NeedSpeed

You can indeed buy a brand new Mooney now, it’s called a TBM. (It doesn’t cost me one penny more to dream of owning a TBM than it cost to dream of owning a brand new Mooney Acclaim.)

I’m running mine on an i7-6700 with a gtx 1080 card. Works well. X-plane 11 does use a lot of horsepower, and you do need a fast general purpose CPU in addition to a strong graphics card. They also recommend 4 cores, but more cores than that don’t help apparently. -chuck

Max teaches in at least one Cirrus at West Valley that has the NXI (A beautiful 2017 Cirrus, I fly it too). He may be open to promoting multiple brands - I’ll ask him. If you want to send me your contact info (privately is fine) I’ll connect him. In the mean time, I might be interested in the fill and fly program. May be the only way I can get a Mooney back on the line. You can reach out to me separately on this. Maybe Max and I can demo one at the same time! But to Dan’s point, yes, he is now Vision Jet certified, so he’s very heavily committed to Cirrus. -chuck

I’d be happy for a Mooney to come back onto the line at West Valley. The club used to have a beautiful Bravo, N89FM. It’s the one I checked out in. Max would bite hard and teach in one, at least if it has a G1000... But he is certainly deeply invested in the Cirrus line. If anyone wants to lease one back to the club, I’m sure it would get at least one regular renter! -chuck

Dan, great talk on Max’s podcast. It was eye opening for me, and I will definitely get a portable CO monitor. I took off once in a Cirrus with the a/c in recirc mode (a big no-no in the Cirrus), and 5 minutes into the flight got a CO warning from the built-in sensor. Quite a surprise! FWIW, I’m a regular funder of that podcast. Max and I are based at the same FBO (West Valley Flying Club in Palo Alto), and he checked me out in Cirrus aircraft. I listen to Aviation NewsTalk regularly (and recommend it). Max used to be a broadcaster for CBS and it shows in the quality of his podcast work. For those with iphones, there’s an app for it: search for Aviation NewsTalk. Yours was a great and important episode. Thanks for doing it! -chuck

Anyone who can’t differentiate between climate and weather should procrastinate pontification on the matter. Very cool photo.

Well there you go... a transparent cowl that costs more than the entire plane! :-) -chuck

I have the latest Sporty’s with the ILS/LOC feature. I’ve had other handhelds over the years, but I like the Sporty’s because it has a very simple interface, and very few features. Basically the face is big buttons, you punch in your frequency, and go. No fiddling around with function keys, and the numbers are big. Also, it uses regular AA batteries, and has a spare pack that can slap on quickly. The ILS/LOC feature is automatic - tune in the ILS and it does the right thing, no need to put it in some mode to enable it. Haven’t tried to shoot an approach with it. Why would I like such a radio that has perhaps the fewest features on the market? Because when I need a backup radio in flight, I’m probably already elbow deep in a problem I didn’t need. Having a radio that is dirt simple to operate, with big buttons that even accommodate gloves, is less likely to add to whatever stress I’m already dealing with. Even if the batteries are weak, the action to swap the battery pack is dirt simple. I’m also a ham radio operator (N6CAP) and have used Yaesu and ICom handhelds. They are all nice, but both the Yaesu and ICom handhelds have smaller buttons, function keys, etc. I decided that when I need a backup, I don’t want to spend one second thinking about how to turn it on or punch in a frequency. I just want it to work, right now. I usually listen to ATIS on it while preflighting, mostly just to make sure it works and the batteries are fresh. It stays close by during flight, and thankfully, I haven’t had to use it in a situation. I have lost an alternator (multiple times), but haven’t reached the point where I was left with only the handheld. But nice to know it’s there. -chuck

Did you file a flight plan? ;-) -chuck

(First time posting on mooneyspace, but I’ve enjoyed reading, and am enjoying this discussion.) I won’t try to judge @chrixxer one way or another, he and his passenger walked away from it, and that says a lot. In the end only @chrixxer will be able to decide what his lessons are from the event. There are always lessons, and they’ll come from reflection. Of course, the discussion provides input which I’m sure he will accept or reject based on his own judgement. Having lived through a few “there but for the grace of god moments” myself, I’ll respect the space he’ll need to come to his own conclusions. I will say that I don’t think @chrixxer will ever be able to watch the first scene of the move “Always” the same way again. (And for those who have watched it, be sure to catch the dialog later in the movie, where he says “fill it to the tabs. I’m going to need every drop.”. I always thought that was a little easter egg just to give us pilots a chuckle.) Fly safe! -chuck