MBDiagMan

The slam dunk is a whole different situation than flaps or no flaps. A year or so ago I was headed into Conroe, Tx just under the Houston Bravo. I had trouble getting Houston to turn me loose. When they finally did I had to come down from 6500’ from seemingly on top of the airport. That issue for me was different because of the speed brakes. I brought it down really fast to a point that I was giving a lot of thought to how gradually I was going to pull out of the dive. Sure was glad I was in a Mooney rather than a fork tailed devil. Thanks for all the great discussion. I think I’m going to continue with my full flap landings and just try to get enough practice to add some grace to them.

I did my private checkride in a taildragger, not a Mooney. I’m reasonably confident with full flap landings, but I can land better with no flaps.

I would like to hear people’s opinions and rationalities regarding landing their Mooney with and without flaps. I landed my C with no flaps and it just worked great. When I got the F, a good friend of mine did much of my transition. An F100 pilot and then airlines for much of the rest of his career. Great pilot and great guy. His opinion was that when you go to a complex plane you land it with flaps so that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I had After a three month down period sorting out the landing gear, I got back in again and landed it not too bad, but have dealt with some gusty winds which led me to discussion with another life long pro pilot. He contended that if I preferred landing with no flaps, that’s what I should do, but whatever I do, do it consistently that way. I think I know the pros and cons, but I think I’m at a point where I will be flying it a lot more and need to make a choice and stick with it. Looking forward to hearing your experiences and pros and cons.

Bob Cabe is wonderful, but he’s about 275 or 300 nM from Longview. Steve Jones is in Mount Pleasant. If you want to talk to him PM me and iwill give you his number.

Sounds as if all you seek is compliance with no desire for IN. If that’s the case, the Tail Beacon will get the job done easily if you currently have a good transponder. I really like having both IN and OUT from the transponder with a 345 in the Mooney and an Appareo in the 140. I really shudder to think about flying without it. If you don’t want to spend the money for IN don’t fly with it because you will then want it.

Makes sense INA. The Covid can effect someone’s life or routine in a way that indirectly slows down their flying.

What other Garmin units are in your panel, or expected to be added to your panel?

I would have to check the logs to confirm, but I’m pretty sure that I put the Concorde sealed in my Cessna 140 6 years ago and it’s still going strong. The one in the Mooney is only a couple of years old. It is very strong, but that should not prove anything.

Hasn’t effected my flying at all and I don’t really understand how it can. Maybe because you don’t want anyone to fly with you? Maybe because you don’t want to be around the fuel folks and maintenance shops? Maybe your hamburger joint near that nearby airport is closed? Other than the airline pilots of course, why is it slowing some of you guys down?

Did you try resetting the breaker, pulling it off and then pushing on again? I’m with carusoam. It’s time to get it on jacks. If you don’t have a set, borrow, build or buy. You need to have the ability to raise the plane to swing the gear. Access to the actuator is by removing the panel directly under the gear window. It will also give access to the gear relays. They are very rebuildable. You can pull out the plungers and see if the contacts are dirty. I really believe you will have to electrically troubleshoot the system. The service manual is available in the Downloads section and the wiring schematics and other information is included in the manual. If it were me and it was on jacks with the belly pan off, I think the first thing I would do is get a helper to actuate the airspeed switch while I measured the voltage from the switch which can be found from the schematic as to which pin on which relay to measure. I had trouble with that switch not long after getting the plane. Diaphragms are available for rebuilding it. Hope this helps. I sure miss my johnson bar C. If I hadn’t injured my shoulder I would still have it. I’m really disappointed with the electric gear problems I’ve dealt with. If it turns out to be the actuator, call Lasar about getting it fixed. Also, since you’re in McKnney, there is a shop in Mt Pleasant that helped with mine and another in Commerce although they are consumed by a major project at the moment. It sounds like you could fly it to one of them gear down. I’ve done that before. It’s a real drag! No pun intended.

With threads involving troubleshooting issues, I always like to see an explanation once the problem s corrected so that it is archived to help folks in the future. So as not to be a hypocrite, I will post the outcome here pertaining to my gear problem. It was blowing the circuit breaker and the emergency extension seemed as if it wasn’t latching properly. We finally found the actuator locked up. Sent it off and they found all the gears to be in perfect shape, but there was a brake locking up. A new brake and extensive testing was done before getting it back. Once back, we figured out that I was not pulling hard enough on the extension lever to lock it in place. I finally flew it this morning for the first time since September. The gear is now very reliable. I just pray that it stays that way. The amazing part was that after a few months of primarily flying only my Cessna 140, I actually landed the Mooney without mishap. One of the landings was a very mild drop in, but the others were acceptable.

KOSA, Mt. Pleasant, Tx. Two F’s, two J’s and an Ovation. It’s a 6,000 ft. Strip with about 40 T hangars, six 70x70 hangars like mine. These are city owned. Then there are about twelve privately owned hangars including 4 Citations a King Air, a few 414/421’s and various and sundry other planes. Then there is the Flight Museum full of warbirds. One of the best airports in Texas as evidenced by its Mooney population.

Five years? Well you never know. Miracles never cease. It could happen.

What did Don or Paul have to say about that Trutrak Mooney? The Trutrak guy, sitting in his display booth at Mooney Max ca. October ‘18 looked me straight in the eye and told me the approval was forthcoming within 60 days. Had he not told me that, presenting it as fact, I would have a different attitude about it.

This thread has led me to the admission of my belief in miracles. In spite of the fact that it is glaringly obvious that there will not be an FAA approval of the TruTrak autopilot during my lifetime, I continue to check this thread to see if such a miracle has occurred. I’m obviously living in a dream wold.

In my career I was involved with this two different times and both situations fit your description. Furthermore, in my experience, once the VC laid out the cash, the founder was left in place until the first stumble, and sooner or later there is always a stumble, then the VC put in their own person or team that had no specific industry experience, and these were the ones that ran it into the ground.

I have both a NAV121 and a NAV122 in my 140 and they are flawlless. Good, tested units can be had from bennetteavionics for a reasonable price.

I called them Friday and they answered on the first ring after I listened to the options and made my selection.

Unless you want to spring for a JPI and the ultra precision sensors, a fuel stick is the only way to go.

Yes, when I bought my F two years ago I expected that I would have an economical autopilot soon. I now believe that if you want a Mooney wi an autopilot, you better buy a plane with it already installed.

With such a serious backlog for Cessnas and Pipers, what would be the motivation to provide them for Mooney’s? If they hadn’t committed to Mooney availability “next month” over two years ago, my attitude would be much different.

If you don’t train in the Mooney for your checkride you will need to train in the Mooney before flying in IMC anyway. If you are not up against your written expiring go ahead and do it in the Mooney.

Sorry! I missed your interior and paint description. I have a bad habit of perusing posts too quickly. That low total time is a good thing. Do you know if there is a gear up in its history? If the history is clean, and it is corrosion free and so forth, the only negative is the panel if you will be flying IFR. If it doesn’t have an autopilot that can be coupled, maybe it is worth less. I would guess it to be maybe an $80K to $90K plane. I have been out of the market for two years, so it might be worth more. My $0.02,

Total time? Paint and interior condition?

Well it would seem that once the nut on the cable at the actuator is loosened you would push the inner Cale further into the hole in the bolt in order to engage the lever further to pull the gear further into engagement. I expect that there is a spring and ball detent like an automotive manual transmission that is not quite lined up. Hard to explain with words.