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Well I’m a couple weeks late in sharing, but completed my first ever solo and excited that it was in my M20J! Sure beats the 152s I started my training in. And man does she just jump off the runway without my meatball CFI tagging along Been a long time coming with relearning everything after switching to the Mooney, mag rebuild and SureFly install, winter weather, etc etc. Have done a few solos and dual XCs since, with XC solo slated for next week.

don't think anyone can be mad at 25 years of support.

Smart glide has been available on selected Garmin GPSs for some time. I really hadn't gone out and practiced with it, though. I did yesterday. If you have it and think that in an emergency you can easily push the button to enable it and your worries are over, you have another thing coming. Without extensively studying the manual, going out and practicing, and then coming back to really re-read the manual, the whole process can be overwhelming. A lot of data shows up on the screen or screens and where to look requires practice and studying the manual. Someone once asked, "Why would you need both the 750 and 650"? I can say that at least one of the reasons is Smart Glide. The 750 provides the map and the 650 the Emergency Page all at once. The main reason for this post, though, is a test I did. I activated Smart Glide and waited for it to compute where it wanted to go. The GFC 500 engaged and the plane turned towards the chosen airport. During this time the pitch changed in the process of going towards best glide speed. Remember to remove power to idle! If you don't, the plane will pitch up and climb in an effort to get to best glide. Once established at best glide speed and stable, I looked at the projected arrival altitude over the airport. I did this with the prop in. If you want to become a believer in why it is so important the pull the prop control all the way out is such a situation, all you have to do is perform the test I did. When I pulled the prop control out and waited a couple of seconds, the arrival altitude over the airport increased by 450 feet. Of course, the higher you start out the better it will be. Remember to pull the prop control in an emergency.

They did the F and decided it was the best Mooney and no point in reviewing the others.

I agree with the opinion about the purchase price being irrelevant to a point. An airplane is a discretionary purchase, and it typically makes little to no financial sense whatsoever. But… Isn’t that what we work for? To buy things for our pleasure and enjoyment? At the rate planes are being damaged they get more scarce everyday. Historically they (single engine pistons)are not assets that depreciate, and this isn’t conjecture or opinion. Even at adjusted dollar value, most are selling for more that they did when new. They are more like large boats in that they cost more to own and operate than to purchase, and as long as you can survive a downturn and keep the plane maintained, your chances of losing money on the sale price, compared to purchase is slim. I like to get deals as much as anyone, but at some point I want what I want. I have a real good friend who is a lifelong bachelor and was a firefighter in New York. He lived in this tiny co-op in New York and I made him a piece of furniture for a gift one year. When I visited him to deliver it I noticed how tired and run down his little kitchen was. I asked him if he wanted to let me help renovate it for him. He thought about it for a minute and said “nahh, I only have 12-14 years left here”. I love to tell this story to clients because, in retrospect, what it taught me is that quality of life means different things to different people. I look, I shop, I research, I understand what prices are doing and when I see the one I want I buy it. I try not to overpay, and I don’t get overly hung up on getting the best price ever. Having it to enjoy is what that delta is worth. To each their own.

I am amused by people looking or a "deal". Yes we all would love a bargain basement price on something that's worth much more than we paid for it - but that mainly happens on TV shows. About the only exception is that you personally know of someone who hasn't put it on the market and buy it directly from them at less than you think it's worth. If an airplane is underpriced and it hits the market it will sell in the first couple days and it's unlikely you'll ever see it or get there soon enough. If it is overpriced it will languish on the market. Neither the seller or the buyer determines the price, the market does. The best "deal" is a Mooney that has been very well maintained by people who know Mooneys and has had a caring owner. There are some rough ones out there. When a good one hits the market, which will probably prove to be the least expensive in the long run since it's been maintained well, be prepared to pay the price and not look back. The money it costs to bring something back from the ash heap is a lot more than buying a seemingly "over-priced" nice one.

You may benefit from having the system purged. https://www.cav-systems.com/product/tks-fluid-test-cart/ There used to be a big list of installation centers on their website, but now it shows only JA Aircenter in Il and Lincoln Park in NJ. Any installation center, and maybe any big cirrus shop, should have the purge equipment. It's good news that your w/s pump is working. those are prone to seizing and not cheap. -dan

I was worried about that, so I discussed it with my installer beforehand. I suggested he run the trim all the way to the down limit before disconnecting and then just not rotate the jack screw while it was disconnected though he could rotate the rest of the trim system as much as necessary for the installation making sure to run it all the way down again before reconnecting to the jack screw. He said that worked great and my trim was fine after the installation.

I think supply and demand have a lot to do with prices as well. They're not making any new airplanes that the average guy can afford and the supply of affordable older planes is shrinking daily. Think about how many get wrote off due to crashes and corrosion issues. Are planes currently overpriced, I believe so but it's whatever the market will bear and that's the truth in selling anything. I believe it'll take a huge crash for prices to drop 30-40%. I think 15-20% may be possible in the next few years. I'm thinking about upgrading from my Cherokee and when I get serious about it I'll pony up and pay wherever I'm comfortable with. Don't forget a dollar is worth more or less to different people and there's lots of people with lots of dollars.

Pump is on its way back! All things considered, pretty quick turn around. Should have it early next week. -Don

I did my best to get pictures of the worst places which of course makes things look worse than they really are. Most of the paint is nice and shiny, punctuated by spots of corrosion.

Just my opinion, but I would let someone do this that's done it many times. I know my personality and for years it was "shoot first, ask questions later". My tendency would be to go at that too aggressively since I want it gone and I would end up creating some other problems. I'll do the basics and I enjoy learning, but I've also found that if I let the experts do what they do best, I can go make what they charge doing what I do best and it gets done right. Also with this much surface corrosion you're not going to be satisfied until the airplane looks like you want it to look. If circumstances allow I'd at least get on the waiting list at a paint shop with a good reputation. You have a great platform to work with there and since you plan on turning it into your forever plane it will be worth it.

A hybrid design of the ‘64E scheme, maybe? They took the under-body color and put in on the major area of the vertical stab. I like it. Pretty airplane.

When you say "evaluation", is this the kind of thing you are looking for? M20F Eval (MAPA).pdf

You will find that your urologist advises the same procedure - catch your sample “midstream”….also known as the “clean catch method”. Age has its benefits…

After a five months in the shop my plane is ready from avionics shop. Picking up on Friday morning.

@Schllc That was a damn fine post! In hindsight I wish I had purchased sooner than I did. I wasn’t hung up on getting “a good deal” price wise, as much as making sure I didn’t buy a wreck…educating myself took way longer than it should have.

Good points, Don. I haven't experimented with it a lot, but I did notice a few things. 1. I think the best way to use it is to push the button at the first sign of unexpected engine failure and let the autopilot fly the airplane while going through emergency procedures. 2. If you pull the engine back to idle at cruise in a M20J, you will end up solidly in the yellow arc on the tach as it slows to best glide speed which is a great reminder to pull the prop back. 3. Smart Glide uses whatever best glide speed was programmed into it during installation. Most commonly the speed is set for max gross weight. The glide ratio doesn't change with weight, but the best glide speed does. So, if you are at a different weight than the speed set in Smart Glide, you should adjust the speed with the IAS thumbwheel on the GFC 500 to get maximum range. 4. With a G3X, the emergency page is available on the PFD as well as on the GTN. However, the Smart Glide range ring is only available on the GTN. The Smart Glide range ring differs from the normal glide range ring in that Smart Glide updates the range ring based on current measured glide performance. Currently, this is not available on the G3X and the G3X removes the glide range ring on it's map during Smart Glide. EDIT 5. Unless you are pretty high, and/or in an area with a lot of airports, there will not be an airport within glide range, so the best it can do is fly straight and level at best glide speed -- you're still going to have to turn it off and find a place to set down after you run your checklists. 6. This is definitely something you want to practice until the flow becomes second nature. There is a lot going on and you don't want to experience it the first time during an actual emergency. Skip

Back to good old elbow grease, eh? That’s definitely the easiest method when not in a nicely equipped hangar. Once I get possession of it, I’ll take a whack at it and see how it goes. Hopefully it won’t be that bad.

when you install the sockets into the cowl, apply primer to the back of the sockets and to the seat in the cowl to prevent corrosion. Stainless should never rest against bare aluminum.

What are you willing to pay for a run out F?

Many airplane owners buy one airplane above what they can really afford thus- So many airplanes not flying or with so much differed maintenance The industry is replete with the above. Airplanes are not "investment grade" assets Unless you are an expert flipper then they are always a depreciating asset. Either one can afford that or one can't - Its a simple rationalization. Just like buying a car.

@CAV Ice for input and guidance. Outstanding folks…who will be along shortly.

That was exactly my plan until I was told by a paint shop, very well respected on MS, that they use brass coated wire wheels for this. I agree that it is an effective means of getting rid of it, but steel on aluminum is a non starter for me. I’ll quickly realize if this is the wrong path and will then reevaluate my options. As they say, this isn’t my first rodeo as I did a total strip and repaint of my ‘65 Cherokee back in 1990. My take away from that endeavor was never spray Imron in a row hangar unless all other aircraft have been moved. When I get into this, I’ll gladly offer up my results, good or bad. Maybe that will be helpful for others that may find themselves in a similar situation.

My plan was to buy a “right now” plane and wait until prices dropped to find my forever plane at a bargain price. Then I saw a FB post and that plan went out the window pretty quickly. On Monday I’m flying myself and my Mooney CFI up to Gaithersburg to pick up my first Mooney which could very well turn out to be my forever Mooney. Who knows, if prices crash like some predict/hope for, it will be bad enough that moving up to an Ovation at 50 cents on the dollar that I won’t feel the sting of having overpaid buying now. Somehow I don’t think we’re going to see a bloodbath like that.

I meant I had no experience with a full rudder deflection slip in clouds .

Here's another perspective for you to consider: Do you want to own a plane to enjoy and fly, or do you want to be able to say, "I got a good deal because I waited x months/years"? So, how much is your time WITHOUT a plane worth to brag you didn't 'overpay'? To use your $60K "overpriced" example, how much lower would that price have to be for you to buy and feel you got "a good deal?" $20K? $30K? Annual operating costs are not too far off those numbers....in five years of ownership I've spent way more than what I paid for the plane. Don't get too hung up on purchase price. The deltas you are worried about are going to be lost in the rounding after a few years of ownership.

@RoundTwo like @M20Doc said above….Don use glass beads on your plane, it will stretch the aluminum in very short order. I’ve used my bead blaster to bend 1”x1”x .125” aluminum angle into an arc, took less than 5 minutes to bow a 7” piece a 1/2” and that was at 35psi… scotch brite (not sandpaper) to remove the bulk, aluma-prep to remove what is left, Alaeddine for the conversion coat, then either epoxy primer or zink-chromate primer…. The other down side of blasting is it work hardens the aluminum and will cause the skin to crack in the future

Yes, that is it as I understand it.

Most of them seem to wind up in the wing. I'm not sure why the battery would be an issue.

Two days ago on Beechtalk: https://www.beechtalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=217186 GNS 430/530 Series Repair Service The GNS 430/530 series has a storied history, with over a decade of production between 1998 and 2011. Twenty-five years later, Garmin continues to support the GNS series. While closely monitoring the components required to continue repairing this mainstay navigator, it has come to our attention that some components are reaching a critical level to continue support. As a result, comprehensive service will become limited in the years ahead. At this time, we estimate some repair limitations will begin occurring in 2024. Both database updates and product support are planned for years to come. Repair service will continue to be offered while components required for a specific repair remain available. Specific versions include both WAAS and non-WAAS GNC 420, GNS 430, GNS 530, GPS 400, and GPS 500. I know most here have either flown or continue to fly behind this iconic navigator that revolutionized flying. Knowing this, we felt an obligation to communicate this as soon as we became aware, so you can start thinking about a transition plan. From our decades of experience, the GTN Xi series now offers the best capabilities on the market today, with features only available from Garmin, like Smart Glide. More here: https://www.Garmin.com/AviationGPS I read this as “since finally sales have slowed down on the GTNXi series after three years of back orders, we thought this would be a good time to mention this”. Everyone has known it was coming eventually. Servicing these is still a huge cash cow, so they will milk it until the cow runs dry. This is exactly why though for the last few years people have been told don't spend the labor to do a new install of one of these. Then labor was roughly the same on these as on any newer box and cost per year is going to be expensive is you only get a few years out of it.

This was my solution… found a rubber bellows and trimmed to fit.

If you use anything but the cling (removable) tint or shades (https://justplanetint.com/collections/aircraft-kits), you risk that a mechanic down the road will not sign off. I had that happen in 2007 in an annual-gone-bad and ended up having to remove the auto-type tint to get the annual signed off. I paid to have it installed 6 months prior and I paid to have it removed. Airplane tuition is expensive education sometimes.

Just a couple of observations- If you bought a new car today at say $80,000 and calculated your maintenance costs at the factory store AND your depreciation for say 5 years out, add in your cost of gas for 15000 miles a year and your insurance What would your annual expenditure be? How close to your annual airplane cost are you? I bought my D model 25 years ago, I figured that my "investment" was closer to buying a new car than an "investment grade security". My plan has always been to treat this "investment " just like a new car. Once I'm done with it it has depreciated to zero value, any extra value I receive at the end is a bonus. I used it up and enjoyed the ride. No different than buying my 35 year old Rolls Royce. I bought a very good one and plan on using it up by the time I'm done with it. No thought of "investment grade acquisition" in it either. Just like my 60 year old airplane it will be a fine ride while it lasts but the end will come sometime. There is a coming time when our airplanes are going to be so old that resurrection will not be possible, saleable value will be nil and the scrap heap is where they will all wind up. How many well used 40-50 year old cars are out there now and how many where made? The view forward is the same- scrap yard eventually. Value = 0 Unless you are a professional trying to realize even a breakeven position at the end of your ownership is a fool's errand. Cars and airplanes? Both are fun but they are both a depreciating assets in the long run.

I bought my Mooney a year and a half ago almost, somewhere in there. Everytime I land I think about how crazy it is that I have my own wings. If the value went to 10k in 6 months I still wouldn't care, I try not to focus on any of the silly details of money. I have enough to get by and I've created memories in this plane you can't put a price on. I've done everything from have mags go out in flight to fly a bishop of the catholic church to his destination. Now I'm painting it and I'm get close to being done. This bird isn't just some plane to me... it is me.

Found a solution today. The Challenger filter fits perfect in the space. Almost TOO perfect. No cutting/grinding of the support bracket required.

I'm new here, and don't yet own a Mooney. I'm currently a Cessna 140 owner, and I didn't have corrosion to deal with, but I did strip out the entire interior that had been glued to the interior of my cabin and they glued the living crap out of it. Scotch brites did a great job getting me to aluminum, and specifically the ones I bought on Amazon for my Dremel... When I did the interior I went through 100s of them, they come in a bag of 50-100. They don't last long if there's any corner or object you're going around but do a bang up job fast without the sin of using a steel wheel... I'd highly suggest them vs doing it by hand with a scotch brite... They were a real time saver and did a great job. Then etch, Aldine and epoxy primer....

As Shadrach mentioned, chances are that’s an original paint scheme with the added Swiss motif Candies (tinted clear coats) and pearls (tinted iridescent mica in powder or liquid form, formerly made for cash currency if you can believe that) are not applied on airplanes as often given that many times the “depth” look used to be achieved with multiple coats of intercoat clear or now “nebulizer” in a brand before the final coat of clear ….which has UV protection and also which adds weight. A typical gallon of paint is about 10 plus to 13/14 gallons, with single stage being around 4 gallons on average on a Mooney. On base coat / clear coat, the number goes up. Makes you want to polish if it was not so much work Certain brands of paint made a “candy base coat” (House of Kolor, Axalta’s Hot Hues) which is an emulated candy - brighter colors, but if not properly cleared with a high quality product, subject to color fading in the sunlight substantially over time. Thats achieved by mixing a ton of Candy concentrates and adding a lot of powdered pearl to the mix. I recently mixed 6 gallons of Red and blue for a friend in a candy Basecoat and each gallon retailed for $2800!!! Adding flake to the Matterhorn white (or pearl, or any other thing to make it look brilliant or unique) is awesome. That said, make sure you keep at least a half a gallon of inactivated paint for touch ups just in case- most shops use exactly the amount of paint needed with little left over as a function of cost and profit, and color matching a custom made color can be a bear - not to mention fading colors in the sun. We do use a lot of custom color tints in our shop because frankly much of aviation is boring…Matterhorn white, a couple of trim colors and goodbye. Ugh. Have some fun! What’s awesome (and challenging) about paint jobs like the “anomaly” mooney is the sheer number of colors you’d have to save…however, the plane is first coated with a base color (like Matterhorn white), and each color applied was high quality Montana spray paint, which is easily sourced followed by clear coat provided the painter kept a paint map much respect to the artist on that job Since I’ve owned my 252 for more than 20 years (Hi, Don Kaye - yea, it’s been that long ) I’m about to replace the recent factory paint scheme of ultras and acclaims with something more fun. We partner with a nice chap from Ferrari of Team Nemesis and relentless fame to do our paint schemes, and we’ll see what he comes up with for this project. Nothing as fun as anomaly but we will see

Good grief! The fact that such a product even exists is further proof how screwed up our 'justice' system is

I really like that idea. My time to repaint is coming soon. Thank you!

IMHO this shows how irrational liability fears have corrupted a society. Or, if real, how perverted liability legislation has become.

It takes a certain kind of evil bureaucratic mind to write a regulation that makes it your responsibility to maintain your aircraft in an airworthy condition, and then write other regulations that systematically close off every reasonable means to do so.

Remember the FAA's motto: "We're not satisfied until you're not satisfied."

I don’t believe anyone has successfully installed a trutrak in a Mooney, with the exception of maybe the airplane that was used to certify it. If you can make it happen there are many people here who want to find out how you got your hands on one, including me.

Constant AS climbs are really nice in small airplanes without auto throttles (when it works). You can just leave the throttle full and set a desired airspeed that is efficient, keeps chts cool, and doesn’t fall off below Vy with altitude. In fact, you really want constant AS climbs. It’s too bad it’s a little finicky with the gfc500. I fly a PA-46 with the gfc700 and IAS is really solid no matter how you set it or engage it. I use it both for climbs and descents. It seems like @PT20J has got it working somewhat reasonably.

It's an avionics museum! You could just about charge admission there.

There is no such thing as “enough Mooney”. I have also owned two ovations. Nothing wrong with any of them. I just saw something I wanted more. Two of them were ultra’s. I liked the NXI, and the panel layout is awesome, but the two door feature is grossly over rated. The larger door is very nice, but two is just more places for air to leak. The best, and most missed feature of the NXI was the flight stream for flight plan input. The AC is nice, but after all my experience, not worth the hassle, weight and speed penalty, or loss of the hat rack. The fiki ones have been my favorite. High useful, even higher if you don’t have a need for tks fluid. Little speed penalty but worth the trade off. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to get in and out of them without losing any money, a few of them I made a little money. My understanding of my mission grew, then the mission changed. I landed on one with fiki. I don’t really want to be without this feature again. The Aerostar is almost ready though so the current one is for sale. But I do not seem to be happy without a Mooney so there will probably be another one if I don’t keep this one….

Well, I’ve owned several, and I don’t believe any of them actually burned that much, but I only owned one that got close to 1500 hours. What I did discover, and Continental in foley confirmed, is there is a check valve on the acclaims somewhere between the turbos/oil cooler that is prone to sticking at shutdown which prevents all the oil from draining to the sump area. This can give erroneous readings of actual oil level. One of my acclaims was particularly bad, I suspected something but since a lot of my flights were several hours I didn’t really want to risk running out of oil so I kept adding. I was also cleaning a lot of oil off the belly. Then one day I changed the oil, cleaned the belly, and added 8 qts, ran up and took a 20 min flight. Didn’t bother checking the oil until a few days later. Dipstick said 4 qts. As you can imagine I was very skeptical so I took another flight, just a loop around the pattern. Landed, waited an hour and checked the oil, 7+ qts…. Ran it up, taxied around till it got over 250deg, shut down and came back the next day, 5qts. It was at this point I called Continental and they explained to me it was a Mooney application problem with the check valve. It was the worst on this particular acclaim, of the 6 I’ve owned they have all periodically exhibited the problem to differing degrees. I would say you do a control experiment to see if you are actually burning the oil, or pumping it out in flight.

An Inadvertent Spin and What I Learned About Flying a Mooney I originally posted this to the Mooney Mail List back in December, 1996. -- Don Kaye With all the reading I'd been doing about stall/spin accidents, I decided about 6 months ago that it would be a good idea to have students do a couple during recurrency training (one of my better ideas--sure---). Naturally, they should be practiced to the left to make it more difficult (you know, torque, p-factor, slipstream effect). What I'm about to describe involved M20K's, but is applicable to other models, too. OK, so we climbed up to 6,000 feet. I had the student configure for the landing configuration, full flaps and gear down. I demo'd it and then let the students do a couple. Gradually increase a skid with increasing left rudder and simultaneously feed in more and more right aileron and back elevator until the stall. With the first 4 students nobody particularly enjoyed them, but they worked out ok. Everyone was so nervous that the instant the airplane started to stall, the yoke was released and power was simultaneously added, coordinated rudder and aileron and recovery was complete. (Your basic Power, Pitch, Bank recovery for nose up stall). However----student number 5 decided that he wanted to really see the "break". He held back pressure, I kid you not, just 1 second too long. My new experience now tells me that Mooneys don't snap like the Cessnas in a cross controlled stall--the wing just casually rolls vertical along with the nose going vertical and you quickly "accelerate" into, you guessed it, a spin. Not only did the spin rate rapidly increase, but the aircraft began to porpoise in the spin. I said, "I've the airplane" and the student quickly lifted his hands off the yoke and said "Be my guest." Since getting my ATP, I've always stressed "smoothness" in flying an airplane. I "smoothly" pushed the nose down, pulled the power, and applied full right rudder. The rotation continued--and continued--and continued. Just as my heart rate was really starting to increase and the sweat was beginning to break out on the "right" side of my face (of course you know that flight instructors never sweat on their left side) and plan B needed to be thought up, the rotation started to slow and stop and I gradually pulled up. The altitude was 5,000 so we were test pilots for only one turn (like we did a 2 turn spin). There were a couple of seconds there when---. Back on the phone to Mooney, I talked to Joel, one of their test pilots about the slow rate of recovery from the spin, and he gave me an earful! It seems he's had plenty spin recovery practice during certification. Here's some of the "other" things he said to me which I really took note of: 1. Forget smoothness when it comes to spin recovery! Abrupt full elevator forward right now! 2. Flaps up to prevent stress on the flaps and more importantly to get the air flowing over the rudder more effectively. 3. If recovery isn't affected using the above technique, then use full rudder into the spin followed by full rudder opposite the spin. 4. If that doesn't work, then increase then decrease power a couple of times. 5. If that doesn't work--well, he's never had it go that far. He said Mooneys are slow to come out of spins, so as the POH's say, "don't get into them." I've decided not to give cross controlled stall practice routinely anymore. If you're not really current, I recommend not practicing these by yourself, and even if you are don't do them without first taking a good Mooney specific flight instructor along with you for some additional "comfort". MOST IMPORTANTLY! Watch out for the situations where this vicious type of stall can occur. -- Don Kaye I found this some where....... LT