Tx_Aggie

Mine are fairly warped/ rough, can you post a photo of what yours looks like now?

How did you replace your plastics?

One does sleep a little better when they don’t owe a dime to anyone!

What are you moving up to?

Agreed 1000%, get the right plane first. The hanger will fall into place afterwards. You might check too, the local airports in my neck of the woods won’t lease/rent out unless you have a plane to stick in there. “I’m planning on buying one” isn’t good enough and they’ve booted folks who just use hanger space as glorified junk storage.

Funny how these things happen. My century 41 started to poop out this past year. With century going out of business and the outlook for parts for the next 10+ years only getting worse I decided also to take the hit and replace with Garmin gfc500. I considered the G3x path but just couldn’t get there with the budget. There’s a lot of “while you’re in there” paths you can take! Mines currently at Don Maxwell’s getting the hook up now. Looking forward to the new functionality.

What you’re describing sounds normal to me if I don’t adjust the trim appropriately. It takes a few familiarity takeoffs but I set the trim indicator about one or two lines above “take off” for the takeoff and am usually adjusting it back down once airborne a few hundred feet. I think it’s just an airframe nuance. It also takes a lot of down trim to help with appropriate pressure for attitude control on approaches. Yes it’s different from the Cessna/pipers most of us came from but I’ll take those trade offs for the 25-40 knots faster in cruise speed on the same fuel flow any day! 1980 M20J

Speed brakes help me to be a non-issue with controllers when I’m “in line” with the jet traffic on an approach. I obviously use them when slam dunked also. I don’t see them as a crutch but ‘part of the tool bag’ as others have stated. However if I deploy them on final approach I don’t retract them until after touchdown. I think they smooth out the landing really. folks in other planes are not flying airframes as smooth as ours so there’s really no equal/fair comparison in my opinion. Don’t be ashamed to use them.

And now back to the OP topic. Couldn’t resist. M20J

I second that. Crazy as it sounds, leave or replace the duct tape. It keeps the carbon monoxide out. You’ll be glad you did.

Why go from Bravo to a J, usually it’s the other way around?

How does it reduce the risk of co poisoning?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155964966987?hash=item24503c884b:g:fm4AAOSwStdleNtH relisted.

I’m in a J and just shelled out a deposit on the dual G5’s and GFC500. Is it expensive? Yes, but I had to ask myself who will likely be around to service my autopilot in the next 5 years? Garmin or Century? I think it’s just the nature of this business unfortunately…. Having said that, an autopilot that has worked on 1980 technology for 40 years is pretty amazing.

I’m going by the guy that posted the data. @bmcconnaha has several threads on the empirical data after his io-390 install. don’t be one of those folks who peddle a bunch of “likely”, “maybe” and “estimation” without facts. Btw our “200 hp” io-360s are actually 193 hp.

What set up did you have in your J? gig em.

What TAS are you seeing in the 13-15k range in the J? 2700 rpm’s?

I’d plan on trading your core to Lycoming and grabbing a reman io-390. Claw back about 10 knots in cruise apparently.

Hey sandman, inquiring minds want to know. In years of asking you have displayed no data. What true airspeed and fuel flows did you see? According to flight aware you sold the plane recently, fast but not fast enough?

Like trading in your McCauley or trading in an old top prop?

Anyone have an updated price on the 2-blade top prop?

Jimmy has a lot of success around here, but don’t discount the individual person selling either. One thing to consider too is if the registered owner has had the plane longer than a year. It’s not always the case but a person is generally serious and knows their plane if they’ve had it for 3-5 years. If the registered owner has had it 12 months or less, they may just be flipping it and not really concerned about you getting a good plane. #thingsyoulearnalongtheway

Go with your gut on this. If you’ve looked at listings for a little while you’ll see most sellers are willing to send digital logs. Some even post the logs with the listing. Someone who doesn’t send logs is not serious about selling or is covering up issues. You can usually get a head start by looking up the N number on myairplane.com/reports. Or something similar. Google that and you’ll access a website that accesses several of the databases for major work/crashes/incidents. Also you can probably thread together things like no flight history other than most recently to the airport of the broker, or ownership by someone who’s airport is on the coast for multiple years, tend to tell a story you might not want to be part of. I wouldn’t put anything through a Prebuy inspection until I’ve had a chance to take notes on the logs. you’re going at it the right way though. Keep on hunting and asking questions!

I was in a similar boat about 3 years ago… J or K is what I narrowed down to. The advice is sound on checking flightaware for what realworld flights look like on the different models. As many will tout the high altitude benefits of that turbo but check their tail numbers to see what altitudes they’ve flown at and almost none are in the altitudes they talk so highly of! I ended up finding a 1980 M20J model that had just been overhauled and the guy just got married and bought a house. Aka one of these items had to go as a result. I wanted a K but ultimately went with the J just so I could see if I could afford airplane ownership with a simpler setup. The nice thing about the M20J is that it strikes a perfect balance between reasonable ownership/maintenance cost and competitive speed. It really is the sweet spot of the brand. 155-160 ktas on 9-11 gph are real numbers, oat depending. This is only a 15% speed delta to the true airspeed of the Ovation at about 50% of the acquisition cost. Fortunately or unfortunately once you’re in on a J it’s hard to buy more performance for an equitable value, and for that I am becoming more content. Im usually only about 10-15 minutes behind the io-550 crowd and I know my fuel bill is lighter. Additionally these M20Js will catch any tailwind available I frequently see 10-15 kts tailwinds in the 8-10k altitudes and according to the data the K models tend to file for the same speeds I do there too. initially I was really drawn to the K but I’m glad I went this route with the J. I’ll be keeping it for a while.

Hi Bob, yes I emailed that address. I tried again just now. I also called the number on your website and left a voicemail. Did you not receive that either?