MBDiagMan

I see no point in the Sport Pilot cert if your goal is to get your private and move up to a Mooney. If you do go that route MAKE SURE the instructor is a full CFI or those expen$ive hours won't go toward your private or anything else. Malsompaying up front for a rating is risky. Many a flight school operation has done that only to go belly up leaving you with no recourse. Taildragger training will serve you well. I got my private in a Taildragger and flew it quite a while before stepping up to the Mooney. I still own and fly the taildragger in addition to my wonderful Mooney. The added concentration on the ground served me well for the transition and my successful tailwheel hours made my Mooney insurance cheaper.

If you are monitoring oil pressure, compression and watching for metal and most importantly, not letting it run low on oil, the handwriting will be on the wall when the time comes. Be diligent, fly and be happy.

Yep, I get that grin. Occasionally something makes for less than a pleasant moment like a wasp in the plane, but normally it results in a teeth showing grin.

Exactly correct! There is much more to any motor vehicle than the motor, but the thread seemed to be about the engine since being past TBO was the big worry. BTW, modern auto engines still blow head gaskets. Once aluminum cylinder heads hit the scene this became and remains a more common occurrence.

Although a modern fuel injected car engine is incredibly reliable, your aircraft engine was designed from the get go to be incredibly durable and reliable. If your aircraft engine is properly maintained, monitored and operated, I think it is at least as reliable as your car. My $0.02,

I grew up in my Dad's independent auto repair shop and have been a motor head ever since. This does not make me an aviation engine expert, but lots of my experience and knowledge transfers. Add to this the fact that I have experienced the emotion of an apprently catastrophic engine problem that made the aircraft not airworthy about 700 miles from home. So, here is my take on this FWIW, My Cessna 140 is upgraded from an 85 HP Continental to a 100 HP O-200 engine. It was near TBO when I bought this excellent aircraft and I have run it significantly past TBO. A Few years ago I flew it 700 or 800 miles to the National Cessna 140 meeting. Once there, I took off one morning for some sight seeing in the area and looked at the oil pressure as I began my take off roll and it was barely off the peg. I aborted the takeoff and barely coasted past the hold line. Before borrowing some tools and correcting the problem by removing and flushing the relief valve, LOTS of emotional things went through my mind. Before effecting and testing the repair, my idea was to get a local A&P to remove and crate the engine and send it to a Very widely respected O-200 guru, who happens to be a Cessna 140 club buddy of mine, for a complete rebuild, then find my way back home until the engine was returned and installed. I have run that sweet engine several hundred more hours since then and it has run flawlessly. I truly believe that if you keep oil and filters changed regularly, monitor the engine both in flight as well as at maintenance intervals by cutting filters and an occasional oil analysis AND the engine continues to hold good oil pressure and makes good compression and is kept from being too low on oil, the chances of a catastrophic failure to the level required to leave you stranded is highly unlikely. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Additionally if you are running, monitoring and maintaining it properly, enjoy it and don't fixate on it. You have control of this situation if you will follow the maintenance, monitoring and operation advice offered in this thread. My $.0.02,

Thanks for all the feedback. Once I manage to get the bar to release from the block and get it to go down shorter, the gear actuates beautifully. The problem is all in the lock block. I did indeed push, pull, shake and everything else trying to get it unlatched. I have a plan. After I learned that both planes would not fit in my hangar, my Cessna 140 was out in the weather for a few days before I managed to get a hangar at the field where my Mooney mechanic is located. I put the 140 in that hangar. At first opportunity I will swap hangars and put the Mooney on field with the Mooney mechanic. He can jack I t up in my hangar and we can get to the bottom of it. I think once the gear is safely extended I will see what the problem is, and of course my Mooney guy will have a handle on it. He has flown and worked on Mooneys many years. If there is even a remote need for a new block or anything else I will replace it. BTW, I have flown the Mooney about 15 hours or so now, and am getting quite comfortable with it. From where I sit, it is just not the quirky handling, impossible to land without being trained by someone with a PhD in Mooney flying, as some people seem to believe. The wasp and the gear problem of yesterday have been the worst things I have dealt with. I am even getting comfortable with the 430 now. Thanks again for all the information. I will report back what I come up with.

I had quite a takeoff at a towered field today! i got off the runway and I couldn't get the bar down out of its socket. I pushed the button while pulling down and wrestled with it a number of times. As if that weren't bad enough, a wasp appeared flying around the windshield area and dive bombed me a few times. I told the tower a wasp is in the cockpit and I am coming back around. Very little traffic so they were good about it. I came back, gear down, and got the wasp out and took off again. i got up again and wrestled trying to get the Johnson bar out of the socket. I finally got it out and the handle went to the floor easily. I don't understand what is up that the bar would not go straight down. I pushed and pulled on it with the button depressed trying to relieve side pressure. Dont know what to make of it.

Although my education and background is electrical engineering, I am not an avionics expert. I am also not IFR certified. That said, I have gotten the impression from my reading that the six pack should be partially electric and partially vacuum. The reason is so that when you are in the white stuff for real, if on source or the other fails you have at least a few instruments operational. My $0.02,

Thanks for the responses! It appears that even if I had an exact replacement in my hand it would be a BIG job to replace it. I think all the cables and switches would have to be completely removed and replaced to replace the overlay. It would certainly be something to do when the cowling is removed for another reason like at annual. Maybe the area could be scrubbed enough to hold labels and then print labels like Hank did. I know what each control is, but the whole brass overlay looks really bad. The interior doesn't look good in general and I plan on addressing that, but I want this to look better too. Thanks again

LOL! I'll try it.

David, are you from the New Braunfels area?

I did a search, but maybe I did not use the right terms, so I apologize if this is a rehash of something thoroughly covered previously. The lower portion of the panel where all the switches and Controls are located and labeled is in terrible condition. Not easy to read and make the panel look ratty. Surely others have dealt with this in the past. What was your solution? The overlay in '63 C is a brass looking color except where it is so corroded that you can vpbarely read the lettering.

Got in some flying today. Two short flights. After the first one my thoughts were that I need to get my brain to catch up with the airplane. I waggled quite a lot on the first gear retraction and then the bar got in my headset cable on the second one. All ended up good with the retractions, and I won't let the cable be there again. The second flight started building some confidence. Even though the gear tangled in the headset cord, everything else went better. Much of it is simply due to being in a strange plane, getting used to location of instruments and controls. Learning and using the 430 is part of this familiarization as well. The net result at the end of the day was, increasing love for my Mooney!

I offer a belated thanks for all the excellent replies in this thread. Today I got an excellent opportunity to answer this question in my mind. I needed to take my Taildragger Cessna to a different airport where I managed to get a hangar for her. I waited until well after lunch waiting for the ceiling to go up to a reasonable level. Once I got off for this 42nm flight, it was in the afternoon rough air. The Cessna rolled around and the wing even dipped probably 40 degrees or more and refused to come up for a second. I was at a high alert level during the whole flight. Once there a friend of mine had offered to bring me back in his 172. He gave me a little stick time in it and it felt very much like the 140 only heavier feeling. Once he got me back to my home field and we visited for a little bit, he was going to go to another field about 30NM away to see a few of his fellow crop dusters. I decided to fly over there in the Mooney, not worrying too much about the rough air since I had plenty of it during my transition training. Once I got in the air there was a definite difference. I don't think a passenger would have noticed the difference, but the plane was much less stressful to fly, I think, due to the precise handling. A few of you explained this in the thread, but once I felt it for myself I was very happy. I feel more confident in bumpy air in the Mooney than I do in either of the Cessnas I flew today. Thanks again for all the responses.

McAllen is not too far from Kerrville, the home of the Mooney factory. On that field is Dugosh. He is a long time Mooney guru. He has recently sold the business, but the main man now is David Boerhens(sp?) they are an MSC and David knows Mooneys with decades of experience and reputation. They would be a good one for a prebuy. It is possible that they might go to the plane. I was in the very same boat as the OP just a few months ago. PP the plane and go from there. If you get a fundamentally solid plane and are willing to put in money each year, you can end up with what you want while FLYING. This is a good plan. Proceed carefully and make it work.

I understand Stetson, but my point is the importance of running this engine before looking for metal because it has set so long. If you were to take an oil sample before running it, you could miss any problems that might arise from a no oil on the cam problem.

Looks as if this thread has the potential for turning into a landing gear war. They made these aircraft with both types of gear because there are pilots with both preferences. My thinking is that you choose the one that YOU prefer and that is the only person you must please. If you prefer an electric gear Mooney you are still a fellow Mooniac AFAIAC.

My thinking is that if the engine were started and run to full oil temp, THEN cut the filter and do an oil sample, you would know if there is a cam problem. My experience is automotive, but in an auto engine, once the flat tappet cam and lifters are thoroughly broken in, unless they are totally oil starved they will hang tough. Until full break in, they are more delicate. If the engine has had CAMGUARD or Aeroshell PLUS (which includes a CAMGUARD additive) in it during the set up time it has a better chance. If I were purchasing, I would want to run it and cut the filter and send off a sample. IF it is recently run without making metal, holds strong oil pressure and makes solid compression, it could have hundreds or even a thousand hours or more left in it. The time to run it and check for metal is BEFORE you purchase it, not after. My Cessna 140 with O200A is well past TBO and is very strong. They are known for running reliably to a point almost double TBO if cared for properly. With the reputation of the Lycomings engine used in our birds, it wouldn't surprise me if they too commonly fun far beyond TBO for those who choose to do so. That said, my C Model has an engine with less than 300 hours total time, so I have not researched the statistical engine life of these Lycomings. my$0.02,

I have been fixated on a manual gear Mooney since my flying lessons in 1991. I just finished that process a couple of weeks ago. Do it now if you can instead of waiting 26 years as I did. In the course of your research, which searching here will provide much information, remember that much information about the M20C applies to the E model. I highly recommend the manual gear. I went through all the Mooney specialist transition training. I flew with a really great guy and he was a great instructor, but after all that, I really am not convinced that all that was necessary. You indeed need an instructor familiar with the Mooney, but if you can land an airplane tail low, as long as you know some basic type specific information, I don't think it will be a problem. The guy who flew with me has transitioned maybe hundreds of pilots to Mooneys, he did emergency operations, steep turns, maneuvers and on and on. He was exceedingly thorough, but I just don't believe that I would have done any worse with my local guy who has owned, flown and instructed in multiple Mooneys. As many here will point out, you really need a prebuy done by a Mooney savvy IA. One of the Mooney authorized warranty centers around the country would be ideal. As a preliminary step before paying for a prebuy, when you find what you think is a good example, put an IPhone up in the gear well and take videos in all directions and send them to a Mooney savvy guy to look at to see if there is excessive corrosion. Your prebuy inspector needs to be equipped and knowledgable about the landing gear torque measurement inspection technique as well as other specific inspections. If the plane passes prebuy, it would be ideal to have a fresh annual if the annual is not recent. good luck with your search. I hope it turns out as well as mine. My $0.02,

Looks great Stetson! I hope you enjoy the purchase as much as I have.

I went to take her to my hangar field and fly my first solo flight yesterday morning at Sunrise. Air was silk smooth. First time I have flown her in anything other than rough air. With no flaps and the same take off trim setting I was using with half flaps, she flew off the runway on her own like a Cessna (such blasphemy.). The gear came right up after a little bit of struggle operating the thumb button. I was taking her to my hangar in Hugo to see if I could get both her and my Cessna 140 in the hangar. I had a headache to a point that I almost postponed the flight, but I did a few maneuvers in the smooth air and fell deeply in love. The precision and crisp responsiveness of the controls in the smooth air made it so enjoyable to fly. I managed to do a few things with the 430 which helped me get comfortable. Just flying and manipulating the 430 and the panel helps me get comfortable and confident. It was only a 20 mile flight, but she didn't seem to want to go very fast. Flying 25 squared and trimmed for cruise she never made it to the yellow arc on the air speed indicator. When I flew the same flight with the instructor aboard she reached the yellow. The ferry pilot had said she flew 137 Knots air speed bringing her from Kerrville,. I hope she is faster than this. After my maneuvers, I did a no flap landing and it was my best yet. If I had felt better and hadn't needed to move the planes around, I would have flown for awhile before putting her away. I think I might get some flying weather late this afternoon. Both planes did not fit in the hangar so the 140 is now tied down outside. I am trying to find somewhere to get her out of the weather very soon. I can't wait to do some airport hopping and get comfortable with her. I have to do my taxes, so once that is no longer hanging over my head, I plan on burning lots of 100LL Saga will continue.....

Okay! I feel that I am good to go now! After lots of rough air flying a few weeks ago with the Mooney transition guy, and being the hard headed student that I am I was landing pretty well, but still having trouble with getting the gear up, and generally not as confident as I wanted to be. I got back from Galveston Sunday and had my local Mooney guy lined up to fly this morning even though it was going to be high gusty wind and probably more rough air. It was indeed rough air, even worse than I flew in two weeks ago. I had time to think about it all and read some of the good input here and it all helped greatly. I lifted off the runway and got after the gear pretty quickly. It came up perfectly. It is indeed all about the technique and doing it before the speed builds up. I then went around and landed and he asked "what is wrong with that?" After giving me that little confidence boost, he had me landing and taking off with no flaps which worked fine. Of course we were on a 6,000 feet runway so it was no problem. I haven't looked at his log book entry, but there were probably about 8 landings and they all went well including batting a thousand getting the gear up. We went to my hangar field which has a smaller runway and even in the rough air I nailed the landing and take off there. The gusty wind and rough air was good training. One landing I ended up ballooning up in a gust and dealt with it much easier than I would have in my little taildragger. Once we got out we had flown an hour and a half. After filling out my logbook he handed it back and said "you're good to go." He also said that he thought it would be a good idea for me to fly more than 5 hours before carrying my sweetheart. He said I should just fly and get comfortable with all the added things to think about. I will do that, plus get in lots of study for the 430. I plan on weaning myself from Foreflight dependence and use it for flight planning rather than GPS navigation. I will leave that to the 430. I am extremely grateful for all the support and welcome that I have had here. You guys offer lots of good advice, contacts and even a demonstration flight! Many things you guys did and said were helpful. Probably the final suggestion that helped me get to the point of starting solo time was the suggestion for gear up before the end of usable runway. i look very much forward to discussion on this forum and meeting some more of you in person. You guys are great!

Mooneyspace members ROCK! While Sandy and I were in Galveston, Chuck (cnoe) flew over to KGLS and gave us an island tour in his BEAUTIFUL J model. Chuck is a great and gracious guy! His plane is a superb example. He is a very good pilot giving us a very enjoyable ride. It is also good that I know what the airport looks like from the air since we will be coming here several times a year. Thanks very much Chuck! I will look for the chance to pay it forward and give someone else a ride. Sandy is fired up now and ready to Mooney travel. Thanks a bunch Chuck!