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I know a few of you are already aware of my incident on 09/30, but I've been hesitant to post anything until the insurance company made their determination re repair vs write-off. Also, having a forced landing off-airport is an awkward situation to find oneself in, and I've needed time to process the event and my responses to it before opening the topic up for discussion on an open forum. Aircraft background: M5779R is a 1985 M20K (231) with many positive aftermarket mods, including GAMIjectors, intercooler and wastegate, 3-blade McCauley prop (hot), Aspen PFD, JPI 830, Garmin 430, and Garmin ADS/B In/out transponder. The engine was rebuilt in 2016 prior to my purchase, and had less than 100 hrs SMOH when I bought it in 2018. I have flown her nearly 500 hours since then. I had a great deal of work done at annual last year, including replacement of the #6 cylinder, Prop governor overhaul, new right-side exhaust header, replacement of ALL belts and hoses, new gascolator, and multiple other smaller jobs. At the time of the incident 79R had flown 143 hours since last annual. On the date above I was flying from KABI to KDGW in a clear VFR sky to do some hunting with friends. I had stopped for fuel at Borger, TX, and was about an hour into the second leg of the flight at 12,500' when I had a sudden partial loss of power. I had been cruising at usual settings, 32" MP and 2450 RPM and 11.0 GPH (approx. 50% power setting) with a 12 knot tailwind. With the power loss my manifold pressure dropped below 20", but RPM's stayed around 2400. My first thought was that I had a fuel flow problem, so immediately switched tanks and hit the low boost switch. No change. Airspeed had dropped significantly, but the autopilot was holding my altitude and the engine was still making some power. IIRC, CHT's and TIT were fine, but the JPI was reading 20% power output and dropping. Half of my brain was trying to puzzle out the cause of the power loss, but the larger part of my brain was saying, "Look for a place to land, establish best glidespeed, try to restart the engine, and declare an emergency," over and over again. So that's what I did. I looked around at the flat eastern Colorado terrain, saw no airport; looked at my Foreflight moving map, and saw the Limon airport about 25 miles ahead of me and no other marked airfield. My airspeed was still above best glide at this point. Looking back on it now, I estimate that the time elapsed up to this point in the emergency was about 20-25 seconds. The engine was still running, so a restart was obviously not necessary; so I pushed the prop control full forward and there was no change. In fact, I noted that my RPM's were starting to climb irrespective of the position of the prop control. This was my first clue that I had an oil pressure problem. I then looked at the oil pressure gauge, and it was pegged on zero. This was the "Aha!" moment, and I went fully into my power-off landing checklist that I've had stamped in my brain since my earliest flight training. I switched off the magnetos, which caused immediate slowing of the aircraft, and of course also meant no vacuum pressure, so I began setting my attitude manually to best glide (88 KIAS). I keyed the mic and informed Denver Center I was declaring an emergency. The controller, who sounded very young, immediately experienced a 2-octave increase in his voice pitch, by which I gathered he was pretty new to this situation. I advised ATC I had lost power and was descending without power, and intended to land on either a road or an open field, unless he could vector me to an unmapped airfield closer to my position. I started at 6500' AGL, and estimated I had about 10 miles maximum glide range. There were several roads and a paved highway ahead of me, so I simply maintained my heading and descended at best glide speed. As I got closer to the ground it was apparent that the highway was far too busy with vehicle traffic to safely land on, so I decided to try for the nearest east-west gravel road, which I estimated was just within my glide range. However, it became clear quite soon that I wasn't going to get that far. As I dropped below 1000' AGL, I lowered my landing gear (I still had lots of battery power for the gear motors) and advised ATC I'd be landing in a pasture. I maintained clean configuration for airspeed, and the mains touched down a about 70 KIAS. I kept lots of backpressure on the yoke to keep the nosegear off the ground as long as possible. When I could keep the nose up any longer I started braking, but almost immediately hit a shallow cowpath and the nosegear collapsed. I skidded to a stop within about 50 yards of the cowpath. When the airplane stopped, I made sure all switches were off, unfastened my seat belt, and exited the aircraft. There was no gasoline smell, and no smoke, so I didn't hurry. I found I was less than 100 feet from the county road I'd been hoping to land on, and about 150 yards from the paved highway. All kinds of vehicles were turning onto the county road to check on the "crash scene". One kind young man offered the warmth of his car to sit in while I dealt with the necessary phone calls. ATC at Denver called within a few minutes (to see if I was alive), and of course my first outgoing call was to my wife to let her know I was down but OK. ATC got emergency services on the way and I was soon talking to the sheriff's deputy, fielding calls from the FAA and NTSB, and so forth. Eventually all the ducks were lined up as well as could be, and the deputy gave me a lift to a hotel in Limon, where my wife picked me up in her truck the next day. My insurance company has decided to sell N5779R for salvage, and I've signed the bill of sale. Unfortunately, I hadn't anticipated the rise in airplane prices this year, or I'd have re-insured her for what I could sell her for today (about $80,000 more than I paid for her!). I was not injured in the incident. I attribute this to the sound construction of Mooney aircraft, and to the thoroughness of my flight instructor(s) who drummed the engine-out landing checklist into my brain. At no time during the incident did I feel scared or panicked... I just did what I knew had to be done and flew the airplane all the way to the end of the landing rollout. Easy-peasy. I know a lot of people don't have as happy an outcome when they experience an engine failure. I realize that I was fortunate to have perfect conditions for my off-airport landing, or I might not have had as happy an outcome myself. If I had been over rough country or mountainous terrain, or flying at night, or IFR over low ceilings, my landing may have been a crash. But because I had clear visibility and plenty of flat terrain to choose a landing spot on, it was relatively uneventful. On the other hand, if it hadn't been for the cowpath that collapsed my nosegear, I would likely be having my airplane fixed right now rather than shopping for a new one. I share this experience with my fellow Mooney pilots because it may help someone else in their aeronautical decision making process or in their flight planning process. I am an avid reader/viewer of aviation-gone-bad articles and videos myself, am constantly learning from them. I hope this experience might help someone else be prepared in case of an emergency of their own. Postscript on the engine failure: when I landed, the entire belly of the airplane was covered with engine oil. I did not remove the cowling then and there, as more than one helpful idiot has suggested I should have done (including the guy from NTSB that called me 20 minutes after my airplane came to a stop in the pasture) but when the salvage crew got it to a nice clean shop and pulled the cowling they found no sign of a catastrophic oil line failure, etc. What they DID find was an oil breather tube covered with oil, and a splatter pattern in the compartment suggesting that an oil passage blockage had occurred somewhere in the engine resulting in the sump oil being blown out the breather tube. There was still about 3 quarts of oil in the sump, and the crankshaft still turned, so my delay in shutting down the engine apparently did not seize it up. I was just informed yesterday by the insurance adjuster that the engine is going to be torn down and inspected as part of the salvage process, and he will keep me informed as to the location of the blockage. FAA and NTSB have both signed off on the incident as an engine failure, and I have not been cited for pilot error. So that is something of a comfort. Postscript on aircraft damage: in addition to the collapsed nosegear, the right main gear was damaged (framework within the wing bent). Two of the 3 prop blades struck the ground and were severely bent, which of course necessitates and engine tear-down and inspection. The engine mounts were not damaged, but there was some deflection of the airframe back of the firewall which the insurance adjuster estimated would require significant repair costs. At this time I still don't know what damage to the engine and/or turbo may have occurred to cause the power failure. So I'll be airplane shopping now. I love the 231/252 platform for a lot of reasons, and I am strongly tempted stick close to home in this respect. Jimmy Garrison at GMax (formerly All American) says he has a lot of options in that area if I'm willing to be patient, and can stomach the high current prices. But I'm somewhat concerned about the growing scarcity of parts for Mooneys, as the factory continues to not make them. So I may stray farther afield into the land of Bonanzas, Cessnas, or Pipers. I guess we shall see. PPS 12/19/21: I posted the following last week farther down in the thread, but I am copying and pasting it here to save folks having to scroll down. I received an unofficial report on the engine postmortem. The engine crew looked first at the turbo, expecting to find the exhaust to be full of oil, indicating the failure was in the turbo (as the loss in manifold pressure suggested). However, there was no oil. The turbo had seized, but that would be expected with almost any loss of oil pressure. The crankshaft had not seized, and still turned easily… they found there was about 3 quarts of oil still in the crankcase. The culprit proved to be a broken exhaust valve in the #4 cylinder, which fell into the cylinder and punched a hole in the top of the piston. I w@s surprised to hear that, as I heard nothing that sounded like any engine cylinder eating a valve I’ve ever heard before (in automotive and small engine applications). The engine guys suggested I might have had enough power to keep the engine going a bit longer, as it was still making some power… but if I had done so, and tried stretching it the 25 miles between the point of failure and the Limon airport, other nastier things might have happened, such as an engine fire. All in all, I think what was basically an uneventful power-off landing in a field was the preferred option, as opposed to a high-speed and high-angle descent in a burning airplane into a fresh crater.

1980Mooney, when I landed that day I thought it was no big deal to walk away from the wrecked airplane. It seemed to me that it was an pretty ordinary landing, other than the engine being off and their being no airport nearby... but as I spoke with various people from FAA and NTSB, the local sheriff (they have a lot of aviation in their county), my past flight instructors, and so forth, it became apparent that a lot of folks do NOT get to walk away from these things. Let me reiterate: the most important factor in this landing was that I had good training, and I give my primary flight instructor in 2013-14, my transition training instructor in 2018, my BFR instructors in 2015, 2017, 2020, and 2021, and my current IFR instructor ALL the credit for keeping my head where it needs to be, i.e., on having my emergency checklists memorized and frequently rehearsed (mentally, at least). When you KNOW what you need to do, and you don't have to dig for a checklist to save your ass, it gives you confidence and assurance. I called every one of those instructors in the past few weeks to thank them. The axiom is this: in an emergency you will default to your level of current training. If your training is not current, you will default to a level of training that may not be sufficient to meet the emergency.

I just published a video of a flight from Montauk to Block Island. It was recorded with 2 cameras: One showing the panel and the other under the wing, looking outside. Please checkout the rising terrain in front of the threshold. This makes the flights to Block Island challenging. There may be downdrafts on short final but on the other hand, you cannot add too much speed because of the short runway. This video also shows how important a good speed management is during the approach to a short and challenging airport. As you can see in the video: The approach was flown with about 71 knots and then the speed was reduced to arrive with about 64 knots over the threshold. Flare was short and landing smooth.

CoffeeCan, I am so glad to hear you had a successful outcome. Airplanes are metal and rubber and leather bits. You are invaluable and you came out unscathed. Your incident gave me flashbacks to an engine failure I had about 3.5 years ago. Its written about here. I too was lucky and came out unscathed. Some similarities. I lost most of my oil pressure but there was smoke and the turbo was burning the oil and the turbo seized at 16.5k causing sudden complete engine stoppage. I had to treat it as if it was a fire in the engine since the smoke gave me worry. Anyway that's all written about here - if you search the word sake you will find a picture of me drinking sake at the hotel where I had not planned to spend a night, shaken but healthy. I had the luck to find an airport and land dead stick on a runway with no damage. The thing I wanted to express to you besides thankfulness for yours and my good success is two things. One is that you mentioned you had luck - and you did! But to some degree we improve our luck by our choices. Flying high, in good vfr helped. I was flying high which gave me space to find an airport. Although clearly they are closer together in the east. Anyway I only fly day, and if ifr I only fly over mvfr conditions, exactly in case of a situation like this, knock on wood, to improve chances. The other thing I wanted to say was I did a lot of second guessing but over all, I am at peace that I did what I could and mostly right, and a good outcome is good, so same for you! AND that I wanted to be sure not to then get complacent. Here's to your health, my health, and to everyone else reading here, and to good flying.

I am a CFI and I don't run into too many people wouldn't want to be a pilot...it is just too expensive for 99.9% of the population. 12k just to get the license and I am quick to tell them that a PPL is just a license to spend more money. Even if you could build a new J for 500K, you'd need to feed and maintain it. Not to mention that your weekends away usually run atleast $1000 a pop. So if you want to get away 10 times a year (otherwise why own an airplane), you are looking at 10k minimum in travel after you spend the half a million and probably another 15-20k a year to own the plane...it just isn't tenable for most people (myself included at this point).

I will certainly update this thread. As I previously reported, the provisional diagnosis from Beegles was that the oil blew out the breather tube, which suggests a sudden blockage of one of the oil journals or other oil passages within the engine. The obvious questions is what could have blocked the oil flow? I had an oil change done about 6-7 hours prior to the incident (10 days before). Is it possible a defective oil filter spit out a piece of debris? Or was there debris from a failing part in the engine? I'm also curious to know if the failure had anything to do with the new #6 cylinder that was replaced at last annual. At the time that work was done, my airplane was in the clutches of a shop that I have learned to be very suspicious of, ethics-wise. In hindsight, I believe if I'd been a subscriber to SavvyMX at that time the cylinder replacement would likely not have happened. Mike Busch's books and articles have many examples of new cylinders leading to serious problems in the first 200-300 hours of operation.

An STC wasn't necessary for J-models and later because they came from the factory with TSO approved strobes. The Orion is a TSO approved anti-collision light system, no approval is necessary for replacing TSO equipment with functionally-similar TSO equipment.

The question of gear up or gear down in an off-airport landing is one I've thought about a lot in the past year or so, as there is a lot of debate on this and quite a few good YouTube videos on it. I had decided that unless the landing field looks like a billiard table, I would go in gear-up on the belly. In this case, I put the gear down almost as a reflex as I lined up to land, and I thought the pasture looked about as smooth as a baby's butt. As my wife and I walked the "runway" the following day, it was truly as smooth as a paved parking lot... except for that one rutted cowpath, which was only about 6-8" deep and invisible from the cockpit.

I wonder if that means the trutrack will be delayed as well

I always just leave the back half of a wheel chock where the wheel should go. Push the plane in, aiming for the chock, and it stops when it gets there. Slide the front half in place with the tow bar, and done.

Can we please keep politics out of this?

There’s nothing to change it to unless he pays for my new paint job/N number.

Michelle and I flew up to Ocala today to try out the newly opened Elevation 89 restaurant. The restaurant is located in the south wing of the new terminal building, which is an absolutely beautiful facility. We were greeted and seated immediately at a table with a runway view. Our server was friendly, efficient and got our order exactly right. Our food arrived within 15 minutes and it was served hot, just like it should be. Michelle had the chicken tacos with fresh seasonal vegetables. She liked her tacos and said that the vegetables were so good that she would have been happy to order a large bowl of just them. I asked for the Philly Sandwich without the mushrooms, peppers and onions. It came that way with just the meat and the melted cheese, just like I wanted it. I ate every bite of it, it was that good. The fries were good too but I just couldn’t finish them. I was full. The place was busy and most, but not all, of the tables were occupied. They clearly are pulling in people from the community and are not just serving the fly-in traffic. They are open seven days a week serving breakfast, lunch and dinner on Monday thru Saturday, then closing early at 2:00 pm on Sunday. The Manager stopped by to ask how we liked it? Michelle said “we’ll be back” and I just said “excellent”. Now he has the tough task of making sure that he doesn’t do anything to screw it up. It is nice to finally have an airport restaurant that is good enough that you would go to even if it wasn’t at the airport.

We had fantastic wx yesterday: CAVU and 80 degrees at OXR. The Channel Islands looked so close from the air and beach. Oxnard Jet Center provided crew cars for trips to the harbor restaurants. Turn out was small but it was short notice to take advantage of wx and new runway. The new runway is really smooth. If anyone wants to suggest future dates I'll be glad to repeat anytime. Tom

I just have some squares cut out of leftover pieces of static cling tint from tinting my back windows. They work great, will move them around depending on where the sun is. https://www.lowes.com/pd/GILA-Glare-Control-36-in-W-x-6-1-2-ft-L-Smoke-Smoke-Glare-Control-Window-Film/1095827

I had the same thing in 2018. I ended up flying it a bit longer and then getting it resealed. the prop shop wanted to do an overhaul because of the time since new. After talking with them he said he would take a look at it when he got it and if he could just reseal it instead of overhaul he would. It was a new prop, new hub, never cracked open before and he ended up just re-sealing it and has been trouble free since.

I switched to fine wires last year, and they have been awesome. But if I had to do it again at these prices, I'd try the BY plugs first...

I have experience with something like that. At age 6 I too wanted to build an open cockpit biplane. At the time I hadn't attended any EAA homebuilt forums, so I was on my own. It was glorious. The first photo is the result (1956). The second photo is what it looked like to my 6-year-old eyes.

I compared an order from Spruce from 2020 with current pricing on Spruce. The Surefly price is a bit skewed because I took advantage of their pandemic special, but I guess I will start annealing my copper gaskets. Item 2020 Price Current price Percent Increase Goodyear Flight Special Tire 137 149 8.8% 100 Copper Spark Plug Gaskets 22.8 44 93.0% Surefly SIM4N 1185.75 1595 34.5% Brake Lining (RA66-111) 6.75 7.5 11.1% SA53S drain valve 24.5 24.5 0.0% TEMPEST AA48108-2 23.5 25.5 8.5% Tempest Fine Wire Plug UREM38S 87.8 111.75 27.3%

@exM20K The political comments have since been deleted. They were there initially when Eric and I made the statement. With those comments now deleted, the context of our posts don't make any sense.

@EricJand @Niko182 have contributed three and two posts to this thread respectively with no content related to the topic, but rather giving in to their urge to tell others what not to do. Perhaps you both should look in the mirror. Nobody else is talking about politics. Your scolding does nothing to elevate this discussion or this community. content…. my business generates a great deal of lead. We also consume a great deal. There is no lead smelting in the US any more. All the new lead is coming from abroad, mostly China. Even if you can get a bulk ship to bring it, shipping costs are way up, deliveries uncertain, etc, so finished goods like ammunition or lead batteries will be expensive and scarce for the foreseeable future. -dan

I'm sure they are squawking. Mike could teach them to squawk "1200! 1200!"

I think the issues with Aeroshell 6 came after 2014. Sometimes props will shed a blob of grease. Clean it off thoroughly and check it in a few hours.

@Sabremech put me on the list if you get a spring made for the Plessy.

Okay that’s good to know regarding the weather temps. I will note that the grease is not coming from the zirks (spelling?). I’ll be curious to see what Cody says.

It doesnt matter if its politics or reality. Who knows, i might even agree with you. I might not. But this is a forum for aviation related topics. And biden/trump caused/didn't cause this is not aviation related. Just keep the politics out of it. Its not that hard.

You mentioned you would be looking for a used plane…I saw this ad on Facebook…

Mike, I’m so happy to say you don’t get to make any calls or send any donations for this one!

I had mine installed at annual, and my IA/A&P just signed it off as a minor modification. Also watch out, if you have the later J model with the wingtip fairings, you need the Orion 650E. If you have the flat tip wings, you use the 650's.

You walked away, the best outcome. Well done sir and thank you for sharing.

Politics or reality?

No, we have installed them with zero modifications. We send the existing floats in for a template for them and they come out pretty much spot on.

Tomorrow's weather forecast does not look promising. There is currently icing potential. We're going to reassess in the morning.

Cruise was an excellent time for that to happen if it was going to happen anyway. Much less pucker factor and many more options than anytime you’re lower or slower.

That’s a good point although it might be difficult to do. What I would like to know is what models and years of Mooney’s were they installed on? Are there more than one specific Plessey part number of the actuator? Thanks, David

Mike, as a matter of fact, once I had declared the emergency I did actually say out loud to myself, "This airplane now belongs to the insurance company, and my only job now is to fly it all the way into the ground and walk away from it." And yes, I did open the door when I dropped the gear.

That’s as fast as my little ole Mooney will go....... wide open !!

I'm guessing he remembered to remove the cover on the GPS antenna

I put gaffers tape on the seams to keep the oil out otherwise it finds its way into the pan. Prolly also worth two knots.

Back in the day the beavers I ...... oh never mind

I'd be curious to see how they work with fireworks. They're an ongoing problem here.

I was in Gary twice this year. It is a $70 uber to downtown. You might as well rent a car. Everything around Gary is a little sketchy. I have always used Midway and took the EL into town. Never had any problems.

I grew up there, had to visit for a wedding last week. I use DPA as it’s out west of the city, safe area. If you have to visit the city you can take the Metra commuter train downtown much safer then the “El” I didn’t venture into the city, I have friends in the CPD that warned me it’s very unsafe everywhere, many of the higher end restaurants and shops are now bordered up In Michigan ave. MDW is your closest, stay off the el trains, hire a car or rent one if you are going downtown and watch your surroundings.

Poser

I tried yelling and shaking my fist but I don’t think they noticed me over the turbine noise...

At my home drome it’s common to see visiting C-130s and C-17s doing T&Gs.

Point taken. I really haven't followed this thread (I got curious when I saw how long it was) and try to avoid forming opinions on events like this based on only part of a story, but when I saw the title, I was tempted to go to a Piper forum and see if there was one called, "Traffic Pattern Conflict with Mooney."

Let me share my 2c as a capitalist business owner and used 2000 Ovation 2 owner. Mooney can be profitable but not by going after Cirrus. They will never be able to produce a market changing trainer, so just give up on that. The future of “cheap” in aviation is experimental. If you look at any new certified aircraft today expect to pay at least 500K. Realistically the price of admission for a new certified high performance GA piston is now $750,000 to 1.2mil. Don’t be discouraged or mad about this, because in 20 years those aircraft will sell for 1/3 of that price. Mooney shouldn’t focus on bargain hunters. There’s enough wealthy pilots to sell 50-100 planes a year. For the rest of us this keeps the parts pipeline flowing and if you are so lucky as to be able to buy a new plane in the future, then you can stay in a Mooney. The smart thing from this point would be to pick one model such as the Ovation or Acclaim and work on increasing the useful load. Preferably make it with a Jet-A diesel. Forget the chute. There’s plenty of us who wouldn’t be discouraged by not having one. Just make sure it has the nicest seats and latest avionics. Don’t overthink it and aim for a small niche or the future of the Mooney will already have been written.

A more important question is why would you keep a Century II and will it work with the panel you are trying to build? The AMUs are the limit.