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I got a little right seat DC3 Time today. It was only about fifteen minutes on the controls. But I will never forget it. I wasn’t expecting the seat time. I was allowed to sit in the jump seat for take off. Once he climbed out and turned West over a lake that is about 35 miles long, the copilot got up and pointed at his seat since I didn’t have a headset. He climbed out and I climbed in, buckled up and put on the headset. The pilot gave me the controls and I finished the climb out while following the winding lake. At the end of it, I did a slow turn 180 and followed the lake back to the airport and descended to pattern altitude where the pilot took it back and landed.It was not nearly as heavy on the controls as I thought it would be, but I didn’t make any hard maneuvers. It felt like I was just hanging at the windscreen since there was no nose to see.A great day!

This is a very touching video made in the plane that I flew. The pilot came for a World War II glider pilot reunion and this video was created. After the event, he was flown home and he died the next day. It was definitely a bucket list flight.

Happy to report that after swapping 3 injectors provided by GAMI, the GAMI spread dropped from 1 gph to .2 gph......I am able to lean the engine to 9 gph running 64% power LOP...hottest jug is 344 and 1536 EGT....TIT dropped down to 1600......

We have an aircraft!

As everyone else has said, this isn't a CG issue. It is a distraction, experience, issue. A good CFI is great, but can also mask issues by fixing them before you notice them. If I were you, I'd go do a bunch of landings by yourself. Solo, with plenty of gas, you'll have options of finding a longer runway. Or even start with a longer runway and get super comfortable. Then go back to your home field and do a bunch on the short runway. There's a reason all training involves solo flight. Go get some practice on your own.

What Anthony said. If there was something off on your CG, how’d you execute a “perfect” fourth landing? Bounces are technique, and usually excess energy. NEVER force the nose down on a Mooney. Nervous passenger, baby on board, trees, short runway ... you had a lot going on in the cockpit. No surprise if it influenced your landing execution. As someone who “Mooney baptized” both kids at 5 weeks, I get it. Either of your baby or your spouse are a huge concern in the cockpit—both is much more than twice the distraction. Try to prevent those distractions and mitigate your risk: Longer runways, no obstacles, develop better energy management, add some tools like mastery of slips, short/soft techniques...and hit the books on the relationship between CG and aerodynamics. With a Mooney-competent CFI, intentionally come in fast to understand how that happens and what to do about it. Sounds like you executed three successful “bounce aborts” so kudos to you. That’s great. Now try to never have another bounce! [emoji41]

I make sure to have at least 5-1/2 qts for local flying, and start trips at 6 to 6-1/2 qts. There's always one in the baggage area (or a partial quart); on ling trips I make sure to have a full one. Even in my short body, there's always room for a full quart and a partial quart.

No problem at all in my m20f. Even landed without a scratch in this field (gear is down, you just can’t see it)

Or for practical considerations- if you need the timer move the iPad. Unlikely that you'll ever shoot a timed approach other than the training environment. If I needed a timer in the airplane I would have to use the GTN or going searching in the G500. I have a clock on the yoke but it's covered by an iPad.

Yes it can , it needs a config module for the MFD

+1 practice practice practice, nice thing about using a longer runway is you can artificially make them shorter by using land marks that match your home field. As you work towards slowing your final approach speeds please keep in mind your pattern turns and don't lose sight of your airspeed and wing loading (AOA) in your turns as this is so important and sadly a frequent cause of tragic accidents by even very experienced pilots. There aren't many things we humans can do where practicing can also be super fun. So go have fun

I haven't read with detail all of the others comments - but I would submit it was the above statement that was the first link in the chain to your "not so perfect" landings. As hard as it is in these situations the passengers are a concern to get on the ground but not the main concern, The main concern is to force yourself to think about your duties and even though they are uncomfortable they will be fine. BTW - I make sure each passenger position has two barf bags courtesy of the big boys..... You experienced "get thereitis in an attempt to get your passengers on the ground in the most expedient way - lucky it was only three sub par landings and not something worse.

Dan, If you think about it there is really no nose drop unless you stall in the flare at 30’ AGL in which case you have bigger problems. You are correct in your aerodynamic analysis of a stall but you’re magnifying the rate the nose drop happens in an unrealistic way. If you’ve ever done or seen a full stall, three point landing in a taildragger you will witness an exaggerated version of what I’m talking about. The plane will just pancake in if you maintain nose up elevator. When the nose falls in a power off stall The first 10 to 15 feet or more of drop are more of a flat mush. It doesn’t feel or look that way in the air because you have no point of reference. Any pronounced nose drop happens after you’ve lost way more altitude than what would be considered in the realm of normal for a flare. The only time I get a bounce when I’m on speed is on a gusty day when A gust of wind foils my touchdown. Mooney gear are not that springy. I’ve been picked up I’ve been picked up and slammed back down when the bottom fell out of the gust. The plane stays planted. In the video that I linked (which I also made) the aircraft is fully stalled on the runway in ground effect as it touches down. While you can’t see the elevator, I know that it was nearly full aft to hold the nose off. The takeoff following the touch and go actually required me to relax back pressure as I added in throttle to maintain the proper lift off attitude. Proper speed and attitude (read pitch control) are the keys to avoiding a bounce. Keep the nose up until it stops flying and it’s only going to touch down once, how softly depends on execution and luck. Sometimes mother nature will throw in a strong gust to thoroughly screw up the best laid plans!

I think I have enough clocks.

Looks like the old site is back (at least for now) and I can see full information on the orders. I found the old orders. I initially ordered 5' (it is 48" wide) to do the ceiling while I was repairing the fresh air duct. It which was more than enough to do the ceiling. I probably could have done it with 4'. About a year later I ordered another 4' and did the sides and the ceiling above the baggage area. When it had SB 208 done the insulation that was used looks like a very thin styrofoam type material and it was only along the lower half of the sides. The upper part of the sides (just under the windows) had what was basically paper with some reflective material which seemed to provide little to no insulating properties. This made a huge difference in the comfort of the cabin and the temperature of the interior trim when you touch it. If you are wanting to do the entire cabin I think that 8' would get the job done, probably even 7'. It is really easy to trim with a pair of scissors and keep in mind that doing the sides you don't need a big continuous piece as you are going to trim it to fit in the spaces between the tubes for the cage so just keep all the scraps as you go along and you will have very little waste.

Mooney lands beautiful with aft CG. Key is to think in terms of AOA instead of strictly speed.

Mike is correct here. We cannot host copyrighted materials here on Mooneyspace.

Ha! A 200hp E will do that at gross (with little margin) at sea level. If you dive into the numbers, I think you’ll find that the vintage 4 cylinder machines get up, off and out faster than most of the high horsepower brethren when operated at what would be considered useable weights.

We operate a long body O2 off grass in Aus. A lot of Mooney guys here would -the tar strips can be few and far between. No real issues except you do lose elevator authority when you get slow so need to get it right first time and catch the mains to look after the front. We have 800 feet of tar on one runway (YCAB) which we take any time we can. Can get off one up and light without using the grass but haven't managed to land on it yet ! I don't have any grass numbers in our POH so when I was doing my XL sheet I used these factors for ground roll - once you are off it doesn't matter: https://www.experimentalaircraft.info/flight-planning/aircraft-performance-7.php - I'd stay away from the long wet grass Anthony @carusoam my numbers come out to close to your book for short dry grass - certainly within the margin for error for the graphical/fat finger method ! Off POH Graph Takeoff Distance 1539 ft Takeoff Dist (50') 2928 ft Surface Dry short grass 1.1 Takeoff Distance 1693 ft Takeoff Dist (50') 3082 ft PatrickF

Not a great angle, but this is the one I flew today. It actually is a C47 that was converted to DC3 configuration after the war. The current owner bought it and then discovered that it was involved in every parachute drop in the European theatre during the war.

I would suggest that you go with the approved A1A engine from the TCDS. What is driving your desire for a 3 bladed prop? Is it the extra weight or the speed loss that you find appealing?

Pinnacle at CRQ has an M20J for rent. They might even sell it to you... To answer your second question, Top Gun at SCK are well regarded Mooney experts and I would highly recommend them. When I bought my plane I called them and asked if they knew of any planes for sale and they gave me a couple of promising leads. As far as instructors go, @donkaye in San Jose and @kortopates in San Diego are pretty exceptional. You’ll have a hard time finding better Mooney instructors than these guys.

Hmmm.... It all depends... on how you look at it... Best regards, -a-

Want to use a tech tool to help you know what you did earlier in the flight...? There is an app for that... When combined with a WAAS source, the app gets really good at analyzing and recording landing info... Look for CloudAhoy... an excellent tool for learning/tuning various parts of flying... Also does a good job of collecting engine health data... through T/O roll and climb rate... https://www.cloudahoy.com/ Best regards, -a-

Quick, invite @gsxrpilot and @Marauder expect they may have looked at this Aspen install option... Technically it would work well, because it has all of the internal parts necessary to do both jobs... getting all the unlock codes may cost some... Where it might have a challenge... does the paper work cover it being used this way... Sometimes trading down is almost as easy as trading up... but know before you acquire the device... @Alan Fox might have an Aspen come through the shop every now and then... Wish we still had our Aspen guy... Best regards, -a-

I agree with this comment: the plane will bounce if you drop it in from too high a flare, and in fact, this is a bad place to be: Airborn with insufficient speed to fly. BTDT.... more than once. youre sitting very low in the mooney as compared with other types. Get a good look at the sight picture, stay outside the airplane, practice landing with the seat cranked up and down. You should be able to feel the plane enter the ground effect: it almost accelerates a little. My technique is to continuously roll in nose up trim while rolling out the throttle. Finally, remember to follow through with the yoke: just like shooting trap, finish with the yoke in your labp, and you will find your landings improved immensely. finally: Go up to altitude and experiment with actual stalling speed in landing configuration at a few weights. I have recorded where the stall warning goes off and where the buffet begins. In my case, with TKS, it’s actually right at the book values. For a short field, you really shouldn’t be more than 1.2 x Vso when crossing the threshold. That’s still giving you a lot of airspeed buffer before the stall. Mastering this plane and getting a series of greasers will be very satisfying. -dan

If the seller of the number 1 airplane is being cagey, I'd strike it off the list. You'll be depending on that guy for a whole lot of stuff, and if you can't raise him on the phone then the deal's no good. People who want to sell airplanes answer telephones. Also, when you do get in touch with the airplane you want, you can also see if there's a local CFI known to the seller. I did that on one Mooney I was considering, almost bought it. Mooney made more M20c's than just about all the other makes combined. They're out there. Don't be in a hurry. In general the more you pay the more you get.

Mooney's are pitch sensitive if you are even a few knots fast when you enter ground effect. My two recommends are, keep up on trimming through the pattern and shoot for +-0 knot deviation on short final. With that mentality, you'll notice a tighter shot group of landings. Mooney's are slippery, hence why they are awesome XC machines. Enjoy your plane! Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

One of the biggest thrills of my adult life took place last October when I flew for an hour on this baby.

I have 2 AIs and 1 turn and bank. Why? Because I can still launch with any one of them inop on the ground. If you stay the way you have it, the moment you have a vac failure or ai failure at preflight, you can’t launch IFR because there is no back up. However, the way I have it set up, I can launch IFR with any single unit failed because I still have a main and a backup remaining. AI+TC or AI+AI.

Things appear to be grounded everywhere. The plane seems to be ground loop heaven. [emoji848] Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Separate folders for airframe maintenance manuals, parts manuals, Airworthiness Directives, and service bulletins would be useful. Those are the most important items that owners need to keep their "experienced" airplanes airworthy.

John, Check the detail on the O’tow bar... there should be a collapsible extension that fits inside the nose gear... When extended... there is a hole to allow for a lock. A cool way to lock a hand tow bar for the plane.... probably still need a sign... hand tow only! The problem with leaving a tow bar attached is that I use a York gust lock when I park the outside on trips. The picture of the one attached is for a Piper. The Mooney one is very similar but the hooks attach to the rudder vertical tubing so the hooks are horizontal, 90 degrees from what is pictured. In any case, the rudder pedals are locked as are the ailerons and rudder. I do not want anyone attempting to tow the plane when it is locked like this. Provided the plane is left alone, the gust lock works well. FYI: This Piper version is for sale if anyone knows a Piper owner who needs a gust lock.

I would be interested in newer style yokes on my F, with room for PC system valve and PTT on left side of yoke and perhaps additional switch (IDENT) on RHS horn. I see no reason to keep the shape of the old yokes as those are available and inexpensive (used) and (to me) not desirable due to lack of PTT. YMMV. Regards,

Looks like when AS updated their website you can still pull up your orders but it does not list what was on the order. I don't remember who much I ordered but I have the invoices at the hangar, I'll look through them tomorrow.

The usage of checklists is not a panacea and subject to human factors such as what you mentioned. One of the frustrations of teaching critical decision-making is that we get all theses glib remarks of "follow the checklists" or "weigh the risks and benefits," without the follow up instructions and guidance as to HOW to do those very things. For example, I still see hospitals using detailed routine checklists in the OR and applying them as "to-do" lists for standard situations, where a nurse reads off the checklist one by one, and each person responds after checking that item. This is highly time-inefficient, and I believe that pressure produces a risk of skipping or missing items from impatience. I think this is similar to the one accident (I can't recall the details off the top of my head), where the crew attempted to go through a needlessly detailed emergency checklist and got distracted from the problem that killed them. When there is time pressure, detailed "to-do" checklists are counterproductive. Instead, checklists need to be streamlined and/or the process of using them needs to be transitioned to a "don't miss" list once people have enough experience with the items.

To both of your points. -An accident can happen to anyone - there was a beloved CFI/DPE locally who had 14,000 hrs and one evening we lost him when he was doing a stupid-pilot trick gotta-get-there-itis flight that he drilled into us never to do such things. :-( A Scud rud flight down low in the mountains in a cherokee 140 to stay below low hanging icing clouds when it was clear the only solution that day was to spend the night where he was. And a time building student pilot who was riding with him. About 10 years ago. -I have noticed it takes real disciple to REALLY use my check list vs going through the motions of using my check list since I have read the darned thing so many times. I.e., to really pause for a moment and confirm that yes indeed I really did do the thing I just read, rather than just read it and feel good it is familiar. In other words unless I focus to stay disciplined I would slip into sort of speed reading the check list as if it is a familiar document rather than actually using it to check off tasks completed. This takes focus.

All it takes is reading hundreds of accident reports from pilots who have thousands of hours to realize that anyone can make mistakes at anytime. While we all are going to have the occasional brain lapse, I think the important lesson is to never get complacent. I’ve flown with a 737 captain a few times in a Mooney and he always makes a point to go through every checklist item even though it’s already memorized since that’s what they do everyday.

I'll second that.

My experience is that Rocket gives better support than Mooney.

Also, get it painted in Imron. My m20f was painted in Imron in 1994 over 2200 hours ago. This is what it looks like today. (On the left) It looks like it could’ve been painted last week.

Me, and good memory... Andy, you just made my day! And it’s still early... Best regards, -a-

You have a clock/timer, the Davtron. So you're legal. Now use a timer on the iPad or your watch to time approaches and holds.

Flew to Sunriver S21 for Mother’s Day brunch. Preflighting to leave they had a herd of elk running back and forth over the runway. Shareena is loving the Tangos. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

additionally, while looking at the video, its pretty evident the pilot had no clue about operating off a soft field. In taxing we can see the elevator was neutral. At take off the wing cuts out the view much of the time but we can see enough that there wasn't much back pressure on the elevator. That sure isn't helping. The plane might have been saved right there.

Steingar, Think about what the D2 needs to do.... compared to any of the other portable equipment in the world.... It is responsible for keeping the sunny side up, when all else has failed... in IMC. Everyone gets to decide on what they are going to use for this level of back-up... Vacuum failures are expected... and they remove the first AI... Finding out your TC isn’t up to the task in bumpy IMC... is a crummy way to spend one’s final moments... TCs have a tendency to wear over time, and not work very well in bumps... they are hard to follow... The back-up AI is Best constantly powered, and always in place... or it will get left behind, forgotten, before it is really needed... There will be Nothing like assembling and connecting your instrument panel moments before you need it... If you don’t normally fly in IMC... then this kind of back-up may not apply... PP thoughts only, not a CFI, but trying to share some experience openly... Best regards, -a-

I am glad you are alright Alex. That could have been very very bad. That fire breathin' TIO540 doesnt take kindly to being mistreated by magneto's and oil loss and gave you and your wife a pass this time.

Frank, You can always edit your post... but... the humor will be immediately lost... Best regards, -a-

Within a few days of getting my airplane it had put me on my butt enough that I put the tow bar in the shop vise for a few seconds and bent it as shown. It has never slipped since. Same idea as shown in previous posts. As long as the force vector doesn't have a component pulling it out, it shouldn't come out, and if the vector has a slight bias to pulling it into the hole, it'll stay in. That's what the slight acute angle does. I did not make a log book entry for the minor mod to the tow bar. I did not file a 337.

Some additional details regarding TIT and JPIs... 1) Good EGT data is expected from all six exhaust streams.... 2) It is good form to know where the ship’s gauge is actually located... CHT, EGT, And TIT... it is possible that the installer has moved things without the pilot’s knowledge... piggy back sensors, or second holes...? 3) where is the ship’s EGT mounted, in the confluence of three exhaust streams? Or just a single exhaust stream? Continental’s IO550 has a seventh EGT probe, mounted in the confluence of three streams... 4) if all the EGTs are reading similar, the combined exhaust streams actually are, on average, about 100°F hotter than the individual EGTs... on average, is important, because six pulses of heat are being delivered in the same amount of time as one pulse of heat... averaging a higher temp to be read... thermodynamically speaking ... there is a lot going on inside that system, not a steady stream of steady temps... 5) the TIT is a combined exhaust stream of six... so it averages higher than the individuals... but, it is further down stream where more expansion has taken place... the turbo’s resistance to flow, keeps the first exhaust pipes pretty hot, and well pressurized overall.... (compared to open pipes) 6) The JPI is a great tool for determining how LOP you have gone... 7) Expect peak to occur at the same time... wether it is a single EGT, combined EGTs or, the TIT.... 8) There could be some delay in the display of the peaks based on thermodynamic ‘momentum’ caused by thicker walled thermo-couples... 9) quick test... are all TCs reading the same while on the ground before start-up? 10) official TIT is only measured from one installed location... there may be other locations to get a secondary reading... make sure your install is using the one that you expect... 11) See if you can post your JPI data. We will see what you were seeing. This way we can work through what you have... 12) you should be seeing the same TIT after the JPI install as you did before... if not... what else changed? 13) 1650°F is the common ‘avoid exceeding’ number... which is pretty hot. When exceeded, there isn’t a much larger number that is going to show up on the JPI, like the flame temp of gasoline and O2... 3,880°F 14) Bumping into this peak temp indication, while slowly leaning to find peak, makes you want to keep good notes to know the combination of MP, RPM, with back-up data like FF... to later perform the big pull method... 15) let’s use the data you have collected already to see if we have enough detail to know where the engine reached peak, went LOP, and achieved a steady state, TIT below 1650°F... 16) Things that effect TIT... It tends to get hotter the more fuel you put to it more MP and RPM drives more fuel... 17) Ways to cool TIT... Use excess fuel, ROP mixture... Use excess air, LOP mixture... 18) TIT is inside the exhaust stream, at its very core... if you are using cowl flaps as part of your experimentation... you may have been il-advised... CHT and cowl flaps are important, but not for controlling TIT... it is possible to see an effect. But, not enough to be a controlling factor... 19) a good Gami spread is required for running LOP with a turbo... tsio360s are known for running LOP well... find writings by MSer... @jlunseth and people with Ks.... How does that sound? Or do I need to own a tsio360 to be part of the conversation? PP thoughts only, not a mechanic... Best regards, -a-