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Long time lurker, finally sucked into posting. Been a Mooney fan since I started flying in January 1991. Most of the reason is because I'm from a small town not far from the factory, but some is because the vertical stab is placed correctly. Spent 20+ years in the Air Force, gained about 2600 hrs on the E-3 as an aircrew member and I stopped counting GA a long time ago. Retired last fall, went to work for USAA and relocated to a bedroom community of the factory (Boerne, Tx). 5-yr plan is to save for the right J, but an O2 might be in the picture. Just the wife and me now; son is a Army officer, daughter is a school teacher. The J makes it possible to see our son wherever he is CONUS in a decent days flying. Great community here, and happy to be a part of it. @carusoam,@Hank, no need to asks me to introduce myself now. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

32 yrs ago, today, my instructor kicked me out of the nest and I soloed. Oh God what an experience, and I am still doing it. Pritch

These are the only cheap ones I have been able to find.

As a private pilot, it's my opinion that basic med is a sorry excuse for progress. As a physician, I am already advising colleagues to steer clear of it. The MDs signing off on it either don't realize the liability they are accepting for no reason or are of the same category of professional who run pill mills to keep opiate addicts happy. Dick Collins nails it here: http://airfactsjournal.com/2017/05/basicmed-cruel-hoax/ I have admiration for many things that AOPA advocates, but in this case they have mistaken activity for accomplishment - the modus operandi of the regulatory bureaucrat.

I put this panel in my '66E 4-1/2 years ago. In addition to what is visible there is a GDL 88 and a FS 510 which gives me the whole Garmin data package on the GTN 750, and a tablet and Android phone backed up by the GPS 696. Even after several years I have yet to see a panel that I would swap mine for. ADS-B, GPSS, weather, and traffic. GTN750 w FS510 Aspen Pro 1000 JPI EDM 930 STEC50 StormScope WX 900 GDL 88 CYA100 AOA

Yesterday was a great day to fly in Tennessee. Took a trip up the river side skirting Memphis class B and got a good pic of the Memphis Bass Pro Pyramid. Continued the flight to Tunica, MS. We were smart enough to resist the temptation to land at Tunica and avoid the casinos. My buddy took some good pics of the Mississippi and Memphis Bass Pro. It was one of those days that God made just for pilots..beautiful and calm.

Last time I was there I heard some great Blues on Beale St. Been meaning to go back, I love the blues.

I was selling my 1st airplane, an Alarus 2000, and flew it to meet a potential buyer at a local airport. The FBO manager said, "If you sell it, you need to buy this Mooney we have had sitting here in our hangar for 10 yrs" and he took me to see the plane. I had always been told that "Mooneys are small and hard to work on" - but something about the plane drew me to her. Up to that point I had flown Cessna 172, Cherokee 180, Cherokee 235, Citabria, J-3 and a Bonanza. It was part of an estate and the heirs originally had an inflated value of the aircraft. Once I sold mine I contacted the executor and she explained that they had been paying hangar rent for so long that they needed to sell it just to recover some of the money. We negotiated a price contingent on the pre-purchase, the pre-purchase showed lots of minor issues but nothing major. After a 6 month annual & minor resto I got to fly a Mooney for the 1st time, needless to say I was hooked!

SOLVED Last week I did a 50h inspection and my mechanic found one of the right magneto screws to be loose. He checked the timing and fastened the screw. The leak is gone. Thanks for all your input! MV

http://wspa.com/2017/05/09/plane-crashes-in-ocean-near-myrtle-beach-state-park/ I have always wondered if I could survive a forced landing in water, it would take a special approach and lots of patience.

I prefer Cafe' Du Monde's beignets. They taste better and give you a superior ride over crispy cream and only contain calories on the 6th Wednesday of every month.

I guess this can go here too:

Which engine? I had a cylinder that would let oil in on shutdown. My Professional is not a big fan of fine wires. I had put fine wires on the bottom. We moved them to the top and put BY plugs on the bottom. The BY plugs have an extended electrode that keeps them out of the bottom of the cylinder. REM37BY for the A1A engine Chart for other engines. https://www.lycoming.com/sites/default/files/SI1042AC Approved Spark Plugs.pdf

Glad to hear you figured it out. Don't worry the oil will find a new place to escape it hates being trapped inside the engine. Oil likes the view from the bottom of the plane better.

Can you show us this machine in action on said landing gear? I'm intrigued, but the video only shows the machine cleaning household items that already appear pretty clean...not the same as a steel tube with caked on dirt and grease. Looks like it could be promising though!

I use 340 degree steam in my EV 3000i steam cleaner. Water is a great solvent! It works great for the belly, the landing gear, the bugs, the interior, engine, etc, etc. I use it in the house for grout, tile, showers, ovens, bbq grills, windows, mirrors, etc, etc. I saw a prototype of this in Germany in 2002 and have the distribution rights in Texas.

Iranian Air Defense Site: 'Unknown aircraft you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.' Aircraft: 'This is a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.' Air Defense Site: 'You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!' Aircraft: 'This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18 fighter. Send 'em up, I'll wait!' Air Defense Site: ( .... total silence) God bless our troops. There is something about a Marine that makes other countries listen to reason.

Here's a condensed 10 min video of our flight from KACV Arcata, CA to L36 just under KSMF Sacramento airspace at night. Hope the links work. "Turbo 231 Mooney Sunset Departure over the Beach" https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwi7_Zuar-bTAhUDm5QKHeE2A0oQtwIIIzAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdYFA3Ew6fxo&usg=AFQjCNFWvWmG_I8f4ErYlkaiILsHCtyK2A&sig2=VOUzDmS-pVp9IgvBtOhLOg

Christina Olds gave a great talk about her father....it seems he got a late start in the Vietnam war...but when he showed up as squadron commander in 1966 ,he wasted very little time...at an squadron meeting the new commander says..I need to know everything you know about combat in Vietnam,because in three weeks ,I am going to be leading you on sorties.One young pilot pips up "yeah sure!!"And without missing a beat ,Olds zooms on to the guy and says"Starting with you!..You are going to be my wingman!.

OK...guess I will reveal my most stupid/dangerous time back in the early 1990's. Kept my original 201 in a community hanger at Austin municipal (prior to Bergstrom) airport. It was cold (for Texas) day about 10AM...called the FBO to get out my plane and leave it on the large ramp in front off the hanger . Hanger was the middle one of three about 200 yards from the FBO. Tried to start the Lycoming IO 360 and starter would only whir... starter would not engage. Previously I could move the prop a couple of inches and then could engage the starter. Of course I had a can of starter fluid ...just in case. Go out ( did not set brake because was only going to move prop a couple of inches). Just to help things I shot a little starter fluid in...you can guess what happened when I barely moved the prop...I dashed to the side and watched my plane go about 100 yards on the huge deserted ramp (no witnesses) and coast to a stop. I pushed it back to the hanger drove home went to bed...and did not fly for a week or two. I learned a huge lesson then. Bob

When I commanded a strategic communication squadron in Quebec City from 1987 to 1989, I had my PPL, and would often rent one of the Piper Warriors from the flying school at the Ancienne Lorette Airport for pleasure and some business trips to Group Headquarters in St Hubert or to my communication detachments at stations like Bagotville (home of Eastern Canada's F-18 jocks). One of my Tech Sergeants was an owner of a 65 E model. During deployments of long term comms stations for the brigade rear links, I would often get offers from the local Tac Hel Sqn to fly out to see my deployed detachments - because the Hel Sqn was always doing LO flights between the deployed brigade and the base. One day, Sgt Panaski asked if I wanted to go with him because he had some maintenance to do on the det's radios. So I went with him to see my folks. 150 kts there and back. Try doing that in an OH-58 (Kiowa in Canada). I finally became an aircraft owner in October 2002 and the Arrow was ground looped the following March. I was the pilot. Some lessons learned here included not flying an RG in temps below -25 deg C. Others included not getting into partnership with 10 other people. The last one was about having a mechanical linkage between my right arm and the landing gear. Only one aircraft met that requirement. The following summer, I started looking for a Mooney and I looked at 2 C's and 3 E's. I paid a total of $500 for four good shops to do pre-purchase inspections on them. Three of them were declared unairworthy and one was given back because of non reporting of one of two gear up landings. The fifth one was looked at by Clarence in the Fall of 2004. The owner did not believe the list of things that needed attention until he went to see the aircraft and Clarence showed him the holes and other bits that no longer worked as they should. The owner swallowed the cost of fixing the airworthiness issues. I bought it in January 2005 and Clarence flew it to me in Ottawa in March of the same year. I have owned my E for twelve years.

@chrixxer

Hrm, I'll see if I can get into it

They are good for one landing, followup snack and a semi-permanent .3 lb useful load loss.

I just bought 8 from SkyGeek for $98.72 each + shipping (after discount). Put them in a cart for a few days then come back later and they'll give you a pop-up discount. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of LED lighting. If hypothetically it was, it would have been held on by sticky back tape and have a removable plug. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dr Alan Warrington, Pike Creek, Wilmington De

Nels, yes, fine wire (Tempest) helped my IO360 with fouling and starting. 5 years after switching I have never had an issue with a spark plug or had one out except at annual. There are several threads here to help you pick the right plug for your engine and harness or go to Aircraft Spruce site for that info. My IO360A1A engine takes UREM 38S but you need to verify whether you need 5/8"-24 (UREB36S or UREM38S) or 3/4"-20 (URHB36S or URHM38S) https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pdf/TempestAppGuideV3-07-01-13.pdf

I noticed smoother operation, especially LOP. Finewires will foul, but not as easily. There seem to be more value in finewires for those of us at airports where ground ops are extended. Extreme leaning helps massive plugs. Alcor TCP also helps if you are not running the engine hard enough. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm in! Qualified at Yuma earlier this year. Will be my first Oshkosh AND I get to be in the Mooney caravan? How fun is that?

Kudos for a successful ditching! Hope they can recover the plane and find out what happened to the engine . . . Glad the pilot wasn't injured, but if it had been me, I'd be pretty shaken up, too!

Same here. I went to fill the tire and heard hissing when I pulled the stem to get the chuck on. I am done with straight stems. Replaced tube with a Desser 600-6 AERO CLASSIC **BUTYL EASY / CONVENIENCE VAL (TR-87 70 D). The "convenience val" is the 90º stem.

There is a nice little airport right near the Bass Pro Shop (Pyramid) that is very convenient if you want to get into Memphis downtown area without the headache of Memphis International.. M01 General Dewitt Spain if you ever feel the need for Memphis BBQ or a quick trip to Bass Pro. It was pretty much just to my left in the pics. -Tom

Another item to remember about CO- It combines with hemoglobin hundreds of times easier than O2 does therefore if you have a CO leak in your heater the CO binds faster than O2 to your blood. It gets worse with altitude as the partial pressure of the O2 lessens up high. BIGGEST POINT TO REMEMBER? If you use a pulse/oxymeter to measure your O2 SAT if you have a CO leak your Oxymeter will LIE to you and read perfect O2 SATs when in fact your are going under due to CO and hypoxia. Your pulse meter can't tell the difference between O2 or CO combining on your blood vessels.

Mineral spirits and this

A wonderful gentleman from Mooneyspace took me for a ride in his E once. Dreamed about them for a few years, then two days before my commercial checkride the plane I was supposed to fly went down and I was introduced to a M20C, 2 days, 10 mooney hours and a comm rating later, I really want one now.

I read more like only 8 flying Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

.....and in my opinion, one cannot go wrong with RED!!

Good sleuthing. I think you had it pretty well thought out from the get go. It will be interesting to see your exhaust temperatures in flight.

I vote your 68 cylinder is oil fouling the plugs. Also are you leaning for taxi? After sitting do you have oil on the lower spark plug wire fitting? Maybe a worn valve guide. May need to do a wobble test. Oil fouling the plugs may be fixed by putting the BY plugs in the lower slots.

Top cowling work today. Almost finished with it and will install cowlings tomorrow for fit check. David

I was lucky...dad was a partner in a C while I was growing up. Unfortunately he sold it while I was in HS. I started flying the summer after HS, and thru college. Our great flying club had a nice F model that I finally graduated to in my last year when I was getting my IR. Flew it on some trips and was hooked of course. When I moved to Wichita in '97 I got lucky again and found a few Mooneys to rent as well as other planes, including a V-tail I liked too. I joined a club with a nice 182RG for a while. But when it came time to purchase something, Mooney towers over all the rest for efficiency, speed, and especially cost for XC missions so nothing else got seriously considered. It sure helped that I was familiar with them too! Sent from my LG-LS997 using Tapatalk

I wasn't considering a Mooney a year ago. I was looking at Cherokee 140s and Warriors because that's what I knew. There was a Mooney at my flight school, but it rarely flew. About six months ago I started looking around in earnest at what would fit my mission and budget. I'd gotten my complex endorsement so I could fly the local flight school's Arrow, which mostly sat and whose owner (leaseback) was okay (as was the school) with waiving daily minimums for weekend trips just to get her flying more regularly. Meanwhile I'd joined s new firm, where the boss owns an SR22. That thing's a heavy pig - typically slurping 16 gallons/hour in cruise. But she sure is fast. 50 or do hours cruising at 165 kts, you can't go back to a 115 knot Cherokee, or even a 135kt Arrow (12+gph at 75% power). The E or the F became my target. Comanche 250/260s are thirstier and their 6 cal engines more costly to overhaul - and I worried about parts availability with the factory destroyed 40+ years ago. Bonanzas are made of parts cast from the purest unobtainium, and I don't care for TCM engines. Especially now that they're single-sourcing everything. Arrows are almost there, but dogs. Everything else is too esoteric, orphaned, spendy, or high wing (Grummans, Navions, C182RG), or simply out of my price range (SR20). You really can't beat a Mooney for the best balance of speed, economy, efficiency, range... So I got checked out on the flight school's M20B, and just bought an E. I'm picking up the E in a couple of weeks and went on a dinner run in the B tonight, just to refresh and practice coming down from cruise. Flew the Arrow from SMO to CNO, the Mooney from CNO to MYF and back, then the Arrow back to SMO. after zipping around in the B for a couple of hours ("Porsche of the sky" seems apt), climbing back into the bigger, heavier, slower Arrow felt like a huge downgrade. I'm hooked. The numbers sold me. Actually flying the airframe got me addicted.

To begin with post a more specific location, even if it is the region of a state. If you are in my region I will be happy to give you a ride. I solo'd in 1991 and at that time read books about buying various airplanes. The write up on the Mooney appealed to me because of structural integrity, efficiency, and simplicity (I am an engineer.) it took me many years, but I now own a Mooney. Mooneys are not typically in rental fleets. They are a little cramped for larger people, and retractibles aren't typically used for basic flight training. If you and your passengers are averaged size people and you like high performance vehicles, a Mooney might be right for you. I had a non pilot friend tell me he had heard that a Mooney is the Ferrari of small planes.

The one thing I'm nervous about is relying on the vacuum instruments for too long. I've been on an IFR flight, at night, over mountains, when the DG quit. Made it home with the Whiskey compass, VORs, and my iPad + Stratus. I could probably survive loss of the AI / DG at the same time (I certainly practice partial panel), but in the soup, it would suck. Might be worth picking up a Stratus 2 or 2S with the AHRS, as a stop-gap, just to have the backup. Can always turn around and sell it at not much of a loss once the panel has that functionality built in.

A small drill bit will remove the old sealant....

I just registered. Attended the Yuma Gunfighter's clinic, hope we have another on west coast before OSH. Fun times ahead.

There's a Premier agent, Richard Simile, based in Auburn, AL KAUO, a half hour drive from where I live. He seems to always have a nice selection of recent planes.

All I know is when I asked my personal physician to write a letter stating my BP was stable, they freaked out when they heard pilot, flying and AME. They refuse to author the letter. That was 2 years ago. So I get it, they were ignorant, but it is what it is. I can just imagine whats going to happen when I ask them to sign a form. I can hear the questions now. why do I have to sign the form? Whats it for? who are you sending it to? Where is it going? etc ...... The medical profession practices defensive medicine. They are so afraid of litigation. Cruser is right, we just need to wait and see.

Credit card charge back might get their attention. Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk