Skates97

Or you get the C, then fly it awhile and fall in love, then start thinking "I would pay how much more to go how much faster?" Then you look at your typical cross country of 3-600nm and realize that the C is a great plane and does everything you want.

Had a couple of Mooney's flying at Corona yesterday. One was doing some pattern work before heading off to the west. The other was there for a bit before leaving. Neither were ones that I had seen before. Every time I see a new one at the field I want to get on the radio and say "Hey, are you on MooneySpace?"

I don't have them on my plane so I don't know what they are made out of. However, I have used this before on air mattresses and it works well, even fixed a small cut in the mattress. https://smile.amazon.com/Coghlans-8880-Airstop-Sealant-0-27-Ounce/dp/B001Q891SW/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1516484152&sr=8-6&keywords=air%2Bmattress%2Bpatch%2Bkit&th=1&psc=1

That must be only if there is a balance that carries over. It is the one they sent to replace the Amex and we have never paid any interest. I would be interested to see how the Citi Card would handle JetA if it is purchased from a vendor that also sells Avgas. You swipe it at the same machine so I would think it would come across in the same billing category. If only I had enough money to own something that used JetA.....

The fine print says 1% on fuel for "non-automobile purposes" but I think the catch is on how it is billed. Just looking at the last few, when I got fuel in Chandler it billed as "Chandler Air Services" but the category Citi put it in was "Vehicle Services - Service Station." When I get fuel at home, Corona, it bills as "Phillips 66 - Corona Air" and the category is "Vehicle Services - Automated Gas Dispenser." Most of what I buy qualifies, at least up until the 10th month when I have maxed out the 4% on gas purchases and it kicks into the 1% category. Interesting, I have never paid a penny of interest on the card but we have never carried a balance either. I think we've had it for a couple of years, since whenever it was that Costco switched from American Express to Visa.

I'm not sure about JetA, but I get cash back using my Citi Visa card from Costco. We get 4% on fuel up to $7,000/yr and 1% after that. I think it depends on how the vendor is listed, not what product you are buying. There have only been one or two airports where we didn't get the 4%, can't make any rhyme or reason why not, but we still get 1% on everything anyway. If the card company sees it as a fuel vendor I would think it should generate the reward even for JetA. For us we use that card for just about everything and get a check back for about $1k every year.

I've flown over that area a lot and have been bounced around pretty good from time to time, and I am always at 9,000+ heading through there. If he took off from San Bernardino I seriously doubt he was up that high, it's tucked up pretty close to the mountains. Factor in that he was heading to Big Bear and he just might have been trying to squeak over to ridge. Close to the ground flying over that area is not a place I would want to find myself.

I don't do three checks, but I do say it out loud even when I'm alone. Doing everything the same every time instead of changing it up depending on who is in the plane I think is a key to staying out of the "left column."

I'm interested to know what went wrong, whether it was something unforseen wrong with the plane, something the pilot did/didn't do, or something the pilot should have caught ahead of time in preflight/run up. That plane was on my short list but I could not get the broker to return emails or any of the voicemails I left inquiring about it. I think perhaps they were already in the process of selling it to this individual as the registration changed about a month after my attempts to contact them. Regardless I'm glad I have the plane that I did buy in my hangar.

I'm not sure exactly when but it wasn't long after I started flying mine that I quit looking to see if it was up and locked. I probably looked down the first couple of times and that was all. As Paul said, when the bar is on the floor and locked you know it, it either is or it isn't, and there isn't any place for it to go except in the hole so you aren't exactly fishing around for the right place. I do still look at it when I drop the gear as I like to see the thumb button pop out when it locks in place, then I give it one more good tug to be sure it is locked in place.

My POH says 4 1/2 pumps for full flaps. Mine seems to be right at about 4 1/3 for full flaps.

Hmmm... good point. I was going to include Cirrus in my post but I know they don't... I was just thinking of the fact that Beech owners do spend their money.

If you want to make your fortune you better change the logo to Beech and market on their forums, we all know Mooney owners aren't going to make you rich!

With the Johnson Bar if the handle is down, the gear is up. When the handle is up, the gear is down.

I took an old box, stuck holes in it with a screwdriver and made them big enough to stick a plug in. Then I took a sharpie and wrote T1 / B1, T2 / B2, etc... Simple, easy, cheap...

Reading the Continental link posted above I thought I would see what Lycoming has to say. "For most Lycoming models, preheat should be applied anytime temperatures are at 10˚ F or lower." https://www.lycoming.com/content/operating-cold-weather That's lower than the "preheat when below 40˚ F" that i have seen mentioned from time to time.

@MHemperly Mike, are you still in Vegas, did you find something else to fly yet?

This is pretty much what I see as well.

I'm probably 15-20 years from retirement, but the plane will be an integral part of it. That's the best way I know of to go see grandkids.

Given the lack of responses we won't do the fly-in this Saturday. Perhaps a different destination that people would be more interested in flying into? I would like to have something sort of mid-way between San Diego and Sacramento to see if we can get more people there. I'll start a different thread soliciting locations and we can plan for something a couple months from now. Will do

If we did the fly-in this Saturday the 13th, who would e able to attend?

Not having ventured into the IFR world I did not know that about the altitude, I thought it had to be more precise that +/- 200 feet. I just fly VFR but I try to stay within 50' of my chosen altitude. I don't have a GPS in the panel but on my tablet it tells me the distance of deviation off my planned route and I try to keep that under a mile with as few course corrections as possible, constantly monitoring my headings. I like to look at Flightaware after my flights to see how I did on maintaining altitude and then I pull up the track log on my tablet to see how close it matches my planned route. I think regardless of whether we are IFR/VFR we should be constantly challenging ourselves to improve. This was our flight back from AZ on New Years Day. Altitude was pretty steady and the routing was decent, with the exception of drifting north of it west of Palm Springs but I wanted to stay in the middle of the pass as it was dark at that point. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N78878/history/20180101/2334Z/tracklog

Last flight of the old year and first flight of the new year on New Year's Day. Flew to Arizona and before flying home gave 2 sisters, 1 brother-in-law, 6 nieces and nephews their first ride in a small plane and another brother-in-law his first ride in a small plane since he was a little kid. It was great fun! More pictures and the write-up on my blog. No Brake Lights at 8,500'

Sometimes even commercial can't get in... My wife and step-daughter were flying Allegiant from LAX to OGD (Ogden, UT). Before they got there a fog bank rolled in and they couldn't land. They diverted to Las Vegas (I think because that is the most convenient for the airline to make the next planned flight leg), and now they are driving a rental car from Vegas to SLC. (The other option was to take the flight all the way back to LAX and hope they could make it tomorrow) They left for LAX at 3am this morning and she's really wishing she was flying there in our Mooney. We couldn't have gotten into Ogden either but we could have landed at South Valley Regional.

Great story, it's hard to put into words the relationship that you can have with a great dog. Thanks for sharing.