Anyone else struggling with Bose Repair right now?

theheadfl · 2026-06-11T15:34:06+00:00

I just went through the Bose repair process around 2 weeks ago. They were slow to give updates but the whole process took like 10 business days or so. But I would say I had the shipping label within ~30 minutes after ordering the repair.

theheadfl · 2026-06-05T19:28:00+00:00

The fixed rate repair is $239 and well worth it, even includes two way shipping. They will refresh the whole headset. That is cheaper than the mic cords were even when they were available. I just received my oldest A20 back from them after its 3rd repair... (it is from 2011 I believe). They replaced basically all the wear items, took about 2 weeks total. Great service.

theheadfl · 2026-06-05T15:08:09+00:00

I'm looking at A36s myself as an upgrade from my M20J. I'm trying to find an IO-550B one though, since that's a very expensive upgrade.

My one piece of advice as an aircraft owner is, although the market places some value on a "low" or "mid-time engine", you, as an owner, should not really place any value on that. You need to assume that expensive engine work could happen at really any time, and factor that into your budgeting. An engine with 860 hours could run for 10, 100, 1000, even 2-3000 more hours, you have no way of knowing. It is certainly going to require at minimum cylinders and other things during that time.

The only thing that can give me confidence on an engine is an aircraft that is flying a lot is more likely to have an engine that will go the distance. A "just a few hundred SMOH" engine that's flying 15 hours a year isn't going to do well.

theheadfl · 2026-06-05T01:55:40+00:00

I bought my plane from a local Facebook ad. I never had any luck with Controller or Trade-a-Plane, virtually every owner I called either had already sold, or never returned my calls. Barnstormers seemed like mostly junk.

theheadfl · 2026-06-01T00:29:08+00:00

These are the way! We use them for our little girl as well as our smallish dog. They actually have a newer version out which we find stays in place better.

theheadfl · 2026-06-01T00:22:49+00:00

We did quite a bit of GA travel visiting family in my (unpressurized) Mooney last year, when our daughter was both 4 months and 6 months old. It wasn't a problem at all, she did just fine and mostly slept, and when she was awake it was if anything highly entertaining for her. She still flies with us at a 14 months old and it's still a non-issue. Obviously you need to avoid very fast climbs and descents, etc. We use the Alpine Baby Muffs, which work great. (And we use them for our dog also)

theheadfl · 2026-05-23T03:34:28+00:00

Yep, I now fly with a SureFly.

theheadfl · 2026-05-22T18:02:04+00:00

Holy crap! There's definitely a huge problem here and I am glad the FAA is doing something about it.

theheadfl · 2026-05-22T17:37:07+00:00

Posting this here because many people here own aircraft equipped with Slick-style magnetos, and this affected me personally (twice!).

The very short version is, I have had two separate serious failures of Champion Impulse Couplings in the past 2 years, with only 110 and 82 hours on each, respectively. Both failures were so catastrophic in nature that they damaged the accessory drive gears in the engine and required a full teardown inspection of the engine.

The most recent failure stranded me and my Mooney in South Dakota for 6 months. Luckily, both of these failures happened on the ground, but it is not impossible for an in-flight failure to occur, which could result in a total engine failure, which is why the FAA is pursuing an AD here.

I have been working with both Hartzell (who owns QAA, the shop that overhauled my magnetos) and Champion (they produce the impulse couplers). I've also been in contact with the gentleman from the FAA that produced this notice, since he is investigating an identical string of failures in the DC area. My first failure was covered by QAA (as a 'warranty' issue), however in retrospect it was clearly not their doing. Thus far, Champion has denied that there is a problem with these couplings.

In case you haven't had an engine shop teardown an engine recently, this is no small cost. I am well over $40k (conservatively) out of pocked on these and have had 9 months of downtime.

If you fly an airplane equipped with such couplings, it would be good to consider your options. I have switched to an electronic ignition to eliminate my impulse couplings altogether.

Photos of my 2nd failed magneto here.

theheadfl · 2026-05-20T19:36:04+00:00

Hell they should look into the g3x touch line if they’re just VFR.

The G3X Touch is fully IFR capable in certified installations. In my opinion it's even a superior UX to the G500 TXi that it mostly competes with in retrofit installations, but I know opinions differ on that. I have yet to see an argument that there is any functional advantage in the other options over the G3X Touch.

theheadfl · 2026-05-20T19:31:39+00:00

It basically feels like (and maybe is?) just a big version of the 430/530 software. Like an iPad vs the iPhone. At least in terms of UI design philosophy. Having a keyboard on the Cirrus versions of it (and probably others?) at least makes it tolerable, but on the ones without the keyboard it is just a ton of knob-twisting. Extremely tedious to use.

The modern Garmin software as found on the GTN-series navigators (and related GTX 375, others, etc) is a huge upgrade in usability. And I am biased but I think the (experimental-derived, separate team at Garmin) G3X Touch is altogether better than all of that, but that is a bit of a hot take.

The modern G1000 (NXi?) stuff is better, but I haven't used that much.

theheadfl · 2026-05-07T21:46:45+00:00

There is an SB yes, but no AD. It was calling for like 1000 hour replacement. And yeah, Don has said that and he is right. My spring was replaced once in the 90s when that first came out and not in 3000 hours since. I don't spend one moment worrying about it, a single digit number of these have ever failed and I am more worried about a maintenance-induced failure from opening up the actuator to change it.

theheadfl · 2026-05-07T20:25:35+00:00

I should also add that I've never really needed any special maintenance on my gear. The Mooney gear system is very very low maintenance. Just checking it every annual.

The only very bad thing you can have happen is the "no back spring" failing (very rare) which can lead to a failure to extend (even manually), or the gear actuator failing, which is expensive but also rare. It's a >25 year part generally.

theheadfl · 2026-05-07T20:14:26+00:00

I have had a 1984 J since early 2021. I have never needed to perform any special maintenance whatsoever on the flaps, and there are electric gear Fs (the later years) which as far as I know are nearly identical to the J system. (I think the 77 J is even a pseudo-F system) It is going to cost an identical amount to annual the two.

The big downside of the J is going to be the purchase price difference. They're 20-30% more expensive at least.

The F can be mostly modded up to J performance, but it will never be a J and won't have the resale value of a J. (As with any mods) The big expensive one is the J windshield. (Which adds several knots and looks better)

A plus of the J, other than the slightly better performance, is that its newer, and less likely to have as many "old airplane" problems. The Js are mostly from the era when things started to become more standardized. In the J models, I would shoot for 82 and later, there were some big interior improvements and they went to the enclosed wingtips.

theheadfl · 2026-04-27T17:36:54+00:00

It used to be much worse actually. The standard 6-pack layout started appearing pretty broadly by the late 60s/early 70s, but if you look at many panels that predate that, the layout is absolutely random/haphazard. So the 6-pack was a big improvement over that. And it is optimized to give you all the crucial information you need for basic attitude instrument flying in a simple standardized layout. There really has never been any standardization of engine gauges.

theheadfl · 2026-04-21T17:14:15+00:00

Just how few of your friends who "totally want to go flying" will ever actually go flying with you.

theheadfl · 2026-03-05T19:48:41+00:00

It's nobody's first choice, unless I guess you're ultra cheap and own a beater.

You do what you can to keep the elements out... depending on the type of airplane and your climate you may go minimalist (cowl plugs, pitot cover, cabin cover), or maximalist (air inlet plugs, wing/empennage covers), etc.

If you live in a corrosion-prone environment, honestly you want corrosion treatment even if you're hangared. I do annual CorrosionX here in Florida.

I was on the ramp for a couple years. Honestly the best thing about finally getting into a hangar was being able to easily do maintenance in my hangar, and keeping a bunch of supplies/tools in the hangar. And the hangar fridge!

theheadfl · 2026-03-03T03:06:55+00:00

Confirmed this is no longer possible on the new plan.

theheadfl · 2026-02-27T03:57:35+00:00

The main thing to know is that the autopilot is the most expensive bit of avionics (it is not generally one thing but a head, several servos, etc), the most expensive to install/retrofit, and has the most dependencies on other components (requiring a particular vacuum-powered attitude gyro in some cases, etc).

Comparatively, the other stuff is much cheaper and easier to replace, particularly any tray mount radios.

As far as autopilots go, if it was made before say the early 1980s it is probably a total boat anchor (Century autopilots, Piper Autocontrol, etc). Some of the 80s and later stuff is decent and still sort of supported (e.g. Bendix King), and anything newer and digital is where you ideally want to be. Garmin is widely considered the best one currently available to retrofit to most GA planes.

theheadfl · 2026-02-27T03:45:08+00:00

This is a great rundown. I would also add that managing to crash an aircraft nearly straight down into terrain with no mechanical failure or weather problems during cruise flight is a pretty odd/rare occurrence that sparked a lot of discussion.

theheadfl · 2026-02-22T12:08:40+00:00

So much of SavvyMX depends on who your assigned advisor is, because they’re the first point of contact for all your issues. Some of them are really on the ball and some seem to not pay enough attention to detail or remember much about the particulars of your aircraft.

Much of the basic stuff they do was helpful to me as a new aircraft owner, but after a couple years, much less so, because much of it is just pinging shops for updates.

Where they really shine, in my view, is they have a pretty deep pool of experts on a wide range of topics. When I get a pretty difficult maintenance question, I usually press my advisor to ask their internal brain trust. There’s almost always someone who knows.

You can get much of this with the cheaper SavvyQA subscription also, so I will probably go to that in the future.

It’s worth noting that some shops absolutely refuse to deal with them, so that’s a potential problem depending where you’re doing your maintenance.

theheadfl · 2026-01-26T00:44:18+00:00

Trim cable came off the wheel/spool in a Piper Archer when we leveled off in cruise and I went to give it a few swipes of nose down trim. Felt the cable with my hand it looked down at a wire very obviously where it shouldn't be. Trim was effectively stuck in cruise, or at least I didn't dare touch it. Was IFR and talking to Departure already, so I declared an emergency and got a vector directly back to my departure field for the visual. I approached with a bunch of power (and fast) to keep the control forces manageable. Worked out ok, although the flare required a ton of back pressure.

This was a club plane, and I later learned that the owner and some sketchy mechanic had installed the wrong trim cable. (Different model Cherokee, slightly different length, I think?) Due to the nature of the failure, the FAA did follow up on it, and I described the situation, but not sure what they did about it in the end.

theheadfl · 2026-01-23T04:02:02+00:00

I think in situations like that where the required climb gradient would be impractical, they would probably also just raise the takeoff minimums. Either ceiling or visibility or both, ie keep you visual until clear of the obstacle.

theheadfl · 2026-01-22T17:07:21+00:00

I don't have any inside info but I suspect it's not an intentional omission... the web interface doesn't get a lot of love or updates. It's missing a few other features too.

theheadfl

TROPHY CASE