MBDiagMan

Contact Don Maxwell. He has a great sheet metal guy that built the panel for the F I am buying. I expect that he could build one and send it to you for installation.

My Mooney is covered with a 345, but I am watching this closely for my little taildragger.

I tried Brian when I bought my C, but he was backed up for months. If he can get you in, that’s great, but if there is much of a delay Dugosh in Kerrville is very highly thought of. BTW, my wife and I came to Dripping Springs for our granddaughters first birthday party. The whole family is here for a four day blow out. We all went to SeaWorld yesterday and I am sitting at my son in laws Moms house in Wimberly having coffee. Enjoying life.

Wait a minute now! Don’t put too much new work in Dons shop until he finishes transferring avionics from my C to the F I am buying from him! I am anxious to take delivery. Just joking, Don has a large shop with a crew of competent people. I am sure that there is a lot of work getting done while He and Jan are at OSH. If the OP can manage to get the plane to Don, he will get a really good prebuy. That said, if I were in San Antonio looking for a prebuy, I would go to Dugosh on the field at Kerrville with all confidence. It may not be called Dugosh any more, but Dave Barrons(sp?) is the main guy there and is extremely competent. I bought my C from a guy who hangared in Kerrville for decades and Dave is in the logbook entries for the last several decades. When other highly Mooney experienced guys put their eyes on her they give accolades. That says a lot about Dave’s work.

VERY GOOD LESSON carusaoam! My C did (does) have the short rudder. From your lesson my take away is; I’m glad my new to me F has speed brakes. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Agreed!

Jp, since you’re in Dallas, you can go to Air Salvage of Dallas in Lancaster, and get a good run down on this distributor from a guy called “Lucky.” He is the guy that the NTSB goes to when they want to learn about accidents. That is a literal statement I know is true because my sister in law used to work for the NTSB. He is passionate about maintenance safety. He can tell you all about the distributor and show you piles of aluminum that are in a wad due to its failure. You can learn from him what to do to keep this ignition system safe in the event you buy one.

And in NorthEast, Texas, but on Ag equipment, not airplanes.:)

Okay! You guys always help! I went back to her and got 0 deductible for $30 extra per year. It is still about $70 less than the first quote which was for AOPA. AOPA has done pretty well on insurance ever since I bought my Cessna ten years ago. As far as I can tell there are none of the people left at AOPA that I dealt with ten years ago.

Thanks Paul! I will give that a shot.

Okay, I got my quote from Falcon. They only want a CFI checkout. They are $103 cheaper on annual premium, but rather than $0/$0 not in motion/in motion deductible, they have $250/$1,000 deductible.

Without research, I believe that is the mag that, although it consists of two separate magneto’s they have a common plastic gear shared between 5hem providing a single point of failure. This does away with the redundancy advantage of two totally separate mags separately geared to the flywheel. If I am wrong, someone please correct my statement. Yes Paul, Chuck is a very good pilot and IIRC, he said he tries to fly at least one approach per week, so he keeps that beautiful plane in the air a lot.

Yes my C was my forever plane, at least forever until my shoulder wouldn’t let me manage the gear any more. It was forever enough for me to pour money into the panel. Thankfully I am bringing the panel improvements with me.

Great advice carusoam! Thanks!

The 430 W, GTX345 and card compass will come out of the C and go into the F in place of the 430 non WAAS, GTX 327 and a regular compass. That stuff will go into the C. Thanks for the complements. Yes the C is outstanding with a wonderful pedigree, but I injured my shoulder and can’t handle the Johnson bar gear any more. I really hate to see her go, but given what the replacement is, I can deal with it. When I bought the C, but had yet to take delivery, a super good guy who goes by “cnoe” on this forum, gave my wife and I a scenic tour around Galveston Island in his beautiful J or K, I don’t remember which. He refused to let me buy him any gas. He said to just make sure that I pass it on and do the same for someone else, so I am trying to honor my promise to Chuck.

Thanks for the research on KGG Bryan! Saves me some steps for the short term. There’s nothing on my record that should cause problems. Maybe it is my age, 69. If it is recency, I flew the C regularly until about two months ago when I injured my shoulder. Thanks for all the comments and good information.

Yep, that is a very likely scenario. Another possible scenario is Don flying my F home and getting a tail wheel ride home. The only problem is that Longview is Charlie airspace and the transponder in the 140 is past due for certification. That is on the list to get done though.

It is indeed fun to have two completely different type airplanes. I had the taildragger for a long time before the Mooney. It is not worth a lot of Money, but is a very unique airplane. It costs very little to insure and annual and there is room in the hangar for it, so I just can’t come up with a reason to sell it. For those of you who come to the Mooney event in Longview in October, come to the museum event in Mount Pleasan5 and you can see my little taildragger along with my Mooney and Steve Jones beautiful F. The museum is great because it is full of wonderful warbirds, AIRWORTHY warbirds. If weather permits, you will most likely see a few of them fly. If you are a veteran, Scott may very well give you a ride in one of them. He is known for giving rides to veterans.

The Cessna burns half as much fuel and is just fun to fly. My instructor and I both find it to be a hoot. We will decide which I will do the checkride in as time goes along. If I do it in the 140, I plan on also coming out the other end competent with the Mooney, the 430 et al. We got started in the Cessna after I injured my shoulder and could no longer handle the Johnson Bar, and just found it to be fun.

Sounds like you have thought this out well and coming up with a way to get the most bang for the buck.

Got the insurance quote for the F I am in the process of buying from Don Maxwell. The price and everything is reasonable, but I am going from well over 100 hours in a C to an F and they want me to have 10 hours duel. I was shocked. I can make this work without too much trouble because I am working on my IR, so I figure we can just go from the Cessna to the Mooney for ten hours of hoodwork, and it will be ten hours of dual. He has plenty of Mooney time in his past before going on to A Hawker and King Airs. The hassle will be the logistics of getting the plane home. On the good side it is only a 45 nM flight to get her to her new home.

Skates, Eric makes a very good point. It may very well be that you can do just fine in your area without a panel certified GPS, but adding one will make single IFR more reasonable. Check the approach types in the various airports in your area to help you decide. i am doing part of my IR training I My IFR Cessna 140, but it works because the approach availability in my area, which I fully expect is much different than the LA or Bay areas. Good luck with your decision.

No name yet. The C was named after my Mom And my wife’s late Moms name, Joyce. We are still working on a name for the F. i am looking forward to taking the OP flying, but I am surprised that another North Texan hasn’t chimed in. That said, I don’t know that many in the immediate DFW area.

Jpflysdfw, I hangar in Mount Pleasant. I am in the process of buying a beautifully restored F from Don Maxwell in Longview. My C is there now for swapping avionics between my C and the F. Once they complete that process I will take delivery. It will probably be several weeks since Oshkosh fell in the middle of the project. After I take delivery I will be happy to give you a ride. I will attach pictures of both my C which will be for sale and the F. I injured my shoulder and can no longer manage the Johnson bar in the C. It is a super nice plane, but the injury forces me to move on. I am replacing the C with an even nicer F with all the J modifications.

My C may very well have those extra seat rail holes. I am six one and can get the seat WAY too far back.