skydvrboy

My plane was in a similar price range as this one and my first annual was 30% of the purchase price, including maintenance items. Just know what you may be getting into. If it's worth buying, it's worth putting in a hangar. Planes are not meant to be stored outside.

I'll fix that for you! Canadians are so indecisive they actually named their country by drawing letters out of a Scrabble bag! I pulled a "C" aye. I got an "N" aye. Mine's a "D" aye! Hmm, CANADA?

A few random thoughts on that specific plane. Pros: Autopilot, new interior (if you're into that), engine monitor, 300 hrs in last 3 years, cowl speed mod Cons: Panel layout, avionics, paint (if you're into that), no window speed mod, not hangared during last 4 years Unknowns: engine time = prop time (typically means prop strike) Price: Get Jimmy Garrison's Mooney value guide (search Mooney Space for it) Safety: Has shoulder belts (+), get rid of that worthless CO dot and get a proper detector!

It is dangerous to fly in close proximity. That's why it's so important to get proper training and maintain the disciplines you are taught. Properly flown, there is separation in all three directions. You are beside lead, behind lead, and below lead at all times (in fingertip). I just don't want anyone thinking, "Hey, this is safe. Next time I see one of my buddies up flying, I'll just zip up along side them." Surprisingly, the communication is kept to a bare minimum and is quite simple. Lead announces what's happening next and everyone else acknowledges. Unless there is something out of the ordinary, that's pretty much it. I concur. Better yet, get to a formation clinic so you can get in the LEFT seat!

@mooniac58 Sent in a paypal donation. Please add me to the supporter list. Edit... too late, you already did! Thanks!

I was in your shoes last year about this time. Thinking of formation flying made me apprehensive, both excited and a bit scared. I called up SARDOT with the Flying Monkeys wing and asked him if I would be able to fly formation with them, having only a little over 100 hours total in my log book. He told me to come to the clinic and give it a try, said they've never had someone NOT be able to do it if they really wanted to learn. I won't say it was easy, but I got the hang of it well enough by the end of the first full day to keep myself and everyone around me safe. I HIGHLY recommend giving it a try, both for the safe arrival into Oshkosh and because it is FUN! It is definitely my favorite kind of flying now, perhaps because I love the elusive pursuit of perfection. You will also get to meet several other Mooney pilots and see what they've done with their planes.

I flew the family down from Abilene, KS to visit this museum and it made for a great Saturday trip. We flew into KICT and borrowed the courtesy car from Yingling. I could have spent 4 hours or more at the museum, but the wife and kids were done after 2 hours. That's about the extent of their aviation attention span. We then stopped for lunch before flying over to Hutchinson and visiting the underground salt mine during the afternoon (we have all been to the Cosmosphere several times). Finished the day off with dinner at the Airport Steakhouse at KHUT before flying home. A visit to Doc is on my list, but I'll probably wait until the Flying Monkeys clinic as that is scheduled for our Sunday mass formation.

What am i missing here? Under Part 1 - Lubricating Oil Recommendations, the first one listed is 15W50 or 20W50 for all operating temps. Is there somewhere they are recommending straight weight oil over multi-viscosity that I'm not seeing?

I'd also bet they see a fair bit more action than <40 hrs per year the average GA pilot flies. That may have a LOT more to do with the TBO than any choice of oil.

Thanks for clearing that up. I couldn't agree more. I've been talking with my non-flying financial partner about adding an EDM. The decision to add one has been made, which one is still up in the air, but I suspect a JPI 900 will get added this year. For now though, I have been running a bit leaner than I'd like and keeping %HP down to be on the safe side.

Not going to see that fuel flow either. To be fair, from a mechanics point of view... they don't care about your fuel flow.

Judging from the picture, he was on 34L at K.

I don't know. I have a single probe Alcor EGT and am assuming each tick mark is 25 degrees. I start leaning it slowly and watch for it to peak. I kept leaning it until it ran rough (approximately 125 below where it peaked). Then, I added a bit more mix until it smoothed out, ended up about 100 below where it peaked. I have been able to duplicate this at high power settings, but this time I wanted to go slow. I don't typically run it that lean because as I keep moving the nob in slowly, you can hear the power increase as the gauge moves toward it's peak. Thus I typically run closer to 25-50 LOP. I have the IO-360 instead of the IO-550 if that makes a difference. The Shell article above only mentioned 200-250 C, but, if I read it correctly, was referring to combustion temperatures, not CHT's. Per Mike Bush's comments, that is exactly how I was running my engine, low power "loitering" for 2 hours. Fortunately, it is not how I run it normally, so it would seem any deposit should burn off rather than build up. After reading all these comments, it seems like I wasn't going to do any harm to the engine on a 2 hour flight. However, I could have ran it more efficiently by running it at or very close to peak EGT since my power setting was at approximately 55%.

Low fuel flow, why does anyone run aggressively LOP. I've been able to run less than 6 GPH (block) with those low power settings when sightseeing. I didn't lean "just enough to run smooth" though. I leaned until it ran rough and then pushed it back in just enough to run smooth. By my single EGT gauge, I was at least 100-125 LOP. Based on that article, I would surmise that if 1800 RPM with the prop on the stop during a run up is enough to prevent fouling, then ANY power setting capable of sustaining level flight would produce more than enough heat to burn off any deposits. Am I missing something?

I have some prints and a nice VHS tape. That was before the digital age so I don't have any electronic ones to post.

Is there a CHT temperature that you shouldn't go below? I've tried searching and haven't found any answers. The reason I ask, when I was tootling around on a cold day recently at 1,000' AGL and 120 mph, the CHT gauge was pegged at 200o. I had the RPM backed down to 2400, the MP around 20", and the mix nob just in far enough to run smooth. With that low power setting, she just wasn't generating much heat. Oil temps were just barely in the green (low side), but is it OK to run with CHT's that low?

I thought the same thing when I bought mine. In hindsight, I really wish I would have posted a link to the plane to get specific advice on things that would add or detract from the value, things to inspect for, things to upgrade, etc. This is a group of Mooney owners. We already have our planes and aren't interested in scooping this one up before you can buy it.

That is a significant part of the problem. Until they embrace modern manufacturing practices on large volume production, the price won't budge. I remember at Oshkosh the Mooney rep saying that a new Cessna takes 700 hours to build, a Cirrus takes 2000 hours, and a new Mooney takes 5000 hours. They were BRAGGING about this claiming that meant it was better made! As an Industrial Engineer who's spent my career making production more efficient and effective, I about fell out of my chair. Current mass production (lean production) produces higher quality at lower cost than the old hand-crafted one at a time model. Like @KSMooniac said, the accountants aren't going to invest in the retooling and production line upgrades unless Mooney can show they will sell enough to pay for it. That isn't happening now.

@steingar Part of the flying experience is seeing everything from above, going fast, and feeling the plane roll while turning. To me, skydiving was all about total freedom of movement, to truly "fly" in the sky. It was the ability to do a back flip (or front) if I wanted, or a barrel roll, or fall on my back, on my head, or feet first. Just like a passenger in a plane gets to experience a small part of what it means to fly, a tandem passenger only gets to experience a small part of what it really means to skydive. Not the least of which is the camaraderie that only happens when the non-pilots/non-skydivers go home for the day and we all sit around and tell hangar stories. I was always amazed at the skydivers who had never been in a plane before jumping out of one. One such guy was a good friend of mine who jumped into my wedding reception with me. He is now an aerobatic airshow pilot.

FWIW, taking a tandem jump is to skydiving as riding in plane is to flying. Sure, people all the time say they are flying when taking a commercial flight, but if you don't have the controls in your hands... you're not flying.

I totally agree. My plane has a damage history and I wouldn't worry about a log missing from before I was born. However, when I'm buying something expensive, I'm buying the seller as much as the item he's selling. I don't believe for one second that the seller didn't know about the missing log when the first page states "logs lost" per the OP. If the seller had mentioned the lost log and damage history... THEN it wouldn't have been a show stopper, but that's not what happened.

My dad used an old dead fridge with a lightbulb installed out in the garage to keep paint from freezing. Cost was almost zero and it seemed to get the job done.

I’d turn and run... after scolding the current owner for wasting my time. There may be nothing wrong with the plane, but the seller just lied to you and everyone else by listing it as complete logs and no damage. What else is he lying about? Sorry, but once someone tries to pull one over on me, they aren’t getting my money.

That's the second time that word's come up today. Must be a Valentine's Day thing.

That's funny. I know it's not always about the numbers, but when you look at it by the numbers, the risk is very comparable to flying a GA aircraft. In 2017, there were 7.5 skydiving fatalities per million jumps. Also in 2017, there were 14.0 fatalities per million GA flight hours. To make it a more apples to apples comparison, one would need to know how many GA flights there were, but this could be calculated if one knew the average duration of a GA flight. If the average duration of a GA flight is longer than 1 hour 52 minutes, then GA is safer. If it is less than that, then skydiving is safer on a per takeoff/landing basis. Just a guess, but when you figure in all the training flights, I'd say the average duration is less than 1:52, thus skydiving would be the safer activity. Either way, for me, the risk is well worth the reward!