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The Bendix-King KI 525A PNI

A buddy had one of the latches on the cowl of his Cherokee fail and he lost the top half of the cowl in the pattern. It flipped up and landed flat agains the leading edge of one of the wings for a while, and then fell off into a neighborhood, never to be seen again. He just flew it as normal, told the tower his cowl came off (the tower guy had seen it and told him about where it landed), and returned to the field without further incident. It put a dent in one of the wing tanks, which isn't too difficult to replace on a Cherokee. Took a trip to one of the BAS yards and he was back in business. It is sad when something that could be, and should be, a non-event, isn't.

Really lucky. Sounds like he wasn't far from being another door pop stall fatality statistic.

My Owners Manual doesn't mention anything other than normal and short field landings. Go arounds weren't a thing back in 1970; I just treat it like a normal takeoff.

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Forgot to latch the oil door. On takeoff roll, it flipped open. Made the pattern and landed. My initial instinct was to position the plane in such a way using pitch and rudder that the wind might not rip the door hinge apart. But then a more reasonable voice came into my head and gently reminded me in a harsh way to fly the plane and not kill myself over a replaceable oil access door. I landed and taxied over near my hangar and shut down. I Decided to grab a bottle of water while I was shut down. Went to take off and on take off roll the damn thing was still open! This time I pulled the throttle at around 10ft agl and landed on the remaining runway, shut it down and closed the oil access door for real this time. -David

Like mine - positive climb, flaps to 10°, retract gear, retract flaps

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wth, mine popped open a few times due to bad latches, it's NOT exciting at all

Additionally Paul now runs the Oasis Aero https://oasisaero.com/about.html - he has taken over the original shop in addition to his Weep No More business. He has a partner Eric that is an instructor/mechanic but I assume not associated with the failed business that first took over Bruce's shop. Correction - Paul and Eric are co-owners of the two entities while Paul runs Weep no more and Eric runs Oasis.

Mine is 2272 including TKS and a number of other goodies.

Update; purchased a new one from LASAR/Mooney and it also came with the same problematic hole locations, identical to the replacement I purchased before. Frank requested I send back my original cracked one back. I did so they used it to check their tooling. Evidently there was some errors made when they increased hole sizes and the tooling during an engineering change late’62. Frank says 17 have been sold since 2017, but only mine was returned. That may explain why the drawings match my original part & part number but not the other 16 sold that were not returned and as far as we know were installed. Anyway, they were able to press form a new one for me without holes so at least they are still capable of press forming vintage parts.

I had this happen, the door didn’t flop around, IIRC it just stayed open.

I just noticed that he got as slow as 56 knots in his first 180 turn - and it was a tight as the second - probably a 30 degree bank or more. I bet his stall horn was going off. He was probably fixated on the oil door that was up or flopping in the wind. He is lucky.

What are the instruments in your panel that is giving the KFC-150 it's attitude and heading? Bendix-King steam gauges? Aspen with an EA-100?

Sad. Should have just flown a regular pattern and ignored the door.

FAA ASIAS reports runway overrun on landing. Pilot sounds calm on Tower LiveATC but obviously struggled with trying to land twice. Not clear if there was any damage but plane did not fly again - not a simple "close door and take off again". Wind was not a factor - Tower said "09 at 3 knots". He told the Tower his "oil door popped open" and he asked for a "tear drop" back to the 3L 4,000 ft runway that he took off from on 21R. With baro at 30.04 it looks like the got to about 500 ft AGL in the turn. The problem was that when he turned Final and was about 1,100 ft from the threshold (over Dresden Rd) he was at about 300 ft. AGL doing 87 knots and descending at -1,088 fpm. 10 seconds later he was over the runway (about 400 ft past the threshold) and was still at about 200 ft AGL doing 79 knots and descending at -960 fpm. He was unable to land on 3L and asked for another "teardrop" back to 21R. Tower asked him if he wanted to declare an Emergency. He responded "No". Tower told him 16 was also available but he said he wanted to stay on 21R. Note that 21L was 6,000 ft long. He did not ask for it. In the 2nd teardrop he got to about 500 ft. AGL but got rather slow - mostly at 66 knots but as low as 63 knots. I calculated that he was in a 32 degree bank on about a 630 ft. radius turn But then he came screaming in on Final - at about 500 ft from the threshold, he was actually accelerating to 90 knots while at about 100 ft. AGL and increasing his descent to -640 fpm. It looks like he was forcing it into the runway. There are several topics on the "impossible turn...the impossible 180" with an engine out. This is a case of two (2) 180's with the engine running perfectly. Something as simple as an oil door open can create a helmet fire. Runway excursion Incident Mooney M20E N2674W, Tuesday 23 September 2025 N2674W Flight Tracking and History - FlightAware https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a29bf7&lat=33.879&lon=-84.292&zoom=14.5&showTrace=2025-09-24&trackLabels&timestamp=1758673097 ATC Audio Archives | LiveATC.net Go to KPDK Tower #1 on the 23 at 00:00Z-03:00Z. Starts about 15 minutes in with take-off.

When the wife says to buy something for the plane, it is no time to argue with her Maybe you can get some money for the current prop as salvage.

Nicely done. Enjoy!

As stated before these are for sale commercially, sometimes a lightly used set comes for sale when an airplane is sold, I have a 25 year old Bruces canopy cover that held up quite well and that I used for travel, a fair amount of know how is is in the choice of the fabric, the liner and the sewing, you may be an expert with a swing machine, then maybe start by getting a 60" roll of paper and make templates

I think the point is that some Mooney POHs say to raise flaps to the TO position first, then retract the gear, and some say the opposite, so it’s valid to question why? What I’ve learned from this thread is that full flaps and the landing gear have similar drag, but the flaps reduce stall speed and raising them creates a pitch up moment, which combined with the pitch up moment created by adding full power, can be difficult for some pilots of long bodies to control. Given these facts, Don’s @donkaye, MCFI procedure seems best for all models and has the added benefit of being the simplest.

My door has opened twice--my wife's first flight, where Miss I Can Do It Myself shut the door, and it popped open about three miles away. I gave her the choice of continuing our hour-plus flight or going back to land, she chose to land. The other time was a warm day, flying alone. Looking back, I couldn't remember if I actually closed the door before takeoff or not, but I noticed it climbing through several hundred feet agl. Decided to keep going, leveled off at 3000 msl for a 40-minute flight, slowed down just below 100 mph, opened my storm window and figured I could try one time; to my great surprise, I was able to close and latch it, then continued on. It wasn't too noisy, and I could have finished the flight, but thought it was worth one try (but not two tries!). YMMV and all that . . . . .

You can call them, but they only want to work on their own flight school planes, if you offer to lease it back to them then they may take a look at it. It seems to be the newest thing, thr airport sponsor is required to offer maintenance as a Grant assurance, but they get some flight school in there that takes over the maintenance shop and then, although they give the appearance of holding out to the public, they will not work on other planes besides theirs

Can't say enough things about Micheal at Heath aviation. Doesn't even look like the same plane. Beyond excited about the new panel and getting to fly her...... (one of these days.... PPL Oct 3rd.... say a prayer for me)

I would say opening the door on short final would be good once to experience the wind noise as it is significant. Had it happen to me once and was surprised by the noise but that was all. I have not tried to close my door in flight nor have i had it open on me in flight again. If i did i will try to close it if I’m not in the pattern and if i am i can live with the noise until i get down on the ground.

Yep all true- PIC is PIC...Check lists are a must. We all can get complacent at times, and that is when you get bit. Even after 1010 times the door was closed and latch correctly, one distraction is all it takes. The reality is during warm summer days the cabin door can be opened and closed several times during ground operations. Good communication is important. In my line of work, the captain is the captain, however when the other member says "check" then the captain most likely trusts it. My story was reality - detailing there was no way my M20C door can be closed in flight without maybe sever slips at low airspeed. Even then, I don't think 'my door' would close. If the door opens, just fly the pattern and land. Your Mooney will fly just fine around the patch. And if you do have an open door, sunny days would be preferred over dark rainy nights....