SantosDumont

I've forgotten to turn the landing light on before. No big deal at well lit airports.

After 200 hours in the F this year I've found that my 99% mission is fly myself from point A to point B when the weather is good. %1 try to go somewhere with the family. For the 1% mission I can rent a Cherokee 6 or a Bonanza. For the 99% mission its all about squeezing out every last knot.

Wow... guess it's time to find a Legacy to take a ride in.

I think I’m at the point where if I could shave off 30 minutes, but the airframe cost 2-3x and it cost me 16 GAL instead of 8 GAL I would happily dump that 100LL into the money burning machine.

Moving to Vegas completely changed the economics and practicality of the M20F for me. Cruising at 150kts just feels too slow now when I can roll out of bed, drive 10 minutes to McCarran and let someone else drive me at 450kts. I’ve also found that my tolerance to ride a sky jet ski across choppy air is about 2 hrs before I start telling myself that I’m never strapping myself in this thing again. So I started looking into upgrade options like the Lancair Legacy, but then I realized that new Mooneys use the same engine. Do the newer Mooneys with the TSIO-550 really cruise over 200kts, or are they realistically 175kt machines?

Ken Hetge up in Techachapi did my annual last year. He also rents his Mooney M20C.

I went all-in Whelen PAR 36/46 taxi and landing light, 650 nav/strobes, beacon and tail light. Wasn't cheap, but they are definitely Mooney bling.

Reposting this here for everyone not on /r/flying http://abc7.com/plane-crash-lands-on-glendale-street;-2-onboard-unharmed/2445414/

Change the fuel cap o-rings. This probably hasn't been done in years on your plane.

I was gonna say, I have the 100 Gal long range tanks on my F and it wouldn't be enough... but with an extra 100Gal... although you could only fill it up about halfway to be within W&B.

How many gallons can his tanks hold?!

Bumping this thread because moving day has finally come. If anyone has any leads on hangars in Vegas let me know. I got a response from someone on the VGT list. $600/mo. That a good price? My house sits halfway between HND and BVU though so I think I would rather end up at BVU.

After about 200 hrs of XC I decided to get an O2 tank. What a difference it made! I found that I wasn't exhausted after the flight like I usually was after cruising around at 11.5/12.5k. My advice for O2 is to get the biggest tank you are comfortable with. I got a short 9CUFT one and it lasts for about 5 hours... not long enough to make a round trip on a long XC.

Powertow 40. No regrets.

Already got 200 hours in my F and 150kts is starting to feel slow. After 200 hours my wife and kids have flown with me exactly 2 times and they don't like it. So I only need a 1-2 place bird. Lancair Legacy is going to be my next plane.

Do you do Xplane too?

Within 6 months of buying my 67F the vacuum pump and alternator failed. Thing is 50 years old and I actually perfer knowing that I have brand new parts on it. The only thing that bothers me about my PPI was that the vacuum tube piping had a giant hole in it that someone 'repaired' with aluminum tape.

I think what you're looking for are the Camlock studs. I had to replace a couple of them. On my aftermarket cowl it's the 2700-4s so you might have to try a couple to see what size yours are. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/hapages/camloc2700.php https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/hapages/sb-ss-protruding.php

I usually set my trim just below the takeoff mark on my F. Otherwise as soon as I perform the manual gear retract maneuver and put the gear away I feel like I'm too nose high and have to trim from 80 to 105 for climb.

I'm interested. I reached out to a few wrapping companies, even some that showed wrapped aircraft on their websites, for a quote to wrap my F... and not one of them responded. Eventually I found it was because no one wanted to go through the hassle of dealing with the FAA with a certificated plane. If you figure out all the legalities and are interested then I need to get a quote from you.

Put me on the map!

I use Southwest as my airline backup if it's out of driving range. I have to use it about 50% of the time due to weather and maintenance. After finishing my IR I expect that to drop to 20-25% of the time.

Maybe I'll have my new alternator installed by the 20th!

Well tigetened alternator bolts and cleaned a bit of corrosion from the master relay leads but no joy. I guess new alternator time.

Been having alternator trouble with my plane. The symptoms were sporadic charging and AMP output fluctuating. When charging the voltage output would be 14.5 on my VM1000 engine monitor, when not charging it would just show battery voltage. However when charging my AMP output would fluctuate wildly, going from 16A to 30A. Sometimes it would start charging and showing 14.5v when I got about 2000 RPM, but a couple weeks ago it didn't even want to start charging anymore. At first I thought it was a voltage regulator problem so I replaced the old Deltoelectric VR with a new Zeftronics one. For a few flights everything was gravy, 14.5v at start. However, yesterday I started and got no charging, but a green light on the Zeftronics. Reset the field a few times, went to full power, and still no charging... Is my alternator shot? What troubleshooting steps can I perform?