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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/13/2025 in all areas
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We do this all the time. We write the aircraft on a pro-flown aircraft policy. Your CFI or a pilot of your choosing can keep the plane exercised for you, take you for flights where you're a passenger (you cannot receive training), deliver the plane for you. Then we endorse the policy to include the owner pilot once the private certificate is earned. I don't recommend student pilots in Mooneys for many reasons, and this is a nice way to get the plane you want while you're finishing up your training.3 points
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I think this is fixable with some patience and Bruce Jaeger's kit. I repaired cracks in my headliner and other interior pieces using this kit. https://www.jaegeraviation.com/Do-It Yourself Plastic Repair Kit-2017.pdf Another option is to send the piece(s) to Hector at Aero Comfort and have them covered. His work ios awesome and worth every penny.3 points
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Who knew there were a bunch of Mites flying around Eastern WA! Went to the Deer Park (KDEW) Fly-In today and as we were leaving I saw a distinctinve, but small, tail down at one of the hangars. I found not one but TWO airworth Mites there with a band playing in the hangar. Turns out the woman on the keyboard also has yet another Mite, so three in the general area. Of the two there, one had a metal prop and one still had a wooden prop. Makes me wonder if WA is the Mite captal of the world!!!2 points
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There are two different designs for the folding back seats. Some just fold down. Others were designed to get a little more back seat room by positioning the back a couple of inches rearward. These will not fold flat unless you remove the back seat cushion, pull the hitch pin that holds the frame onto the adjusting mechanism, lift the back frame off and reposition it onto the frame tube holes that are closest to the back of the frame. There are instructions in the POH that are accurate, but difficult to understand until you actually do it. Took me a while to figure it out.2 points
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There are around 400 million active websites. Any or all of them may have scraped your data from the FAA site, and few, if any, are likely to remove it. That's why we tell our children "once your info is on the Internet, it can never be removed". Nice gesture by the FAA, but essentially useless,2 points
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I'll spare the details of my long plane search before reaching out to Jimmy. The short and sweet of it: I saw some good planes, I saw some bad planes. I met some honest owners, and a rather dishonest owner or two as well. Nothing was quite right for me. In my travels I had numerous people say "why don't you just call Jimmy Garrison?" So I did. Now I own a Mooney! Jimmy was very forthright and honest, and did not make any speculations. If he wasn't 100% sure on something, he would make that fact abundantly obvious but give me examples of "how it usually goes" based on his experience. Low and behold, that is how it went for me. He recommended aero-space reports for the title search and escrow. It was inexpensive, and Christina was great to work with. She found an old lien from decades ago, and got it released. She got the FAA documents in order and everything went through without a hitch, the first try. I am long winded and sarcastic (not very good pilot communication, I admit) and Jimmy is quite the opposite. Short and to the point. Despite this great descrepancy in communication skills, he was patient and tolerated my antics very well After making a verbal agreement and having the contracts sent over, I paused before signing. I had not actually seen the plane in person. I saw plenty of photos and had all the information, but I had a brief moment of panic. I realized I had relied solely on the reputation of Jimmy, a man I had never met. So I called him up at the last minute and said "I'm buying the first ticket to Texas to look at the plane, I just need to put my eyes on it before I sign this." He understood. Once I got there, I knew within 5 minutes that this plane was exactly as advertised. No surprises. I signed the paperwork right away. So I guess Jimmy is "as advertised" according to his reputation as well. In this case, the seller wasn't interested in interacting with the buyer, and I understand that. With Jimmy, that direct communication simply wasn't necessary. He took care of everything, and took care of me very well. I hope that I have my forever plane but if I don't, I'll be going straight back to Jimmy at GMAX.1 point
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While this is a common implementation, it is not universally true. Some aircraft with avionics master switches don't have a relay at all, much less one with "off is on" logic. In particular, aircraft not originally equipped with an avionics master often get an aftermarket solution that's just a simple, high-current-capacity switch that connects an avionics bus to the main bus when turned on. Our airplane has that setup, and I'm guessing it's likely the OP's 1967 M20C has the same, simple solution with no relay. Further confusing things is that the original installation instructions for a dual G5 setup specified connecting both devices to main bus power, such that both powered on with the master switch. It sounds like the OP's airplane is set up this way. But a later revision to the installation manual specified that the ADI should be powered from the main bus and the HSI from the avionics bus. Garmin never came right out and said it, but I suspect that at least one of the reasons for this change was to better control the boot order of the two devices. As others have indicated, boot order matters. A G5 configured to be "Device 1" in HSI mode expects to find a "Device 0" configured as an ADI on the CANBUS on power up. If it doesn't, it will itself boot into ADI mode, leaving you with both G5s running in ADI mode. I'm sure the boot sequence firmware has some sort of delay tolerance to account for two devices powering up at slightly different times, but I think it doesn't work that well. I've flown a bunch of airplanes with dual G5s, some where both powered up on the master and others with only the ADI powering up on the master. In the airplanes where both devices power up on the master, I've had several, occasional incidents of them both booting into ADI mode, but I've never seen that with the split master/avionics power up. I no longer find "two ADIs at bootup" behavior interesting or concerning when it happens, I just manually change the 2nd device back to HSI mode like the OP did.1 point
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Be sure to use Google search. That handy search string (site:mooneyspace.com “add anything that you want to search for here”) wont work on Bing.1 point
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When the master switch is turned on the avionics relay is energized to TURN OFF the avionics. If there is any delay in that (avionics bus powers on for a moment) then the #2 G5 may boot into ADI mode. The avionics switch actually powers off the avionics relay to supply power to the avionics. You might try pulling the breaker to the #2 G5 and pushing it in after the master has been turned on and before the avionics power is on. It should stay OFF until the avionics is turned on.1 point
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I bought the complete Rove 6 (the latest Inogen) pilot setup from Jon at Pure Medical (888-747-7590) just before the Cheyenne PPP last month. I mentioned Beechtalk and got a $100 discount. Absolute GREAT customer service. He spent a lot of time with me answering questions. I bought the big 16 cell battery because I didn't want to deal with the step-down transformer in the plane. He did include it so I could use it anytime. The big battery is suppose to supply O2 for over 12 hours for 1 user and weighs an additional 1 pound. The pilot pack includes the following: "1 × Pilot Package 16 Cell- New Inogen Rove 6 Pilot Package Portable Oxygen Concentrator- Includes unit 16 cell battery, carrying case, AC/DC chargers, 2- 4' cannula, Y splitter, pulse ox, manual, and 5 year warranty" In using it in a C model at the PPP I just put it in the back seat. After 4 hours of use with 2 people at 10,000 feet, it still had over 4 hours of charge remaining. At setting 4 our O2 saturation levels were over 96%. I'm taking it to Oshkosh this week as a backup.1 point
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There are not a lot of details in the posts about what exactly the relationship is between Mooney and Laser. We could assume some things, but it would just be a guess. I would think Mooney could be a supplier to Laser for parts fabricated by Mooney, like wing spars and skins and other sheet metal parts that Mooney can make. This would include all machined and welded parts like gear legs and parts. I can see LASAR taking over the ordering of all purchased parts like actuator gears, fuel tank dials, intake boots and such. We should reserve judgement. It could work out better for us.1 point
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If I recall correctly (not likely), @PT20J did a nice writeup on the process. Don't try to use the MooneySpace search -- most of the time, it doesn't work very well. You can restrict your favorite browser to do a search on a single site like this site:mooneyspace.com plastic repair1 point
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Some underwriters will write "no fly" policies at a substantial discount. Your airplane will be stuck in the hangar, but it may satisfy the loan people as well as the airport for hangar rental. After you complete your certificate, you can add an instructor to the policy and remove the "no fly" provision. Again, our resident expert is @Parker_Woodruff.1 point
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I had been delinquent in doing mine; it is now done. Thank you for the reminder.1 point
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Somehow, runways on islands always seem to look like postage stamps! Have fun!1 point
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Yes Commander 112/114 support survives as Commander Aircraft Corp. (CAC). But they have had a very troubled and precarious existence that in many ways is similar to Mooney but with a couple big differences. Commander Aircraft Corp (CAC) produced the 114 and 114TC until 2002 when they filed bankruptcy and ceased production. Three years later in 2005, in a bankruptcy auction, a group of 50 owners named Commander Premier Aircraft Corporation (CPAC) paid $1.7 million for the FAA type certificates, as well as all jigs, tooling and other manufacturing assets. They had aspirations of restarting production in addition to support of the fleet. They moved the assets from the Oklahoma plant and to Cape Girardeau, Missouri where the City stupidly provided incentives. Things did not go well. They never got needed funding and were in debt to creditors. In 2009 they sold to a Montreal based owner named Aero-Base Inc. Creditors had to agree to discounts to get the deal done much like a voluntary bankruptcy reorganization. By 2011, the new owner of CPAC could not get needed financing and Commander Premier Aircraft Corp filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations. Three years later in 2014, the assets of CPAC were sold in a bankruptcy auction to a Chinese national, Ms. Borui Mao, for only $650,000. The new company was named Commander Aircraft Corp (CAC) again. The assets were moved from Missouri to Norman, OK into 2 leased hangars. In 2019 CAC announced that they would invest $8 million in a new manufacturing facility to build new 115/115TC. Nothing ever became of it. I don't think that the 115/115TC was ever approved. CAC continues to sell parts and provide services. The last Commander was built in 2002 by the original CAC. HOME | commanderaircraft Compare this to Mooney: Mooney Int'l is still a corporation with the balance sheet financial liabilities and the off balance sheet liabilities of past aircraft and aircraft part production (18 years going back to everything made since 2007). The so called "new owners", U.S. Financial LLC,, only bought 80% of the company. 20% is still owned by Meijing Group. It is not apparent that the new owners invested any capital into the company. It is more likely that they were looking to get rich with a quick paper flip of the company but are now stuck like a tar baby (remember the Power Point they were using to shop the company?) The main difference between Commander and with the current Mooney situation is that Commander was sold as a "sale of assets" in bankruptcy not once but twice. There were no liabilities assumed by the new buyer(s). (i.e. it was a liquidation of the company twice). Mooney was last reorganized in bankruptcy during 2001-2004. Now we have the following situation LASAR has some unclear deal to manage?/fund inventory?/ take-over? parts fulfillment for Mooney. LASAR's parts guru, Dan Riesland, is located in California and not at LASAR's Oregon home base. Mooney's tech guru, Frank Crawford, who seems to be the glue holding Kerrville support together is in Kerrville With the change, headcount (and hence knowhow), in Kerrville will continue to shrink Don Maxwell posted on Facebook that the Mooney Int'l financials in Kerrville cannot be supported by part sales alone. Three (3) years after the LASAR ownership change and move from California to Oregan, LASAR is still trying (struggling?) to get its PMA's and STC's approved and to market Brett Stokes highlights this in a July 2, 2025 Facebook post He also highlights and promotes that LASAR provides service and support for "Cessna, Beechcraft, Piper and more" - so LASAR's focus is not just Mooney. The Vintage Mooney section is full of posts of how many times LASAR has been called and emailed asking to provide 40:1 gears with no movement. LASAR may be well intentioned, but costs and logistics may overwhelm them quickly - perhaps they already are. From the comments/posts there seems to be a feeling by owners that LASAR will do more to order in quantity and keep larger inventories. That takes capital which no-one (especially the "new owners" US Financial LLC and not even the MSC's which could stock parts as they used to do) seems to be interested in or able to do. So we think (hope) that LASAR has deep pockets? Perhaps the best way forward is for Mooney to be forced into bankruptcy. IThat will be painful and destructive to owners in the short term but could clear the way for the assets to be sold for pennies on the dollar to someone that will just focus on parts manufacturing and supply (and not any dreams of new models, weight increases, landing gear mods or anything). It would get rid of the Chinese and would get rid of US Financial. It would free the IP up for the new owner/supplier with no liabilities.1 point
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That’s the thing, Jimmy sells more Mooney’s than anyone else and know very well how to price it to sell based on the current market. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk1 point
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Not to pick a fight, but there is a split of opinions on this. I personally do not consider speed brakes to be essential, and I would easily buy a plane without them, or if they were inop. Other than occasional testing for function, I plan my approaches without using the brakes. My J did not have them, so perhaps it is just drilled into me, despite the 20 KTAS extra cruise speed of the R. I do agree that maintaining the plane properly means fixing things you may not use (I just rebuilt mine at annual with Precise Flight, $2450 when one failed a function test at annual) so it is a warning to look for neglected maintenance items. Maintenance is a commitment. While there are different opinions on what is proper maintenance (I am well past TBO, and others overhaul at TBO automatically, for example) non-functioning items that are ignored are never proper maintenance. Of course, in the age of hard to get parts, INOP something waiting for a fix, is common, and I would not judge harshly for that. And completely my opinion about this plane, and being blunt and probably offending the seller, removing the O2 tank and leaving that system non-functioning rather than replacing it, INOP'ing the speed brakes because they became costly, are 2 examples of penny pinching. While the plane may be a good platform without corrosion, I would approach cautiously for what other systems are held together with speed tape and zip ties and value it accordingly. Little things can nickel and dime you, as well as keep you grounded instead of flying. When I searched for a FIKI Ovation, I valued the detailed and proactive maintenance of my Ovation that were done before I got it, and it has operated flawlessly for over 3 years. @Cruiser And I think the buyer of my J should feel the same way.1 point
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You can see if Vantage has one https://vantageassoc.com The interior plastics are fairly easy to repair, but someone has made such a mess of that that it would take a lot of work and likely will never look great.0 points