Raptor05121

Replace 1962 with whatever year The M20 came out.

Sorry for the delay- my fault with the time zones- You're confirmed. Thanks

It was standard from 1962-1968. Electric gear was optional but after 68 they switched to electric. Its pretty robust. IIRC its the only certified gear system that the FAA didn't require a backup emergency extension system. The weak points are lack of proper maintenance.

Thank you all for wishing to join in. The order window is now closed. We've reached both goals in regards to pricing. PLEASE PLEASE verify your name is indeed in the list in my first post. If its not there, it doesn't get submitted. I've had people PM, text, call, tag, comment, and email me so trying to keep track was a challenge. Total Uplocks: 42 Total Downlocks: 47 Prices are now as follows: Uplock- $205.36 each Downlock- $223.90 each Shipping- $25 I've asked Skates97 (Richard) to handle the payment system since finances are his life and can do a better job than this cargo pilot so you can expect a PM from myself, him (Skates97) or David (Sabremech) for anything related to this order. Again, the lead time is 6 weeks, I expect we should be have regular updates. Thanks again, all -Alex

We've surpassed 40. I'm adding a second uplock to your order.

Anders, do you happen to know of a shop that can cut these? I have been searching for hours for something with the listed Trotec Trolase LL75 but to no avail. My local sign shop wants to make flimsy paper stickers- apparently they're unable to do metallic stuff.

Thanks Brad and welcome to the club!

As of right now, we have hit 43 downlocks and the price has gotten cheaper. Only at 38 uplocks. Two more to go...

Compared to the GY's they were thin and able to be manipulated/flexed easily. If you stand on them, they will fold and crumple over. The GYs, you can stand on one straight up and it will hold its shape. Not scientific by any means, but I was impressed.

My Goodyears are twice as old as my Airhawks and still have half the tread remaining. I have at least 300 landings on them. Because of their current price point, and their political ideologies I won't be ordering another set but my next set will be Desser retreads. You get the thickness of the GY's without the price. Aviation Consumer did a apples-to-apples test on tires and GY FC3's got the most landings of any new tire. The only thing that got more were the Desser Monsters. The Dessers got the most compared to the price point (cost per landing). I can't recall which month/issue it came out in, but I remember vividly that it cemented my decision.

Bump. Last day. Order window closes at midnight

I agree. My AirHawks and Condors didn't last 2 years/300 landings before the were bald. They were flimsy when they were put on and flimsy when they were taken off. I don't know how true it is, but I heard the ply rating on them is defined WITH an innertube, whereas the VERY thick Goodyears aren't. I can stand on a GY tire by itself and it holds me up. The cheapies,well, dont. My next set of tires will be Desser Retreads. Aviation Consumer did a test and you get more landings per dollar out of those versus any other tire.

Got you added, Moonster. Thats a good question. David, who sourced the nuts and bolts from Spruce?

Well currently we have 30 wanting uplocks and 31 wanting downlocks. I will keep the thread open for joining the order until midnight Friday.

My apologies. I'm checking this and FB as often as I can from my phone Added the others

I could see it. Someone wanting a forever airplane with no questions asked.

I'm doing training at MHT for the time being

Updated the list. Up to 34.

Well my car got broken into and I'm freezing my ass off and am homesick. But I can't complain.

Any that makes 30!

I think at this point I'm going to keep it. This new job has pay that is almost a third higher than I've ever made in my entire professional career so I think I should be able to hack it

Boy a 1991 M20J would be kinda neat to own...

Update on N6744U... ...Not much. The past six months have been hectic for me. I've been busy working as an aerial survey pilot in a 172 working on a project on the east coast, in a different hotel room every night. The plus side is I was within 2 hours of home, so if there ever was a stretch of bad weather, it was cheaper for my boss to buy gas and let me fly home versus having me sit in a hotel for days on end. Also, my mechanic was cheaper than most guys on the road for scheduled maintenance, so two reasons to visit home. I've only flown the Mooney once or twice in the past few months and I feel guilty. We flew the piss out of these planes. In January, I flew 142 hours in a 30-day period. We were averaging about 8.0 Hobbs a day, my longest being a 10.5. With that, I eclipsed 1200 hours total time, which put me past Part 135 hiring mins. And that played a crucial part shortly thereafter- Since December I've been on every online hiring board trying to find a more permanent job. Survey was fun, but you got paid per flight hour, so a 10-day stretch of weather means you are eating beans for two weeks. Plus, I haven't had health insurance in close to two years now and IRS 1099 plain sucks. While out on the road, I found a job posting for a Cessna 208 Caravan pilot position for a Part 135 on-demand cargo operator in the Northeast. I am familiar with the operator as two of my very close friends fly for them and visiting them up in Maine, I've been able to talk to them about the job and they have had absolutely nothing bad to say about it. So I applied online and called my friend. "Hey," I said. "Wiggins is hiring. I just put in an application." My friend replied: "DUDE! Send me your resume, I'll go walk it into the chief pilots office right now!". The next day, while over South Carolina at 3,000 feet and listening to the Spice Girls, my phone rings and its got a 207 area code- New Hampshire. The base state of Wiggins. I scrambled to answer it while holding on my survey line with my knees. I'm yelling over the roar of the engine and tornado of wind that exists due to the 12" hole in the floor. "HELLO!?...." a friendly female introduced herself as HR and wanted me to do a video chat interview in two days. I was ecstatic! My coworker and I drove to a Mens Wearhouse that afternoon and with my last $100 I bought a dress shirt, tie, and blazer. No pants. Because why? The interview went smoothly. They asked me one question- 'how did you get into aviation?' I spent about 7 minutes giving them a love story. I told them about the Mooney. The endless nights of ramen noodles. My experience ferrying from California to Florida and my family who are all pilots. That must have resonated with the chief pilot because he loved it. They offered me a conditional job offer, and even better- a choice of bases! I chose Bangor, ME because of the friends I have up there. A week later, my replacement was hired and I spent a day with him in the 172. I felt great, not only for moving onto something bigger and better, but the fact my 1200-hour self wasn't hogging the great hour-building experience that is survey. Something that would better benefit a 250-hour guy (who my replacement was). I got him squared away and went home to pack. I quickly decided against bringing the Mooney up at first and would come back to get it once I get settled in. So I packed both of my cars and my girlfriend drove my Toyota and followed me in my Mustang. I can't live without my Mustang- its too damned fun to drive but I also knew I didn't want to drive it in the salt nor would it last long before ending up in a ditch with Florida summer performance tires on it. So we drove both and I'll keep the Mach 1 parked until spring. 10 hours to our first stop in Norfolk, VA where my sister lives. I visited her for a day, also got to see the BB-64 U.S.S WisKy (I love naval history and ww2 ships) and continued the rest of the 10 hours to New Hampshire for indoc. Getting past Delaware, I saw snow for the first time in a long time. And first time driving in it. I'm sure I was getting a lot of looks with my Florida plates and a Mustang doing 40mph in New Hampshire while I was getting passed by everyone in a Tahoe and 4WD trucks. I took the Toyota up to Maine on my first weekend off to scout for an apartment and got caught in what I call a snow storm but some of you probably call a sunday afternoon. Roads slushed over, even with brand-new All-Season tires on my FWD car, it still broke loose at 20mph. I lived, got to experience Maine some and went back to NH to finish indoc. Training went well. 8 days of Hazmat, company policy, 135 ops and requirements, icing basics, and all the basic paperwork stuff. I got to sit in the airplane and realize how much over my head it seemed I was in. All 1,400 hours I currently have are in 1960s airplanes with their factory panels. I've got maybe 4-5 hours behind a GNS430, and my only 3 GPS approaches are from my multi checkride two years ago. Turbine operations, G1000, autopilot, A/C, FIKI, and of course Part 135 rules- made this seem daunting. After indoc, they airlined me over to FlightSafety International in Wichita, KS for three days of ground school and five days in their Level-D simulators. So far we've done everything from basic VFR hand flying to feel the weight of the plane to IFR approaches down to minimums on the fully coupled AP with the wings fully iced over, generator offline, and half of the displays blacked out. I've also accidentally shut down the entire G1000 suite on an approach when I closed a guarded backup switch and introduced a failure that I, nor the instructor, had planned on, but I got points for quickly going to the "steam gauges" as my hand quickly undid the last action I took to get everything back online. So quite fun so far. I've had instances of the FD trying to take me elsewhere and I'm sure I was telling it to do something wrong, but almost to the FAF I didn't have time to fart with it- so I just hit the AP disconnect and looked at my paper charts and hand-flew the rest of the VOR approach. The instructor gave me props for reverting back to "what I know" and hand flying. But I know I have to learn the G1000 system better. I've downloaded two books on it and spend most of my free time in the hotel room reading about shortcuts and ways to make it work for me. (This next shot was last 15 minutes left of our session- we decided to have a little break and do some STOL competition in Alaska. Got it down and stopped in 600feet) I return to Manchester tomorrow and starting next week I get my first taste of flying the real airplane with an instructor. But one thing has surely stuck in my mind- this higly dictated, scheduled world of Part 135 sure does not seem like fun flying. I know I have to get the Mooney up here ASAP. I'll need a break from flying and go flying to clear my mind from flying with some good flying.

I've gotten one in as little as 6 hours from mechanic contacting the FSDO, but it was literally blowing up their phone because I was at an away airport with the plane sitting and waiting for the okay to go. It really depends on the workload of the FSDO. I know they were home-based because of COVID and only came into the office when needed, but I'm not sure if they're still doing that or back in the office for some official capacity.

My dad was 3 when my plane was made, so safe to say...