chrisk

That thought only occurred to me after I made it home. I'll do that the next time I am out at the airport.

A few years ago I purchased a CO detector. Its typically had low reading, 10 or less. Recently I have gotten slightly higher readings with full rich operations. I took a look at the rudder boots and found one ripped. Would this cause higher CO readings? And is this a difficult fix? I assume a new boot is what is needed. Where does one find a new boot?

I land with full flaps, take off flaps, and no flaps. --And take off flaps is not a bad way to land in strong cross winds. No flaps if the plane picked up some ice.

I occasionally will do touch and goes. Sometimes I set the plane in take off configuration prior to the T&G, which makes it easy to touch just the mains. On and back off the runway in a few 100 feet. That said, I don't do touch and goes at night or with significant cross winds, and I always leave myself enough runway to abort the TO.

How much time did you spend cleaning the belly before you took that picture?

I suffer from the same problem. You have my sympathy.

Silicon grease, similar to what is used for dive equipment. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000DCVZL/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Wipe on, wipe off excess.

McDonalds and Hot Coffee. The barrier to frivolous law suites must not be that high. The issues I have with the civil justice system is the quality of the jury. Just imagine your mom (or spouses mom) on the jury of a high tech patent case or a case like the one mentioned here. You might have justice if the jury for an aircraft accident was filled with pilots and aircraft mechanics.

I have a 1981 M20K. I'm 5'11. I think I am pretty close to the front most hole. If anyone has 3" extensions they are removing, please let me know. As I have aged, I now appreciate sitting a bit further back from the panel.

With my 231, a finger works just fine. I've never found water in either drain, and I've flown through rain on a few occasions.

I have a friend who was one of the test pilots for the Carter Copter. Lots of interesting stories. I'd expect test flying a Mooney is quite a bit less exciting. (and less exciting in a good way)

I'd love to apply for the test pilot position.

There are two separate item here. 1) the broken gauge, and 2) banging on the top access cover. I would be quite unhappy with any mechanic that would bang on an access cover to remove it. That said, I am having a hard time imaging any amount of banging that would impart enough force to break the needle in a sight gauge. Further when flying, (and landing) you get some pretty good jolts. I'd spend the $40 for a new gauge and assume the part was end of life anyway. And as far as yelling about the sight gauge, I'd skip it. I'd be happy the mechanic was honest enough to call you. The reality is the mechanic probably thinks he broke the sight gauge, but it could have been broken before he even touched the plane and he merely noticed it. --Now if he hit it with a hammer, I would be yelling.

First, you did an awesome job putting your plane down on a runway with an engine failure. Second if I were in that situation, I would have done the same thing with shutting off the engine. That said, if I found myself 1 or 2 miles short of the runway for what ever reason, I would have restarted. --Nice to know it probably would have restarted, even if the engine would need an overhaul afterwards due to the oil loss.

Thanks. I understand the concern now. Basically the critical altitude of the plane when the turbo has failed. As jlunseth mentions, this is somewhere around 12k based on the re-start procedure in the 231. For me, that is high enough to not be a concern, even in most mountainous regions. That said, I expect the most common "turbo failure" is running a tank dry. I am quite careful about running a tank dry at higher altitudes due to the fear it might not restart without going lower. Now the question of how the critical altitude differs between a TN and TC engine. I'm sure it depends on the compression ratio, and there is no guarantee that the compression ratio is significantly higher on the TN engine. --Most TN implementations I have seen are high compression, but I also recall some older engines that were quite happy with 80 octane fuel. If there are TN variants of these engines, I would expect them to have lower compression.

I don't understand your comment about turbo normalized. If the turbo fails (and doesn't dump your oil), you will have a normally aspirated engine. A turbo normalized engine just keeps the turbo at 30 inches, instead of 36 or 40 like factory turbo engines. And a turbo failure in a turbo normalized engine results in a normally aspirated engine. The only difference is most turbo engines have a lower compression ratio, which means a bit less power until. But in either case, the engine will run.

I started off working on the commercial maneuvers in my plane. I think both the chandelles and power off 180 have the potential to be hard on a plane. --After 3 training flights, I decided to finish it with an "accelerated" class because of scheduling issues and I felt I was beating up the turbo engine on my plane and the power off 180 was a bit hard to judge in the 200 ft standard. I ended up finishing in a Piper Lance. It glides like a brick and the power off 180 was super easy to hit every time. Power off, count to 3, arc to runway. The landing gear was very stout and would make up for a less than perfect landing.

My last trip to Fredricksburg Tx (T82) I watched 3 hunters with AR15's getting into a R44 helicopter. Presumably they were out to hunt hogs. --And no, the guns were not in cases. No one seemed to pay any attention to them.

I would think you found the problem. Fly it and see.

I'd prefer a factory re-manufactured engine installed, with 100 hours on it, all in the last year. The problem as a buyer with an older engine is risk. What is it going to cost to overhaul by the time all the issues are dealt with? How long will the plane be down? The benefit is potentially "free" hours on the engine if it goes past TBO, and I get to choose who does the overhaul.

Yes, some use the high or low boost for starting.

If it is the pump, there is a Weldon PMA part that was cheaper than a Dukes overhaul when I was in need a few years back. I second the suggestion to look for a broken primer fuel line. I had the solder joint break at the injector some years ago.

Look at off shore banking rules if you want to see a dual standard! One rule for small corporations, another for bigger.--From the other ChrisK

My only advice would be to lean for take off and ground operations. --Nothing specific to ASE

I will buy a tank of fuel with my refund. $300 only goes so far.