Well it bugs me but not enough to fix yet

I get that sticky landing gear every once in a while and it usually reminds me when I turn off the runway onto the taxiway, it settles. What do you mean your toe brakes are worthless? Do you have brakes on the passenger side or do you just use the hand brake? Small step? You mean the beefy one attached to the airframe below the flap? I don't like my engine gauge suite either and I'm eventually going to change those out for one of these and get rid of the tach cable.

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Timbeck2 said:
I don't like my engine gauge suite either and I'm eventually going to change those out for one of these and get rid of the tach cable.

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A lot of my Mooniac brethren go on and on about engine analyzers. I don't get it. I'm running a plane jane Lycosaur 0360, and there's been one like it running in my airplane since 1962. What could possibly be so bad?
 
Timbeck2 said:
One man's goldenrod is another man's "old man brown." Buddy of mine had an Arrow painted old man brown with brownish/orange carpet and interior. It even smelled old.
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LOL. Our interior is old. For sure. The airplane was repainted in the 90s but the interior is straight outta the disco era.

Maybe the “little thing” I keep meaning to fix and don’t is that the sheepskin covering the left seat has been “shedding” for a few years.

Another new sheepskin and we can ignore all that lovely gold carpet for another 2000+ hours! :)
 
Not necessarily the engine analyzer as much as changing out the oil temp, oil pressure and fuel pressure gauges in the Cherokee. They are not lit and hard to see at night. I'll see if I can find a picture.

Edit: Here's one of an Arrow I found online. Not exact but similar to the left and right of the yoke shaft. You might say, "well, those aren't so hard to read." and I would agree with you but if they are the originals they have faded, gotten scratched etc and like I said are unlit.

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steingar said:
A lot of my Mooniac brethren go on and on about engine analyzers. I don't get it. I'm running a plane jane Lycosaur 0360, and there's been one like it running in my airplane since 1962. What could possibly be so bad?
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You'd be surprised at what you don't know. Think of the engine analyzer like ADS-B. There's a whole bunch of stuff out there you didn't know about.
 
denverpilot said:
LOL. Our interior is old. For sure. The airplane was repainted in the 90s but the interior is straight outta the disco era.

Maybe the “little thing” I keep meaning to fix and don’t is that the sheepskin covering the left seat has been “shedding” for a few years.

Another new sheepskin and we can ignore all that lovely gold carpet for another 2000+ hours! :)
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Uh...sheepskin. The previous owner had those covers on the seats and was the first thing I took out. Had years and years of sweat smell stuck to them. After they were taken out I looked at the backside. They looked like a civil war bandage. <shudders at the memory>

Since then my seats and side panels have been reupholstered in leather.
 
Timbeck2 said:
I get that sticky landing gear every once in a while and it usually reminds me when I turn off the runway onto the taxiway, it settles. What do you mean your toe brakes are worthless? Do you have brakes on the passenger side or do you just use the hand brake? Small step? You mean the beefy one attached to the airframe below the flap? I don't like my engine gauge suite either and I'm eventually going to change those out for one of these and get rid of the tach cable.

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Meaning they don't work very well. I don't have brakes on the passenger side. I use the hand brake all the time. Yes the beefy step...gonna have to get a new one or get that one repaired. That looks like a nice unit.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Uh...sheepskin. The previous owner had those covers on the seats and was the first thing I took out. Had years and years of sweat smell stuck to them. After they were taken out I looked at the backside. They looked like a civil war bandage. <shudders at the memory>

Since then my seats and side panels have been reupholstered in leather.
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Our sheepies aren’t too bad. You should see the seats under them! LOL.
 
I have a Bo, its its perfect, right?

My left Aux tank might be leaking. Annual is coming up, so I use my main tanks for now.
My #2 KX155 dimmer is broken. So at night the display goes black. Shine a light and the display comes back full brightness. Found out KX155 arent repairable any more. So if I fly at night I use a headlamp or just rely on the 430. Havent decided on a upgrade or fix path yet.

Oh and the worst part is there is a loose nut behind the yoke when I fly..
 
EdFred said:
You'd be surprised at what you don't know. Think of the engine analyzer like ADS-B. There's a whole bunch of stuff out there you didn't know about.
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Again, the thing has been doing its thing for over 4K hours since 1962. How bad can it be?
 
I agree with you steingar but I can't find reliable replacement gauges for my faded and scratched up pressure/temperature gauges. If I'm replacing them along with my tachometer, then an analyzer is what I'll get.
 
steingar said:
Again, the thing has been doing its thing for over 4K hours since 1962. How bad can it be?
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It's not necessarily how bad can it be, but how much more efficient can you be.
 
Timbeck2 said:
I agree with you steingar but I can't find reliable replacement gauges for my faded and scratched up pressure/temperature gauges. If I'm replacing them along with my tachometer, then an analyzer is what I'll get.
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My fuel gauges were crap. My ammeter always read 0, I didn't have a load meter, and by the time I priced out individual replacement gauges, I ended up with an MVP-50
 
EdFred said:
My fuel gauges were crap. My ammeter always read 0, I didn't have a load meter, and by the time I priced out individual replacement gauges, I ended up with an MVP-50
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I changed out my fuel gauges with Aerospace logic and Cies senders. Now my fuel gauges are as accurate and are as easy as the one in my truck. After a wire failure from my alternator on a trip to Texas I changed out my crappy ammeter to a voltage/amp meter from Electronics International. Now I can see what my alternator is putting out and check on amp draw as well with warning lights for both.
 
CC268 said:
In all seriousness we just had our annual and basically took care of all our squawks. That said, there are a few things that still bug me (but aren't really easily fixed). One is sticky landing gear. The struts tend to stick despite the linkages being lubed, nitrogen and oil levels correct, etc. I'm not a fan of the needle gauges for oil temp, fuel pressure, etc. They work fine, but they just seem dinky. I have the toe brakes on the pilot side, which are completely worthless. I'd like to have them removed, but I think it is quite a bit of work. There was a small leak, supposedly our A&P replaced the seals to fix that. Still don't work with a darn. The little machine screw that holds the door catch to the door seal (not sure if I am explaining that well) recently stripped out. Oh...and the small step cracked. This ironically happened during the annual (our A&P is a larger guy...we suspect he actually caused the damage *sigh*)

That's about it.
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So, you lied to us? :confused:

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My pilot side window has a vent but is frosty, my passenger side is clear but has no vent. If frosty and no vent were on the same side, I could replace one window and be good. Think that’s a match for the thread title.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I assume we are talking about a cap that looks like this:
and is not quite lined up with the air flow. In this case, the long tab works like an airflow generating a force to the right or left. Now, at 15 degrees it is probably stalled, but when close to, but not quite, lined up with the airflow it will generate lift to one side or the other and the center of the lift will be somewheres around 25ish percent of the distance from the front which will tend to open or closed depending on which way the tabs are off. Now, the actual magnitude of the force is too small to do anything, but it will be non-zero.
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Correct. Just like a canoe on the water in the wind. If you let it go, it will turn 90 degrees to the wind and stay there. It won't line up with the wind, and won't keep rotating in the wind. The center of lift moves to the centre of the canoe as it reaches 90°.

A cap that loosens because it's not lined up has much bigger problems than misalignment.
 
Had to think about this for a bit. Ah, the luxuries of a relatively young airplane.

But then I realized there are two things. The first is that we, yet again, have a recognition light burned out. These are white forward-facing lights at the wingtips. Whelen makes them. The dumb thing is that, despite having a 28V electrical system, and Whelen making a 28V version of the light, Mooney put in the 14V version of the light - Probably a certification thing, since they were already using the 14V version on their older planes with 14V electrical systems. Then, to drop the voltage down, they put a big fat resistor inside the wing, so you get double the heat and half the light. :mad2: We're (slowly) working on getting LED replacements approved. Probably won't bother to finish until our annual in December.

The other is that our AI is... Interesting. It seems to be OK if you leave both the autopilot and flight director off. However, after a long leg with FD or AP/FD on, it'll start leaning over to the side. Takes at least an hour to start, and sometimes you'll fly a 5-hour leg where it's fine. And once it happens, I usually cut off the autopilot and turn on the standby vac for good measure, and it'll re-erect within 10 minutes. Seems to fall off quicker the second time, though...

The options for replacing it kind of suck, though, because the autopilot depends on it. So, G5 AI won't do us any good unless we also replace the KFC 150 with a G500. Getting it overhauled would be $6K. We could replace it with a KI-300 for maybe $9K, but that's really nothing more than a G5 with the ability to drive the autopilot, so it's horrendously overpriced and probably still not shipping. Aspen is $12K and I'm not very confident that they're going to be around much longer unless they come up with something big by Oshkosh this year.

So, really, we're looking at a G500 TXi which is a pretty penny that I'm not in any hurry to spend, especially since it looks like if our autopilot were to kick the bucket, we wouldn't be able to drive a GFC500 with it. I'm also not really fond of any of the backup AI options right now.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
The other is that our AI is... Interesting. It seems to be OK if you leave both the autopilot and flight director off. However, after a long leg with FD or AP/FD on, it'll start leaning over to the side. Takes at least an hour to start, and sometimes you'll fly a 5-hour leg where it's fine. And once it happens, I usually cut off the autopilot and turn on the standby vac for good measure, and it'll re-erect within 10 minutes. Seems to fall off quicker the second time, though...
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I assume you’ve checked the plumbing to it? We had some weirdness that didn’t show up on the vacuum gauge that was related to old plumbing, a plugged filter, and later again on another checkup a deformed and leaking air water catch bubble in the static line. Instruments were fine, the plumbing had some need of TLC. Took two rounds and a couple of events to clear that all up.

LoneAspen said:
Mirror ball hanging where the magnetic compass is supposed to be? :)
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Not a bad idea really... we still haven’t mounted the Hula dancer, but she might like a disco ball overhead... hahaha.

The plastic thing that holds the seat belt up in storage above your head on the pilot side cracked and busted — co-owner 3D printed a replacement. Not an exact match color wise, but it’s functional! :)
 
denverpilot said:
I assume you’ve checked the plumbing to it? We had some weirdness that didn’t show up on the vacuum gauge that was related to old plumbing, a plugged filter, and later again on another checkup a deformed and leaking air water catch bubble in the static line. Instruments were fine, the plumbing had some need of TLC. Took two rounds and a couple of events to clear that all up.
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Avionics guy told me it was the instrument dying. He's seen it plenty of times because of the chronic problems we were having with the autopilot there for a few years. He's also had it out and operating on his test rig completely out of the airplane and it was still fairly slow to get going, so it is the instrument.

It's just not worth doing anything to it, so we've been waiting for it to diiiiieeeeeeeee..... ssssssssssssllllloooooowwwwwwwlllllllyyyyy.
 
GRG55 said:
I like that. Cut the cost of flying. Swing the wing all the way, load it on a trailer, store it at home, eliminate hangar fees. :cool: :)

Do they make one that runs on mogas?
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Looks like a kerosene burner.
 
steingar said:
A lot of my Mooniac brethren go on and on about engine analyzers. I don't get it. I'm running a plane jane Lycosaur 0360, and there's been one like it running in my airplane since 1962. What could possibly be so bad?
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Once you've had one, you'll never go back... As long as you take the time to learn what it's telling you.

I can tell you that engine monitors have saved me more money at the shop than they've ever cost to install. It's the difference between "My engine's running rough" and "Can you please replace the lower spark plug on #4?" If you get one that logs the data and you store it over time, it can be the difference between "#3 is running hot now that the weather has warmed up" and "That's perfectly normal" (which is free).

Finally, it can tell you that you have a baffling problem that is causing half of your engine to run too hot and give you a chance to fix it before it costs you an early overhaul, at which point you have saved an order of magnitude more money than the monitor cost you.

A lot of your Mooniac brethren go on and on about GPS. I don't get it. You're running a plain jane KX155, and there's been one like it running in your airplane since 1962. What could possibly be so bad?

Point is, new tech comes out for a reason. Some new tech doesn't do you much good, but things like engine monitors, GPS, LED lights, etc that spread like wildfire do so for a reason. GA benefits from technology, even if some of what we're running is 50+ years old.
 
I’d love a JPI in the Cherokee
 
EdFred said:
I thought your plane was perfect?
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Almost. Just need a JPI 930, GTN 750, GFC500, PS Engineering PMA8000BT, G5 AI. Maybe 180hp motor, some more efficient wings, etc. Just a few minor things.
 
I've had mine 3 months. Other than a small hiccup I have no negative comments about it.
 
The AC recirculation button on my plane is sticky/really hard to press.
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...other than that the twin turbofans and pressurization (that were never installed but that I really want) are INOP.
 
See? This is my problem, that I won't let any little thing go...it's costing me a FORTUNE! LOL.
 
My GMX-200 crashing frequently when the OAT is above standard falls kinda into this category. I've put up with it now for several years. It's not needed for airworthiness, nor to be legal for IFR, but it is my wx and traffic display screen, so I'd like to get it fixed soon.
 
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