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This is a cautionary tale. After 1,600 hours and 1,850 landings I ran my M20J off the runway into a field this weekend. Had the field not been muddy, well, only my ego would have been bruised. But when I had slowed to a few miles per hour there was enough weight on the nosewheel that it buried itself in the mud, which produced a prop strike. No engine stoppage but, of course, that doesn't matter. I decided at the last moment to land at the airport and, so, used my speed brakes to descend (I hate using those things because it seems like such inefficient, ill-planned flying and, so, almost never deploy them) and was so focused on dumping them before really setting up for a long straight in approach that I forgot about those things called flaps (my routine is to deploy the first notch at 1K AGL). Rather than toggling the flap button I punched the speed brake button, so at least I did something at 1K!! I was higher and faster than I should have been for a 2,500 runway but, hey, the sight picture was one I'd seen before and handled without any trouble. But, of course, that picture was formed from landings with full flaps, probably with something of a headwind (on this day it was calm with, perhaps, a slight tailwind) and with an aircraft probably 400 pounds heavier than was the case yesterday. This experience has also caused me to realize how thoroughly I've disregarded the advice we all read from time to time, which is to be "primed" for a go round. In those 1850 landings I can only recall 4 go rounds. That means I've saved a lot of landings I shouldn't have. Which gave me the confidence I could save this one. The only thing I've been "primed" to do is land. So no more. Good enough isn't. If there isn't enough margin to handle the mistakes I may have made, then I'm going around. Of course, to be sure this gets etched into my brain, I've now got a couple of months to stew on those mistakes. The good news is I'm awfully lucky to have had this experience at a flat, sea level airport rather than, say, Sedona. If there are any of you out there who may have mimicked my bad behavior, well, please consider the possible consequences.

none. Both of his Victor Black engines went to TBO without a cylinder change, through two cycles.

The parts are a 90 degree bent angle of aluminum equal to the length of the window. Windows prices can be found here: http://www.glapinc.com/Mooney/M20FG/m20f-1976.htm Unless you have a very loose mechanic, buying the parts is much cheaper than the work involved to convince your mechanic and FAA your part is equal to originals. The $248 price I quoted was for both parts (right and left) including shipping. My mechanic is much happier that I bought the parts and any paper work will be much easier. The value of your plane is tied to the details of the documentation. Besides you are supporting Mooney and keeping them alive with your purchase.

Let's make sure they don't communicate too much....

Erika got the math right. 12k buys a lot of fuel 12k / number of ILS approaches down to the minimum = $$$$ 12k buys a fair amount of cab rides or hotel rooms if you ever had to divert.

Do you know how many cylinders Bob Hoover's sponsors bought? I don't.

At those prices, my Minister of Finance would had me executed... That is a lot for installation.

Thanks Nate

Rbridges Thanks

we're just glad you're okay. hopefully you'll be back flying soon.

journalists and most people don't understand GA. Striking to hear them say each time there is an incident that the pilot did not have a flight plan which in their minds reads that he probably did not know where he was going.

In another thread, I mentioned an idea to use a cheap video camera with the end of the fiber optic cable just peaking out the belly so as to observe the gear up or down. These cameras can be bought for as little as $70 and really work well. I know it's another thing to look at but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Chimpanzee" data-cid="88428" data-time="1359477839"><p> Quite a few digitals mimic analog instruments, and I think the reason is that the anlog instruments needle points to the value same like a watch. So if you glance in the direction of the tach, the position of the needle will tell you roughly which region you are in. Often that is all that is needed. If you have a purely digital instrument than you have to read the numbers. I do not know if anybody has done a study of it, but I would suspect that humans (me included) are more prone to overlook a readout in a digital instrument than in an analog one.<br /> So, I would not buy a purely digital tach, where the presentation is only numbers, but one which has some analog feature with it such as LED which show the region of rpm.<br /> <br /> cheers<br /> Norbert</p></blockquote> There have been multiple studies on subjects like this, if you have access to the Embry-Riddle library stacks, you can look them up through voyager. Having both is nice for the precision of digital, and the rate information gleaned from an anolog needle. Really, though, you can program a digital display to show you whatever you want, assuming cost is no issue...