larryb

The Encore has an airspeed safety switch, not a squat switch. I have also had problems with that switch, but since the OP has pressed the override button in the air and the gear still did not retract it is not likely the airspeed safety switch. The OP's problem at the moment is that it is not failing on jacks, only while in the air. That makes troubleshooting a bit more difficult.

Yes. Continental starts the numbering from the rear. Opposite of lycoming.

I have a 1997 Encore. During my first post-purchase annual at my home MSC they found that the gear did not retract when on jacks. Now, I had had 0 problems in flight, but.... When the mechanic tapped one of the gear limit switches the gear retracted. So they replaced the limit switch. In your case it could very well be one of the gear limit switches. Expensive little buggers, not cheap like the flap limit switches. Fast forward, I'm flying on the opposite coast 30 hours later and upon gear retraction the gear relay CB pops. Can't be reset. But if I put the gear switch in the Down position, I can reset the CB and the gear operates normally. To make a long story short, there is a bracket in the gear system that is very very close to the screw terminals on the up limit switch. In my case, they made contact and created a short that popped the breaker. So if you do have the limit switches replaced, make sure to visually inspect the screw terminal clearances with the gear both up and down. Larry

Seems like the field wire is often the problem when you see a wildly fluctuating ammeter. At the alternator it is a small wire with a lot of vibration, easily broken or damaged. In my case it was a bad master switch terminal. Start with a solid visual inspection.

I have heard you can cause problems magnetizing your plane with a big powered buffer. Not sure if this an OWT or not.

Speed brakes are supposed to be lubricated every year. I would bet that a lot of failures are units that are never lubricated and run until failure. My MSC does not service them automatically during annual unless asked by the owner. They don’t even suggest it. Perhaps the economics favor this. 1 hour labor per year for 15 years would $1875 in preventative maintenance.

You need this to help trace the wire. https://www.amazon.com/Tracer-Circuit-Tester-Alligator-PTE/dp/B00ADHQCIO/ref=sr_1_17?crid=1FXKESVNJBUZH&keywords=wire+toner+kit&qid=1571517460&sprefix=Wire+toner%2Caps%2C228&sr=8-17

Sounds like you got good service. I would buy a new one. You don’t want to be stranded away from home with a bad battery.

My Encore has this same clock. Before this thread, I thought that it was just dim and hard to read. It has been that way since I purchased the plane, I didn't know any better, I had never seen how the clock was supposed to look. Today the clock has a new bulb and is much more readable. Another win for Mooneyspace. Larry

It has been a couple years since I sold the J. So my numbers are a bit fuzzy. Climb and cruise are full throttle at 10k to 14k feet. On the descent, once low enough, I adjusted throttle and mixture every couple thousand feet to maintain 20” and 8.5 GPH. If you leave at cruise settings you wind up too lean and too high power as you descend.

Good luck with that. By the time a “forever plane” comes on the market it’ll have 20 year old paint/interior/panel and a runout engine.

It may or may not work, depending... In my J I had a FS210 mounted in the avionics bay. My normal configuration was rear seats removed to allow for more baggage. BT connectivity worked fine. One day I put in the rear seats and also a lot of baggage and the BT would not connect. There was enough stuff in the way to block the signal. In my K I have a GDL52R mounted in the avionics bay. To date, that has worked perfectly with no BT connectivity issues whatsoever. The rear seat is out. I have had a lot of baggage back there, enough for a 3 week cross country vacation. All good. I have not tried it with the seats installed.

My A&P shop installed my EDM900 for 40 hours labor flat rate.

When I had my J I had the mounts replaced and the vibration in flight was noticeably improved. I did it because they were old, not because of a sag that could not be shimmed. I think there are a lot of airplanes flying around with poor engine mounts because the owners don’t recognize the very gradual deterioration.

I use the UTC display in GP. The clock in the panel is just there to make it legal.

I'd just fix the one you have. Looks like the only bad part is the flapper. Fabricate a new flapper out of aluminum sheet and rubber sheet from McMaster Carr. Clean up and paint the housing. Should work good as new.

Move the home projects into the nighttime hours.

IFR flight consists of ATC remotely flying the aircraft via a primitive voice link. I don't see autonomous flight being a reality until ATC is remotely flying our aircraft with a digital datalink. I have seen no discussion regarding the development of such technology.

The most I have done is 10.5 hours in 3 legs. I felt fine doing it but was pretty tired afterwards. That trip involved a 150 mile detour around storms. What I do now is plan for 2 legs of 4 hours or less each.

When I had the PPI on my Encore I asked the shop to concentrate on the big ticket items. Engine, Prop, Airframe, corrosion on the main spar, etc. I didn't care about items such as a burned out cabin light bulb. That said, there is a lot they didn't do. I asked them to pull the engine monitor data and send it to me. It was like they never heard of an engine monitor or doing that. They didn't check software versions in the GNS530 (granted, low dollar item) which caused me a big surprise when I didn't get vertical guidance on my very first approach in actual IMC on the way home. They missed that the O2 valve cable was broken and that the O2 system had several leaks, and that the O2 tank was empty. They didn't catch that the oil temp gauge was flaky. They didn't catch that one of the fuel tank gauges only went up to a max of 3/4 full no matter how much fuel was in the tank. These are all things I discovered on the trip home. But these are all relatively minor glitches and many were addressed when I had my panel re-done which was planned anyway.

There are a few things you can/should do before getting to the pre-buy stage. First, review all of the logbooks. Look for how many hours it flies between annuals. Look for regular oil changes. Look for any times it has been out of annual. And of course any damage history. Second, do your own pre-prebuy inspection. Take off the cowl and visually inspect everything. Look for chafing, oil leaks, corrosion. Take off a few inspection plates and look for corrosion inside. Look behind the panel, is it a rats nest or neat. Take a ton of pictures as you do this, so you can go back and review them later. You don't have to be a mechanic to spot a lot of issues, just look. Finally, pre-buy the seller. Try to see what his attitude on maintenance is. Does he brag about cheap annuals from his buddy that take a day? Or does he take it to a shop with a good reputation.

Two tricks: 1: blue locktite on the bolts because you cannot tighten them enough to keep them from backing out. 2: first trip around tighten to 5 in-lb. Second trip around tighten to 15 in-lb and stop there.

Don: I was wondering if your problems stem from a flow restricted orfice in the cabin port. My system is tapped into the aircraft after the altitude compensating regulator but before any restricted fittings. From: https://www.mhoxygen.com/2016/wp-content/uploads/O2D1-D2-Maint-Questions-2012md.pdf Additionally, we have seen many situations where customers connect the EDS unit(s) to the connectors and tubing that came with their aircraft, then plug them into the high pressure outlets in the aircraft. This has caused a lot of confusing problems because these connectors generally have flow restriction orifices. In many cases this has allowed the EDS unit(s) to check out okay at ground level when the pulse response is low, but then activate with flow fault alarms at higher cruising altitudes. Additionally, this problem can be difficult to reproduce because the EDS unit(s) operate with pressure altitude and not barometrical corrected altitude.

I would never try to justify oxygen based on fuel cost and tailwinds. I absolutely justify it on comfort. Flying for hours in nice cool smooth air is great. Flying in hot bumpy air close to the ground is not. Basically I always fly pretty high and take the winds I get. On the few occasions I try to chase the winds it does not work out. TAS goes down as I go down and the wind often does not decrease enough to make a difference.

Like others, I have several credit cards with plenty of limit to choose from. The other thing my wife and I do is carry a dis-similar collections of cards. We have the main card we both carry, and other cards the other does not carry. That way if a wallet is lost and cards must be cancelled we have non-compromised cards with us. I also carry a pack of checks (remember those?) in my flight bag. Larry