steingar

I never said it was a deal breaker, just far from ideal. I have a certificated aircraft and prefer certificated parts. Still, more and more of our parts are going to become owner produced or whatever, and sooner or later someone is going to make a smoking hole that will be blamed, rightly or wrongly, on the kludged part that came from no one sans paper trail. And then we'll all be in a world of hurt. Peak Oil likely won't happen in my lifetime, but this could. That said it's no difference with any other make expect perhaps Cirrus, and I for one don't want a plastic airplane. I know a guy who landed his Cessna badly enough to need a new firewall, which is nothing more than a piece of aluminum with some holes drilled in it. Many AMUs and two years later he had on from Cessna, a division of Textron who gives zero craps about anyone. Then again, I suppose we can all console ourselves saying we got it better than the Bonanzas, also made by a division of Textron so indifferent to our plight that they stopped making a part that corrodes if you look at it wrong, is on craploads of aircraft made by their division, and can be had nowhere else. Right now the Textron corporation, which clearly has no craps to give about any of their customers, owns just about all the nonexperimental GA that isn't Cirrus, which itself is owned by the Sultan of Brunei. So I hope I can be forgiven for being somewhat pessimistic about this aspect of GA. Never was much of a Pollyanna. It was not of no reason that I bought a complex aircraft with the simples systems I could find, most of which were field repairable.

I had to source a tach cable recently. The only way to get a certificated one was through Mooney, and I really can't hold my breath that long. We did get one, but the solution was far from ideal. This is going to get worse. Of course, it's nothing compared to the Bonanza owners, who have magnesium ruddervators that corrode if you look at them wrong and are made by exactly no one.

Affordable and California don't go together.

All pilots. Landing mountain tops is weird. Not difficult, just weird. Weird sight picture. Add some water and it gets weirder. Make it weird enough it gets hard. 3W2 is shorter and occluded. 89D is even shorter, and occluded on one side. Neither have routine fatals. I suppose it's possible that California is just full of crap pilots.

I'd put in the cowl plugs, cover the nose with blankets and leave it on all the time. I have a little heater that I put in the nose, and my airplane is always ready to go.

New Zealand seems like a tiny little place. Can't see why you need such a fast airplane. My Cessna's wings came off with a couple bolts. I've read (here, I think) that removing a Mooney's wings is a really really big deal, as is assembling them. I think you'd have an easier time buying, shipping, and assembly a kit plane.

Gotta stay ahead of the airplane. You point the nose down of a trainer it doesn't speed up much, your Mooney will. Does sound like you need a better CFI too. I myself often make incremental throttle reductions on the way down such that by the time I get near the airport all I have to do is pull the nose up and I'm at gear speed. There are often bumps down low where I fly, so I try not to hit them with too much speed.

I have the main bladders. I want the extra. Some day, when I have coin...

Guy asks about Arrows vs. Mooneys on this site? I'd have known the answer before I even tried.

I strongly doubt this fellow has the wherewithal to: Hide a grown pilot from all those cameras and cut everything such that second pilot never appears. He isn't that good at editing. Stage an RC crash to look real. Isn't as easy as it sounds. Toys look like toys to the camera. Build a mock-up of a crashed airplane for him to visit.

I take exception to the title. The emergency might have been falsified, but the crash was quite real.

Did it once to a non event, except landing in front of all my friends with the baggage door open. A CFI friend on mine told me he did the same thing, but his departed the airframe (faster Mooney). Expensive repair, too. It could have created an emergency had it hit the flight controls on the way out, like those folks in Europe.

Left mine unsecured once, still has the scar. I didn't even realize it until I started searching for why I was 5 knots slow in cruise. The breeze inside the cockpit should have tipped me off, but it were no windstorm.

You can easily make. Mooney fly backwards if you've sufficient wind...

Aviation is highly cyclical.

No way, no how. Moreover, the number I saw was +7 degrees C, which is 44 degrees F. Lapse rate is 2 degrees per thousand feet if I'm not mistaken, so at 3 thousand feet you're right at freezing. I won't claim to be an IR pilot, I'm not. But I do think about these issues, and I'd not take off into the clouds at anything that close to freezing in a non FIKI aircraft. Where I live we get a LOT of ice. Limits the usefulness of the IR to some degree.

Interior is small and crammed It is if you're wide of girth. Folks who fit fine in other aircraft have a tough time in Mooneys. It's a fact. Sucks for them, too. How fast they really go Mooneys really do go fast. Tail is on backwards Nope, everyone else's tail is on backwards. Mooney got it right. Difficult to land Took me an hour to land my Cherokee well. Took ten to land my Mooney well. Insurance asked for a one hour checkout n the Cherokee. Asked for ten in the Mooney. Poor useful load I can haul nearly a thousand pounds. I haven't seen another aircraft that can haul what I can at the speed I can for the money.

While I have no doubt that you are correct @Scott Dennstaedt, PhD, I would never take off into the clouds with temps that cold. Never ever.

@Candy man you're lucky they'll work on your airplane. Won't work on mine. I had to get in once while my radios were really bad. I called the tower to let them know the score, and they cleared me to land 12 miles out. Good thing too, that was the last call I was able to make on those radios.

I got clued into Mooneys pretty early. I never wanted a back seat, just me and the Mrs. most days, but I really didn't want to go experimental. The Vintage Mooney has a back seat, but it's pretty diminutive. It doesn't go like a J, but it goes just fine for me. Still the only airplane I can see over the nose.

I've been running a small space heater (recommended on this very site!) but my compass is off big time, going in for repair next week. I hope to hell the heater didn't start it, since the compass started going wacky about the time I started using the space heater.

Wish I could do it. Sounds well worth it. Standardized curricula are nothing to be sneezed at. Guys who's bread and butter is Mooneys are good guys to learn from and fly with. Maybe I'll retire some day...

Statistics work really poorly with low numbers, which is what we have for aviation accidents. Back when I first got into the game most accidents were caused by either running into weather or out of gas. There were occasionally ones where the pilots got lost, couldn't find an airport, ran out of gas and crashed. The running into weather thing doesn't really work anymore, since for very little money you can get in cockpit weather in nearly real time, and the number of VFR into IMC accidents has decreased. Pilots still run out of gas, though in the Mooney it isn't the easiest thing to do if you aren't trying. There are instances where you get boxed in with little recourse. Most of those involve a combination of malfunctions and hostile terrain, like the fellow who recently embedded his Mooney in na orange grove. Used to be mechanical stuff was a bit rare, but I suspect its starting to climb up as a cause of aircraft accidents. It could be because fewer folks are running into IMC so the mechanicals just appear higher on the list, or it could be that our airplanes are just getting that much older.

The pilot and his spouse are OK. He said they meant to land on a nearby road but felt there was sufficient traffic to endanger folks on the ground. So into the Orange grove he went. Don't know if it was unporting, though I doubt it. If it's unporting you should be able to level the wings and go on your merry.

Thanks for this @canamex. A trip I hope to do in my own Mooney, but from the frozen North of the US. I have family in the Lake Attitlan Area and have visited couple times. Gorgeous, and lots of fun.