be the from Feb 23-25. So I am holding all my rooms at this point. Hopefully we can get an accurate headcount on the people attending before those dates

So...for those that want to participate in the Mooney Formation Flying Clinic in Panama City Beach, Fl from March 23-25, I will gladly give all those pilots free accomidations at my condo's at Origin. Mike and I feel that flight experience and education as well as advancing flight skills are paramount importance and anything we can do to help this cause we will do. I will need a head count on those that can attend so I can reserve the condo's. This is not the Mooney Summit but specific to the formation flight clinic. The Mooney Summit will be from Sept 27 -30, 2018 at Panama City Beach Ron Dubin

So yes M20Doc Lycomings test run showed a pressure of 75 psi at 2500 rpm and oil temp of nearly 190 degrees. My "maintainer" did adjust it buy turning it in 1/2 turn and it made no difference. My mechanic does not want to turn it up much more since the test run was 75. Lycoming now says its OK but I cannot run the engine with the needle at the low green going sometimes into the yellow. Now what? I know their is a washer near the oil pressure valve that can be added but again I hesitate to do anything since the pressures were normal at the factory.

I have a factory rebuild engine in my bravo with a new JPI instrument. Oil pressure in cruise is typically 55 psi at 2400 rpm 65% power. Sometimes it gets down to 52 psi. That reading puts the gauge in the yellow. I have checked the JPI with a calibrated gauge and the JPI is only 2 psi less than the other gauge. So the JPI is accurate enough. The pressure transducer is located above the right mag and not over the right alternator. Oil temp is stable and fine. Oil level typically 9 quarts. No oil burn. All other engine parameters are normal. any suggestions? Is this oil pressure normal? What are other bravo pilots experiencing. The engine is under factory warranty. Ron Dubin

I have a factory rebuild engine in my bravo with a new JPI instrument. Oil pressure in cruise is typically 55 psi at 2400 rpm 65% power. Sometimes it gets down to 52 psi. That reading puts the gauge in the yellow. I have checked the JPI with a calibrated gauge and the JPI is only 2 psi less than the other gauge. So the JPI is accurate enough. The pressure transducer is located above the right mag and not over the right alternator. Oil temp is stable and fine. Oil level typically 9 quarts. No oil burn. All other engine parameters are normal. any suggestions? Is this oil pressure normal? What are other bravo pilots experiencing. The engine is under factory warranty. Ron Dubin

Since the inception of The Money Flyer way back from May 2012, I have read every single magazine online. Each edition has fresh information and tips and techniques which are timely and appropriate for the beginning Mooney owners as well as the most experienced pilots. This is a product of the hard work of Phil Corman from California. And the reason I recognize him is because, like us at the Mooney Summit, he provides his product completely for free. Yeah, he might get a few dollar from advertising, but not nearly enough to defray the cost of the man hours this requires. He and Jim work on the magazine full time and has about 10 contributors to help in the contents. This is no easy job. Especially when you have another job to do so he can pay the costs of producing The Flyer. Speaking with Phil today, he thinks like Mike and I. We love the Mooney community and love to make better pilots through education. So keep up the good work Phil and keep making the job of flying Mooney's more interesting, safer, and entertaining. Ron Dubin

The follow will be published in an upcoming local newspaper in Panama City Beach. Mooney Summit really made a real big "splash" in the area. Mooney Summit V The Mooney Summit is a 501 ©3 organization established in Panama City Beach in 2012 by Ron Dubin and Mike Elliott to promote safety and educational seminars to Mooney Pilots worldwide. Before I begin to explain what the Mooney Summit is about, you should probably know something about a Mooney airplane. A Mooney is the lesser known of the big four airplanes certified in the US. Everyone has heard of Cessna, Piper and Beechcraft but not Mooney. And why you ask? Perhaps that the Mooney is a single engine 4-seat niche aircraft designed to fly extremely fast and efficient, with characteristics of flight only experienced pilots can fly. They are all made in small numbers in Kerrville, Texas and named after the inventor – Al Mooney in the late 50’s. They are extremely safe when flown properly and are built with similar safety and performance designs as Boeing jets. A turbocharged Mooney can fly at altitudes as high as 25,000 feet and reach speeds up to 280 mph true air speed. Anyways, now to the Mooney Summit V Our mission is to “Better the Breed”, making Mooney pilots better stewards of our airplanes as well as interacting within the National Airspace. Our meeting this year was held at several locations throughout the city from September 29-October 1 and included 161guests, pilots and spouses from all across the US and even from London, England. This event is gaining in popularity throughout the Mooney community due to the uniqueness of the program. Everything is provided free to all attendees including subject expert speakers from the FAA, industry, and other leaders in aviation. All our food, entertainment, dinners, breakfasts, and even lodging to many of our attendees in 18 beach front condominiums and homes are free. Our Friday evening socials at my penthouse condo at Origin at Seahaven is a very popular event which earmarks the groups return to PCB and features fabulous catered meals and drinks. Earlier that day was airport day at the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport which features experts in formation flying and other topics followed by a formation flight of 5 Mooney’s over the airport and city. This event was open to the public and put on by Lee Fox and Bucko Strehlow. Saturday and Sunday conferences were held at the Seahaven Conference Center and were led off with an introduction to the city by Mayor Mike Thomas. The topics discussed were very informative and helpful. These included the safety and regulations of flying to Cuba including FAA paperwork, overwater flying and safety equipment required. One speaker spoke passionately about a recent experience which occurred over Canadian airspace where he completely passed out due to Carbon Monoxide poisoning and crash landed the plane. This occurred in an isolated area during the winter months and required survival tactics similar to the techniques used in the current movie, “The Mountain Between Us.” The importance of having a CO detector in a plane (as well as in homes) was an important take home message. Engine performance and analysis of evaluating potential engine problems was a lecture from Ron New, Savvy Aviation, Las Vegas, NV Saturday evening all the participants and family members were treated to a dinner at the Runaway Island restaurant compliments of Mooney International. Awards, silent auctions, and speakers from the Mooney factory were the highlights of the evening while underneath the glow was the appreciation of the factory’s continued support for the existing fleet of all the Mooney’s in the world. Early Sunday morning was the second formation flight, this time over the beaches from pier to pier. Most beach goers who saw the event probably noticed the one thing that is unique to Mooney’s – the design of the tail that looks like it’s on backwards. But backwards it is not, the tails unique design gives the plane its wonderful and sexy appeal while outperforming all other planes with their normal looking tails. Other events during the Mooney Summit V included a free companion flying course given by a local certified pilot instructor Ron Jarmon. Non flying spouses were given an entire day instructional course on how to land a Mooney in the event of the pilot becoming unable to land. They were taught such things as who to call on the radio for help, how to navigate to an airport and the proper ways to set up for a landing. Ron also has one of the most advanced flight simulators ever made and housed at the PCB airport and demonstrated this to the attendees. Max Gurgew, a pilot examiner for the FAA from Birmingham, Alabama, is an annual speaker due to his entertaining abilities while educating us on the proper ways to fly an instrument approach to an airport while in the clouds and fog. Bruce Landsburg is the nominee from President Trump to serve as Vice Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board and spoke on true confessions of pilot errors. Another speaker spoke on ditching procedures and survival techniques over long distance water flying. The Mooney Summit has established the Bill Gilliand Foundation to provide emergency crisis intervention and financial assistance for downed Mooney Pilots’ immediate families. Unique in general aviation, Mooney owners are not only bonded together by the planes we all fly but as well as this foundation for the caring and compassion towards Mooney families. Bill Gilliand was a VP of Simon Properties (owners of Pier Park) and was killed in a Mooney accident in 2013. Mike Elliott, the co-founder of the Summit, was a passenger in the plane but survived. We decided to make this foundation a tribute to Bill and his family. As we came to a close on that Sunday October 1, the weather was low overcast clouds and very windy. But this did not dampen anyone’s spirit as we all talked about the return of the Mooney Summit VI from September 28-30, 2018 and how this conference has become, in five years, the largest gathering of Mooney owners in the world. Ronald S. Dubin, M.D. You can also review a past newspaper article on the Mooney Summit V http://www.newsherald.com/news/20170930/mooney-pilots-land-in-bay-for-5th-annual-summit

And BTW, looks like Nate maybe a CAT 1 in PCB later this weekend or Monday. Glad we had it last weekend. I was going to head down their for a pirate festival for Ocktoberfest at Pier Park this weekend but might head north instead.

I have been flying almost every other weekend to KECP since 2011 and never noticed any spots or unusual spotting on any of my planes. And believe me I maintain my planes and look at everything. Just contacted Mike Lerma, manager at Sheltair and he has not received any other problems with spotting on the paint from this weekend or any other time. The common denominator has to be somewhere else than at PCB. Interesting!

Has anyone else seen this problem at KECP during the Mooney Summit?

Debbie - your complaint is the only one I have heard about. My plane had no problems nor did anyone else that I have heard. What makes you think it was acid rain?

Thanks Dan. Your presentation was fantastic. And BTW, you should consider public speaking as a second career

During the Mooney Summit V meeting in Panama City Beach, Mike Elliott was awarded the 2017 FAA safety team representative of the year for his outstanding and continuous support of aviation safety by the FAA administrations Alabama Northwest Florida Flight Standards District Office. A big congrats goes to Mike and all the effort he puts into making the Mooney Summit meeting not only entertaining and fun but placing great emphasis on putting safety first on all our Mooney pilots.

Thanks to everyone who attended Mooney Summit V. From what I hear from everyone, the meeting was helpful and met everyone's expectations, Mike and I go back and forth throughout the whole year trying to make the Summit meaningful and fresh. New speakers, new topics, formation flights, and best of all, on the beach and free!. And speaking about being free, please feel free to suggest new topics to discuss or if there are any speakers you think we should look at to make the Mooney Summit VI even better. Our dates next year is Sept 28-30. Hopefully, these dates will present no conflicts with anyone who wants to attend the Summit. Please email me at rdubin256@hotmail.com or to Mike Elliott at mike@aviating.com.

This coming weekend, my wife and I want to fly to Panama City Beach, home of the Mooney Summit, for our little weekend get away. The smoke and fires in the mountains from where I live in Eastern Tennessee recently has been terrible. A local flight a few days ago showed widespread MVR conditions across wide spread areas. Worse is expected until the next major rainfall which will not unfortunately happen soon enough. My question is what are the concerns to my engine from the smoke from surrounding forest fires. Would the Brackett filters need changing? Would the concentrated smoke seep its way into the oil and cylinders I am more concerned in this thread about the ill effects to the engine and not the dangers associated about unintended IFR flying, although that could be a subject of another MS topic. Ron

I have a JPI I installed a few weeks ago. Did GAMI test and all EGT are very equal to each other. About a .8 gallon spread. All engine run ups are very smooth. VERY smooth in fact. All parameters in flight are great. Compressions 2 months ago all around 73-75. So Lycoming wants us to check bottom plugs, boroscope cylinders and send pictures to them, and do compression checks for which will be done Sunday. I'll update after that. And BTW, I have a Rocket, 201 and a Bravo. Don't let my MS name fool you. I love all three of them. Their my mistresses (my wife loves it) Ron

Here is the video of the white smoke IMG_0650.MOV

I recently purchased a factory rebuild TIO-540-AF1B engine from Lycoming and have roughly 38 hours on the engine. At the Mooney Summit last month at ECP I had another pilot come up to me to notify that white puffy smoke was coming out of my exhaust pipe. Sure enough, when I got back home and during the 5 minute cool down I had another pilot look at it and take a video of the puffy white smoke from the exhaust. Interesting, it does not happen all the time. Oil consumption appears stabilized. I called Lycoming and we are now in the process of looking at this further with compression checks, examination of lower spark plugs, and boroscopic exam. Is this a common problem with other Bravo engines? Any one else experience this before? Any other checks I should consider? I can't imagine the rings or valves or turbo being a problem with such a new engine. Ron

OK! Tropical Storm Joacquin - Stay Away

As a follow up question, I am comparing the CHT on my 14 hour factory rebuilt engine to the engine I replaced it with which was a 2200 SNEW. The CHT's seemed to run much cooler with the older engine at comparable engine settings. Is this a normal process where a 14 hour engine which is probably 95% broken in to run warmer CHT's than a run out engine on the same airframe?

Sorry - TIO-540. I keep getting it confused with my Rocket Continental TSIO-520 engine.

Thought I would start a new post on breaking in my new TIO-520-AF1B engine. So I have now about 14 hours on factory rebuilt. Engine consumption has stabilized (1 quart in 13 hours) and the temps have come down as well. But not quite where I would like them. I have flown mostly 75% power at 24/34 while always maintaining CHT below 400, usually around 375 on the hottest cylinder which is #3. But to do this requires 24 GPH and half trailing cowl flaps. At lower power settings it still runs nearly 400 CHT on #3 when I lean it to TIT of 550 or shut the cowl flaps. I have always flown at 8000 MSL or below usually between 4000 - 6000. Baffling is in good shape, the intercylinder baffling springs are all installed, and everything else seems about right including oil temps etc. I am in Tennessee where the break in is usually around 50-60 degree F OAT. I have never let the CHT go above 4000 in any break in flights. I usually fly for 1 1/2 to 2 hour trips. I am using AD oil (Phillips XC 20-50) as mandated by Lycoming. Is this about right, Am I impatient to get the break in over with so I don't have to limit myself to 8000 MSL or below? Should I be looking at anything else like engine timing (doubt it would be off since it was set at the factory). Thanks for your help.