Skates97

The left side is a beast, the right side is a piece of cake. I guess I'm part of the problem mentioned by M016576 because I paid their price... I try to find the least expensive way to do things, but putting approved seat belts in my plane wasn't where I was going to cut corners. I did get the retractable ones and am glad I did. Yes, they were $100 more a side but in a plane I plan on keeping for a long time that is a drop in the bucket. Also I am glad for the added safety in case of an off field landing. I can't remember the specific numbers, but shoulder belts reduce major injuries by a major percentage and change fatal accidents into survivable ones in many cases. My DPE for my PPL has a son who had an off field landing. Everything was looking good right until the plane caught a small berm in the field he was putting it down in. If he had shoulder belts he would have walked away with minor injuries. Instead he ended up spending significant time in intensive care in a medically induced coma and multiple reconstructive surgeries. After that my DPE said he refuses to fly in anything without shoulder belts. I did the install and paid my IA $20 to check it all out and sign my log book. It will be awhile before I do any other upgrades to the plane, (next one will be an engine monitor) but the shoulder belts was a must do that I was not willing to wait for. Now I hope I never need them.

If you go to their paint department and just ask for a couple long paint stirrers they give them out free.

It was Dan that helped me out, even though he wasn't getting the sale out of it. (Although they will be getting some sales from me in the coming months). I had sent him a thank you email yesterday but it was apparently stuck in my outbox and hadn't sent. So, he followed up with me this morning to see if they had what I was looking for because he hadn't heard back. That is some great customer service!

Great news. I just emailed them yesterday looking for something that I hadn't been able to find. I got an email back very quickly telling me that I could get it from Aircraftspruce along with the part number.

My checklists start with what is in the POH and then have some additions to them. I have also moved a couple steps around to fit the way my mind flows through the process. The emergency ones are from the POH.

I had the same question. The search function doesn't always pull up what you are looking for, but here was the thread when I asked. There are some great responses in it. https://mooneyspace.com/topic/21452-pre-flight-drain-gascolator/

Love your pics. Very nice angles. You have a good eye for framing them.

I didn't buy one from them, but I did trade a number of emails back and forth with Jimmy. I can't say enough nice things about him and the advice/info he gave me. In the end while what he had was very nice, it was more than what I was looking for. If/when I decide to step up from this Mooney to another one I will be contacting Jimmy again.

Is the engine really run out? In the General Specs under the Engine Overhaul Time they list 2,443. Down lower in the ad it says 678 Hours Since Factory Overhaul. Seems like perhaps they just don't know how to write an ad.

Yep! And really all by accident... It was pretty cool climbing out of Camarillo after our little adventure and watching the B-29 slip under us on his base leg heading back to the airport...

When was the last time you shared the radio frequency with a B-17 and a B-29, or shared airspace with a B-29, or parked on the ramp with a B-17, B-24, B-25, and P-51? For me it was yesterday, and it was awesome! A morning breakfast run to Camarillo (KCMA) turned out to be much more. Many more pictures and the "rest of the story" on my site. Camarillo - War Birds - LA Tour

True, they also use very little bandwidth. Out here in CA there have been a couple times after decent earthquakes and also a few years back when we had some bad fires that you couldn't make a cell phone call. The networks were all overloaded. However if you could send and receive texts. Helpful to let people know that you're okay.

Yes, trouble waiting to happen....

Good to know, but if/when I go after an IR it won't be with one functional Nav, it will be be with GPS in the panel.

I'll text updates along my route and give whoever is picking me up an ETA when I'm about 30 minutes out so they can be there when I land.

Yes, needs static check, but does not have a required clock (that would be an easy fix). It has 2 Nav radios, but #2 has issues. I honestly don't know if you are required to have 2 Navs but I don't know how you would find VOR intersections without two fully functional Navs.

I think you are talking about the bypass for the carb heat. With carb heat off it should be open and carb heat on it should be closed. It doesn't need anything hooked up to it but if you wanted to put a piece of scat tubing on to route it out your cowl flap you could.

Mine isn't certified to fly IFR, and neither am I. We make a good pair. If I decide to pursue my IR I'll upgrade what I need to in the plane and then go after the rating. Until then, I'll enjoy the VFR privileges that my certificate says I have qualified for.

Hmm... They must have added things as the years went on. My D is a 65 and it has a hat rack and at some point had a clock in the yoke, but now there is just a hole there (conveniently covered up by the mount for my tablet). I'm sure the instruments were basic but someone replaced/reconfigured them at some point in the last 52 years.

Really Mike? This is a perfect example of why these type of discussions devolve so quickly. I'm just a VFR pilot, and a very new one as well. Your whole post makes some great points, and then you end it with a sentence denigrating anyone who doesn't share your zest for an instrument rating. Just make your point about the benefits of an IR without putting down anyone who decides they don't want to pursue one. On the map you showed above I could fly from my home in Southern California to almost anywhere in the country with the exception of the storm system over the mid-west, but I wouldn't fly that with an IR anyway. And for what it's worth, I fly here all the time when there is mountain obscuration. It's a non-issue because I know where the mountains are, and it doesn't matter if the tops of them are in the clouds, I fly around them anyway. If the skies around the mountains are clear, just don't fly into the clouds...

When I was finishing up my time under the hood for my PPL my CFI had me trying steep turns just because... I agree, they're hard without outside reference.

Paranoid is ok, it makes sure that you do that gear check when you put the gear down, when you turn base, and when you turn final. As Hank pointed out, now the GUMPS check actually makes sense. I say it out loud as I perform each step. I don't know about other retracts, the Mooney is the only one I have flown, but I'm still not quite sure how you would completely forget the gear in a Mooney. It is just hard to slow it down without the gear down... At some point in the pattern/on approach you would be looking at the ASI and thinking "why the heck can't I slow down..."

If you have looked at your mission profile, found that a Mooney fits it, and your heart is set on a Mooney don't let people talk you out of it. Myself and a few others here bought a Mooney just after completing our PPL. Insurance will be higher than someone with complex time, but it is not hard to get coverage. I didn't have any of the brokers I contacted say they couldn't insure me even though I was under 60 hours and had no complex time, it was just a question of whether I wanted to pay what they were asking. As for forgetting to put the gear down, that has happened to pilots with low hours and pilots with high hours. It hasn't happened to me yet... Not that it can't, but I follow my checklists and as long as I continue to do so and don't allow myself to be distracted I anticipate continued success landing on the wheels instead of the belly. And there is something very cool about lifting off and tucking the gear away. For me it felt like I was finally flying a real plane after my time in trainers. Edit: Seeing Shadrach's post I thought I would include my numbers. I bought a 65 D that the insurance wrote as a "C" because it had been converted to retractable gear and CS prop. I had 58.6 total hours, no complex time, (so obviously no time in type), 36k hull coverage, 1mm liability, no deductibles, and it is $1,525 for the first year. I will see what it drops when I go to renew. On pace for over 100 hours this first year of ownership.

Double post, but just catching up on flights... Yesterday evening I took my youngest son out flying around the practice area and let him take the controls. The first time we've done that since I got him the cushion to be able to see over the panel. He loved it. http://intothesky.us/2017/04/18/a-budding-pilot/

If I'm going out of the local area I file a VFR flight plan, open it prior to take off and close it when I land. I also pick up flight following and while I know some enjoy not listening to the chatter I actually enjoy talking with ATC and listening to the radios. Some of the conversations are entertaining. I find that I can tune out a lot of it and pick up my tail number when I hear it. If you register on 1800wxbrief.com they will send you a text with a link to open your flight plan I think about 30 minutes before your scheduled departure and before you land you will have another text with a link to close your plan. It's very easy to use.