phecksel

Not an ideal solution, there are concerns with this, but it works. Dryer hose over the car exhaust going into the bottom of the engine will warm it. I had a glue on heat pad attached to the oil pan. If you leave it electrified, the crank must be vented. One other way to make it work might be one of those tiny little Wing covers for the frost issue? Wonder if warmed windshield washer fluid would eliminate the frost without creating an environmental issue that anti-freeez would.

when and why did it move away from the fall? I used to LOVE antagonizing Jacque at convention every year. It was like shooting at fish in a barrel sometimes.

Pick something else WD40 leaves a waxy film which will be worse than what you didn't have before. One of the reported uses of WD40 is on fishing bait. I'm an awful fisherman, can never catch anything... until I spray the lures or bait with wd40

Ex Wife went through a pitch hitter program that actually flew with the "students" aka inexperienced minds of mush. Keep in mind, she could not lower the gear from the right seat. The instructor kept beating into her head never let the manifold pressure get above the RPM or the engine will blow up {sigh}. She's already going to do a gear up landing, the OWT of over square isn't going to matter at all. Some other things he was concerned with, proper patterns, carb heat, etc. I told her, follow the freeway to the big airport and just line up on one of the runways and set it down. ATC will see you coming and clear everybody out of your way. Bonus points if you set the transponder. For some reason she became obsessed with carb heat, and several years later, that led to an engine shut down, at 12k with no place to land, but that's another story

Mfg types will appreciate this one. I somehow fanagled a behind the scenes tour one year during homecoming. We came upon the vacuum press in the middle of the plant and my tour guide says, "this press is deeper in the concrete than it is taller above us (barely clearing the roof rafters), how did we get it installed?" Knowing that the press could be split from the base, I'm looking up at the roof and he says no, that's the original roof. My next choice was mutiple highlo, nope. How about using rollers across the floor, bingo, but how did we get the base into the hole? no ideas at this point, there wasn't any nearby substantial structure, and he already told me the plant was in place before they bought the press... I was stumped. He said they were too, looked at it for a few weeks coming up with and dismissing multiple ideas... until one of the good ole boys in the plant said, give he the keys to the company truck and $200. He came back with a truck filled with block ice, which they put into the deep hole in the ground, slid the base on top of the ice and mopped up the mess for weeks.

What does it cost to bring the avionics up from basic IFR + VFR GPS? I'm not talking wizzbang geewiz level, but IFR WAAS entry level type stuff?

Finance minister is NOT against this move. We have a couple of other financial situations which will hopefully be resolved quickly. Funny comment about the luxury car, I've been eyeing a MKZ for a few months now... guess that will get put on hold. Stopped by one airport and they have a could of hangars available, and about what I expected in the price. Talked to one flight instructor who uses his own plane. 125 wet and 27/41 (VFR/IFR) for his instruction. Got a tip on who has become the local goto med guy. Reached out to get some information on a plane for sale.

Engineers tend to gravitate towards these Birds. Dr's and Lawyers tended towards bo's... except for one really smart MD whose already noticed me popping back up i used to have a really great insurance agency and company, but as I was getting out, they apparently were too. Who are the favored providers these days, and how much is insurance running? If I step up into a less affordable machine, but with modern electronics, who's doing loans, and what kind of terms are available?

I remember plugging some numbers into an online formula and coming up with 148 or 149 and wondering how that compared to the 152-153 I believed I flew. smooth air was a LOT better for speed, little bumps would start scrubbing speed off pretty quick. Like I said, it was an exceptionally fast C. IAS was typically 165, and decents from higher altitudes were challenging as I bumped right into red line without any effort. As i said above, overshoot your altitude and decend down to final altitude would arrive at stabilized speed much faster than waiting for the plane to accelerate to final speed... this is what people believe is the "step". Get that CG rearward and stop fighting the drag.

My kids would have ZERO interest in learning to fly. I miss flying, however, it was a completely different time, and I shared it with my parents in their twilight years. When I delivering the plane to the purchaser on the east coast, my g/f (now wife), said if you turn this thing around and land in vegas, we can afford it on both of our incomes. It was tempting, but after a bad marriage and difficult divorce, getting married to be able to keep a "thing" was not in my best interest. To answer the question on training, absolutely. 12 years is a lifetime to be away from flying. However, I would expect to find it challenging to get back into a slow C i had an exceptionally fast C. I LOVED the manual gear and hydraulic flaps. That was a sweet setup, that also led to some "bad" habits... like as soon as the mains were solid, dumping the flaps. I had turned off in something like 400 feet one day. I raced, traveled to a lot neat places (had a lot more on my punch list), went every year to Homecoming, raced some more, traveled a lot on my employers dime, and just had a blast. Right now, it financially looks like a deep hole with no real purpose. Which kind of leads to the next question, an older well kept plane, with older panel is easily affordable. I'm an engineer that loves geeky stuff GPS panels were just becoming main stream when I left. I'm assuming more modern panels are typically found on the more expensive planes. Am I better off buying down and upgrading over time, or finding some way to move up? I have three boxes of aviation "stuff" I have not been able to part with, including a flight board my dad made courtesy of his employer. I have more Mooney glasses and coffee cups than I know what to do with. It goes on and on Think we're going to have some long discussions around the house over the holiday period. Has the airspace become more challenging in the last 10 years?

Gear down, Full Flaps, Pitch up to approach speed, full right rudder, left aliron to maintain wings level, pitch down to max flap/gear speed. Be prepared for some ear popping descents, it's comes down faster than a rock.

My old C would see 150-153, but it had a LOT of mods Here's a couple of hints, move the CG to the back of the envelope. When I raced, I always carried a container of used wheel weights, tool box, and anything else I could in the baggage compartment. Being 6'4" i could also cruise with the seat slid all the way to the back seat. One final hint, and you can argue all day long about the OWT of the step, but I would try to overshoot final altitude by 100' or so, let the airspeed stabalize, and then decend down to final altitude. More often than not, I would see an increase of 5 kts.

Heavy cross wind, partial flaps. Look at the rudder angle, with partial flaps at landing and approach speed, the rudder is most effective because it's perpendicular to the air flow across the rudder. Full flaps will flatten the approach angle of attack and the rudder is no longer perpendicular, and somewhat less effective, AND the airspeed is slower leading even less effectiveness.

Been about 12 years. Long time Mooney owners will probably recognize the family name. Took me a long time to start flying, and it was about the time my parents started talking about selling their plane, that I finally started flying and buying the plane from them. Would not trade those years for anything. It really brought us close together over the next decade. They had pretty much stopped flying all together, and I encountered some financial headwinds. It was in my best interest to sell the plane... unfortunately the guy who bought it destroyed it on a landing. Never did tell my parents. My kids are grown up, and mostly gone. Seeing CAVU in my financial future. Went out to the airport to buy some avgas for the lawn equipment, and sitting on the ramp was this beautiful F model. I was shaking just looking at the airplane, and intentionally did not walk over to it. Worse thing in the world would be to find a for sale sign in the window. Our family "C" was exceptionally fast, typically flight planned 150 kts, and generally beat that. I became so accustomed to flying that ONE airplane, that a highly respected aviation writer CFII good friend had strongly recommended I got get my commercial... in something other than my Mooney. After I sold the plane, I added up my expenses over a decade and subtraced my gains on the plane. It was not a very good thing to do. I could have bought a lot of first class vacations for that money, LOL. Anyway, looking online, I'm seeing some incredibly low prices in today's market. How much of the pricing is due nobody flying anymore? How much is due to Chinese company purchasing Mooney? How bad are factory parts to obtain? Being completely out of the world for over a decade, have there been any significant changes that have taken place?