Marauder

Can’t wait to see the replies. I was really surprised over the summer at a fly in to see a Mooney that was painted by a well known shop in Florida. The paint job was a mess. Had runs, missed areas and a lot of overspray. When I spoke to the Mooney owner, he said the shop had grown because of his reputation and he is no longer doing the majority of the painting. I would like to see opinions on people with really recent experience. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

$1 million dollars (submitted by an F owner) From my experience, there is no true VRef for any plane these days. There are starting points and you add and subtract from there. In addition to the general condition of the plane itself, the influx of modern avionics will influence the values all over the place. Jimmy Garrison provided a valuation guide to many of us and an F can be as low as the $60k range and over $120k - based on condition and modifications. The things you should be looking at is time time on the engine, how well it has been maintained and what modifications have made to it. Here is a picture of a 76 F model’s panel. How much more would you pay for a 1960s vintage F with this panel? Or would you pay more if the engine on the 76 was new and the 60s was run out? See if Jimmy will share his valuation guide with you. It might help get to the answer you are looking for. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Top one is a Klixon. Bottom one is an ETA. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Was this one of your better takeoffs Gus? [emoji1787] This Mooney has the nose strut on it. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

You’re in that 5% range I wrote about earlier. 95% of the time after the engine has some heat, the “leave everything where it was” technique works. If the engine is slightly warm, you may need to try something closer to a cold start to get it to start. I would try one of these techniques: - push the mixture in and then pull it immediately back to idle cutoff, then start cranking - leave the mixture at idle cutoff, turn the boost pump on for a couple of seconds and then try cranking - use your normal cold start technique As Maxwell mentions, “after you start your own airplane all the time, you’ll see what it takes”. He’s right. It seems some of the F models I have flown or been in all have some variation of what works for them. Once you figure it out, burn it into your memory. And if your tried and true technique doesn’t work, you probably have something going wrong on your plane. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

On a really hot start (like right after fueling on a 90 degree day), it could take 8 to 10 prop rotations. If you anticipate a quick restart, open the oil access panel and let some of the heat out. I have only needed to resort to a flooded start a couple of times in 31 years of owning my F. Maxwell’s hot start technique works, just need to have patience sometimes. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

You ever figure out why it wouldn’t start? I’ve learned in my F that cold starts come in two flavors. A cold start and a cold cold start. If I am starting cold with outside air temps above 40°F, I run the boost pump until I develop full pressure for 3 seconds. I then pull the mixture to idle cutoff and crank. When it is cold cold (below freezing), even after preheating, I do the same with the boost pump but leave the mixture full in. There are a number of hot start recommendations but I found shutting down with the idle RPM at 1000 and on subsequent startup, cranking with everything exactly as I left it at shutdown works about 95% of the time. The problem most people have with hot starts is they don’t let enough prop swings go through.

I don’t recall who from Mooney told me this at one of the MAPA Homecoming events back in the 1990s, but their explanation was it was an attempt to minimize porpoising effect by landing on the nose wheel. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

In my plane, when the gear squat switch was the culprit, the gear will not come up and the gear unsafe light would stay on. It sounds like the gap on yours is within tolerances. My gear unsafe issue was due to really cold flights (like below 10°F). The donuts wouldn’t expand enough to activate the squat switch and the gear stayed down. Mooney recognized this was an issue with the squat switch design and offered a retrofit called the “Gear Bypass” kit. I installed it in my plane.

Some shops won’t clean fine wire plugs. Probably because their spark plug cleaners are set up with an aggressive media safe for massives. I spoke to Tempest and they said that only walnut shell media should be used to clean them. And I’m willing to bet a lot of shops reuse copper gaskets as well. As for the fouling, I lean aggressively as well and although I never had a fouled fine wire, I have seen a fair amount of lead in one of them when I pulled it. I always thought it might be due to that particular cylinder was a little more richer than the others. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Nice solution. Now you need to solve the next challenge. How do you get by the extra large individual standing on the wing walk waiting to sit in the co-pilot seat without stepping on the wing yourself after you stowed and closed the baggage door? [emoji13] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Don’t know where you guys get your information from. But I know for a fact that these drones are in reality small crafts piloted by little green people who practiced the choreography for months. Just like the Blue Angels. You might have caught one of their earlier shows in “batteries not included”. [emoji38] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

It is a substrate with polyvinyl resins that improves the gripping power of a screwdriver. Doesn’t bond with either the screw or driver, just adds a bit of traction. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

You should be fine with the new Tempest fine wires. Yeti, me and a few others were caught up in the batch of plugs that had outsourced center electrode welding done. I had one plug that failed. Tempest wasn’t initially very accommodating with me. I think they knew they had a quality issue and were trying to avoid a wide recall. It wasn’t until I pointed out that it was getting visibility on the forums that they changed their tune with me (their original request was for me to send my plugs in to be tested and only replace what they considered to be “bad”). Eventually they provided me a whole set including the two spares I keep. I have about 400 hours on them since they were replaced and they look fine. As for cleaning them, I did speak to one of their technical people and he said it was okay to clean them with walnut shells as media. I found the walnut shells are a bit problematic as they get stuck in the electrode area. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Before you resort to trying to drill them out, if you can find a screwdriver that fits reasonably well (like a #1 Philips), try using this stuff: You might also have success with a pair of these: Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Wonder what precious metals are in northern Delaware? Maybe Fort Knox was moved. [emoji1787] In my neck of the woods, it’s precious mushrooms. Who would have thought there was enough money in mushrooms for some of them to own Pilatus turboprops. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Based on his flight profiles, I’d say he is involved in some sort aerial surveying. We had a plane doing similar profiles by me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Hang in there. My father-in-law dealt with an infection with his knew replacement and overcame it. His biggest aggravation with the situation was being kneeless for the time it takes to heal. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

You’ll be happy to know they are working on a new “Modena”. With the TFR coming up frequently, they are proposing a new location for that always assigned departure waypoint. I think they should label it “STINKY” out of respect to you. [emoji13] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Yep, the “unknown” of where the clearance would take you was always in the back of my mind. Especially when you realized the routing would take you over the Atlantic on your way to Nantucket. [emoji225] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I think what you mentioned is the key to how to manage it. Write it down and then just enter the first couple of waypoints. I found, especially here in the northeast, the clearance I was assigned doesn’t last long. So the effort of putting in the whole clearance, including GEERI, usually was wasted energy. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

It comes down to the difference between old school IFR and new school IFR. When I got my instrument rating, there was no GPS routing. You filed the Victor airways and you sat there with your paper and wrote down what you got versus what you filed. You got in the plane, tuned the first VOR and radial and off you went. Simple enough. Now throw in a GPS with 5 letter waypoints. You file, it is accepted and you meander over to your GPS and take 5 minutes to plug it in. You call up for your clearance and you get a totally different alphabet soup to load up. And then to make it even more irritating for you, they give you a waypoint that can be spelled 10 different ways. Was it “JERRY” or “GERRY” or “JERRI”? Oh wait, it is “GEERI”. You would think in the age of modern computers, the algorithms would be there to figure out and provide the routing you will get. We can only hope PDC is fully implemented and we can stop the “guess me if you can” shenanigans. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Wow! Never even knew that a USB interface box existed. Always thought these units allowed direct transfer to a thumb drive. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Don - this is the one that came with my unit (4Gb). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Personally, I would take a Vulcan any day. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro