sufferingcadet

I have been on the hangar wait list forever at KART. One just opened up. It is $325 a month which I believe is highway robbery. A tie down is $75 a month. I would say go with the tie down except it snows a LOT in upstate NY. However, $3900 a year is a lot. Sitting outside would not cause $3900 worth of damage to the plane per year. I could get a new paint job every 3 years! This is for a T-hangar. Only other benefits I see would be not having to brush snow off, being able to preheat in the hangar vs outside (hangar is unheated, but at least out of the wind), and potentially working on the plane/storing plane stuff at the airport. How does everyone deal with this?

Newbie question. Supposedly running lean of peak is the way to go to get the most for your money. For leaning I was taught to lean until the engine starts running rough, then enrichen the mixture until it smooths out again. This is with a constant speed prop. 1) Is this lean of peak, peak, or rich of peak? 2) I have a CHT monitor, but haven't figured out how to use/read it yet. Once I do, should I base running lean of peak off the leanest cylinder? This would mean that only 1 cylinder would be running LOP while the others would still potentially be all over the place. 3) If I run lean of peak using the CHT monitor, do I ignore the original way I was taught to lean? So if lean til the leanest cylinder if 50 degrees lean of peak, do I ignore it if the engine is not running smoothly?

The Honda EU-2000i idea looks good too. I guess the question is safety of carrying a propane tank in flight vs a 5 gallon gas can.

I'm liking the red dragon preheater. Is flying around with a propane tank in a seat ok, or is it like flying with a bomb on board?

I'm getting a preheater so I can try to fly during the brutal winter in upstate NY. What do I do for preheating once I arrive at my destination? Do FBOs usually have preheating? Do they charge for it? Is there such thing as a portable battery powered preheater that you can carry with you?

Yeah, I think the statistic is that only 10% of people who start a kit finish, so that's kind of disheartening. I want to do as much as I can and if I get to the point where I want to quit, I figure I could take it to a builders assistance place and get help getting it finished up. http://saintaviation.com/ helps complete builds finish in a month but it's expensive. I figure maybe finishing a kit may be feasible though or just paying whatever versus calling it quits. However, only time will tell. A 172 would be great if I became an independent CFI. The RV would definitely not be good for giving flight training. You're absolutely right that the wife won't be impressed with a 172 or 182 in terms of condition. I personally LOVE the turbo on my mooney, but I know that wife and kid would not be good with oxygen. It really is hard enough to convince the wife to fly as it is, so I would like to keep the experience as comfortable and pleasant for her as possible. Maybe slowly wean her into how the world of small airplanes and general aviation work. She's only flown once with me while she's been pregnant and refused to fly after because she was worried about the propeller noise affecting the baby. I could find no research to support that idea, but noone listens to me... I'll ask about CFIs, but it's a small airport. It would not suprise me if he was the only gig in town. Same goes for maintenance, we only have one mechanic and there's only enough work at the airport for him part time. It's so slow here that he has a regular day job too.

I don't really claim to know what I'm doing. I'm working on the tailkit. So far building has been fun and not too frustrating. I'm going to do the quickbuild wings and fuselage, but I still have no idea how long the entire thing is going to take. I think the RV is going to have a lot over the mooney. It's going to have shiny new avionics, be more comfortable, faster, and fixed gear instead of retract is a plus for me too. The potential for a gear up landing is ok when it's just me, I would never live it down if I was stupid enough to do it one day with my family in it, and all it takes is just once. Being able to do my own maintenance also appeals to me. How awesome would it have been to do my own annual and put in my own alternator this year? Coulda saved myself almost $3000... I may be overly worried about nothing. If the plane doesn't sell then I'm willing to keep it another year and see how it goes. I'm also worried about flying hindering building or building hindering flying. Trying to maintain both at the same time may also be too greedy. A Cessna next spring would solve some of my problems, it's sooooo slow though.... I thought about a 182 instead of a 172, but I also want to get my CFI and flight instruct part time to spread the joy of aviation. A 172 would be better for this mission vs a 182. And yes, the flight school here shuts down for the winter. The airport is still open, but the instructor goes to Florida because winters here suck. I'll take all the advice I can get from anyone who has input, from my point of view there doesn't seem to be a cut and dried solution. So you see, I'm not kidding when I say I have no idea what I'm doing.

I just got it to get my instrument rating, build time, and have complex time for commercial. I'm building an RV-10 and I'm going to use that as the family plane. Have a baby coming next month and I can already tell the mooney door is going to be terrible for getting a car seat in and out of. The wife also equates old with unsafe for some reason, so she doesn't like the 66' Mooney but I have no doubt she'll be impressed with the RV-10 when it's done. We all know that the age of the plane doesn't really matter but try telling HER that. Winter in upstate NY is terrible for flying and the local flight school actually shuts down for 6 months. I would like to sell the plane before winter to not pay insurance and hangar fee and not fly for the long winter. I currently fly it on average twice a week. It's had an annual. Things I've done to the plane include the tank patch, replacing the original generator with an alternator, and an altimeter replaced when it failed the IFR check. I would also be willing to trade for a 172, cheaper insurance, easier for car seat in and out. However, it wouldn't solve the paying for a hanger/insurance over the winter. I don't really know what I want to do but I'm hoping it'll all work itself out. Keep the plane, sell the plane, trade the plane, who knows. Life is hard...

Chris, I'm actually the owner of this plane. If you have specific concerns you're welcome to have a prebuy inspection conducted. The original poster didn't want to buy the plane because the dealer would not let him have a prepurchase at Don Maxwell's shop in TX. I will gladly fly it there or any other shop you want to take a look at it for travel costs. I also make the same offer to any other potential buyer.

I paid 25k for my '66E earlier this year. I was considering stripping and repainting the plane myself and maybe redoing the interior and seeing if I could sell it for 40k next year. I'm building an RV-10 and selling the mooney would help pay for avionics in the RV. I don't know why prices are so low. For the price, you can't beat an older mooney in terms of value.

Does carpet serve any purpose? The stuff in my 1966 M20E looks terrible and I was considering just ripping it out. I figure it's easier to sweep than to vacuum and it would just give the plane a cleaner look without me having to shell out any money. Before I did it I just wanted to make sure that the carpet didn't serve some functional purpose like protecting the underlying metal from corrosion or something of that nature.

I thought some rotax engines weren't certified for IFR flight plus if you use too much 100LL it changes the maintenance requirements because the engine can't tolerate lead as well. Car gas is cheap but the problem is it's not available at most airports so it really diminishes the utility of the plane for cross country.

I have a 1966 M20E that I would optimistically value at $40k. Obviously a hangar is better than a tie down. A T-hangar costs $225 vs $75 for a tie down. That's a difference of $1800 a year. Will having the plane outside on average cause an additional $1800 of deterioration to the plane each year? If not then it seems a tie-down is the best way to go. If so then a hangar would be the better value. I just don't know what problems I can expect, how fast they occur, and the cost to fix them in a tie-down vs hangar comparision.

Alright, those threads were a little scary. I guess I have to spend between 10 and 25 hours with my CFI before I can be insured in a complex aircraft. Does that mean I have to fly around with no insurance for my first 1-2 dozen hours when I'm most likely to break something? Is this how everyone does it?

It's going to be in Watertown, NY. I'm going to go with the group hangar for now. Guess step 1 will be to do some touch and gos with my CFI when it gets here next week.