Marauder

I certainly would like to see more competition in the avionics market place. I love my Garmin 650, but the installed price was like making a college payment. This environment reminds me of when King was truly King of the Nav/Com world. I ended up buying a Narco for almost half of what the KX155 was selling for then. I understand the development costs. I get that, but affordable alternatives will help keep the entry point reasonable for the future generation of pilots. One evening I sat in an airport hosted avionics show by one of the local avionics shops. I thought I was sitting in the middle of Jurassic Park, with me being a T-Rex. Thirty people and none under the age of 50. Sad. We are seeing a similar trend with the portable ADS-B antennae. Funny how they all sell for $799.

Sorry, can't resist asking this question. Did the little plastic RC pilot survive? on a serious note, my friend who experienced the prop break said the vibration was so intense that he felt he was absolutely lucky to be able to react at all, let alone quickly enough to shut down the motor before it departed the plane. He said if he hadn't actually seen the piece depart, the confusion about the immediate vibration was very disorienting even with the visual clue.

He is either sitting too far back or the seat back is angled back. His plane has the same seats as mine. I know the back can be rotated back with the wheel on the right side. Looks like he needs to move forward and rotate the seat back forward. He really looks to be sitting really low in the plane and I suspect he is pulling himself up to look over the glare shield. See what you get when you put a camera in the plane?! Back seat fliers! Guess we'll have to wait to hear why...

If you are having troubles swinging the compass, you may need the balancing balls I mentioned above. The steel frame in our Mooneys interfere with magnetic fields. I found that once I installed the balancing balls, I was able to get the compass to calibrate. Just don't permanently glue the balls in place (this is starting to sound like some sort of porno script). If your steel frame is being magnetized by wiring run too close to it, you will need to have your balls free (now it really sounds like a porno script) to recalibrate it. I use a little dab of hot glue to keep it in place.

If all what above checks out, I would make sure your belt isn't slipping. I had a problem with my gear popping the breaker on extension. Went through all of the normal "electron" testing stuff only to find out when the alternator was loaded up, the belt issue came into play. Don't ask me to explain it, nor think I am nuts... I spent a lot of money to rebuild an alternator, replace the circuit breaker, the voltage regulator, re-working the gear, blah, blah, blah -- to find out that, for some unknown reason, replacing the belt fixed it...

And for those who are interested in the specifics of the accident: http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20001212X19629&ntsbno=NYC99LA202&akey=1

I do. I have a friend who survived a prop break that resulted in losing 23 inches on one blade. He said that the E model he was flying went into an extreme vibration. He actually saw the prop piece depart the plane. He was not able to shut the plane down by pulling the mixture because he said the vibration was so bad that he could only slide his hand down his leg and turn off the mags. By then the engine had come loose from its mounts but remained in the cowling. He landed in a hilly area. Would have been fine had it not been for the field he selected was uphill and he pancaked it. Both he and his passenger suffered back injuries. He claimed and this was ithe accident report, that he actually saw the blade come up over the windshield. I suspect if it departed in another part if the rotation it could have hit anything on the plane upfront.

LOL! I had to find mine again once when the CFI faulted it during a BFR one year.

The upward movement of the trim wheel is definitely harder than the downward. One thing to keep an eye on is if the wrong grease was used. When I had my autopilot installed with electric trim, it faulted. We discovered that the grease in the mechanism had actually hardened causing increased resistance.

Good point Jim. I thought at first we are dealing with semantics but it may be the dampener that the question pertains to. You are correct it is a truss (something that is designed with triangular intersects) as opposed to a strut (something that is designed for longitudinal compression support). That said, I have heard it referred to, although incorrectly, as a strut. Even one of my APs referred to it that way. Coming from the northern part of the country and now living in the Mid-Atlantic area, I have gotten used to "soda" but I still drink "pop"

The "strut" is the nose gear strut. It is the mechanism that holds the nose gear in place. Here is a picture of one. Note the dark spot on it, that is the damage.

Getting a new panel cut is the way to go. Most quality avionics shops have the equipment to do it. The bigger cost will be the labor to pull everything and get it mounted in the new panel. I suspect if not a lot of work has been done on your original panel, you will probably encounter some challenges behind the panel (wires with deterioting sheaths, chaffing, etc.) that will need to be addressed. It does always amaze me that manufacturers did what they did years ago.

Good to hear that you were able to locate one. My biggest concern is parts availability for the airframe components as this fleet ages. I'm not surprised on the fuel lines. There is either a SB or AD out on the injector lines. If they are original, they should have been checked years ago. On my last annual I had one replaced, even though I had them all replaced when the first SB/AD came out. I think the part was somewhere around $100 this time around. As for the break-in, IIRC you want them run for long periods and higher power settings. I'm sure others can recall their break-in procedures after top overhauls. I'm really happy you found the spline!

Or a new low

I know the auto industry does things in a similar fashion to improve efficiciency in the manufacturing process. Often you will find the wiring for some options already in place, just not the option itself. It is strange that they would put the whole motor in, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did. The other explanation is that it was purely a mistake either not found or ignored due to the amount of work to correct it. It would be interesting to hear from other MSE owners who have the missing breaker to see what they have under their panels.

Aside of the manual gear, I believe there are at least 2 (not sure about the late model Mooneys) different manual gear extension options. The older one which we are talking about here uses a rotary crank to manually extend the gear. J models started using something I refer to as the pull string. The crank version sits on the left side of the pilot near your knee. The J version was situated in between the seats and used a flip up locking mechanism and then a string mechanism to extend the gear. I remember getting my complex checkout in a J and thought the string mechanism reminded me of pulling one of those strings on a talking doll (Hi! I'm Chucky, can we be friends?). Not sure what is on the newer versions. Both of the earlier designs had issues.

Whatever it is, I don't see any indications of it in the parts manual (at least not where it is described to be located). Mystery...

I found the section in the manual that shows the parts involved. Looks like a cable goes from the crank assembly to the gear motor actuator. If you don't have access to the manuals, let me know and I will send you the pertinent pages.

You have access to a service & parts manual? Let me check the manual and see what parts are involved. I know that a gear mechanism exists and based on your description it isn't engaging or it is stripped.

And for those who thought I have lost my marbles with my "balancing balls" comment, here is a link to the ones for the Precision compass: http://www.chiefaircraft.com/aircraft/flight-instruments/magnetic-compasses/pcn-pbb475.html

Just a comment on the vertical card compass. I had tons of issues keeping the wet compass swung in my Mooney. I upgraded to a vertical card compass 18 years ago and haven't regretted it. The vertical card compass still needs to be swung periodically, but using the "balancing balls" feature, it is usually very easy. It is my understanding that most of the time the reason our compasses get out of calibration is due to the effects of the steel cage being influenced by electrical current running near it. Not sure if this is true, but I made sure that any wire running current to the plane accessories is kept well away from the steel frame.

Provided they consider an operating unit's firmware update a database...

I think the big advantage of this change is for those Aspen owners out there. I was informed that firmware updates required a trip to the avionics shop for the update. If I am reading this correctly, as long as I know the procedure for the update verification, I can do this activity myself.

Thanks for posting these. Big change from the original caps.

There have been a lot of "caps" being thrown around here (pun intended). My bladders were installed in 1992. I am guessing I have the old style Shaw caps. Are these the $49 o rings on Aircraft Spruce? It sounds like there are new style caps for the bladder system. Anyone have a picture of what they look like? My IA inspects my o rings every time I bring the plane in. I asked about changing them out on a regular basis and he told me that they were expensive and only needed to be replaced if they began to wear (I keep my plane hangared so that probably helps). I too like to be proactive. If the new style caps are available, can they be retrofitted on the older style bladder system or is the hole actually different?