AJ88V

The genesis of starting this thread was that a very close friend was reading MS and there was a discussion on the ply rating, and admonitions about having a 6-ply tire on a plane where the TCDS specifies 4-ply. "Good friend" was thinking about running a 6 ply tire and higher pressure (per the M20F) and found, upon checking his front wheel that it was already a 6-ply tire installed recently at last annual. Before posting, I found this article from AOPA: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2013/april/15/whats-so-special-about-aircraft-tires I’ve often been asked if it makes sense to purchase a stronger tire than that specified by the manufacturer (i.e. purchase a 6-ply tire when a 4-ply is specified). The answer is definitely no. More plies are not necessarily better. Each aircraft is designed for a specific tire, and tires with higher ply ratings than specified may not be suitable for a variety of reasons. More plies don’t make a tire last longer, and since those extra plies need to go somewhere, they wind up decreasing the interior diameter of the tire. In addition, more plies make a tire run hotter. This, along with the difference in stiffness, can affect the way a tire performs. That's consistent with the advice from many online articles. To me, putting a 6-ply tire on a short-bodied Mooney doesn't rise to even a minor mod based on installation on the F model, but thought I'd ask. thanks!

Apologies for old topic, but, IIRC,...... M20(-,A,B,C,D,E) all have 4-ply rating tires on the nose gear. M20F has 6-ply rating tires on the nose gear. The nose gear system is identical on these airplanes (including wheel well, gear assembly, actuations, doors, etc.) Vaguely recall discussions on failing ramp checks for having the wrong tire ply rating. Would certainly understand a problem having 4-ply rating on the F model, but what's the problem with a 6-ply rating on the real short bodied Mooneys. Thanks! (and let the fireworks fly! )

My old tail number was N9459V, as in "niner four five niner victor" which has too many long i's and too many er's in it, and controllers always butchered it.. Adding cadence and pauses helped, such as "niner <pause> four five <pause> niner <pause> victor" mostly worked, but no guarantee, and annoying to 'lightning fast' controllers working busy airspaces like JFK. Also hate tail numbers with too many syllables. Had a training aircraft ending in UJ and didn't like that much. "Uniform Julliet" was too much for my slow Southern tongue. I tried lots of combos when picking new tail numbers to get something that was both easy say and easy for the controllers to get right the first time. 7788V has been pretty perfect. Gonna miss that number if I ever sell her.

Strongest I've done was in AZ up near the Grand Canyon. Forgot the specifics, but plane (C) was fully loaded, wind was strong, direct 90* crosswind. Warning on approach from big smokestack near town had the smoke coming out at a sharp right angle to the stack. High crab into the wind to the 7000 ft rwy, landed half flaps on the right wheel on the far right side of the ryw. Did not use much length, but proceeded to skitter across the entire 150' width of the rwy and almost put her in the grass on the left side (ok, probably rock-strewn bare earth - wasn't inviting). I absolutely do not recommend doing this and do not care to repeat it. FWIW, I think you get most of the stall speed reduction from half flaps. Full flaps gives you nothing but drag (witness climb out if you ever forget to set takeoff flaps). No flaps gives too high a stall speed, so half flaps for me in these conditions. YMMV

Cheapest I found online was about $7.50 through Etsy. Think it was for a "switch" label used for electrical panels. EDIT: LaundryRoomShop - https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaundryRoomShop As @laytonl, a local trophy shop may be similar (or cheaper) and faster.

That's an amazingly generous offer @DCarlton. Good on you!!!

@jeremyc209, you might want to reach out here for the fuel filler parts:

Well, the short and simple story is one would be lucky to get this plane truly airworthy for $120K cost plus $80K min, which puts the purchase into a whole 'nother level, so it would be better to just start looking at $200K+ airplanes (which I'm just not needing to do! :D) Of course, one might get lucky and it's a lot easier than that, but this plane seriously exceeds my mission needs. The extra complications and costs come with drawbacks as well as benefits. Back to looking for a J or similar NA plane. Or just upgrade my wholesome little C!

Sorry for the loss of one of our brethren. Clear skies and tailwinds.

This has been very helpful. Thanks!

Saw this on Trade-a-plane. I'm in the market. What's wrong with this plane? https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Single+Engine+Piston&make=MOONEY&model=M20M+BRAVO&listing_id=2440024&s-type=aircraft

Just curious about the tail number of the tiger painted plane!

Really glad to hear about this. All the doom and gloom was making me want to sell the plane. If the price is reasonable, I might just want to buy a set to hold in inventory.

My attitude is that if you're NEEDING best glide speed, you're better off just learning/picking a/sticking with a "best glide speed" and putting your focus on where you will put down. In my case, that's 90mph. Sure, it may be more optimal at some other speed, but that advantage is small, whereas picking where you're putting down and how you manage the final approach to that spot is way more important than the maybe 500 - 1000 ft in distance you might gain by optimizing best glide. Said another way, your brain is gonna be all kinds of busy, so pick a speed and focus on all the other stuff like maintaining attitude, looking for obstructions, shutting off fuel, making a last radio call and shutting off electrics and popping the door and maybe making a gear up/gear down decision. And if all that works out well, you'll likely end up too high at the end and need to slip her in to land at your chosen best/optimal spot. YMMV.

Despite being oddly phrased, the quote is from the NTSB https://www.ntsb.gov/about/board/Pages/Jennifer-Homendy.aspx

Pardon my citing the Gateway Pundit, but this was interesting and the quoted sections come direct from the NTSB: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/black-hawk-pilots-may-have-missed-air-traffic/ Black Hawk Pilots May Have Missed Air Traffic Directive and Flown on ‘Bad’ Altitude Data by Jim Hᴏft Feb. 15, 2025 12:00 pm246 Comments Credit: CBS/Samantha Brown The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has disclosed that the Black Hawk pilots involved in the devastating collision with an American Airlines flight on January 29 might have missed critical air traffic directives. The tragic midair collision over the Potomac River on January 29, 2025, involved a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet, resulting in the loss of all 67 individuals aboard both aircraft. The Black Hawk helicopter was operated by a crew of three Army personnel: Captain Rebecca M. Lobach, 28, from Durham, North Carolina, served as the pilot undergoing her annual night flying evaluation. Lobach, who had over 450 hours of flying experience, recently served as a military social aide at the Biden White House. It took the US Army and Rebecca’s family three days to scrub her social media accounts. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, from Brooksville, Mississippi, functioned as the evaluator and pilot monitoring during the flight. He was responsible for communications with air traffic controllers. Eaves was a seasoned aviation officer with a commendable service record. Staff Sergeant Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, from Lilburn, Georgia, served as the crew chief and in-flight aircraft maintenance technician. According to NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, the Black Hawk helicopter was possibly flying based on “bad data” concerning its altitude, which led to the collision with Flight 5342 over the Potomac River. The helicopter was reported to be flying at 278 feet at the time of the crash, significantly above the 200-foot altitude limit for that specific airspace. Americans Can Stockpile Ivermectin & Key Prescription Medicines – Here Is One Way To Do It The discrepancies in altitude readings between what was recorded and what the pilots believed they were flying at are alarming, with one pilot reporting 300 feet and another claiming 400 feet. Just 17 seconds before the fatal impact, a directive from air traffic control to “pass behind” the commercial jet might not have been fully received by the Black Hawk crew, possibly due to a communication overlap where the pilots inadvertently “stepped on” the transmission. The Black Hawk pilots might have accidentally overridden the communication by pressing their microphone key while responding to the control tower. May God bless all the souls lost in this incident. No matter what errors they made, none of them intended for this result. - AJ

Will say that DCA is my airport of choice for commercial flight, even though I'm equidistant to both Reagan and Dulles. DCA is ten times easier to deal with than IAD mostly because it's much smaller. Walking distances are shorter, Security is faster, everything is easier. On the other hand, I don't much like the crazy approach and departure routines designed to avoid flying over the Capital, but that's the price we pay for 9/11 and I can accept it.

Nice looking plane. What's the "oil cooler mod" for an M20C? Was aware of Lasar for the E and F models with FI.

Stop drilling is the standard method to minimize crack growth in your plexiglass window. Basically you drill a small hole directly in front of the crack (but not actually on the crack). Then, when the crack continues to grow, it will reach the hole which has a smooth, round surface to relieve the tension that produced the crack in the first place and the crack will not propagate beyond the hole. In @Slick Nick's case, the crack has essentially reached the stop hole by reaching the pilot's window cutout (as @A64Pilot pointed out :)). The crack likely started at one of the screws holding the window in at its bottom edge. Since the window is also bonded in place with sealant around the edges at the airframe, there is no risk of the "broken" piece of plexi coming loose. You can put a dab of clear silicone in the small stop gap hole. Have never heard of using anything to weld the crack back up. The risk is that you won't make the crack go away but instead make it into a smudgy mess. If I were to try anything, it would be cyanoacrylate (Crazy Glue) applied with the tiniest syringe needle available. Cyanoacrylate is essentially liquid acrylic that polymerizes when exposed to water in the air (or your skin, as we've all experienced).

What's especially sad is there wasn't a conventional tail conversion for the original V tails. As I understand it, they never could get rid of the magnesium parts in the V tail and pass stability tests. Lot of lovely airframes going to waste.

Not many SB208 issues in PHX metro!

General aviation has been on a slide for a long time, and, indeed, a core mission of the AOPA has been to increase interest in GA. Witness what's happened to automobiles. Sure, the American passion for cars hasn't really diminished, but a manual transmission has become the new anti-theft device. People can't read maps anymore because they depend on their smart phones to do their navigation. My own son loves his Tesla with its auto-driving capabilities. I suspect auto-flying aircraft taxis will become a thing if/when the technology becomes practical, so that might increase people using GA, but fewer and fewer people will want to accept the challenge (and risks) of flying little airplanes like Cessnas and Mooneys when it does. But back to Cliffy's point (which I agree with), maybe we can look to something like the Navion community. Only 2634 total were ever built; less than 200 were built between 1960 and 1976 when they stopped production. And yet there's a pretty strong community keeping these birds in the air. There are a couple beautiful ones on my field with maxed out panels and show paint and interiors, probably in the $200K value range. Why? Because they offer something unique and offer a high-end flying experience at an "affordable" price. Our Mooneys will slowly tread the same path. They are wayyy more affordable than just about any new light plane. Even the last production Mooneys look pretty cost effective compared to a new Cirrus. And the old ones look very attractive. The humble M20C is a serious competitor to a Cirrus SR20 at a fraction of the cost on the used market. So I expect our fleet to dwindle as Cliffy suggests, but I also expect them to continued to be highly valued and increasingly updated as the years go on. I'm already seeing the trend, as more and more 'humble' Mooneys get new paint, new engines and new avionics. There are a couple of M20C/D/E/F/G models with killer panels in the $100K - $130K range on Trade-a-Plane. Yes, right now those are 'expensive' (and probably slow to sell), but their owners decided to update them because they wanted the performance those upgrades offered. No, they aren't the bottom-of-the-barrel bargains, but they are and will be serious competitors compared to more 'modern' airplanes as time goes on.

At least DVT is nice and dry about 99% of the year!

@Sabremech, maybe it's time to post an update? Thanks!

@Tim VanDenHoek, are you an A&P? If not, you probably can’t afford to do this unless you have a retired A&P friend to do this with you as a hobby. Recommend you follow up by searching for the thread posted by @Sabremech. Best pics I’ve ever seen of dismantling a Mooney for truck transport. Finally, a young/new A&P who works on my field bought a Mooney that had been sitting outside for about 10 years. He paid almost nothing for it. He got lucky and got her flying over a couple months of after-hours work. He did find some minor frame tube corrosion and a cracked stub spar. Also replaced all 4 cylinders with overhauled units. So, yes, it can be worth it, but part is luck and no matter what, significant skills are needed.