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You need six seats to carry 4 adults cross country. You’re looking at the wrong type of airplanes. You buy a 4 seater for 2 people or 2 with kids max. Cessna 210, Saratoga, A36 is what you need to be looking at. You won’t buy a coupe sports car to drive the whole family on vacation in.

First, my name is Kevin and I am a 200hr private pilot that has basically only flown a Cessna 150 converted to tail dragger. Recently I made an offer on an M20E and lost out to a higher bid (A big thank you to Brian Nelson (orionflt) for his assistance and knowledge for that offer). Afterwards, I continued my search until I found a C model that met my needs. The only thing was that this aircraft was over 1,300nm away. I decided I would hire a local instructor (Bob Cabe) and fly it home the next day. Long story short, after 3 hrs and 14 take offs and landings on Saturday 3/24 I was checked out and ready to fly it home. I flew my father, who is a pilot also, down with me to San Antonio on Friday night so I could have a copilot for the trip home. Sunday 3/25 we were finally able to take off at 1pm. We made it 415nm and decided to stop for the night at Vicksburg MS (very nice place too). Yesterday, 3/26 we flew the last 918nm home. The trip home was great (averaged just over 135 knots and 9.8gph) minus a vacuum pump failure (took out the autopilot and I hand flew it the rest of the way) which I will address this weekend. Anyway, pictures are worth a thousand more words so here you go...

Sorry Fook...I also have considerable S1S time (Pitts drivers log their landings not their hours)if you truely do have 100 hours in Acro capeble aircraft as you claim...I find your initial post about rolling a Mooney inexplicable.

My repair is complete and she rolled out of the paint shop today. Sometime this week will be the test flight and if all goes well, we'll have her home next week. It's been a very long 7 months.

He almost bought the best value in all of GA but someone else bought the E, so he settled for the C

There are a few Mooney's at Corona that I don't know if they are on any of the boards. I am going to print off Mike's flyer, leave it on the one's parked outside, and slip it between the doors on the ones where I know their hangars are.

Yes Kelly! Mooney will be flying an Ultra into PRB for the Fly-In BBQ! Plus still more surprises in store... Phil

Your welcome firca!!!I gave you three exclamation points instead of only one cause you really know how to motivate the help ,if you know what I mean...and you probably don't!..!

Congrats on your purchase of the C which is the best value in all of general aviation.

You seem to have a rather haughty attitude towards those who are trying to help you. Good luck.

Today I was flying a M20J for the first time. And what shall I tell you. All the time I wastet in Cessnas and Pipers! IThe Mooney is so great fun. The ac is so agile and responsive quick and easy to fly. I neeeeed one!

Bob Cabe knows that flight well. Bob Cabe knows Transition Training well. Bob Cabe knows Transitioning pilots well. Bob helped me bring my O home. Best regards, -a-

I put one on my first M20C. It was better than the SoS. For a fuel injected airplane that was having start issues and the SoS box was starting to die, I would definitely get the Slick Start. For my current M20C, I'll buy the $25 worth of parts and repair the SoS box.

LOL, I'm still here Thanks for all your useful info. Everyone defiantly got something to say. I know in my heart the J is a better choice but hearing it from other members with better experience helps a lot.

I thought that to stop rotation, it works be more effective to apply brakes *before* takeoff... Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

I was at some aviation show about a year ago and Aspen was there. I asked the sales guy f I could buy it and install it myself. He said no way. I walked away and he asked what the problem was and I said it had no value to me. I wasn't going to pay someone else to install it so there was no way I could buy it.

Make sure the breather isn’t clogged up

David, where did you go? The unwritten rule is that you can't throw a Bo or Cirri grenade and run. Actually, im kidding, we love this conversation.

It really is good to hear of one being saved. I visited a 252 today that might not survive to fly another day but very well might be parted out. I couldn't help but think about the fact that there are no more of these being made. And every one that gets parted out is another one gone. All the Mooney models are special but the E's, J's and 252's are in a class by themselves and it will be a shame when they've gone extinct.

I have 1000lbs of useful load in my J. I removed my original strobes and went to led, my vacuum pump, original gauges are being removed when I install a G5 and an JPI 900 the first of May. I’m pulling most of the interior for new CiES fuel senders. We will pull ever bit of old useless wires. I’m hoping for another 20lbs. I run lop for most of my trips at 8,000msl 8 gallons an hour True Airspeed of 180 mph 152 knot ground speed 19 gph Hard to beat that. I can fill the seats and go full fuel and have over 7.5 hours of reserve on standard tanks. If I pull 20 gallons of fuel I can fill my baggage compartment and have over 5 hours of flight time. I can be pretty much anywhere my bladder says I can be in five hours. And look cooler in a Mooney:) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You need to check the W&B for any candidate V-tail bonanza as many will not work with full loads of people and fuel. I don't know if the 33 models are any better. If you need to carry 700+ pounds of butts regularly, you should probably look at an A36, honestly. Some J's have useful loads of 1000+ lbs, and can fly LOP at 8-9.5 GPH @ 150-155 KTAS so they can make that most of that useful load by carrying less than full tanks. And the CG won't run out the back of the envelope while burning that fuel. Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

Thank you very much. I may take you up on that. There are about 4 of us based at Quakertown who operate sort of an impromptu rescue service; a kind of mutual aid society so to speak for those of us who get stranded off the field. But again, thank you very much.

If you are intent on rolling your Mooney, go get some real aerobatic training with a real aerobatic instructor in a real aerobatic airplane. Doing your first roll solo in your Mooney is STUPID! Stupid P. S. Don't be stupid.

Well, this very much looks like the box is broken. We replaced ours (despite the fact that it sounded and it actually emitted some sparks) and all trouble are gone. Someone mentioned that you can change the condensator inside the box too. I plan to send my old one to Don or anyone else who knows how to REALLY test them and can possibly repair it and then keep it as a spare. But the $600 spent on the new box were well spent money and should have been spent 3 months and x... money earlier. Lesson learnt.

Summit is Nancy's favorite Mooney event of the year, ahead of AirVenture I think. We'll spend most of a week loafing in Panama City Beach courtesy of Ron's generosity.

If you're ok coming up to OR, I use Flitewing in Salem, OR (can't remember the phone #, but he has a Google listing). He charges $80/hour IIRC, and he's done some basic panel work for me. Also, one of the co-founders of Top Gun is now running a mobile shop out of Corvallis, OR called Phantom Aero, but I only just ran into him, so I can't recommend him yet. If you're interested, he gave me his card which I can dig up later. But yes, that's a long way to go with a broken vacuum pump. Hope you find someone closer.

A question for you J 201 TURBO guys. I’m looking for your REAL numbers for climb and cruise speeds with fuel flows. And what are some of y’alls payloads. Just the turbo guys please. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thats freaking awesome. I mean, I can let all the SoCal pilots know on reddit.com/r/flying forum. But thats just a mixed bag of pilots, not mooney specific.

OK, I don't see that note for the M20J. Maybe I don't have a current copy??. Mine is dated 12/9/2010. Just read latest type certificate revision, as of Dec 2017, and I still don't see the note you reference. KOAK FSDO is (510) 748-0122, but email is more efficient.

Who said anything about a MEL? The Type Certificate is not the same as a MEL. I was only suggesting that your attempt to fly with the vacuum issue, while certainly doable, may represent an illegal operation that you might not want to advertise on MS. I know a very competent A&P with a $75/hr shop rate, but cannot recommend you to them.

To paraphrase something a bit more biblical, "MooneySpace helps those who help themselves." Edit- And I'll add: "I'm washing my hands of this topic."

I’ll beat Anthony to it, I think we want panel pictures too:)! Wonderful trip home. I made the flight from there to Oregon last March. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Urs, I am an electronic technologist and if you want to send me the box, I will fix it and build something (and/or create a procedure) to facilitate the testing of the box. I will send you a private message. Yves

Both are nice planes. When I was looking to get a plane 5 years ago, Mooney and Bonanza were on my list. I came to the conclusion a Mooney would cost me less (to acquire and operate) and was better for the longer distance flying I planned on. That said, to have a plane capable of carrying 4 larger folks, luggage, and fuel, I would look at an A36, Cessna 210, or a Piper Lance. Some folks have suggested renting a bigger plane when you need one. In theory, this sounds like a good idea. In practice I have found it difficult to find nicer high performance planes for rent.

Some days I wonder if we as an organization of mooney pilots and owners (MAPA or Mooneyspace or whatever) should purchase some of these orphan STCs that are clearly valuable to a subsegment of the fleet but nobobdy else ... we’ll probably have to purchase the factory when it goes under next time anyway.

Work horse airplane and a ton of value. She’s not perfect, but she won’t be priced at $130k either.

Coming off of that position would certainly boost their sales. Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

If the slight hail damage bothers the buyer, I have hail-free stabilizers that can be had for a good price! Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

I did this same exercise last year and bought a 77 M20J. As previously mentioned, Bonanzas will generally be better for getting in and out of soft or unimproved fields, will have better useful load, be faster, etc. All of that comes at the cost of higher fuel consumption and maintenance costs. It's a pretty fair tradeoff, IMHO, and in my case I usually travel pretty light and like the better economy of the Mooney, so that's why I went that way. There have already been times when I would have liked to have had the Bonanza, but for the most part the Mooney suits me well. The optimal mission profiles of the two are different enough that if you have a preference in performance it should favor one or the other.

I live on a 3000’ grass strip with 70’ trees at the runway threshold. The takeoff run in my ‘92MSE is considerably longer than my previous ‘78J, though I can’t recall the exact numbers. Landings are not an issue even on wet grass. I never takeoff at gross weight from this strip. I’ve developed procedures for different conditions unique to our runway such as max 10 knot tailwind on takeoff (it’s a one way runway), no more than 2600 lbs above 75F etc. Ive found my takeoff numbers are almost right on the published values for paved runways and about 10% more than the published 50’ numbers. This based on about 50 takeoffs where my wife would note the ‘break ground’ and ‘clear of the trees’ points. I had to correlate her measurements to the runway because she would say “at Kelly’s bbq grill”, or “at Harold’s boat”. Sometime Harold moved his boat which messed with my numbers! lee

Come learn to fly formation with the Mooney Caravan. It's fun, educational, and once you learn proper station keeping, keeping the needles centered on an approach will be like child's play. :-) But regardless, keep it up. An instrument rating really opens up lots of options with a Mooney.

Planning from further out to be there.... sent in an email as well. Best regards, -a-

Just registered, looking forward to my third year!!!!

That's not pebble damage, that's a bolt. A pebble would shatter and move out of the way before it displaced that much metal, a stone with enough mass to do that would have left a wider mark. The only thing small enough and stout enough to take that deep a bite has to be steel. Go after the airport manager for not performing proper FOD checks on their runway. Donno if you'll get anything out of it, but if the airport implements a FOD walkdown each day, it might at least save the next guy...

"A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill" Frank F. Borman, retired NASA astronaut and former Commander of Apollo 8 spacecraft.

It says you should fly straight and level and marvel at what a great plane it is.

What does your POH say about this maneuver?

FLY-IN UPDATE! Hi Everyone, I am so excited to announce that we have about 25 Mooney's set to join us at our very first BBQ & Fly-In for the West Coast Mooniac Group next month. If you find yourself on the West Coast please join us for a great day. West Coast Mooniacs Fly-In & BBQ When: Saturday April 14, 2018 - 10:00 AM - Till It’s Over - Place: Paso Robles Airport - KPRB Hangar BBQ & Optional Visit to the Estrella Warbird Museum Fuel Discounts Are Also Available For All Participants RSVP Is Kindly Requested - So We have Enough Food & Beverages For Everyone Monetary Donation To Cover Food Costs Is Appreciated RSVP to our host: Phil Corman philcorman@hotmail.com Join The West Coast Mooniac Club at Mooneyspace.com under the "Club" Topic. Announcement! We also have a Facebook Page - West Coast Mooney Club. Go to this link - West Coast Mooney Club You can post content, photos, videos and access our event section there as well. Hope to see more of you register to join us. Fly Safe, Michael Rodgers SEE FLYER INVITATION BELOW FlyIn.jpg.pdf

Wow, that would be awesome to get that many there! Can't wait!