BradB

@Skates97 , nice blog post. Hope the Mooney purchase works out! We need details on here somewhere!

Agree, @BDPetersen! However, we can make the math look a little better. Looking at the scenario above: Trip by car = 300 miles / 60 mph = 5 hours * $5.8 = $29/trip or about $.10/mile Mooney (making an assumption of 2 hours, I don't know the J speeds) $57/hr * 2 hours = $114/trip or about $.38/mile So I go it down to a little less than 4 times as much for you. If I worked for the New York Times, I might be able to skew the facts even more and make a headline that read: On a 300 mile trip, Mooney only costs $0.28 more. And thats before we add in all those unexpected car expenses like tires, oil changes, valet parking fees, and car washes. Cars can be such a money pit. Brad

I know this is a parachute plane, so a different beast, but there isn't a lot of time from touchdown to sinking. Impact with water is at 1:58 I think there is a selfie video that the pilot recorded, as well. I haven't seen it yet

During my transition training, my CFI told me that exact thing happened to him in a k once. So moisture or not, the pitot heat goes on at 8C or below.

I flew back from Ft Myers to Erie yesterday and took these photos of the smoke. At 14,000 ft I was well over all of it, but it looked like significantly lower would have still been ok.

Great pictures, you found me! Heading back north today. @Tony Armour next time, dinner is on me. I'll be back at the end of December. Brad

I've been using the foreflight winds for picking altitudes and planning. But I would say that they have usually underestimated the speed, in my experience. Once enroute on longer trips, I pull up the winds on the XM weather to see if there is a better altitude for my current segment.

Beautiful plane! I love the paint - looks fast standing stil!

Maybe a gear swing and oil analysis. Brad

i had some work done on mine and after it came out of the shop there were only two positions, all the way up and all the way down. A temporary, but again not recommended, solution would be to pull the breaker when they were in the t/o position. I didn't like that idea too much and had them fixed quickly.

I was just a day behind you guys. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N708PJ I had the benefit of a nice tailwind. :-)

I've only seen red ones. I believe all the newer ones are electric. There are some older ones that are vacuum. Better wisdom will be on the way soon, I am sure. Brad

I'm headed to Ft Myers this weekend from PA. However, I'll stick to KFMY. I'm not brave enough for grass in anything but a rental. But, the guys here have much more experience than I do. Brad

Not a Mooney flight. But I had some free time on a west coast trip and figured it would be good to work on the stick and rudder skills. So much of my flying just involves pushing buttons and making sure the G1000 doesn't kill me. It was fun to get back in a very basic plane. I've never flown a tail dragger, but have been wanting to learn for the skill set that it demands. I got a little time in before the fog rolled in for the day, yesterday. It was a blast. Salinas airport (KSNS).

I have a non-WAAS G1000 with the GFC700. I checked with my MSC and avionics shop about putting in a GTX345R without doing the G1000 WAAS upgrade for now. They did say that you would, of course, need the WAAS GPS antenna for the GTX. Garmin says that the GTX345 will show ADSB in on the G1000, but Mooney says it will not. As of last week, they were still trying to sort it out. I'd like to have the ADSB in for the traffic, but it isn't that critical for me. I am planning on putting in the GTX345 now and then updating to WAAS when it will be useful for me. Right now, I am flying ILS's at most places I go and the difference in minimums in GPS approaches doesn't matter for me with my current personal minimums. Thanks for the info @Deb. I'll pass that along and see if that helps my shop. Brad.

Yep! The owner was kind enough to let me fly it once to get a feel for Mooneys when I was shopping for a plane. Do you have a history with that one? Brad

Let me know if Erie, PA works for you. Only 35 Mooney minutes away. I did my transition training with my CFI who is based here. Lot's of Mooney experience. I do ongoing training with him in my Acclaim and he flies with a guy on the field here with a Nice K, too. I need to get him to add his name to the list.

Don, My experience was like yours. I got my ppl in 1992. No phase checks or flying with another instructor. The check ride was given by the head of the flight school. Once my CFI was confident that I would not make him look bad to his boss, he sent me for the check ride. At the end of my check ride, the examiner told me that he knew I would pass based on how I handled the plane and the controls on the first take off. I was thinking about adding my commercial for fun, but I'm not sure that I want to torture myself after reading all these stories. Brad.

Today was my new longest flight. KERI (Erie, PA) to KFMY (Ft. Myers, Florida) with a stop in Tallahassee for fuel and a weather assessment due to the hurricane. Overall, it was a very smooth flight. The winds on the landing were gusting to 25 in both KTLH and KFMY, but they were right down the runway. . On my leg from KTLH to Ft. Myers, I had filed for 13,000. It was 21:30Z when I called up for my clearance. I was told that I would have to wait until 00:00Z. Fortunately, the nice folks in the tower made a call or two and if I agreed to an altitude of less than 10,000, I could be released immediately. That was easy, and I still had a 50kt tail wind for much of the way. The picture with the rainbow shows the remnants of Matthew in the background. And I must add that @pmccand is a genius. Today was the first time using my new Halo headset. I feel sorry for my passengers that have to suffer with my old Bose sets now. I thought everyone was exaggerating about the Halo's, but they really are that comfortable and that good. Brad

Useful load would be high my wish list. Pressureization would be high on my passengers' wish list. Brad

Darn it. I'love be heading the wrong way this weekend. Was planning on flying down to Ft. Myers for the weekend (KFMY). I'll have to watch the storm track and see if everything stays to the east of the gulf coast.