glafaille

Do you keep accurate records of REAL flight time or are you going by the tach? No need to overhaul just because your tach says so. Tachs lie, 2000 hours on the meter does not always mean you have 2000 hours on your engine. Maybe you do and maybe you don't. I've been flying for years and just learned that a tach hourmeter is accurate ONLY at a specific RPM. Any RPM lower or higher will cause the meter to run fast or slow. Why not find a more reliable way to determine the condition of your engine as others have mentioned. Oil samples, boroscope, operating performance etc.

By all means don't do like most folks and wait till Spring because you think that is when most buyers are looking. Here in the South it's too hot to do much flying, Fall and Winter IS flying season. So sell when you are ready, there are always buyers for nice aircraft fairly priced. I started my hunt last November and gave up the Mooney hunt in March and moved on to Grumman Tigers where I was successful. Pretty cheap to list planes these days, list it when you are ready. If using a broker, try to find one located in a place where buyers can easily visit using the airlines. Brokers and others offering aircraft for sale in locations hours away from civilization will have a harder time selling. Get your logbooks together and start taking photos of each and every page, I used an Iphone app called Scanbot and was able to photograph every page of my 1977 Grumman logbooks in about an hour. Each one came out great and easy to read. Also go through your logs and pull out every significant maintenance event and list in a spreadsheet. Stuff like engine overhauls, prop overhauls, mag overhauls, AD or SB compliance, damage, and avionics upgrades to name a few. Make a complete equipment list of everything installed in your aircraft. Be sure you have a complete file of all STCs and 337s. Every STC and 337 should have a corresponding logbook entry. It's a good idea to send away for the FAA file on your aircraft. It takes about 4 weeks to get and will have all STCs, 337s and other paperwork ever filed with the FAA concerning your aircraft. Make sure your price is right. I used the price estimating tool on Trade-A-Plane, AOPA, and Mooney Flyer to calculate fair market value. Pretty much ran each airplane through each system and averaged them to come up with a fair market price. I consulted a banker sometime in the process, and he used his high dollar pricing guide to estimate value on a prospect, we were within several hundred dollars of each other. Good luck with the sale!

No excuse for sending a student up for a checkride in a plane with so much wrong with it. Especially with a DPE that is not WELL known to everyone at the flight school. The instructor and school is to blame for these problems, not the student.

Husky: I have to hand it to you, you are a persistant guy! I have no doubt you will succeed and be a very good pilot. Sometimes it takes extraordinary drive to reach a dream. You WILL get your license, and that day will be one of the sweetest ever.

Husky: You may have already found him! But all the broke stuff on the airplane turned Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. Expecting someone to administer a checkride in such an aircraft as you describe borders on disrespectful. The Chief Pilot of the flight school should be the one consulting with the DPE concerning the inop equipment, not you. You are the customer and applicant, there to demonstrate your ability. Your instructor should be demanding a checkride worthy aircraft from the Chief Pilot. You shouldn't have to worry about inop equipment on a checkride. I will say that an airplane with inop fuel gauges is not legal, not sure if the Garmin based avionics fuel quantity is a legal substitute. Sounds to me like you are being treated very poorly by the flight school and your instructor. You should have "bailed" on that school long long ago.

Husky: I've been a professional pilot for almost 40 years and taken many many check rides with the FAA. I can tell you right now that getting into any airplane with a lot of broke stuff is going to set a bad tone for the entire ride. The FAA attitude is if it's installed it should work, period! And realistically, we all want everything in our aircraft to work. So using this particular airplane for your ride is a bad idea in my opinion. You should be assigned the best in the fleet for checkrides. Why take a chance irritating the DPE? Not worth it in my opinion. There once was a wise and well known aircraft designer/promoter/huckster/manufacturer, named Bill Lear, perhaps you have heard of him. I once read a quote attributed to him that is very prophetic. If you don't install it in an airplane, you don't have to maintain it. In other words, simpler is usually better.

Start your search NOW. Finding a nice $50,000 Mooney is like looking for Unicorns! You hear about them but they are rarely seen and can only be found in very remote places far removed from airlne service. However, if you are willing to overlook missing logbooks, decades old overhauls, questionable maintenance histories and shotgun panels you will have much better luck. Much easier to find a unicorn if you have an airplane to use to hunt the critters down. The market seems to dry up when the wind blows cold. Early to mid summer seems to be the best time for hunting. Lots of friendly folks here to help and they usually have great advice. Keep your powder dry and gun at the ready position.

Marauder- I agree 100%! Although I have over 15,000 hours, my personal minimums in my single engine airplane is generally 1000 - 3. I want a reasonble chance of picking a landing spot after breaking out in the event of an engine failure.

There are some folks that don't care a bit about missing logs, some are here on mooneyspace. From now on, this small subset of people are the only ones that would consider this plane if YOU were selling it. Why buy something that will only appeal to a fraction of all Mooney buyers? I say pass, unless you can buy it stupid cheap, which is NOT where it is right now.

While examining potential aircraft for purchase, I happened upon a "F" model that had a long running history of fuel leaks and repairs. To put the problem to rest, the seller had invested, 2 years prior to my examination, in a total strip and seal at a shop well known for the work but located over 600 miles away from his home. Since the completion of the repair, the aircraft continued to leak fuel and minor attempts to patch made at subsequent annual inspections. In fact the aircraft still leaked on the day I looked at it. I asked the owner why he didn't take advantage of the multi-year warranty offered by the tank repair shop. His reply was that it was just too much of a pain to fly the aircraft all the way back to the shop, and he just couldn't take the time to do it. Too busy at work. Moral of the story? Unless you live close to the shop that is repairing your tanks, consider if you will have the time to return there for on going repairs if needed. A warranty means little if you can't take advantage of it. Having said all of that, I have not seen or heard of a Mooney with bladder tanks that leaked. I'm sure it happens, but bladders do seem like more of a permanent fix to the problem.

Chrixxer: The best way to discuss the speed of an aircraft is by using true airspeed. Indicated airspeed, ground speed and GPS speeds are meaningless. Most Warriors true out about 115 to 120 knots and most Arrows are 130 to 135 knot airplanes. If the Warrior and Arrow you are talking about are 45 knots apart, something is very wrong with either or one of both airplanes or your method of measuring speed.

Conrad- There is a very good reason why C-172s are often used as instrument trainers, they are very stable, simple and slow. All of these things combine into a learning experience where the student can spend less time flying and more time thinking. Learning to fly instruments in a complex high performance aircraft like a Mooney would be challenging for anyone. Especially without a good autopilot. There is simply a lot more to remember with a complex airplane. Simple and slow is good, it allows your brain to catch up with the airplane. Complex and fast, not as good for learning, too easy to get behind the airplane. GPS systems can reduce workload but they can also greatly INCREASE workload, especially when the best laid plans change, like during a missed approach or diversion. Things were much simpler when all you had to do was set the next frequency in the VOR, tune the CDI and off you went. GPS can be a help or a hindrance so be careful. After 40 years of flying, I can tell you that the secret is to find ways to simplify the task by minimizing the steps. Configuring your plane to be almost as simple as a C172 would be a great first step to getting a handle on things while training. For instance: Do the flaps really need to be all the way down or raised all the way up? Does the gear have to be raised immediately on a missed approach? Does your next approach require programming the GPS right now? Fly at a reasonable speed in the terminal area, 90 knots is plenty. EVERYTHING else comes AFTER flying the airplane. A big part of instrument flying is judgement. Do not allow yourself to become rushed or overwhelmed. If you are not totally prepared for the next task DON'T do it, ask for a delaying vector or a hold with 2 minute legs or longer. Being rushed leads to mistakes and mistakes sometimes lead to bent aluminum. Serious instrument flying requires either a serious autopilot or some serious experience. Consider staying away from serious instrument conditions until you have one or both.

Stratus 1 or 1S?

I hate having anything on an airplane that doesn't work. Either fix it or remove it, in my opinion. Lot's of great info here Ben. You will soon be part of a great community.

Cruiser: No worries, we each do things our own way. Personally, I don't pay for anything that is not documented in the logbooks. For example: Serviced engine is not good enough. Drained engine oil, removed filter, examined filter element for metal, installed new filter, replenished oil, ran engine, chevked for leaks IS good enough. Just my opinion.

Ben: You can get a report on the aircraft immediately here: http://report.myairplane.com Not as detailed as the one you send off for but good enough to get started in your evaluation.

Ben: I wish I had a dollar for every time I was told by a seller that there was no damage history on the aircraft they were selling, when the logbook clearly indicated that there was. Some folks think examining logbooks and aircraft records is a waste of time and not productive in the purchase of an aircraft. These are usually the same guys that buy planes with missing logbooks or seriously messed up records. They will pay the piper when they try to sell their airplane. When purchasing an aircraft, all you really have in order to pass judgement about the condition of the aircraft, are the records, a pre buy examination and a test flight. I like to examine a prospective aircraft's records in great detail as a way to get a feel as to how the aircraft has been maintained and cared for over the years. Meticulous, detailed records says something about an airplane, as does a lack of such records. Personally, I will not consider an aircraft without complete records. Having said all of that, you have only provided 3 pages for us to pass judgement, and to be fair to the seller, this is not near enough information to tell what is going on with the aircraft and it's past. There are many reasons why an engine might be replaced and not all have to do with landing incidents or similar bad events. If you are concerned with damage from a gear up landing, pay particular attention to any entry regarding replacement of lower antennas, belly skins, flaps, and gear doors as well as engine and propeller repair or replacement. A gear up landing in a Mooney is really no big deal, in fact if there was an aircraft designed to withstand such a thing with minimal airframe damage, it would be a Mooney. Not true with other aircraft! Have you checked the FAA Website for accidents or incidents related to this aircraft? If you would like more information on how I examine aircraft records please send me a PM. Otherwise, please post a few more pages of the logbook entries for the period surrounding this particular entry.

I may have missed it but Is the seller an A&P or better yet an AI? If this plane is a "project" plane how do you know all of the work and materials used are up to standards? Is EVERYTHING documented in the logbook and supported by yellow tags or 8130s? I have seen common Home Depot hardware used on owner maintained aircraft and worse on owner performed refurbs. Be very careful. This plane will need a VERY complete and probably expensive pre-buy inspection, ideally an annual by a Mooney Service Center.

Is the plane full of fuel now? Hard to tell if it leaks unless it's full. The elephant is the room is the engine and prop. Although many folks don't pay much attention to manufacturers recomendations, Lycoming suggests 12 years between overhauls and the propeller is probably the same. Be careful if it's been decades since overhaul. The next big thing is corrosion in the wing and forward fuselage structure. I think SB 208 is the one to research. Are the logs complete. Pay to have an IA examine the logs before you spend any money on a prebuy. He should pay particular attention to AD/SB compliance, corrosion repairs, any replacement to belly skins or replacement of bottom antennas. Be sure all 337s and STCs are present. Have a Mooney savy mechanic or pilot do a quick "once over" examination before springing for a prebuy inspection.

Not unusual. My Ipad has shut down in flight several times and several more on the ground. Very important to keep it out of the sun as much as possible, I throw a white rag over mine anytime it's in the sun and not in use.

I have had many dealings with the FAA over the years, most of a positive nature. One thing I have learned is that they never modify their position, until the day they do. Thanks for all of the info gents, I'm learning more in one evening than I've learned over the past 3 months talking to industry "experts".

You might be right. Still, we must consider that the experimental/LSA folks have access to cheaper alternatives that are acceptable to the FAA. When push comes to shove, they may allow us to use the same equipment under the new FAR 23.

I've read that some airlines are lobbying for an exemption until 2025 to fully comply. We'll be watching to see what happens. Just wouldn't seem right to allow the big boys to operate in Class A & B airspace without full compliance while demanding compliance from us in Class C airspace. It will be interesting to watch. N1395W- The webpage I posted does not reference any exemption that I saw. In any event you are correct that airlines are seeking a partial exemption for their fleets until 2025. I have read that this exemption is requested in part so the airlines can equip with newer more capable GPS technology that is now on the near horizon.

Remember, if you don't fly in Class A, B or C airspace then ADS-B is NOT required as I understand it. If anyone wants to chime in with different info please feel free. Maybe I have it all wrong. Cruiser: I don't think the market is as established as you may think. We are still quite a ways out and there is much uncertainty and resistance from big players. The FAA is getting worried as indicated by the rebate program. Finally, the Part 23 re-write is on the way which may enable the installation of much less expensive non-TSO ADS-B solutions. We might see a flood of cheaper, even portable solutions as we get closer. No way is the FAA going to risk shuting down aviation in this country for ADS-B! It's just like a game of chicken.

As provided above, the FAA's own website seems to indicate waas is not required to meet the mandate. Doesn't much matter as it is my understanding that there is no economical way to make a non-waas gps talk to an ADS-B transponder. We had a representative at the National Business Aircraft Association in Las Vegas about 6 months ago and the FAA folks hardly knew any more than we did about the issue. They were friendly but could provide no verifiable information. There is much uncertainty and misinformation that surrounds ADS-B. Comply or not, pay your money and take your chance.