Skates97

I can second that. I got my Mooney when I had about 58 hours total and 152 landings, all in Cherokees. It wasn't until I was at about 60-70 hours in the Mooney and around 100 landings before I was feeling as comfortable landing it as I was landing the Cherokee. For me it is always about the speed and not flaring too much. Taking @donkaye's advice from other posts I try to trim for 80mph, hands off on final. In my plane that is usually almost all the way trim up. After that once I know I have the runway made (short final) I pull power and then "try" to fly it onto the runway with just a little nose up attitude. If I do that it is very smooth. The flare is much less nose up attitude than in the Cherokees. If I get too much nose up in the flare it will come down hard and bounce. One of my best landings was at the end of this video at Logan. Touchdown was right at the 1,000' mark, we barely even felt it touch the ground.

It's really easy, and hard to mess up. I need to redo one of the back windows. It got some scratches in it for a certain cute niece that I gave a ride to. Fortunately it is inexpensive and I have plenty of left over. I will be going out to the hangar Monday or Tuesday when I get it back from having the 500hr mag inspection done and will replace that tint and take pictures and write up a "how-to."

You did the front windows as well? I was thinking of doing that but worried about visibility at night. I did use some of the bubble type insulation and cut out pieces for all the side windows. It makes a big difference when parking and on the last long trip I just left he ones in the rear windows, it kept the cabin much cooler.

I'd love to, you're just on the other side of the country....

Hoping someone will be providing video for those of us that can't be there to watch later.

Amazon Prime is your friend.... I may look at this to add a tablet, I have an extra that is just floating around at home. It would be nice to always have the map/traffic up and use another for notes/info/etc... I may make a plate to cover the hole in the LH yoke where there was once upon a time a clock and use this instead of my Ram Mount too. Steelie Dash Ball (Curently $9.73) Magnetic Tablet Socket (Currently $19.03)

Purchasing something is an emotional experience. Selling something can be just as emotional an experience. The question is if you can connect with them. I'll give you an example. We had been renting a house for about five years across the street from a widow. We would often visit her and my son would go help her with a number of things around the house on a regular basis. She was a wonderful lady that we grew to love. For health reasons she decided to move back East to live with family and sell her home. She came to us and offered to sell it to us because she knew we needed a home and even more so because she loved our kids and wanted to have kids living in her home. (She and her husband never were able to have children). We told her what we could afford, which was way below the market value of her home (California real estate is ridiculous) and she agreed. We had a realtor provide her with a market analysis of her home so that she would know exactly what the value of it was and she still wanted to sell it to us for what we could afford. Knowing we would love her home as much as she did and again, that there would be kids in the home was more important than the money. We have told our kids that it is a miracle that we have this home and that it was all because of the kindness and generosity that she showed us. We keep a picture that we took with her the day before she moved on the mantle in the front room and have a picture of her and her husband on top of the piano as a reminder of what they did for us. It may take time for you to connect with the family, but then I think you have time. It's not like you were planning to start flying that plane all over the place right away. It may be more important to them that the plane goes to someone who will love it and use it than to get as much money as they can from it, only time will tell. If that is the case, then can you make them believe that you are that person? If so, understand that it will most likely take a long time to establish that relationship.

I think I may download Avare and give it a try for the taxi diagrams. To get that function from DroidEFB you have to buy the Premium subscription. If I was flying IFR I would gladly pay it for the geo-referenced approach plates but as a VFR pilot it isn't something I need.

I agree. Glass and an autopilot would be nice, but my steam gauges and tablet have gotten me all over the place, I can see myself flying behind this panel for a long time.

I don't recall an email but mine was in the mailbox when I got home today! Hopefully the others start showing up at your places soon.

I purposely did the LH side first, I wanted to get it out of the way. It was indeed a beast... The RH side was a piece of cake.

Shoulder Harnesses were the first thing I did to my plane. Hopefully an upgrade that I will never actually need.

I was in the habit of saying "We" from the time I spent learning to fly with my CFI. Even so, I almost always have someone else in the plane with me. I have made a mental effort a couple times alone to say "I" but it honestly sounded weird so I went back to "We." I like your reasoning Mike, I think I'll use it if anyone ever asks why I say "We" when I'm flying solo.

I built a Stratux and have been very happy with it. Disclaimer, I am an Android person, the only Apple product I have owned is an iPod for music... I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1" that fits perfectly in the yoke in portrait orientation. I tried FltPlanGo initially and then switched over to DroidEFB and have been using it ever since. It seems to be the closest to Foreflight when it comes to Android apps. When I was taking my lessons my CFI used Foreflight and I was using DroidEFB. There were some features of Foreflight I really liked but there were some things DroidEFB had that I liked too. I think they have the 30 day trial and the Standard subscription is $74.99/yr. If you want GeoReferenced Approach plates and Airport Diagrams it's $149.99/yr. A couple of nice things about the Samsung is that I can have it on for a 4 hour flight and it only uses about 30% of the battery. I have also never had it overheat and shut down like I have heard can happen with the iPads. I did have it once get hot enough that the bluetooth on it turned off which lost the connection to my Garmin Glo I was using at the time. Since then I bought a Stratux VK-162 for $18 and so I get my GPS from the Stratux over Wifi and haven't had an issue. If I was an Apple user I would probably have Foreflight, but I'm an Android user so it's DroidEFB.

Today's flight was not a flight, but was really just as fun. We went to the Nixon Library and listened to Don Brown and Captain Jerry Yellin. Captain Yellin flew P-40's, P-47's, and P-51's in the Pacific Theater. He was in the first P-51 flights into Iwo Jima, before we had even secured the island and he flew 19 long range missions to Japan. He also flew the last combat mission of the war. He is now 93 years old and still as sharp as can be. In 2015 he visited Iwo Jima and gave the following interview. https://www.dvidshub.net/video/395572/jerry-yellin-world-war-ii-veteran-interview Writer and for JAG officer Don Brown saw that interview and was inspired to meet him and see if he could write Captain Yellin's story. That was done and is told in the book "The Last Fighter Pilot." It was a great hour. Don Brown told some of the story and then Captain Yellin told of his life after the war. He spoke of being married to his wife for 65 years before she passed away. He spoke of his kids. He spoke of going to visit Japan about 30 years ago and meeting the people for the first time. That visit led to one of his sons moving to Japan after graduating from San Diego State who then met and married a Japanese girl who was the daughter of a Kamikaze Pilot who had survived the war. He is making other appearances at book signings across the country. You can see his schedule on his website. If you have a chance, I would highly recommend it. http://captainjerryyellin.com/ One last story. He took questions for about 20 minutes at the end. One person asked him what it was like to fly the P-51. Remember this is coming from a 93 year old man. His response (somewhat paraphrased, although the last part is a quote) was: I remember the first time I made love to a woman. It was a long time ago, but I remember it. I flew the Stearman and that was a great plane. Then I flew the P-40, it was the best fighter plane we had at the time. Then I flew the P-47 and it was a difficult plane to fly. It was really mushy and unresponsive and it took a lot of strength to fly it. Then I got to fly the P-51 and you could fly it just with your finger tips. "It was like making love to Betty Grable. Did that answer your question?" He is a very humble man, and it was a pleasure to spend an hour listening to him.

I know this is very short notice, but if there is anyone in the area that has free time this evening the Nixon Library is hosting a free event. Captain Jerry Yellin who flew P-51's missions in the Pacific will be there for a book signing and also a conversation with the author of the book. They will be at the Planes of Fame in Chino tomorrow. "From April to August of 1945, Captain Jerry Yellin and a small group of fellow fighter pilots flew dangerous bombing and strafe missions out of Iwo Jima over Japan. Even days after America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, the pilots continued to fly. Though Japan had suffered unimaginable devastation, the emperor still refused to surrender.Bestselling author Don Brown (Treason) sits down with Yelllin, now ninety-three years old, to tell the incredible true story of the final combat mission of World War II. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 14th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over—but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. The Last Fighter Pilot is a harrowing first-person account of war from one of America's last living World War II veterans." https://www.nixonfoundation.org/event/meet-captain-jerry-yellin/ http://captainjerryyellin.com/

Alex (@Raptor05121) has put a lot of hours on that plane. He is currently out because of an exhaust issue. Although he has provided some great insights previously in this thread.

Good thing you don't live in The People's Republic of California. "Legally" if you wanted to go down to Home Depot and buy those nice flat light switches to replace the 30 year old ones in your house you are supposed to pull a permit with the county...

I've been very happy with my homebuilt Stratux. Only had one hiccup in the almost 80 hours I've used it. It quit broadcasting the Wifi. The problem was that somehow the image/software on the SD card got corrupted. It was an easy fix to reformat the card and install the latest version of the software and it worked perfectly again. Now I keep a copy of the latest version and other files needed on my Microsoft Surface so I can fix it on the go. What I really need to do is just get a second SD card and have it ready to swap out if needed. If I had paid attention to the software updates I probably could have avoided the downtime on that flight.

I didn't think the inner ring was that difficult to replace. Make note of what order nuts/washers go in as the shaft is taken apart and put it back together the same way. Adjust the nut as necessary prior to putting the cotter pin back in.

Hmm... This would have to be a trip planned out a couple of years in advance, but putting together a trip with 2-3 Mooneys to Alaska would provide company as well as a safety net in case someone had problems along the way.

Here it is.

I was just about to post a shout out to Jesse but you beat me to it.

I love all the signatures on the plane.

That should be at the beginning of the list!