Leaderboard

It's time for an update. She flies. 34 minutes over the top of the airport. Full power is now 39" at 2600 RPM. We're still dialing in the fuel flow, so don't have that yet. We have a short list of squawks to work through but should be finished up and heading to Denver by the weekend.

And.... it's finished. Well almost... Sept 30, 2020 to April 11, 2021 The 252 Encore is back in my hangar in Denver. There are still a couple of minor squawks that I'll work through over the next week or so. But all in all, it's running strong, not leaking/burning oil, and now has 1060 lbs useful load. I'll try to get a full PIREP out this week to detail the reasons for the length of time, the mods done, current squawks, etc.

Now if you said, "I'm a student working on my A&P/IA, and I would like to have my own airframe and power plant to strip down and get into every detail." Then this would make sense. But if you're an aspiring pilot looking for an airplane to FLY? This is not the one. You'll have your ATP before that plane is ready to fly. And you'll have spent enough money on it to have owned two Mooneys that are flying today. Those who have been around here a while know that I have a list of people who have tried to do something similar. It's never worked out. Some of them are flying their Mooneys and

As a 252 Encore owner, I'll say that ALL Mooneys are great. From the M20B to the M20V they are all unbelievably efficient and yet very fast airplanes. But when you zero in and start splitting hairs, the 252's really seem to be the top of the heap for me. My real world numbers are 9.5 gph and as fast as 195 knots TAS at that fuel flow up at the top of it's available altitude. That gives me an engine out glide ring of well over 50 miles. It also gives me more than 1000 miles of range with reserves, all on standard tanks. I can top most weather. Ignore terrain even in Colorado.

I talked to the mechanic, who said he pulled two more lifters. “They were garbage,” he noted, apparently satisfied that they were the cause of all the metal in the oil filter. It seems that is a common Continental issue. “You should be good for another five years,” he promised. So having written a check for shiny things to replace corroded things, I sit back and wait for miracles to be worked. whew!!! thanks, all, for the kind wishes!

Thanks for the weather tips and experiences with these missions. It good to have validation that the airplane can do this mission. ...and I will do this mission regularly, but not this week. Now on to the pilot...Carusoam asked how the transition training has gone. It has gone well and I feel comfortable in the airplane. I've flown about 15hours so far, some in IMC, some xwind, but not as much as I've done in the C. One 300nm cross country. With hundreds of hours in the C, I felt like it was an extension of me. The Bravo...not yet, the only piece I'm still working on is the flare

Anyone take up any hobbies recently which they care to share? I got my son a Cricut machine and he made his first t-shirt. This thing is pretty cool!

Leaving plastic out to save weight , is a lie , not laziness , as the prop damage was also a lie.... Never buy anything from a liar...

Gubni , Congrats , you are one of the few , people who has listened to your IA , Good for you , I researched this airplane , it has been deregistered for 20 years , probably not flown for 30 .... Plane is worth 5k or less... This plane will NEVER fly ever again..... I buy a lot of these projects , after someone buys it with delusions of resurrecting it.... Get your private , figure out your mission , and buy the correct aircraft for your mission... , and buy a flying aircraft..... There are very few aircraft that have sat for more than 10 to 12 years , that are worth more than the value

Hi folks, today I flew her home. Have a look!

Sunset flight. That's the St Lawrence Seaway, looking toward the Thousand Islands. Gone practice missed on ILS5 KMSS. There's NY State on my left and Canada on my right and ahead.

In the 252, prior to the Encore conversion, and with a tired engine, I would consistently get 800 ft/min all the way to the 20's. After todays flight with a fresh engine and a bit more HP, it's a different airplane and I expect the climb will be quicker. I usually budget 20 or 30 minutes to get to cruise altitude between FL230 and FL260. But then my hangar is already at 5600 ft. I hear everyone saying they didn't get a Mooney to go slow. So to hell with the gas, we want to go fast. And I'm in complete agreement. But the best way to go fast A to B is to go non-stop. Climbing all the w

This picture was taken yesterday coming back VFR from Colorado. Just another day for the M20K......cruising at 15,500 ft with a TAS of 173 knots burning 11.7 gal/hr

It concerns me that paint is first on your list after a ferry permit. IMO it should be last. Unless the plane will be kept outside and the paint is in such poor shape that it's providing no protection from corrosion, there are bigger fish to fry first. Plus your new paint is likely to get scratched and damaged during all the other work you have planned if you paint it first. Because it's been hangared, the current paint will probably look perfectly fine with a little elbow grease and a quality polish. Find what needs fixing first. Fix it. Then invest in extras and aesthetics. My 2

Landed in ellijay, ga. Spending the weekend in blue ridge.

I don’t know why everybody is so down on this guy. If he wants a project plane, let him have one. If he turns it into a piece of junk, that is his problem. If he makes a show piece out of it, well good for him. Let’s do what we can to steer him in the right direction.

I just uploaded an in flight demonstration and overview of all the features of the Garmin GFC 500 Autopilot. Enjoy!

Probably true. What’s also probably true is that pilots will work themselves into a lather over minutia (guilty as charged) even when there’s little evidence to suggest that windshields are being destroyed by ham fisted cleaning procedures. I’ve been told that that a slurry of soy milk and cocoa butter applied with angora silk Is the only way to keep a windshield truly scratch free but some people are just too cheap to go the extra mile.

Glad you made it safely. I didn't answer your poll because I honestly can't remember if I ever went missed while IMC. However, I have flown a Cat II approach to minimums (100 AGL) at 2300(L) to runway 4L at DTW and landed in a plane without autoland (DC9). I've also flown a Cat I approach to runway 6 at GRB, seen just the approach lights at 200', picked up the runway at 100', and landed. I also have a story for you. I was at BNA (Nashville) waiting for an inbound crew to bring us the DC9 we were going to take outbound. Weather was foggy. The inbound crew went missed because they did

A few more.

Not exactly on a stabilized approach, but it can be done (at least in the short bodies). Pull power to idle, get to gear speed, drop the gear, and put in a full slip, you come down like an elevator. In my transition training we found ourselves very high entering a downwind. The tower extended us out but about 4 miles from the field we were still 4,000 AGL when the tower called our base and cleared us to land. I asked my CFI if I should ask to extend a little further. His response was "No, you can get down there." I followed his instructions, pulled power back, turned base letting the nose drop

I'm one of the original nay sayers on this project. But I've been convinced that you know enough and aren't afraid of what you don't know. So I'll play along. I'm a huge fan of Mooneys and am always in favor of someone putting in the time and the money, neither of which you'll get back, to restore one and get it back in the air. One thing you left off your list is an engine overhaul. It will cost the same, but you'll be time ahead if you just pull the engine when you get it home and send it off for overhaul. It will need it within a few hours of flying if it doesn't right now. You s

I’m not trying to be political, but with fuel prices going up and massive inflation from printing trillions, I don’t see prices ever going back down.

Landing lights can actually be a distraction at night. I used to teach night landings without using the landing lights. First, they light up the runway too close to your touchdown point and your eyes naturally go there which causes you to lose height perception. Second, you need to be comfortable landing at night without a landing light in case it fails (not infrequent for those airplanes with cowling-mounted incandescent bulbs). Mooney's are difficult to full stall without a thud unless you get everything just perfect. At night with fewer visual cues, it's extra hard. Try using a soft fi

Says me don't do it unless you're an A&P or are really friendly with one. You can go upside down on a project like this very easily. Indeed people frequently do. There is a long thread from a Mooneyspacer who got a project Mooney probably in better shape than the one you are contemplating. I think it was two years of fairly constant effort before that Mooney flew. Repeat after me: There are no bargains in aviation. There are no bargains in aviation. There are no bargains in aviation.

I flew my 180hp 63 mooney all over the country. I'm a big guy. 250lbs. My wife and kids are not. I've been all the way to Florida, Washington state, wisconsin, colorado, etc etc. Never found an airport short of leadville or telluride I wouldn't go out of at gross. Based in Phoenix, I never had a problem hitting MEAs. I cruised as high as 16.5. took planning to get there, but I could do it. Flew pretty solid IFR for hours when I went to Florida. Great airplane. However.... My family outgrew it. And outgrew it's capabilities. We traveled so much, we really needed some

Not really. My first wife had cancer. The most important thing is to not compare the two. You chose them for who they are. Airplanes are the same way. Usually when you talk to a pilot that has flown competitors, Cirrus and Mooney or Airbus and Boeing they will appreciate both designs. You really only run into zealots with people who have little to no experience in both.

It’s sometimes depressing to compare TAS numbers in the Bravo to others based on the fuel we burn, but it’s really about having the option to go into the FLs when needed or to catch a tailwind. Sure, the 252 can do it all on less fuel, but (I tried to complete the sentence but could not, you win @gsxrpilot!)

I don't think anyone here will fault you for good, sound aeronautical decision making. With your three reasons given, any one of those would be satisfactory for me to cancel the flight. I think you are making a good decision.

An awesome 310 just came on the market a couple of hours ago. I predict it will sell within 24 hours. https://www.beechtalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=194481

So I had to go missed today because of getting to the MDA without seeing runway for the first time in my limited experience. As a ~1000 hr rank amateur who's been instrument rated for 3.5 years, it was a novel and slightly harrowing experience that I found worth sharing for discussion/debrief. My destination weather forecast was 800 ceiling, 6 mi visibility and supposed to improve to that from a ceiling of 500ft at my time of departure. I've flown approaches down to about 500ft a handful of times, and lower once (unforecast) without incident, and so I use 500 forecast ceiling as my per

I’m going to disagree with Don here (although nothing he said is wrong) but I’m not sure I would replace a KFC225 with a GFC500. I recently had the roll servo fail on my KFC225 (which another Mooneyspacer diagnosed based on a 7 second video I sent asking him what was wrong with my AP). I decided that maybe it was time to upgrade so I got a couple of quotes that were all in the $18-20k range (but included a GI-275 so it might have been cheaper with a G5). Instead of doing that I went to Executive Autopilots at SAC and in 1 day he pulled out my roll servo, rebuilt it, put a new motor in and

Yes absolutely

So my plane is now home with freshly resealed fuel tanks. I cannot express how strange it is to sit in the plane in the hangar and _not_ smell fuel. It's like a totally different machine! I called Edison @ Wet-Wingologists East on about the 25th of January and was surprised to find he had an opening for February. We flew the plane down the following week, left it with Banyan (per Edison's instructions), and spent a few days on Miami Beach (not my style, but still nice) before flying back commercially. Over the next month, I called for status several times to find that Edison's sealan

Now that you’ve got the seat belts anchored, it’s time for a modern ELT. Clarence

Something I do fairly frequently is find the airport on Google maps and then just start looking for the restaurant icons nearby. If there's one on the field they'll usually show up, or if one is within walking distance. It's also a fairly easy way to figure out where the fuel pumps are before you get there.

Couple of things you may want to do: Get a copy of the IPC (Illustrated Parts Manual) for your model. If you are doing the work, it's nice to know what part you need to tell the person on the other end of the phone other than just describing what it looks like and where it goes. And some parts vary by serial number of the plane. Get a copy of the Service Manual. There are many things you can do to the plane within the regs, but they all require having a service manual. Plus, it calls out what freaky lubricant/oil/grease is required for every specific thing which should move.

I setup my Microsoft Flight Simulator during the pandemic.

Sometimes in quiet hangars small animals can set up shop around the steel cages. Make sure the mechanic pulls the interior (and exterior) panels to look for corrosion. Be prepared to replace a lot of the rubber parts. You might want to change the oil before you start it and cut the filter apart every 25 hrs for the first couple hundred. Not sure if you’ve looked at @Raptor05121 ‘s thread but he had the drive to fix things properly and did a great job with his C.

This right here is why you buy PS. I've only heard good things from their support. I only have good things to say about them in my experience.

A friend of mine has a 231 at CHD. I’ll get you time in it.

We're still dialing this in and so I'm hesitant to say. When we had the external instrumentation attached to measure fuel flow, (I don't recall the name of the instrument), we were seeing 24 gph max FF. But on my JPI I'm only seeing 19 to 20 gph. We will increase the max fuel flow to get to 25.5 gph and adjust the K factor on the JPI to reflect that number accurately.

Update: Using @Mooneymite’s suggestion we got into the belly pan and discovered the worn bushings. LASAR had them in stock; four required. Replaced them and returned to service. No idea how old the previous bushings were. The whole process took about 3 hrs from start to finish with most of the time being spent on removing and replacing the belly pan.

205-210 ktas rich of peak. about 19.8gph 193-198 ktas lop about 16.3gph this is full gross, after a 1100-1400fpm climb burning 33gph. an ovation leaps off the ground and easily out climbs the acclaim until about 500’, then the acclaim is in a class of its own. someone else said earlier, once you get a turbo it’s hard to go back. that is very much the case for me, I sold an acclaim and got an ovation, and sold that to go back to an acclaim. I bought a plane to go fast, the only way I could sell my Mooney is if I can afford something faster. I have 950# UL, an

Blessed has nothing to do with it. I choose to live in the state I do for many reasons. Most airplanes I owned a year or two. I have owned two airplanes at once a few times. In 2,500 hours of flying I've only overhauled one engine. But given the average TBO is in the 2,000 hour range, statistically that is reasonable. I sold my Bonanza with 2300 SMOH on a 1700 TBO. Operating engines properly goes a long way toward them living long and happy lives.

It is only a surprise the first time. And that should be in your check out ride.

In my 231 at 24,000 I see 198-200 TAS at 75% power. That is about 13 gph fuel burn. Note: I have an intercooler and upper deck pressure controller which partially closes the gap to a 252. With the modifications, my 231 comes pretty close to the factory 231 mph speed claims while running at 75% power.

Looks like the mechanical upstop adjustment tube. The threaded part is the adjustable piece. Turns in or out and lock it with the set screw.

May I suggest a M20K 252 for your mission. It’s very capable and as @gsxrpilotis doing, when the motor comes up for rebuild, and the kids are getting larger, you can get the motor and landing gear upgraded to an Encore conversion and get another ~200# useful load. I bought mine as a fresh conversion from Maxwell Aviation with a useful load of just over 1100# and just flew a 600nm trip with my wife and teenage kids in 3:45 on 44 gal of 100ll.

Fwiw, I just told my a&p about the latter F’s having the single window, that there was a letter from Mooney, and that I had the stringers from Mooney that I needed and we did the mod with a logbook entry. I love what it does for the looks and rear seat view