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My wife brought her friend along on our flight to Quakertown for the July 4th pilot BBQ. It was her first time up in a GA plane so we did a diversion to do some sightseeing in the NYC area first. Over the VZ, up the Hudson, past downtown. There was a Yankees TFR so at the intrepid I turned direct Teterboro and then direct Quakertown. Video compilation of the BBQ, flying, and her reaction to her first flight here:

Just a bit of a milestone. On July 7th, 2016 I met my CFI at the airport and we made three trips around the pattern before I dropped him off at the base of the tower and taxied to the end of runway 26R before taking off into the air all alone, my first Solo Flight! It is hard to believe that a year has passed. Since that first solo flight a year ago so much has happened. I had 15.6 hours of flight at the time, I have flown another 124 hours since then. I passed my Check-ride on Oct 15, 2016 and received my PPL. I made my first actual long distance cross country to Arizona and took my dad on a short flight. I bought a Mooney! I made another 197 landings, flew over 7,800 nautical miles, landed in a total of 5 different states at a total of 28 different airports. It is still like a dream that I have my pilot's license and I have my own plane. I still get a rush every time I push the throttle in and start rolling down the runway. I hope that feeling never goes away. I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

An airplane advertised for sale is expected to be airworthy. and the seller should be responsible for anything that is an airworthiness item. A good prebuy inspection by a Mooney shop is important. LASAR uses a Prebuy list and it usually cost about $1700

Once I'm dead, I'm fine with an alligator or any other creature making use of my corpse. Much cheaper than spending heaps of money on funeral, burial, casket, or even cremation. The family can have a wake/celebration of life/or whatever they like. It won't bother me one way or the other

I dunno, it'd not like they make these anymore. I tend to think of myself as a steward of my aircraft, someone who keeps it flying nor the next generation. I never like to see aircraft get dismantled. They really don't make them like that anymore.

It's time to altitude. I get 400 to 600 feet per minute so, that's 20 minuets to 10 thousand feet. My wife starts bitching after the first 5! LOL! I would really like to have 900 to 1000fpm climb and a lot more speed. If the wife's not happy, nobody is happy!!! But!!! In her defiance, how many wife's will tell their husband, "Go ahead and get a faster plane, I would like that, and make sure it has everything you want!" I love that woman!!!

Left KPLR on Saturday with my daughter down to Destin, 1:11 enroute instead of the 6.5 hours it took the three cars also driving down. Katelyn is a great co-pilot and we had a few hours together before the rest of the folks came dragging in and complaining about traffic. HAHA I enjoyed taking my nephews and brother in law up for a site seeing tour along the beach, including a simulated rocket attack on the condo. (having convinced my nephew that the giant red button on the yoke was for heat seeking missiles). I also took my mother in law and niece and nephew on their first plane ride. My son had to come back to work, so we left Tuesday after dinner and landed in time to see the fireworks show at the lake. Put in a full day work on Wednesday and made it back to Destin in time for a dinner date with my wife. I departed this morning and after landing at KPLR, I washed the plane then flew couple of practice approaches. Kudos to the folks at Lynx at DTS. Amazing amount of arrivals and departures came in and out and they managed it all very well. A few pictures below This one is my niece doing the "astronaut" walk out to the plane. Dodging afternoon storms. Looks like it is raining sunshine. Sunset over the pass Nephews My daughter, AKA- Loopy Larry Breaking out at 3'000 for a view down the coast Sunset from the water

From the Caravan site: Wednesday, July 26 - Oshkosh, WI 18:00 Formation Safety Stand-Down All participants pitch in and we get pizza and drinks. We will spend an hour in a round table interactive discussion addressing the finer points of being wingman and lead pilots. Then off to the night air show starting at 20:00.

It had been a week and one half since I was up, terrible weather and fixing some squawks. I'll never get this thing painted if I don;t get the hours on it though. Yesterday was a beautiful day so decided to go up after dinner. I called 7 different people to go flying and ended up solo again. I flew up to the top of Michigan (the Keweenaw Peninsula), passing right over the Houghton / Hancock Airport. You can see the peninsula stretching out into Lake Superior, and the hilly terrain along the spine of it. That's really nice snowmobile and biking territory with a view of Lake Superior to the east and west along parts of it. I was high to add pressurization time to the fuselage (one of my goals before paint) with a cabin pressure of 6K while flying at 17.5K. The Mooney was not looking happy when I shut down in front of the hangar. :>) It's a pretty tight squeeze getting 3 birds in a 42' x 64' hangar. Tom

Purchased this 67F model just over 2 months ago. Could not be happier! Have a few trips planned in the near future. We are based in Winchester VA OKV. This board is such a wealth of good information. I hope to be able to contribute.

Yes, she's a keeper. My wife offers similar support. So we're in escrow, pre-buy next week.

I got my Kool Scoop today. Decide to install it flush to the window without the hinge. I trim the edges for a perfect fit and cut out the hinge section. Put it in the window opening and pinch the edge with the window knob. It holds in place very well. Taxi around and got a hurricane draft. I store the scoop in the side panel pouch normally used for charts. José

I understand... I sold a very nice C to get a turbo K. There's something nice about setting the vertical speed at 800 ft/min and climbing all the way into the flight levels. You're also watching the TAS increase all the way up. I snapped a picture and have it somewhere of my trip home with the new to me 252. I was climbing through 10,500 at 800 ft/min at 155 knots and accelerating. You can't do that in a C.

I'd love a wider cabin too, but the #1 thing a new Mooney needs is useful load...thru some combo of weight reduction and/or gross weight increase. My hope is that the next evolution might finally accomplish that, perhaps in conjunction with more cabin width. We all know the wing strength is legendary, but I'm starting to wish that instead of 12+ G strength maybe they could reduce weight since 10 G's would be more than ample... I suspect there is a lot of airframe weight that could be optimized/removed. Once a big change like that is started, it would make a lot of sense to widen the cabin. Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

Seems like a pretty harsh indictment without any more than one news video's worth of information. I'm with Paul...if there's blame to be had, let's start with the perp who allegedly stole the airplane and then crashed it. But even with that, let's gather some facts before we flame somebody.

I suspect there's a possibility that the crankshaft may have been moved with the cylinder off. The reason is that the cylinder that was last replaced was the one that had the FOD go through it when I had the engine failure (both spark plugs were destroyed some time between runup and 10 seconds after I started my climb). I suspect that the IA who recovered the airplane spent a lot of time looking around for the cause. I never saw the parts that came off that engine and am only going off of what I was told. Thus far it seems that selecting Aero Engines of Winchester, VA was a good decision for the overhaul. They're swapping cases with me and solong as the old case comes back, they said they won't charge me for it. Air Power said that if I ordered a factory overhauled engine from them, that there would be no surprises if they found anything in the engine, but, frankly, I didn't believe them. Too many maintenance shops, not just engine shops, said that if I went with a factory overhaul and they found a bad crank, that I'd get charged for it, and I've heard builders say that dealing with Air Power for cylinder warranty has been a nightmare at times. The large flight school that referred me to Aero Engines specifically mentioned that they're pretty good about helping customers save money on the big ticket parts that many of the other shops won't do. Another thing that's unbelievably fortunate: Out of nowhere, right as this all started, a colleague that I've worked with over the past 15 or so years comes to me with a fixed price project to pay me an extra chunk of money to write an app for the iPhone and Android for a major chain of restaurants, which should offset a good part of this. I'm like the Winston Wolf of software development: I get things done and occasionally I get a call. It would've been nice to put that towards a Rocket, but I also would have felt horrible handing off my old F to someone who had a budget for an M20F: likely, a first time buyer like I was, and at the time I bought my F, weathering an engine would've been difficult, but part of the reason I bought an F and not a J or K was that I could afford the plane and, if I had to buy an engine, I wouldn't like doing it, but I could swing it.

I prefer to target fuel flow rather that EGT temp. With my 200hp IO360 I know that 8.2-8.3 gph (~ 62% power LOP) is a setting that works great for maximizing range/economy. Deakin (or Busch?) would call that the Big Pull, I think.

I'll take that as a compliment.

@Bob_Belville your whole panel is "non-standard"

Keys or no keys, most older GA airplanes can be unlocked and started pretty easily. I remember hearing once that at one point one of ten keys would open and start any Cessna.

There's a touch of the invulnerability hazardous attitude in this post. I purchased the plane in 2012 with ~1100 SFOH. I flew between 200 and 300 hours per year since then and the engine had just made TBO. The plane was maintained by IA/A&P/MSCs of the highest reputation. At one point I had an engine failure on takeoff at 200ft leaving a reputable MSC; I don't know whether the failure was the result of maintenance that had just been performed or if it was coincidental, but either way, I stuck to preplanned decisions on maintenance and operation and still experienced an engine failure; my point being that even if the big names maintain your bird, it doesn't mean bad things can't still happen. I still declined an intersection departure that day, which likely saved the airframe and possibly our lives. I performed oil changes every 25 hours and filter changes either every change, or every other change, and I inspected the filters each and every time. I pulled the filter this time and inspected it as I noticed a couple psi drop in oil pressure that had been trending downwards for months. If I did not have a graphic engine monitor, I would likely have not even noticed it. The oil pressure was still in the green and had dropped 5-8 psi in cruise over the course of around 100-150 hours or so. In the last 20 hours, I noticed another 1-2psi drop and inspected the filter. Aside from a one-time even with a few small specs at annual 100 hours prior, there was no sign of metal in any previous oil change. The center main bearing spun. A friend who has a Cardinal mentioned that a number of Cardinal owners have had bearings spin after a cylinder has been replaced, believed to be the result of the torque across the case halves being relieved.

Now accredited with the Destin course. Thanks for the recommendation. Seems like a known issue at Destin. With as many departures and arrivals that are typical at Destin it is surprising that the issue has not been corrected.

When I was at the factory a few weeks ago they had at least six airframes on the line nearing production finish and I was told they were all sold. They are practicing a much greater JIT manufacturing process so there weren't any models being built on spec. They didn't reveal any more about orders or bookings.

Just as@Hank described, with AP flying or another pilot flying, grab the lever an inch or two above the quadrant and move it as slowly as possible with gentle pressure. Hah for getting 1F accuracy! What we're trying to do is get resolution of 0.1 GPH changes but sometimes that's just impossible as it jumps by 0.2 GPH. One of the reasons it's definitely easier from the rich to lean is that when you jump too lean you'll trigger misfire in a plug, now you have erratic EGT and won't clear it up till you enriched again significantly- so once you know where that is try to avoid getting that lean and hopefully you won't have misfire right by peak. If you do, you'll have to note the mag and cyl and fix the plug to get pass that. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Paul, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to share your professional opinion and expertise. I greatly appreciate your suggestions. I will follow your guidance so I may obtain data that will lend itself to more meaningful interpretation. If I understand you correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, my plan is to first do the gami spread ~3x slower. I do have vernier controls and it's really easy. Then, and from a known LOP value, go right into the lop mag check. I will do this and post data plots. I was well in excess of 50° lop and suspected cyl3 is too lean. As you say because it's both plugs on cyl3 and being overly lean I'm not concerned. But will verify. Thank you again Paul.

Amelia Earhart’s failure to find Howland Island on the morning of July 2, 1937 was a radio navigation failure. Her announced intention was to find the island by using her Radio Direction Finder (RDF) to take bearings on signals sent by the Coast Guard cutter Itasca standing offshore Howland. In her pre-flight messages to the Coast Guard and in a radio transmission during the actual flight, she asked Itasca to transmit on 7500 kilocycles (kcs). Itasca sent the signals as requested and Earhart was unable to take a bearing. Unlike a conventional ADF Amelia used a manual DF. On a DF the pilot rotates the antenna loop on top looking for a signal dip on an S meter on the receiver. The bearing at the dip is then read at the dial on the cockpit ceiling. There is a 180deg ambiguity on these DF that was later resolved (sense antenna). But on these DF loops at frequencies above 1MHz the directionality of the loop is reduced and becomes very difficult to find the signal dip. At low frequencies the loop is an H field antenna but as frequency increases it start becoming an E field antenna. Another factor on HF DF is that the signal propagation is via the ionosphere, not like a ground wave on lower frequencies 100KHz - 1MHz. This why Loran C is on 100KHz vs the old Loran A on 1.7MHz More on this at: http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/53_MiamiPhoto/53_MiamiPhoto.htm José KP4DAC

Here's the sort of panel a '66E deserves:

The absolute value of EGT is practically meaningless. 1300 or 1500 - you shouldn't care. What you should care about is degrees ROP or LOP. If you slowly lean - using the vernier on the mixture knob - the EGT will go up until it doesn't go up - it peaks - and then it goes down. Take note of that peak temp. (When your '66E was shipped it had a single prob Alcor EGT meter. It was marked in 25 deg F segments but had no actual temps. It had a movable needle to position at the peak temp so that you could easily move the mixture in until you were the reached the ROP delta temp you wanted.) At higher power setting you should run either 100 ROP or 25 (or more) LOP to be confident you cannot harm the engine. As Paul points out at lower power settings you will not harm the engine at any mixture you choose. At 10,500', Full Throttle, and 2500 RPM you won't be (much) over 65%. particularly in the summer, at lower altitudes you'll have to pay more attention to % power. Read the first bullet point again. You have one of the very best models and year that Mooney ever made, enjoy!

For these small lycoming, the red box doesn't really start until 75% power

Measure the stalactites.

Peter, Your Top #3 plug is missing and your bottom #3 is in early stages of it. Also your bottom #4 has an excessive rise. Is this significant? I can't say without a gami spread just before the LOP Mag test to see just how LOP the test was done. Any interpretation of the LOP mag test needs to be done in the context of how LOP the test is done since your stressing the ignition system more by the more LOP you go. But whenever I see both plugs of the same cyl showing the signs of missing and very high rises as we see here, I am suspicious of the cylinder being overly lean. For example, your leanest cylinder is going to be the first to start showing signs of missing by going excessively lean. But you may know how much LOP you were running when you ran the test and I'd suggest if you were well excess of 50 LOP not to be concerned but if you were 50 LOP or less then I would address and inspect & clean the plugs; especially checking internal resistance. But since FF was further pulled just before the test from 10 to >8 GPH that makes it pretty hard. So why the 50 LOP cutoff? Since 50 LOP is the maximum we ever need to be to run at higher power settings LOP, there is no point in performing maintenance that won't do you any good. But any missing upto 50 LOP is considered premature IMO since its very reasonable to need to run 50F LOP at 75% power, should you so desire. But given the very high rises, and both plus in #3 showing signs of missing, I'd guess the cyl is overly lean and would repeat the test before relying the test results. Incidentally the excessive rises in EGT is also the cause of the large CHT drop and another clue for the mixture being overly lean. Also I'd recommend performing the gami spread slower - less than 30 seconds from 11 - 7.5 GPH with your 2 sec sampling rate isn't giving you as accurate results as you can get if performed 2 to 3x slower and be sure to perform the test at WOT to avoid any significant changes in MAP which will also reduce the quality of your data. It is really hard to do this test well if you are having to manipulate the lever controls on a quadrant style, but if you have vernier controls its very easy. Of course, perform the gami multiple times to ensure you are getting repeatable consistent results. For more on interpreting ignition tests see our write up here: https://www.savvyanalysis.com/articles/in-flight-diagnostics For more understanding of the EGT rise accompanied by a CHT drop relationship from an ignition issue see ENGINE MONITOR WEBINAR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SvTESXqidM 1 hr 13 mins For our guidance on how to best run these tests see http://content.savvyanalysis.com/static/pdf/SavvyAnalysisFlightTestProfiles.pdf

Yea, I was comparing it to an acclaim in my post when I responded to Chris saying And if I had a Bravo, I would be lusting after an Acclaim Now if we were comparing your 231 to Joes J at 9000', Joes J goes 160 TAS on 8.3 GPH, has a much lower CAPex and Oex and saves over 2K a year in fuel over a 231. Financially, you seem to have a nice fit with your resources and your 231, Ken. Joe has a nice fit with his J, Don has a nice fit with his Bravo, and Chuck loves his TBM850 and can handle the Oex without losing sleep. Some struggle just to keep their C in the family and hide the discussion of costs behind acronyms like AMU's Pick you model based on mission, Get the best you can afford reasonably without having to have a brother in family law, don't buy the "cheap one" hoping for the "deal" that no one else ever gets thinking you will be "the chosen lucky one" prebuy the previous owner(s) as much as you do the plane, and for heavens sake, don't let it sit outside on the ramp like a poor F model I see here in Glendale AZ today having the 115 deg sun destroy it. I felt just l like I do when I have seen a dog locked up in a car in Florida. If you cant afford to take proper care of it, please just pass on it until you can. .

I disagree. If you choose to do a pre-buy, an MSC is not necessarily required. My A&P/IA personally flies a Mooney Rocket but the shop is not an MSC. As a matter of fact, I refuse to use the closest MSC, too many bad stories about them. My local non-MSC guy is far better.

John Deakin says once is enough for most. That's what I do. https://www.avweb.com/news/pelican/Pelicans-Perch-16-Those-Marvelous-Props-182082-1.html Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I have a 231 with a Merlyn Waste Gate but no intercooler. I've owned the airplane for about a year and I have been unable to find an intercooler to install. The one company that lists them for sale stopped making them some time back because demand was low. If you have a 231 and you want an intercooler there may be hope! I just spoke to Bill at Airflow Systems and he told me they need to sell a minimum of 10 units to make a production run economically possible. If 10 people were interested at one time he would try to make a limited production run of intercoolers! I'm one of the interested people so he needs 9 more. If you are interested in an intercooler please call Bill at 949-218-9701. I told him I was posting his name and contact information and so he's expecting some calls. If you are going to call him, please leave a note on this board so we can follow the actual interest in these units.

Better to ask for forgiveness than permission

man that is one gorgeous plane.

For the 431/531 caps this still seems like the best deal around. https://www.beechtalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=130666

Yes that is their number. I have received my IFR numerous times via the phone. I can Bluetooth to my Bose so it is just like making a radio call.

Not me. Those with an Acclaim would be lusting after mine...except for the little extra speed of the Acclaim.

He has more hair probably than any male in my total extended family right now. -Seth

"The botched ADS-B ... is a great example: Its behind schedule, over budget and untested. They're not even sure ADS-B is going to work in a terminal environment - so they can retire RADAR as the primary system? Additionally, they have discovered they need many more transceivers than originally thought. Then there's the question as to why the US chose to be the only country in the world to use 978 as opposed to 1090 which the rest of the modern world uses?" None of these technical issues will kill the GA industry. Privatising ATC monopoly into the hands of corporate airlines will. You will stop flying when you get charged, let's say, $500 each time your ADS-B showed up in or near a controlled airspace.

I am a new guy here. Thank you for providing us with this wonderful forum. Donate made

So... (generally) 1) you bought a 50 year old machine... 2) from a dealer that has no specific experience for this machine... 3) had a PPI done by a non-machine specific Mechanic... 4) Your machine flies safely at altitude at full speed... 5) which is about 75% of the speed of a brand new one, at 1/10th cost... 6) Are you celebrating? 7) Are you dissapointed? 8) Did you get more than you paid for? 9) did you get less than you paid for? 10) you do know fixing an old plane is similar to fixing a new plane, in price. 11) if you skipped all the advice of going to the known dealers and the known maintenance resources.. you can choose: you can celebrate the money you saved be dissapointed by the following expenses you received 12) Are We responsible for are own destiny? 13) Don't change a thing... it comes from your own experience. You weren't the first, you won't be the last. But, maybe, your honest experience just helped somebody do it better for themselves.... 14) You probably just want to move on to the next adventure. Focusing on every misstep you have probably doesn't get you to the next level where you want to be... 15) I've been there... I bought the most worn, aged M20C. If i didn't buy it, the O wouldn't have happened a decade later. 16) update your location in your avatar... if you hide behind a vail of secrecy, it is hard to get all people to be supportive of your situation. 17) Some steps in life are going to be tough. This isn't one of them... Hows that for a pep talk? Best regards, -a-

I'd actually like to have an MU2... with a pair of Garrett's that I certainly can't afford to feed or maintain. As I evaluate the budget for airplane ownership, there are two distinct categories, CapEx and OpEx. I briefly looked at Bravos as the CapEx (purchase price) was in my budget. But I decided the OpEx of a Bravo which includes fuel, oil, annuals, and engine fund, etc, exceeded my budget and was significantly higher than a M20K. And of course, the OpEx of an Acclaim or the MU2 is even higher. When comparing the 231, 252/Encore, the OpEx is virtually the same and only the CapEx is different. So it was an easy decision to make to spend the extra CapEx to get the best possible plane without moving up into the next OpEx category. And with the better resale value of the 252's, the CapEx is actually reduced and the ability to upgrade the 252 to an Encore will improve the CapEx number even further. Just my $0.02 on how I arrived at the decision on the 252.

Hey! The line forms behind me!

I didn't fly anywhere today but did spend some time out at the hangar working on a few things. I also added a flag today which I've been wanting to do for a while. I put a new flag on the house and moved the old one to the hangar.

I was just down there a couple of weeks ago (KTMB). I was raised down there and my Mom still lives there so I fly to Miami regularly to check up on her. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Fun times. Don't fly it 5 mph fast on short final or the wings will fall off and you will ball it up.

That is why I didn't bother to sync mine.