steingar

I used some guys from LCK a few years back, they did a good job. Took an hour or two.

Once again, Johnson bar for the win!

Again, I applaud the efforts of the Summit organizers. I hope you can make responsible decisions based on good data. It would suck for folks to contract a fatal disease trying to learn not to die in their aircraft.

Can't go to either. Gotta work. Good luck on the presentation.

I'm fairly certain that this was brought on by a lot of flying at low speed and high mixture settings (IFR approaches). Aircraft gets leaned on the ground and in the air best we can without an EGT gauge. Aircraft goes back to its mechanic next week. Could be the bad wire we found, could be the magneto timing, could be the bad wire leads to a bad plug. I'll let someone with way more experience than me sort it out. Needs new spark plug wires anyway, and I can't do that.

Our airplanes are getting old, lots got old a long time ago. I truly wonder how many are without damage history.

Were it repaired by LASAR I would have no problem at all buying it. Heck, my airplane had a prop strike from a hard landing and is still soldiering on just fine. Well, less than fine, it failed a mag test. But that's another story...

No matter who the POTUS is there's going to be a 30nm TFR that follows him or her around. Chicago got one for Obama, Palm Beach gotten for Trump, somewhere else will get one for the next POTUS. I just hope whoever that is isn't from my home town. Yes, it does suck, security theatre at its finest.

What I really don't get is the layer he was in was only 1000 feet thick. How could he get those violent oscillations and not pop out the top into clear air?

Given all that was going on lots thought it would end in a smoking hole. I like the comment that the redrive likely saved his life. He was headed for lots more unforgiving terrain than the cornfields of Nebraska.

Don't know how many times I have to say this: Repeat after me: There are no bargains in aviation. There are no bargains in aviation.

Never had a mechanic make me source parts. I think the first one that does won't be my mechanic anymore.

I now know of two failures, one of which was in the middle of a thunderstorm, the other in Minnesota a few days ago. That crash makes it pretty obvious that you can break the Mooney spar. It also shows what you have to do in order to break it. I have no doubt that if I do a full power dive at Vne and pull back as hard as I can I'll break the airplane, possibly the spar. Below extreme movements like that I'm not in any way worried about it. My other airplanes, the wings were held on by a couple bolts.

I looked at one airplane that I nicknamed "eyesore". Paint was that bad, and I passed don it because I don't know any painters. Later is showed up at @Alan Fox door because of extensive corrosion. Dodged a bullet for sure. Might have seen that on a pre buy, might not.

Dave Holden at MRT has a lots of Mooney experience. I take mine to Bob Norman at the Parr Airport tin Zanesville, they don't come better. The strip is tad funky, though. Which Mooney is being purchased?

Good luck on your project. I'd not worry about getting upside down, sounds like you already have. Only way to not do so is to be an A&P yourself. One good thing about a restoration, you can make it your own. The bad thing is you really need to keep it awhile after you do that.

If you're in a hangar I doubt I'd worry about it. I know I've had 2 month layoffs and might even have had three, when winter weather gets nasty and I can't go anywhere.

This year should be OK, since all the Canadians have to stay home. Good luck with the judging, sounds like fun.

She should get residency in and go to school in Ohio. More medical schools per capita than any other state. I like Vanderbilt better than any of those other schools listed, but I'm not the one going. She'll have to keep her nose to the grindstone, she'll need good grades to get into a medical program. That and money, lots and lots of money.

I don't buy tickets until I get there. Don't want to jinx anything. I'm still VFR, so it is never certain when I'm going to depart and when I'm going to get there. If it were it'd not be an adventure.

I truly hope I'm mistaken about the accident pilot. I didn't know or meet him, and am only going by what has been said here. I really do hope it was catastrophic malfunction that brought down the airplane, though I doubt it strongly. Most of our systems are quite robust. Usually its the bug driving the airplane. Occam's razor and all that. I've lonely once flown into a heavily occluded 2500 foot strip. I looked at my performance numbers carefully, and made damn certain I was light. Too light, only had gas enough to make it to nearby airports. Had we not fixed the pump where I landed I'd still be there. I sometimes a 2200 foot strip, when I can land on the unoccluded side I do so. Won't land that strip over the tall trees. I lost a good friend to this. If I don't learn from it his demise might as well have been in vain. If I ever crash feel free to discuss my shortcomings at length. If someone doesn't crash because of it at least some good will have come from my dark fate.

Here are a few facts according to the folks on this site. Full fuel, 3 pax, high DA, and short strip with a pilot not in the habit of second guessing himself. What really bothers me is this isn’t anything new.

Sad indeed, but this stuff happens and will likely keep happening. This avocation attracts those who's egos respect no authority, not even Ma Nature. RIP to all involved. Condolences to those who knew the pilots.

I am sorry, but this just isn't true. There isn't a single alternative source of energy that doesn't depend on fossil fuels except perhaps geothermal. As fossil fuels get more expensive the price of the alternatives will rise as well. The worry is as fuel prices rise, so do the prices of everything connected to them. Food is mostly transported by trucks, which run on gas. I think you see where this is going. The problem is simple. Oil is a miracle. There is enough energy in one gallon of gasoline to propel several tons of vehicle thirty or forty miles. Nothing on Earth has that kind energy unless you start breaking nuclei, and we're not all that good at that. And you need fossil fuels to set up nuclear plants. And the supply of fossil fuels is limited, fossil fuels will run out. What do we do like we did 100 years ago? We don't eat the same things they did in 1921. We don't live where they lived in 1921, we don't wear the same clothes, do the same things, but we still burn the exact same fuel. We're better at it, but we're still burning the same stuff over a hundred years later, even after artifical shortages in the 1970s. We've been looking for alternatives for 50 years and haven't found any. Make no mistake about it, Peak Oil is coming. I just hope be dead before it hits. If not, odds are I'll be dead shortly after it hits.

One of the reasons I avoid pattern work in the Mooney like the plague. Always worried about getting distracted and not doing the gear. I got frazzled once and forgot to raise it on takeoff. I know, how could I do that, especially with the J-bar? But I was flying along trying to figure out why I was only going 100 miles an hour. Finally saw the J-bar in the panel and the light clicked. I wanted to do a couple landings last night, so I went to a couple neighboring airports. I fly a Mooney, so getting to different airports doesn't take very long.