MBDiagMan

Your mechanic gave you your answer: bearings good, brushes, good. As long as it is still charging correctly as well, there is absolutely no need to change it. If it is not broke, don't fix it. On an airplane I would not always say this, but in this case, I believe it is best left alone. my $0.02,

A little delay, but he and the plane should be here this afternoon. He is saying that it will probably take a few weeks of flying before he will sign me off. Kind of surprising, but I will approach this with a positive attitude and see where it goes.

Encouraging responses! If the weather forecast holds and nothing crazy happens I will be putting all this in practice tomorrow morning. We will see if I can fly it or if I am too hard headed.

Does anyone know off hand when they added the longer rudder? IIRC I read that it was the B model that had the shorter rudder, but maybe it was the early C. Mine is a '63. BTW, thanks for the ongoing posts. Great stuff.

Thanks for the great and articulate responses! Please keep them coming. I cross control crosswind landings. I hope that one wheel works as well on a low wing airplane as it does in my little taildragger. I have never crabbed to the runway and straightened up at the last second, but maybe that will be in the cards now. I have landed the taildragger in what I call a two point landing in a three point attitude. In a tricycle, that should be nose high on one wheel (if that makes a lick of sense.)

My hurry? Well, I have a new (to me) plane and I want to go places. I need to be at Greenville Saturday morning for CAP flying and then in Mount Pleasant Saturday afternoon and would rather fly than drive. Mount Pleasant is the most narrow of the runways I will be on over the weekend at 6,000 X 100. Greenville has 150 feet wide runways as does Paris, which is where much of my initial training will be I am sure. After this weekend I will be in and out of several 75' and one 60' wide runways. I like hearing that Andy. If It turns out I can land in the same conditions as I am currently comfortable with, I will be a happy camper and will get in some flying in the upcoming March winds.

Thanks for taking the time Midlife!

I think my C and my Mooney specialist CFI will be here Thursday and leave Friday night. IF I am flying on my own Saturday, it appears that I will be faced with 5 to 15 winds, gusting to 20. This will be South SouthEast on some North/South runways. For you low time pilots, or low time in Mooney pilots, what is your comfort level with this? Since it is sort of down the runway, I would do this in my taildragger, but I have lots of time and lots of landings in it. Now, without the above scenario as a discussion point, what do you consider your gust limits and your crosswind limits?

Midlifeflyer, Do you know the exact items and part number to mount the mini this way. If the info is not readily at hand don't worry about it. Thanks for all the help everyone!

Thanks for the further replies! Now, for even more fine tuning of the question: My airplane is an early model without the Positive Control. Will it be more difficult in rough air? Will it be more difficult to fly in any air? Thanks for the patience for all the rookie questions,

Well, I think I have found a good ferry pilot/transition instructor. I think he will be bringing her here Thursday and fly with me for two days. He sounds like a very thorough instructor. He positioned the plane as being squirrelly because the nose gear is so close to the mains. He wants to do lots of training including emergency procedures, crosswinds, short field, etc., He sounds like my instructor here at home being very thorough. He is going to spend a few days with me and then I will probably do more training with my local instructor.

Well, I have a nearly new Mini and my 6 year old IPad is not reliable any more. I am thinking about moving Foreflight to the Mini and mounting it on the yoke. Then I will use the old IPad for email, surfing and such. I am skeptical that the Mini will be big enough for my old eyeballs.

Yes, some calculation could be done and you could measure battery capacity if you have a way to measure current that high, but as long as the battery will hold a charge and get the job done, the exact capacity is what it is and you won't change it. If it won't hold enough charge to start the engine after sitting a few days, replace it as long as you know that there is no parasitic drain. battery life depends on a number of things, over voltage charging will shorten battery life and is easy to check. Simply check the voltage across the battery before start up. Charge it if you need to such that the battery with no load is measuring about 12.6 volts or thereabouts. Then start the engine with the voltmeter across the battery. With engine running and heavy loads turned off, you should see something on the order of 13.5 to 14.5 volts. If the voltage is much more than 14.5 the battery is being fried from excessive charging voltage. These voltages are not exact, but general, rather than specific to the aircraft, but you should be able to tell from these numbers if you are over charging thus decreasing battery life. hope this helps.

Well, since I put funds in escrow, I consider her mine, so I changed my Avatar. This plane has had wonderful maintenance and has been hangared if not its whole life, certainly the last 30 years by the same owner who has paid Dugosh well for premium maintenance and modification work. He has done lots of speed mods, factory reman engine and new prop 262 hours ago, 430W, quality instruments, 6 year old always hangared paint, and on and on. If anything about the plane is less than top notch, it is the interior. It is not really ragged, but it is long in the tooth. The plane has been flown regularly although a little less frequently of late. The highly reccommended and picky Mooney IA gave many praises to the aircraft. The seller had started trying to sell it over a year ago asking way too much. Finally started down on price. I bought it for considerably less than even his most recent asking price. Even at that price I paid a premium price, but I firmly believe that I bought a premium plane. I have been through the plane selection and purchase process before with great success so I do have experience at it. Time will tell if I hit another home run. Oh yes, I don't want this to make my girlfriend sound shallow, so I will explain thoroughly. She went with me to look at the airplane. She has been involved all along in that she listens and learns about all this as we have gone along. She is very intelligent and understands the priorities while making such a decision. We talked about everything involved with the airplane and purchase EXCEPT FOR the color. I have learned over the years when buying used vehicles, condition trumps color. She obviously is wise enough to understand the same thing. She and her daughters are all SMU grads. There was no mention of the color by her. She was showing a picture to one of her daughters (whose husband happens to be a pilot and aircraft owner) and her daughter said "It is SMU colors!" She loves to fly with me and learn about aviation. Priceless!!!!!

I went through Gil's fast on my 140. I put in a Concorde Sealed three annuals ago and it is till very strong.

Great picture! Congratulations!

Wow! Collectively, you guys are like a Mooney Encyclopedia. Great replies! Let me fine tune my question: I am not really bothered by the discomfort of rough air. My concern is how on edge it makes me flying in rough air. If I feel in control, I am a happy camper. In my little taildragger, I have experienced two instances where one wing dropped off sharply. One of them was during a climb out at low altitude. Will I feel in control? I am obciously not freaked by my wing drop incidents or I wouldn't still be flying, but when the wings are wobbling I am not totally calm. Thanks again for all the great responses!

I have been doing a good bit of afternoon Texas flying this week. After a good bit of it, I got straight out of my rag wing 140 into a 172 and it seemed to handle the air better. Will Mooney handle afternoon Texas air better than a 172?

The IPad altimeter works from GPS coordinates so is not dependent upon a barometric pressure setting. Generally speaking it is probably at least as accurate as a standard altimeter with a correct setting. My $0.02,

Thanks Turtle! Do you mount it on the yoke?

Thanks for all the replies and pictures. So, are you guys all using IPad Mini's? My IPad has about had it and time to replace.

I transferred funds. She is as good as mine. Now I am like the dog that caught the car, can I figure out how to drive it? Next is trying to transition and get comfortable before Spring Break.

Well my experience at Austin Executive was good, but I didn't tie down overnight. Chocks was right about the virtually perpetual crosswind. Remember I was not in a Mooney. I was in a Cessna 140 with two people, baggage and full fuel. Density altitude was a few thousand feet and the runway is wavy. The combination of all this, coupled with the fact that 95% or more of my time in this airplane is with only myself and no baggage. The crosswind was pushing me sideways and I tried to force her off the runway before she wanted to. There was a little porpoising and she was trying to drift off the runway, but I got her up and all was well. Tailwheel flying has its challenges which are rewarding sometimes and a pain in the you know what sometimes. My instructor tells me I will enjoy flying more because I will have an easier to fly airplane. The transition instructor I talked to indicated pretty much the same thing saying that my tailwheel time will help because I know what to do with my feet. I still haven't heard from the mechanic with his statement that the annual is complete, but I might try to transfer funds to the escrow account tomorrow. It is possible that he will finish tomorrow and I can close the deal, get the insurance binder and work out the transition training and delivery, maybe next week. I have been told of other transition instructors on the field, so I may try to schedule a few days with one of them and get my girlfriend to drive me there, train and fly it back. Her daughter lives not too far away so we have a place to stay for a few days. Thanks for all the help with Austin Executive.

Thanks Shane! I would just go to AUS except my encoding altimeter is overdue calibration. It does indeed look as If I will be dealing with a significant crosswind. Always fun in a taildragger.

Thanks Paul! My girlfriends daughter is picking us up, so no food is okay. I will probably get flight following when I get off the ground from Mount Pleasant, so they can hand me off. I guess what prompted my question was seeing a non towered airport that used to be the main airport and just orphaned. It would seem that it is well placed for business GA traffic, sort of like Addison. Maybe Chocks will chime in.