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After working on and off for the past 24 months on my 65’ “E”, it was signed off and flown yesterday for the 1st time since I’ve own it, and the 1st time in almost 7 years. Short story long, the previous owner had contacted me about flying the plane seeing how they just didn’t have the time due to family and work schedules. This was going to work out well seeing how I was about to start my commercial rating and didn’t have a complex aircraft to do it in. After nearly 3 months of waiting for them to get the plane back in annual they bailed on the deal and decided they would sell the aircraft instead. I knew of the plane and had seen it from a distance but never really had a close look at it, so I told them that I would be interested in seeing the aircraft. We met at the airport so I could look it over and take a look at the logbooks, The plane hadn’t been out of the hangar for the past year or better and had a thick layer of dirt (way past the “Dust” stage) on it. Almost all the sheet metal seams had the corrosion treatment wicking out them, which was kind of a good sign, as I opened the baggage door I stuck my head in the cabin to see if I could detect the smell of fuel, no smell was present so another good sign. I then looked and smelled in the fuel tanks (the Mooney I had looked at several weeks earlier had Mo-Gas in it) the sealant seemed to be in good shape inside the tank, said they had the tanks sealed several years earlier, the seal job wasn’t the best as there was a bunch of sealant around the inspection panels that was never cleaned off after assembly that looked like crap but it was still very pliable, no stains on the bottoms of wings was possibly a good sign as well. The interior plastics were in pretty good shape and seemrd to be Plane Plastics as the material was much thicker, some had been painted and some had not, seats were leather and in really good shape, there was no carpet in the plane but they said they had the carpet at home, all in all the interior was decent just needed a good cleaning. The instrument panel was like most of the older Mooney’s (shotgun), which doesn’t really bother me, the avionics were doable as long as they worked, (KMA 24 Audio Panel, Narco 890 DME, 2 Narco 810’s (Comm. only), King KR 86 ADF, Narco Nav 11 VOR/LOC/GS and a Narco AT 150 Transponder) given I had no intentions of flying hard IFR anyway. I wasn’t really looking for a project but all in all the aircraft would work for my mission if the pre-buy doesn’t show anything too bad and we can agree on a price. After taking a few photos for the wife and photos of all the logbook pages for me I headed home to start adding up what I already knew had to be done. A few days later I decided to proceed with a pre-buy, all though the IA had do the pre-buy has very little Mooney experience it was someone that I have known for years and I could trust plus I had been looking at Mooney’s for over a year and had read about the big ticket items that could bite you. Once I had the aircraft in my hangar I began removing all the Inspection panels, interior panels and removed the cowling in preparation. Once it was all opened up I went around and made notes of things I saw so that I could point them out once he got to the plane. I picked up my buddy at 7:30am on a Saturday morning handing him my list to look over on the way to the airport, he handed me his list that he had researched which were the big ticket items, spar corrosion inspection, tubing inspection, along with a couple more items (he had spoke with an IA friend of his that has had a Mooney for the past 20yrs) and said these will be first as they would be the deal breakers. The pre-buy went fairly quick as it was all opened up so 4 hours later it was off to lunch to discuss the airplane, which by the way was the cost of the pre-buy. The aircraft was left opened up so that the annual could be started if the seller & I could come to an agreement. I met with the seller the following weekend a presented all the things that would have to be replaced in addition to the normal items at annual so it could be signed off (gear pucks, tires, brakes, hoses…etc.). Their original asking price was over fair market value even if it had been in annual so my offer was WAY off from what they wanted. After showing them the list of items needed they came down some but we still couldn’t agree on a price. Not willing to pay more I re-assemble the aircraft so they could take it back to their hangar the following weekend. What started out as having the aircraft for 2 weeks for the pre-buy ended up with me waiting on the owners for almost 3 months before they finally came to take it back, I still had the cash at the house for the original asking price so I decided to take my offer plus an additional 2k along with an FAA bill of sale already to go as a last try, standing in a metal hangar in August in S. Texas can be brutal to say the least, not sure if the heat was getting to their decision making or mine but the money didn’t sit on the wing very long and I now had a project on my hands. I didn’t think it would take much more than a few months to get it back in the air but it has. The short list is new tires & tubes (all), new brake rotors, new gear disks and associated hardware, All new hoses (fuel & oil), new scat tubing, sound proof insulation, interior panels repaired and painted, new plastic around nose gear wheel well, new carpet, leather wrapped yokes, seats re-died, all 4 seat belts with shoulder harnesses for the pilot & co-pilot, rudder pedal boots (4), J-Bar boot, flap actuator rebuilt, 70 amp Alternator conversion, new door seals (entry & baggage), a bunch of new hardware (everywhere) just to list a few things. Almost forgot the most important thing, me and my CFII flew just under an hour, and the bird flew great.

My method for an airport at 5000' MSL where DA approaches 8000' in the summer: advance throttle to 2000 RPM during the runup as normal, lean for peak RPM, then nudge the mixture forward a half inch or so from there. On the takeoff roll I might make a quick adjustment based on EGTs, but I don't devote a lot of time or attention to it. If that sounds imprecise, it is. It should be. If the difference between clearing the trees or not is a few tenths of a GPH in your mixture setting, you made a serious judgement error attempting to take off in the first place.

Thanks! I basically caught the bug a couple weeks ago. Was flying with a MDW captain and found out he commutes in by airplane from NW Ohio. He flies a Commander 114. Got to talking about the landing fees, fuel prices, etc., at MDW and figured out its more reasonable than I had imagined. And I've always liked the Mooney styling. Trying to restrain myself and take a measured approach to buying. So I am planning on a spring purchase. Plenty of time to educate myself on everything Mooney. My background is military, so I have a limited amount of knowledge on all things civil aviation. However, I joined Mooney Space, AOPA, and Mooney Owners websites. Very excited to embark on this journey!

Not only that, but if you loosen the clamp and slide the mount up or down the yoke shaft from where it was when the A&P inspected it, that voids the sign off. A change in position could very well create interference that wasn't there when inspected by the A&P. So you see how ridiculous this can get. I asked Sporty's this question, and they answered: "As the Ram mount is not a permanent mount or change in configuration to the aircraft, no endorsement or STC is required. I assume that you are using the iPad for personal use in your private aircraft, as such you as the PIC determines if there is any interference with other instruments. " Of course that's the answer that helps them sell yoke mounts. I'm satisfied that's the correct answer, and the notation in IFR (see my original post) can be somewhat misleading. Case closed as far as I'm concerned.

I installed a voice alert activated by the existing gear and stall warning circuits. I think it is one of the best "bang for the buck" purchases I ever made. My avionics guys wired it into my headset wiring. You can't miss it or confuse gear for stall. Don't you just love it when I don't answer the question asked, but offer advise anyway.

To answer the question of does it need to be addressed... Most people use their ASI to control their speed in the traffic pattern. The VSI is used to set power in the pattern. If the ASI is showing a number that is different when the alt static valve is open. All it wil take is to forget if the valve is open or closed while turning to final. Going faster than you expect... you don't land, or you set yourself up for a prop strike... Going slower than you expect... Stall on the turn to final... The alt static source is a back-up system that is not as good as the external dual static source. So using the alt as the primary static source comes with caveats that are in your POH regarding the error. People won't appreciate that they didn't tell you... You know something is wrong, no matter what test it passed. Get it fixed. What is the upside to leaving the system as it is? What if somebody flies your plane for maintenance? Will they know to adjust the readings properly? while your at it, update your avatar to include the plane you fly. The static system is different on the Cs, vs. Js...... Friends don't let friends skimp on important maintenance... Just trying to put some perspective on what I think I read. As a PP, I could have missed something.... Best regards, -a-

Jim - I was ready to call you guys about this Re: my NGT-9000+, so really appreciate the context. This makes sense, so will look to see when FF can issue a patch/revision to correct. Aside from that...LOVE the 9000+ :-) Regards Steve

Sorry for the delay responding! I think you meant to say why "is" ForeFlight picking up own-ship intermittently, as your picture is showing. Before I answer that question, there's a discrepancy with the way FF displays the relative altitude of the traffic targets versus what is displayed on the NGT-9000 traffic display, which you may have already noticed. The reason for this is due to the fact that FF determines relative altitude of traffic targets based on GPS altitude, while the NGT-9000 outputs both GPS altitude and uncorrected baro pressure altitude. When FF receives GPS altitude and baro pressure altitude from the NGT-9000, it will subtract GPS altitude from baro pressure altitude to determine the relative altitude for each target. For example, an aircraft flying at 5,000ft MSL GPS altitude could have an uncorrected baro pressure altitude of 4,500. If two aircraft are co-altitude at this point, the NGT-9000 would display a +0 altitude difference, while FF will display a "-5" for the 4,500ft baro pressure altitude intruder compared to the ownship GPS altitude of 5,000ft. This is described on page 208 of the ForeFlight Mobile Pilot's Guide. I think, but not certain, that the reason FF is intermittently displaying your own-ship is because of this pressure altitude minus GPS altitude discrepancy. The app thinks there is a target below your own aircraft because it has computed a relative altitude -500ft for your aircraft, which is the difference between baro pressure altitude and GPS altitude. I can't say for sure if this is the case, but what you are seeing has been reported by other Lynx and ForeFlight users as well in the past couple of weeks. FYI...ForeFlight is aware of these issues and they are actively working on a solution. Hope this helps! Jim Keeth L-3 Aviation Products

Am I the only one who doesn't want other people moving my plane around. If my plane gets dinged, I prefer to know it was me who did it.

Not really much to look at, yokes were wrapped in leather, the seats were painted a two tone grey, new plastics around the nose wheel well, and when I ordered the carpet I ordered a half yard more to put in front of the rudder pedals

Didn't plan on needing a retaining wall but after grading we had to. It angles away from the entrance so hopefully I can keep the wing tips clear. My son keeps his Cherokee at CTJ which is about 15 miles away. He has (free) access to an air conditioned hanger so he says he's not moving his plane to my hanger. He will probably put his ski boat in the hanger though! Lee

I can fly my Mooney at MCA for a long time, turning both ways, stall horn buzzing. But I still don't like stalls. When I have to (check rides, flight reviews, PPP, etc.), I do them. Didn't like stalls flying RC. Don't like stalls flying full scale. It's important to be able to recover from one, but I think it's more important to recognize the onset and be able to prevent the stall. Most accident stalls are in the pattern, and there's no recovery there . . . Stay sharp, practice a couple of times, and you will stay check ride ready.

I recently bought this 50x50. The home came with it.

MooneySpace played a huge roll, tons of info and talent on here. Not sure if I will ever be completey done, but at least now it's a flying project

Hi all, Writing from Grand Rapids area (GRR). I'm a retired Navy pilot and a First Officer for Southwest. Based in MDW and live 30 ENE of GRR. If you ever fly over GIBER intersection, I live on that lake below, Long Lake. So I got the Mooney bug and I've been given the green light from the Boss (Mrs Stetson20) to start looking. I've flown planes for everybody else since 1988- now I'd like to fly my own. Looking for suggestions. 50k max budget for purchase. I expect the majority of my flying will be commuting from Y70 or 6D6 to KMDW weekly, with pleasure trips sprinkled throughout the flying season. IFR plane is a must, with GPS capability. Very interested in hearing what you all do during winter. Still flying? Heated hangar (pricey)? Looking to purchase in the spring. Also looking forward to forum feedback, and making some new friends hopefully. My first inclination is to use a broker service that deals mainly with Mooneys. I'm open to suggestions and thanks for listening. Stetson20

The deal was finished up last night. N1972W is a 1962 M20C with 5700 tt and 600 SMOH. Yesterday I went up for a flight before closing, everything looked good. I ended up driving my rental car from Willmar MN to Flying Cloud airport where I managed to find an instructor while Tim, the broke flew her to flying cloud. Once there The instructor and I flew Tim back to Willmar and then turned around to head back to FCM. On the way back we had to land at Glencoe and wait out some heavy storms over Minneapolis. I did my first night landing and first bit of night cross country time! My dad, a Delta pilot, is flying out tomorrow afternoon to fly her back with me on Monday. He's flying a redeye from LAX to JFK the night before and then I'm going to make him deadhead to MSP and spend 5 hours with an instructor in N1972W. Her final home will be KLAM in New Mexico.

Start your search NOW. Finding a nice $50,000 Mooney is like looking for Unicorns! You hear about them but they are rarely seen and can only be found in very remote places far removed from airlne service. However, if you are willing to overlook missing logbooks, decades old overhauls, questionable maintenance histories and shotgun panels you will have much better luck. Much easier to find a unicorn if you have an airplane to use to hunt the critters down. The market seems to dry up when the wind blows cold. Early to mid summer seems to be the best time for hunting. Lots of friendly folks here to help and they usually have great advice. Keep your powder dry and gun at the ready position.

Welcome aboard Stetson. Flying season? Every day, except for non-flying season. That is the week the plane is down for it's annual. Go Mooney! Best regards, -a-

I was hoping your oil pressure wasn't 203 psi.

absolutely correct. I misspoke. Thanks!

Welcome S...20! If it is usually you alone or you and the Boss, and you're staying mostly east of the Rockies you should find the most bang for the buck with the M20C, M20E, and the M20F. @ 50k you should be able to get a decent airframe with either a modern panel (i.e. with autopilot, ADS-B, moving map GPS, engine analyser) , or a less than mid time engine. The 180 hp carbureted C is a little cheaper, everything else being equal, than the 200 hp injected E which is in turn a little cheaper that the longer, heavier F. But these planes are ~ 50 years old and no 2 are alike anymore so you'll probably want to have an open mind re model. There are lots of mods and upgrades and you'll want to make lists of what is essential vs. nice. Have fun and keep us posted.

Y70 seems like a nice little airport. There were a couple other Mooneys on the ramp the last time I was there.

Welcome aboard. I have family in Belding and Lowell. You'll soon get the standard bombardment of advice from everyone about why you should get their model of Mooney.

I would not adjust for peak EGTs, you want to be about 100+ degrees ROP. I used standard runup procedures, full RPM seems excessive to me.

There is a huge market here for L3, IMO, and with L3's clout and expertise, A simple D/A converter to interface between the KAP and ESI for reasonable cost would increase ESI 500 sales substantially. Aspen has a converter to interface with the PFD1000, but still needs a "primary", why not drive it off the ESI, or even fail over switching between the 2? Mr. Ladigo, help me out here...tell engineering you can sell these!

My trip to I19 and Dayton went well. Avis will bring you a car up there if you need one. You need to call the MAC Air Aviation main number a select AVIS to get them the number posted on the site didn't get me there. The folks at Mac Air were nice. I stayed at the La Quinta across the HWY from Wright University and it was nice. WO Wrights bar and grill was pretty good place to unwind after flying and after a day a the Museum. Yes make sure you go to all 4 hangars. One day is not quite enough 1 and a half would be better. There are many interesting experiential aircraft in there.

I'm not sure what criteria FF is using to prevent the display of own-ship, but obviously it is using more than just tail number. I agree that an app should be able to ignore and not display a target if its tail number matches your own tail number. The NGT-9000 will ignore and not display a target if that targets tail number matches your tail number, among some other obscure requirements it uses to prevent the display of own-ship. Very happy to hear that Steve! Thanks for the PIREP! We also have not seen this issue with other apps like WingX, FlyQ, and FltPlan GO, only FF so far. Yes, many people have asked about autopilot outputs from the ESI-500. The ESI-500 does have an ARINC 429 output and will output pitch and roll digital data, but we don't have any plans to make a converter that can convert those digital signals into analog signals for autopilot computers. I think if we did go that route then the price of the unit wouldn't be much different than an Aspen EFD, and at that point the Aspen unit would provide more "bang for the buck". The ESI-500 can definitely be approved to be used as a primary AI. While we market the ESI-500 as a standby, and our STC gives installers approval to install the ESI-500 as a backup system to primary systems (Aspen, Garmin, etc.), there is nothing stopping a dealer from installing and getting approval to install the ESI-500 as a primary AI. The TSOs, MOPS, DOs, etc., do not differentiate between primary and standby. The TSO approvals for the ESI-500 are the same TSOs approvals for primary systems such as the Garmin G500.

clean all tubing and static ports in the back of the plane. Check for wax in the static ports. Tubing come off at the drain port via the battery access cover. You can blow BACK to the static ports. Do NOT blow forward to the guages or you will toast them. Not all water comes out via the drains. simple mouth pressure works best. below is what I found in mine. tape up one side, then the other.

high workload day. dodging low clouds. Turned around on lunch plans when clouds got to 1700. Diverted to tag another airport for the ridealong recent PPL. Came back to the home field was high on final. Went to full flaps. Bounced it good. Still had good energy. set up again and put it down. Have not bounced it like that in a year. Always learning.

How much would you be spending on hangar rent? Thats how much you would be able to add to a house note, if you had to.

There are lots of affordable airparks in the country, but it's all about location, location, location. The low cost ones get you excited until you see where they are. The airpark home of your dreams is pretty much like a load of other people's dreams, so the prices reflect that, but if you just want to live on an airpark, any airpark, there are some very affordable ones out there.

It should be a Donaldson ED04011. If you went with a Challenger - it would be a CP-1175.

I used to share a 50 x 50. The owner kept his Champ, bass boat and a motorcycle or two inside. And his old side-by-side refrigerator, wheelbarrow, a couple of bikes and some cabinets. Lots of space to fill up if you've only got one plane. (Biplane anyone? They're pretty small, short wings, etc. ) (me! me! if only . . . )

$400 monthly rent at Kilg is a real bargain, county T-hangers are up to $500, which is why we started a condo t- hanger, we have 4 rows of condos, best deal,at Wilmington

That is definitely the way to go. At my place the FBO staff brings the planes in and out and has them out front ready to go. And when you taxi in, your car is already on and waiting beside where you are marshaled into. But you do pay for it. Monthly rent is a little over $400. They do a great job taking care of the planes. And an Acclaim is a heavy beast to push around by yourself. Brad

When I realized my gopros overheated and caught none of my Oshkosh arrival footage, I was so ticked off that I forgot I had some handheld camera footage my wife shot from the cabin. Having just found it, I was happy to throw a quick video together of Kili's 2016 Mooney Caravan mass arrival into Oshkosh Air Venture. In case you've missed it, here's Kili's 2014 FISK Arrival:

Something to consider is buying a home at an airpark. Most of them have a hangar and nice grounds. Like Spruce Creek http://sprucecreekhangars.org/home.html There are a bunch of airparks in FL with good neighbors. I am sure you can find some at your location. José

I never bounce if no one is watching.

On my third xc solo I came back to the home airport and bounced once. Came in with too much speed, but the Cherokee is fairly forgiving. Kept it level and then held it in the flare until the speed bled off and it settled down. Called my dad in AZ on my way home like I always do and told him I bounced for the first time. My dad who has more hours than I can think of in T-38's and C-130's just said "Won't be the last time."

Mine was Wednesday. Announced base turn in front of a Cirrus on 5 mile final only to find a poor Gulfstream holding short waiting on us both. To expedite I held it off to mid-field at 75 mph to land closer to my hangar turn-off (7,000' runway). I was really light and should have slowed another 10 mph before setting her down. Instead I sort of skipped down the runway a few hundred feet keeping the nose up before finally settling down. I considered a go-around but wasn't porpoising so I just swallowed my pride and rode it out. I could have just dumped the flaps but didn't want to divert attention from keeping my attitude proper. Embarrassing, and to think just the other day I was bragging to my wife about my recent streak of nice landings.[emoji51] Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Mine adds about 1.5"

good looking unit for sure and I like the synthetic vision and magnetometers options But wish it was available for direct purchase (and not "installed" only). As and A&P I like to do my own installs.

Congrats! Nice plane! Uhoh... You named her. BIG mistake!! Now you will go broke upgrading her!! Ask me how I know!! Lol!! Seriously, welcome to the club! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

I'm gonna say something here that's prob gonna get me blasted from all angles, but that's Okay, I'm a big boy I can handle it. My little shop might not be a factory approved service center, so that means I'm in bed with nobody!!!! but it's Certified by the FAA for Dowty-Rotel,Hamilton Standard, McCauley, Hartzell an coming soon MT. An I have Factory Trained propeller technicians. (This is where I pull my pants down) I keep reading on this site, as well as hearing it day to day in the prop world. "Only O/H if outside of TBO"!!!!! What? O/H!!! It has 300hrs on it in 6yrs you might say!!! Shop is gonna tell you it's about liability an Safty of flight. Yes/No. When a repairstation creates an 8130(return to service) in box 11 you will check O/H or Repair. With the O/H you have to do everything to the propeller that the manufacture says has to be done. An yes, your liable for that work. With a Repair(Box 11) your only liable for the work performed in box12. The prop is still operating under its TRSO!! There is more liability in a O/H verses IRAN or Reseal!! So you ask, Cody why is O/H my only option with these shops, an I answer. Parts Sales!!! Notice no part on any of you fellas propellers are available at OReillys, Autozone, Napa, ect!!!! They come from 1 place, the same place that sets the minimum deminsions for these parts, is also the place that sales them. That's how O/H get expensive in a hurry, But the shop stands to make more $ with each O/H. That my friends is why the shops are adopting the Overhaul only if outside of TBO line of BS. I have been in the prop world for along time, overhauled many propellers that didn't need to be. I have taken props apart that have been in service 20yrs an if serviced properly, looked new inside. I have also taken a few apart that were destroyed on the inside from lack of lubrication an to much moisture. In a nutshell, you guys know how your propellers are taken care of. You know if you just have a grease leak, or if it's been neglected for many yrs an it's time for an O/H. You know that!!! Not a shop. You do. A manufactures recommendation is just that. A recommendation!!!!!!! Its your Prop, should be your Choice.

To answer the question on price, it depends on the installer. The last price I saw on the kit was $8400 and probably about $2500-3000 for installation. My gut tells me that once the warranty is over, resale value of the airplane will be greater with the bladders, simply because some people look specifically for them.

I have three point belts in the back of my "E" model. I fashioned brackets from 0.090" 4130 steel, attached it to existing structure in the airframe and installed TSO'd belts. While they may not be STC'd, I'll take my chances with the authorities after my kids survive the crash with faces intact. Clarence