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Lolitta - N7432V has a new look!

I went out to the hanger early this morning to swap out some Brittain servos in my wings. After everything I had read I was expecting it to be a painful experience. Turned out to be a pretty easy task once I started on it. Finished up the job and paperwork signed off I decided to head up to a local Fly in and car show at Franklin Co. VT. Taxied out to the run up area and what do you know there was another Mooney on the ramp. Neat we don't get many Mooneys in Rutland. Off into the wild blue clear sky to Franklin. Uneventful trip up enjoying the lake to the west and the spine of the Green Mountains on the east. Everything was going so well, until landing. I got it off the runway and onto the taxiway since there were other incoming aircraft. I asked the woman who was marshaling if she could see my front tire. She said "Yup it's very flat". She said just shutdown right there and someone would be over to see me. A minute later a few guys come up in a golf cart and say no problem you picked a good day for that to happen. One goes off to get a dolly and another heads to his hanger to grab a spare tire he had sitting around just in case. Turns out the mechanic on the field is Dan Marcotte (air show pilot) and he just happens to be there for the fly in. I spent some time talking to Dan while he swapped out the tire and he had one of these sitting in his hanger. 15 minutes later we are back out the door and putting the tire back on. Dan wouldn't take a dime for his time or tire and tube. What a great community pilots are! Everyone couldn't wait to pitch in and just be helpful. I enjoyed some vintage aircraft and decided that I had enough excitement for one day and headed back to Rutland. What started out as so well with the servos but ended up even better because what could have been a real PITA for me was a non event thanks to all of the kind souls. My faith in humanity is restored. (at least for the day or until I turn on the news)

My first ever year f ownership I decided to total up all my costs. After seeing the results I assiduously vowed never to do such a thing again.

I finally got my baby back today after a long and extensive refurbish. N201JJ is the 51st 201 to come off the line in Kerrville. It’s been in the family since new in ‘77. Now she is ready for my kids. Special props to KSMooniac for the inspiration some years back. I’ve loved his airplane since I first saw it here on the site. We made a few changes to make it our own.

We all rely on someone, here's an example of why my wife is a rockin' Mooney spouse...thanks for the gift, honey! Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

I select the tank I plan on using before start up and do not touch the fuel selector again until I'm at altitude and in cruise flight this is generally an hour or 10 gallons which ever comes first. This way the run up and all taxing is done on one tank and to the best of my ability proven that it will continue to provide fuel to the engine during takeoff.

First rule of flight club... don’t talk about the cost of flight club.

Some of you probably know that I fell and injured my shoulder, preventing me from handling the Johnson Bar gear of my forever plane M20C. I looked into changing her to electric gear. It was going to be an ordeal if I did it myself, especially with a bad shoulder, and was gonna be time consuming and expensive to have someone else do it and I somehow felt like I was downgrading that sweet little C. I began looking for an electric gear plane and wanted a little mor back seat room anyway. The weekend before July 4th., I was poking around and saw this plane on Barnstormer. So, many things seemed to fall in place. It was at Maxwell Aviation which is less than 50 nM from my home field and they were open July 4th., so Sandy and I drove down there to look at it. Don was there and gave me a good run down. He said he could swap avionics with my C. I had just gotten through doing a 345 in the C and I didn’t want to give it up, and I wanted to keep my WAAS 430 and card compass. I called Don that afternoon and we made a deal. He said that he would be gone two weeks to Oshkosh, so I knew it would be a long night wait, but it seemed worth the wait. After getting back they were hopelessly behind and Don was bent on flying it several hours and shaking it down tnoroughly since it had basically been through a restoration. Obviously I wanted it shaken down well so I waited and just kept watching flightaware. Some of the other things that fell in place were simply because I was buying it from Don, Paul and Jan. They are competent and trustworthy, and just great people to meet, visit and deal with. If I had bought from elsewhere, where would I have taken it for prebuy? Given their reputation I knew I could trust them with no worry, so I simply wrote a check and didn’t have to fool with escrow and title search. The plane: Since they have access to various items they added lots of modifications, 201 windshield, 201cowl, speed brakes, new custom panel done by Kevin, their sheet metal guy. The panel included a JPI instead of a clutter of engine gauges. It now also has the 430 W, the GTX 345 and NAV/COM with glide slope. It has new paint, a nice interior, shoulder harnesses. I have been about to bust a gut with excitement while waiting, so I have delayed writing this roll out thread. I flew to Longview this morning to have somewhere to fly and she was sitting on the line outside and it turned out they were trying to call me yesterday to let me know she’s ready. Don is going to fly it to Mount Pleasant for me tomorrow morning since I have to get a CFI checkout for insurance before I can solo it. Have you ever seen a 69 year old kid at Christmas? Once I have it home I will get a CFI in the next few days. i am attaching a video of Don taxiing out for the first test flight after restoration, a picture of the panel before panel work and a picture of Kevin giving her the first bath. More pictures to come after I get her home. 81F6E1EC-DB2E-4F39-AFFB-0546FF14A701.MOV

Hi All, I am new to this forum and so I want to introduce myself and also share my excitement over becoming a proud Bravo owner! My wife, Denise and I close the purchase tomorrow (I hope this post does not prove to be premature) and we are picking her up on Friday in San Antonio. I already have Bob Cabe lined up for a day of familiarization training. I also received the Foreflight Mooney checklist from @Junkman, thanks again! I have been flying literally all of my life, first sharing the experience with my dad (still the best pilot I know) then earning my certificate in 1989. As for Mooneys, I have owned a J model, an Ovation and an Acclaim until 2008. I had a long period of self imposed hibernation until just three months ago. Two very generous friends allowed me to earn my BFR and IPC in their Ovations. Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, I am grateful this forum exists as I have already learned a lot reading previous posts and I hope to contribute some positive content going forward. Alex

My co-pilot and I have gotten to know our 1967 M20C well since we acquired her last October. With the help and supervision of our A&P plus a good instrument shop, we took a tired example of a Mooney M20C and brought her panel up to modernity thanks in no small part to some advice given by MS members. She now has an 8-pack panel layout, JPI900 EDM, GNS430W, and Appareo transponder with ADS-B in/out. To celebrate we took her out on a "victory lap" around the Rockies in August, covering 2838 nm in 26.2 h flight time. We really spread her wings with max. cruise at 12,500, and 208 mph g.s. at top of descent approaching Amarillo thanks to some ridiculous winds. We faced headwinds more often than not, even on some eastbound legs! The haze from the numerous forest fires out west severely limited visibility particularly in the northern portion of our trip into Colorado front range and into southern Wyoming. We visited friends and family, plus toured Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park, Cedar Breaks, Nat.'l Mon., drove down the Moki Dugway and across Monument Valley, overflew the Grand Canyon N-S via the "Tuckup" VFR corridor at 10,500 ft., and orbited meteor crater near Winslow, AZ. "Little Sister" as we call her performed admirably.

@rdshave

I am intimately familiar with grief associated with the loss of a loved one, and I would suggest you wait at least a month before approaching him about the disposition of the plane. A month will likely not affect the plane at all, and he certainly will have other things on his mind for a period of time.

If anyone watches Flight Chops on YouTube, I flew with him a couple months ago. He just dropped the video featuring N221HP.

You all are going to hate me for this: 5 knots doesn't matter. Save your money, buy avgas, use your plane, quit worrying about true airspeed. I fly at 450 knots for a living..... when its a long day and you're tired, that's still too slow! Enjoy your Mooney, enjoy the view outside, the freedom of part 91 flight in your own airplane. Screw the groundspeed. Even on a long trip, that 5 knots won't mean much depending on how long it takes you to dilly-dally to get the airplane off the ground or put away.

As poorly as I land, I do not have to intentionally plan on "go arounds". I have had a lot of practice

I had to listen to it twice- she actually says capacitator instead of capacitor. She can't even be stupid correctly.

Maybe you should have them do it on the ground first, just in case they’re bad at math. [emoji2]

Happy Labor Day to me. So, Harbor Freight had a 25% off coupon... Here's take one. Threaded portion is a little longer, but that part is not the critical part. I have to say, I am very pleased with myself.

Heresy! How did this guy get to be on MS? He is goring a sacred ox! Next thing he'll be telling us is that the 5 minutes a pilot saves by choosing a quicker runway is the same as 5 minutes saved in the air. And only 450Kts? That's barely .80.

Just saw what looked like a J go down during take off. Heard the engine quit. Looks like they did a good job of getting the plane down inside airport property. Landed straight ahead in the bushes. Both refused medical attention so it appears there were no injuries. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Enough said...

Not the most efficient of Mooney’s but burns less fuel than that three hole beast!!

Come on guys................this is one of the most popular threads. This drift isn't fair to @bonal How about a nice U.P. sunset to get this back on track? This is a view looking north west from just north of KIMT, my home airport, towards the Keweenaw Peninsula jutting out into Lake Superior. Tom

Nice evening flight. Top of the Chesapeake Bay. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

It basically says if the weather at your destination is anything other than “gentleman’s IFR” you need an alternate. This makes you carry enough fuel in addition to the 45 mins to get to your alternate, so it basically just ups your fuel reserves in the case the weather is the least bit low. Then you have to ask pick a suitable alternate so that your extra fuel reserves are somewhat related to how far you likely need to go. The forecast at your alternate has to be pretty good, so it might have to be far away, way increasing your fuel load. It’s all about fuel planning. When you actually divert you go to wherever makes the most sense at the time. And to answer your other question, no, the weather phenomena that make it that low tend to be somewhat localized like heavy rain, coastal fog, valley fog, etc. (My day job is a Captain at Cape Air - we know low IFR) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk