Davidv

I'm usually around 190-195 except when I'm over 18k in which case it creeps up over 200...

I don't want to jinx our low prices but the reaction to the cuts was less than enthusiastic today (oil price barely up)... Interesting times, hopefully our domestic producers can still hang in there though.

Anthony's knowledge officially knows no bounds. We should get him on Jeopardy.

Yes let's leave it that way!

...and cue the "what should Mooney do" discussion

Taxes, how else will all of the productive countries in Europe continue to bail out the non-productive ones!

Ha yes, I bought my first Mooney with 120 hours and I learned to fly it from an experienced person with 20k small piston flight hours. I felt very comfortable flying mine shortly thereafter. I’m glad that I got my license in a 172 first to learn the basics though. I would still go for the Mooney when you're done training!

Thinking back to my training 2,200 can feel short in a 172 in many wind conditions... The guys who fly their Mooneys into that size strip usually have accrued a lot of experience and know their airplane well. When all gets back to normal, get your PPL in a rental plane and then assess from there. You want those bad learning landings to happen on a gear which has a very high margin of error (172), way too expensive in your own Mooney.

Surprisingly most of the golf courses are open in FL (outside of south Florida) so the $100+ golf run crossed my mind.

I was able to make a trip to Orlando and New Smyrna Beach yesterday (to buy some $2.87 fuel). I also did a low pass of the shuttle landing runway at Canaveral! It was worth it to be able to start a radio call with “NASA tower”

Thanks Lance, I'll do that but I don't think it's an air issue. I just put on the silicone geebee baffles last year and my cylinder temps never go over 375-380 at these power settings (with one cylinder around 340). No signs of a fuel leak but I'll still take some photos. I'm going to compare my totalizer to actual fuel used at my next fillup to see if it's a hoskins issue (which I doubt, since my plan isn't far off from actual usually).

Seemingly a nice little strategy between Putin and the Saudis, drive the price down when there is very little demand. A ton of producers go bust and then price goes higher than it was before when demand picks up.

Thanks Anthony, it was actually just replaced at annual but I don’t think it’s the issue since my EGTs from my JPI are also about 100 degrees hotter than everyone else’s it seems...

Just depends on the seller, I bought a KG-258 from someone who turned out to be another Mooney owner. Despite being recently overhauled it may have got damaged in shipping so it didn't work. He immediately refunded money and was a pleasure to deal with.

I wouldn't say idled, but probably not flying as much as they used to. To me these prices just make sense with the price of oil. I'm not sure what New Smyrna was before but somewhere like 28J (Palatka FL) is consistently in the 3.50-3.75 range and they are now $2.78. As some others have pointed out I don't think we've seen the bottom pricing of some of these airports since the oil that was refined to make the 100LL they bought certainly wasn't at $20/barrel where it is now.

I pulled up to buy some fuel in New Smyrna Beach yesterday ($2.87) and I ask the controller if the tanks at my 2 o'clock are the city self serve pumps (as I'm taxiing). He had a good sense of humor and says "no fuel here, what you see there is water and gatorade...everyone seems to stop for our cheap fuel and then leaves right after!".

Just to follow up on this issue, I’ve done the following and unfortunately I feel like I’m way too hot (my airplane obv): 1. Had internal mag timing adjusted (right was odd but left was OK) 2. Re-installed mags and timed to recommended engine timing 3. Cleaned all spark plugs 4. Verified that density controller set correctly Does anyone have any ideas? As you’ll see in the photos below I need to have a crazy high fuel rate at 29/24 to achieve a TIT that I believe most of you get at around 18-19 GPH. Pics taken at 9K feet, 150 IAS with OAT of 20 degrees C. While I don’t completely trust my factory gauges the numbers are pretty well supported by my JPI which shows EGTs around 50-100 degrees lower than the TIT depending on cylinder. Or maybe I’m making too big of a deal and others see similar numbers in their bravo?

Yes, and when I say lower next week I mean the other places in Florida that usually have cheap gas will follow suit as they restock with lower wholesale prices.

$2.78 at 28J here in Florida as well as new Smyrna beach. I think it’s going to go lower by next week too.

I would call Acorn welding and possibly send them a photo. I have found them extremely helpful and they know our exhaust pretty well. I have a similar color on the tip of my exhaust. On a side note, do whatever you can temp wise to preserve your turbo transition piece (the "T" part that connects to your 4&6 exhaust stacks as well as turbo). None of the fabricators seem to want to work on it anymore and it's a $5K cast piece that you must buy from Lycoming...

I was able to get up yesterday for a quick flight around Miami Beach. Very odd to see miles and miles of neatly raked beach with no one around. As expected, there are also several clusters of anchored cruise ships...

VREF works well if you're trying to get financing since VREF is usually high in my opinion and will make your loan to value come out much better.

I'm on the "younger" side but I find that something more insidious occurs when I fly for 5+ hours at 15-18K feet. Essentially, I feel completely alert throughout the entire flight including landing but I believe it's mostly adrenaline from constantly monitoring my 02, engine gauges, thinking about fuel, weather, and all of the other hundred things that go through your head. This probably provides me with a false sense of mental capacity when in fact I'm very tired. It's a hard feeling to explain but I'm sure others have felt it. I feel extremely alert landing, putting the plane away, and even driving home. It then hits me after I get home and I'm wiped out for 12-24 hours. In one case where I "felt" very alert but knew something was off, I forgot some small things that fortunately weren't enough to put me in serious danger but nevertheless were an indication of my weakened mental state.

I decided to have mine inspected after 250 hours because of a previous incident. While the parts were still in good condition the internal timing had slipped by a fair amount on the right mag so we at least got that corrected. Some experts here will tell you that some parts even start to go at 250 hours...

No whining here, and if this now turned into a hangar cost competition thread so be it, that certainly wasn’t the point (nor was it to complain about the absolute rate since that was in response to someone that asked). It was merely to point out the coincidence of everything going on this week along with Sheltair sending out a renewal notice 101 days prior to my lease renewal date (with a small increase). No one really knows how long this thing is going to last or how bad it’s going to get but there’s one scenario where they will actually be left with some lack of demand and won’t have pricing power. I’m not saying that’s a high likelihood, but way higher than a few weeks ago.