gsxrpilot

Yep. Come fly formation with us sometime. You'll experience the smoothest Mooney landings ever. Our SOP is to fly final at 90 Knots and pull the power at 100 ft right over the numbers. Of course no flaps. But it's true, we only land in formation Elements on long runways. And we always roll to the end as there is likely another Element landing behind us.

@FlyingVAce it would be worth your time to take a drive over to Longview. Stop at Don Maxwell's shop and ask for Don. He's mostly retired and his son Paul is running the shop. But Don would most certainly be happy to sit and talk Mooneys with you for as long as you want to stick around. And there's no one out there who knows more about them. He might also take you for a ride in one.

And it still works today... I'll bet a tank of Avgas that all the prop strikes are not from being too fast but from trying to force the airplane to land instead of keeping it floating until it lands itself.

Should we take a poll to see how many pilots preflight the fuel vents. I've never actually seen anyone walking around their airplane with a length of rubber hose to attach to the vents to verify they're not clogged. I know I never have.

Labor Day provided some fun IMC. @"Chocks" and I added two approaches to the logbook including an RNAV right down to minimums. An all around excellent day to fly.

I can roll my Mooney on gently at anything between 60 knots and 90 knots. I can also land it with full flaps or no flaps and anything in between. And I'm happy to demonstrate it for anyone who wants to ride along. Obviously stopping distance between touchdown and stopped will vary with the speed.

Yep, I'm with @Yetti on this one. There is undoubtedly a "best" way to land a Mooney. But if the criteria is be safe and don't hurt the airplane or the passengers, then it's wide open. There are lots of methods and configurations that work just fine. And the more of them you're comfortable with the better.

To echo what @Marauder said, if you're even entertaining the idea of selling the plane and getting one with closer to the avionics stack you want... I'd be hesitant to spend money to upgrade what you have. Of course, if you're set on an F with a RayJay, the pool will be very small and you might be stuck upgrading what you have. But if you'd be happy to fly a J or a K with a factory turbo... then think about replacing the airplane to get the panel you want. See what your "all original" F is worth, add $50K to that, and see what you could buy. At the end of the day it's unlikely you get in and out of an avionics shop for less than $50K. There are cheaper ways to do it. I took almost a year to collect all the pieces for my new panel, buying one piece at a time, used from Barnstormers, or on BlackFriday sales, Oshkosh specials, etc. Once I had it all together, then I had to find a shop who would even allow me to bring in the parts and they do the work. Most shops want to sell you the parts as well. The end result for me is a great panel at about 50% of retail cost. But that did NOT include an autopilot. I started with a good autopilot as I knew installing an autopilot would probably double the cost of the whole job. My following of the vintage Mooney market over the last five years or so shows me that most people get 25 cents back for every dollar spent on upgrades. So it's MUCH cheaper to buy the airplane that someone else has upgraded. Again as @Marauder says, the only way to mitigate that is to keep the plane forever. I used to fly an M20C and before spending on a panel upgrade, I decided to step up to my final airplane, a 252. Then I was willing to spend the money as I intend to keep this plane until I can no longer pass a medical. Otherwise, sell it and go buy the plane that's closer to what you want. Finally +1000 on the instrument rating. An IR with a Mooney is a powerful, fun, and very capable, combination.

JD at SWTA redid the sidewall carpet in my 252. He replaced the cardboard backing with some burn certified plastic from Plane Plastics. He said he ordered a plain sheet and had them cut it in half for easier shipping. I'm guessing he had two 2'x4' pieces. But measure your carpet to be sure that would be big enough. He laid it out and cut the plastic sheets to be just a little smaller all the way around, than the carpet. Then glued the carpet to the backing. It made for some nice stiff side panels that look great.

Based on this thread, I just got off the phone with JD and we'll be taking a look to see when my servo was last overhauled. I'm also going to have them look at the flow divider on my TSIO360 as well. I'm pissing a bit of fuel out the vent hose on landing and it's a bit concerning as well. Thanks for all the good info in this thread. MooneySpace is valuable in spite of all the bull shit

Speedbird is the British Airways callsign as well. I was called out as traffic to one of them yesterday as I was crossing DFW at FL180.

And we've completely wrecked the rumor that Mooney cockpits are small. We were quite comfortable in the front seats of my mid-body 252.

My brother, a low time Mooney pilot (very high time 737 captain) brought my 252 out to me once at KSQL. It's 150 feet longer than KPAO and he had fun getting it down and stopped. These airplanes aren't forgiving of short runways if you're not familiar with the wing, and on your game. I've never been into KPAO, KSQL is short enough for me.

Damn... sounds like you did everything you could to ensure a positive outcome.

My experience has been closer to @Bartman. But I don't think its all luck. It's shopping for a good plane rather than a good price. It's getting to know the owner. "Pre-buy" the owner as much as you would the plane. This includes talking to other pilots and shops who know the owner. Get a pre-buy from a Mooney shop, not just any A&P. Look at planes that are flying now and regularly. If all of this can be done without falling in love at first sight. In fact, done without any emotion coming into play, you'll likely have a good outcome.

I spent some time at Don's place today and heard his side of the story first hand. I won't go into the details here, but suffice it to say, I'm inclined to believe it. I've been very happy to place my trust in him and his shop from the beginning. The very first time I took a Mooney up as PIC, it had just rolled out of Don's shop and I've been a very happy customer ever since. If I had to personally oversee all maintenance on my airplane, I'd sell it. I don't have the time or the expertise. So rather I'll build a good relationship with a shop I can trust. I've got that with two shops, Don's and JD's.

+1 Get ahold of Mike. This is an easy airplane to fly, and even an easy engine to manage... but only if you KNOW how. Learn it right from Mike, and enjoy that wonderful airplane for years to come.

That's a very good question... When I'm solo, which is about 50% of the time, I'm up high. When the Mrs and the Pup are with me, we usually stay below about 15K. We have been up to 18K with an O2 mask on the dog. We have one of these. https://aerox.com/product/canine-o2-mask-extra-large which she wears very well. But she's a very calm and well behaved dog. So if we tell her to wear it, she'll wear it. She seems to suffer no ill effects from extended time at 14K or 15K so we often fly there and she's the only one in the cabin not wearing O2. Of course humans don't suffer at that altitude either. We just get too sleepy to reliably fly the airplane.

The best/cheapest place to park is Dallas Executive (KRBD). But it's a little ways south of town and Carrolton is even further north. McKinney isn't bad, but it pretty far north. Dallas Love is also a possibility but might only be a little cheaper than KADS. If you're thinking of going to Love, TexStar is usually the cheapest FBO on that field. If going into ADS... you'll have to call each of the FBO's to ask about fees. They keep changing so you have to call.

Hey Ziggy, Any chance you could drop it off Monday? I know Don's probably closed on Monday but it's easy to leave it parked on his ramp. Tuesday is still a possibility for me. But Monday would be a sure thing. Paul

The chances of getting it flying again are better than average. The chances of the cost to get it airworthy being less than you could buy a top of the line, currently flying M20C for today... terrible.

I've got a BK KFC 150 autopilot in my 252 right now. It works and there isn't any reason to replace it. But it's inevitable that I will need to replace it at some point. This 3100 is looking like the best candidate. I have a G5, but it's just a back up and I won't install anything that doesn't fully integrate with my Aspen. It look like this 3100 would integrate even better than the current KFC150 which doesn't use the Aspen for vertical speed.

Is that really a thing? It was a very simple exercise and no persons or Mooneys were harmed. Thanks, but I'm not worried.

I'm in agreement with @Shadrach. When I flew a manual gear Mooney, I'd never have my hand on the Johnson bar for more than about 5 or 6 seconds and there was no effort exerted at all. Just a quick easy motion and the gear is stowed. But I'd never wait that long either. Once the weight is off the wheels and I had positive rate, gear is immediately put away. There should be no effort at all.

We flew to Mackinac Island this summer and really had a great time. But we stayed in Saint Ignace which is about 4 minutes by Mooney from the Island. We stayed in a great Airbnb which was something like $65/night. Also landing and parking overnight at Saint Ignace (free) gets you access to a crew car. We were told to keep it over night and as long as we needed it. It was a super cool '82 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. The wife and I cruised around with the windows down playing the theme from Shaft.