ZuluZulu

Can’t let this pass without comment. In GA, there should be no “have to.” “Have to” gets people killed. Be kind to yourself and give yourself the flexibility to change plans and fly later if you’re not feeling up to it.

Active on the Brand B forum site these days, can go ask him there.

@carusoam with an excellent point, as usual. The absolute cheapest SR22 I can find on Controller right now starts at $229.5k, already well out of your budget. It's a 2002 model with the old MFD, six-pack (but upgraded with an Aspen PFD! wow!), chute repack due in less than a year ($$), a history of problem cylinders requiring either at least two to be overhauled or replaced within the last several years ($$), no ADS-B in unless you use a portable (which means you don't get traffic on that big MFD), and oh by the way it's more than 800 hours past TBO ($$$$). You probably don't want to own any SR22 that budget can buy because it's going to have expensive issues to fix sooner rather than later.

One final comment, as I think we've said all there is to say on the advertising topic. The dean of Mooney brokerage himself, Jimmy Garrison, has used the term "201 clone" to describe non-M20Js with a significant number of M20J mods. That should be the final word on whether it's an appropriate term to use, IMHO.

I must stand up for my fellow San Diego Mooney owner here. You might have had a point if the seller had claimed it was a J, but he's made no such claim. He calls it a 201 clone, as you acknowledge. Clone means copy or replica, it doesn't mean he's claiming it's literally a J.* If the seller's intended buyer was somebody who wants a J but isn't prepared to pay full J price, he's pretty much nailed that pitch. The seller clearly discloses the plane is an M20F all the way down to the engine variant and then lists all of the 201 mods it's received. If that wasn't enough, he also provides photos comprising multiple angles that show exactly what the plane looks like with all those mods installed. An interested buyer has what he needs to make up his own mind and evaluate the "201 clone" claim. Reasonable minds may differ, but just because you personally disagree doesn't implicate a lack of "truth in advertising," and to accuse a good-faith seller otherwise will have a chilling effect on those who would otherwise choose to list their planes for sale here. This particular seller even discloses to buyers his actual costs of ownership -- unheard of in most ads! In fact, I would go further and argue that the seller should be commended for making a bold claim and backing it up with the evidence he relies on, and letting buyers make up their own minds as to whether they share his confidence. It doesn't get much more "truth in advertising" than that! Some would even call that a foundation of American capitalism. Let's hope whenever you decide to sell your bird, someone doesn't anoint themselves the ad copy police and stomp all over your ad. On BeechTalk it's considered poor form to do so, and IMHO we would do well to adopt a similar policy. ----- * To use an automobile example, a Pontiac Fiero with a Lamborghini body might get advertised as a "Lamborghini clone," but no one in his right mind thinks he's buying an actual Lamborghini if he's been told there's a Fiero underneath. Same thing here.

The good news about being "stuck" in LA is you're close to Aero Accessories at Van Nuys, which is one of the best alternator and mag shops around. And that's coming from someone who once had to drive his alternator up there for an IRAN while AOG at SNA. (Turned out to be the voltage regulator but I still felt better having had them inspect it! This was early in my ownership and zero alternator problems since.) P.S. If your voltage regulator gives you problems, call Don Maxwell. Mine was an orphan no longer supported or offered by Mooney (maybe you're lucky to have a more common one) and Don was the only one I could find in the entire country who will work on it. Otherwise it's an expensive retrofit to install a different V/R. @FlyingCanuck

Great work putting some real numbers on this. But I have to point out, Don Kaye's website has been giving this advice for a while! "We do power off stalls to the commercial standard, power on at 65% power. By this time I have positioned us reasonably close to an airport, pull the power and tell the student we lost an engine. They are to tell me what they are going to do. Most screw up the discussion. I go over my "modern" emergency procedure with them using Aviate, Navigate, Communicate in that order as the mantra. During the descent I show them what happens if the prop is pulled fully back, i.e. you pick up about 300 ft/min less descent. Then I tell them the POH says "prop full forward" and we shake our heads in disbelief."

What an endorsement for the Aerocruze!

Considering they tend to write like a 15-year-old's idea of great marketing copy ("When you own a Mooney, you don't own a plane, you own an aircraft. When you fly a Mooney, you're not a pilot, you're an aviator. So yeah ... own it!"), maybe we're better off.

They've been saying that for about two years already. Looks to be on the TruTrak autopilot timeline.

I haven't seen it up close in a while, but the paint sure looks sharp across the ramp! And some truly cool upgrades -- who has tail illumination lights on a GA piston single?! GLWS!

You can "upgrade" your 730 to an 830 right now with a simple configuration change to the settings. There won't be much more to look at without adding the probes first, but that's all it takes. A Google search will locate the instructions you need to follow and you might want a JPI-savvy mechanic's help fine-tuning the configuration. Add the OAT too if you don't have it already, I think the OAT is required to calculate %HP.

In hindsight you might wish you had waited, saved up, and done everything all at once. Piecemeal gets expensive and this is complex work.

You didn't mention filling the seats as part of your mission, and it's a terrible idea to "max out" your budget on an airplane since the purchase price is merely the price of entry. Or in other words, a license to spend more money, in chunks of 1+ AMU at a time. Since it sounds like you're folding the back seats down or removing them for cargo storage anyway, it makes no sense to pay a premium for extra leg room in an M20J or M20K if no one is going to be back there to enjoy it. Instead, spend $100k or less on a nice M20C, M20D/C, or M20E, spend half of the remaining $100k on upgrades, and save the rest for surprises, maintenance, and smashing bugs. And don't do any upgrades until you've flown it for at least 6 months, verified the engine is good, and found all the little things that are wrong. Get everything ready to buy first, including any financing, and then be ready to pounce on a good airplane when it comes along. If you don't know how to tell a good airplane yet, start shopping the listings every week, ask questions, and get on Jimmy Garrison's list. A better plan might be staying in the club, getting involved in managing maintenance as you get more comfortable, serve as the maintenance officer for at least a year, and THEN buy. That should at least introduce you to the local shops and give you an idea of who you might want to work on your own future plane (or, equally valuable, who might not).

Curious what complaints about the display you've heard. I bought my plane with an EDM-730 installed, and I upgraded it to an EDM-830 (which just means adding some probes/sensors and changing a setting in software). It works great, is very readable, and I'm glad I have it. No display problems. But I regret going with the half-measure when I should have gone all the way and got an EDM-900.

Right, record multi-million-dollar judgments, a lengthy history of employee complaints, and high turnover that no other company has to deal with are because he merely wants people to “contribute” and “be responsible” and “work extremely hard at fulfilling the mission of bettering humanity” (lol) and not that he could possibly be flawed in some way. It’s hundreds if not thousands of people all independently making the wrong decisions and not acting in their own self-interests in the exact same way over the course of a decade, never an indication that something could possibly be Elon’s fault. I’m dizzy from all the spin. I’ve already made all the useful points I can make in this thread (if I ever made one) so I’ll exit with Elon’s latest vaporware play: buying Twitter with an all-cash offer he doesn’t actually have the liquidity to close (and yet another SEC violation just for fun, because rules don’t apply to heroes like him). All just part of saving the world, I’m sure, and definitely not a pump-and-dump to make himself richer or a scheme to make himself more powerful!

Not sure about that since you’re involving yourself to argue points, but I still appreciate you Anthony. I don’t agree with some of the things Elon says and does, and someone has to push back against the rose-colored view that everything he does is special and brilliant and benevolent. He’s a human like all of us, and a flawed one, also like all of us. It does society no favors to lionize and treat as infallible a person with that much wealth, power and influence. He has enormous power and I think his choices to spend all day trolling and sh*tposting on Twitter as a 50-year-old man with children is a tremendous waste of time he could be using to make more meaningful contributions to society. Treating him as a symbol instead of a human being creates space for others to be exploited and mistreated, as many of his employees have been. All of that is well documented. He should be treated with healthy scrutiny like any public figure. He does good things and should (and does) get credit for them. The electric car market as we know it does not exist without Tesla, and while he only took the company over later after it was founded by others, he deserves credit for those contributions and the shift toward more sustainable energy. SpaceX has also had some impressive, amazing successes, but also some disastrous failures. The rest of his ventures? Eh. More vaporware than not. We can give credit where it’s due, but let’s not ignore the bad or blind ourselves to reality. /rant

Excellent work, sir! @mooniac58 please give this man a badge!

So executive turnover close to Elon was not nearly half at 44% because you don't like the source? Those people didn't leave? You can disagree with the conclusions they drew, but are you questioning the data itself?

Want. Tell me more.

Valid, specific, and backed-by-sources criticism of Elon Musk's behavior is always just "haters." Does that include Reason Magazine, hardly a 'left' outfit and which has been very friendly to Mark Levin over the years, for what it's worth, for publishing the article? Here's how much Musk believed in and treated the "resource of talent" in the Bay Area, by the way: Tesla Inc. lost a case against a Black former elevator operator and must pay an unprecedented $137 million in damages for having turned a blind eye to racial taunts and offensive graffiti the man endured at the electric carmaker’s auto plant in Fremont, California. You can tell how much Musk believed in and supported that talent by looking at how loyal his employees are, thanks to his great leadership: Tesla Inc. has lost top executives at a faster clip than similar companies have, with turnover “dramatically higher” at the Silicon Valley car maker’s top echelons, an analysis by Bernstein has found. ... “Our analysis indicates that Tesla’s annualized executive turnover level has been 27%, notably higher than the cohort average of 15%,” but not “outlandish,” Sacconaghi said, with Snap, with 24% turnover, and Lyft, with 23%, experiencing turnover nearly as high. Tesla’s turnover of executives reporting directly to Chief Executive Elon Musk, however, has been, at 44%, “dramatically higher than the turnover of CEO’s direct reports at comparable companies,” which has averaged 9%, Sacconaghi said. “While one could argue that (Tesla’s) high turnover reflects its unique and demanding culture, we worry that such turnover not only causes instability ... but could also reflect more significant concerns among senior leaders about the company’s direction or workplace practices,” Sacconaghi said. What a bunch of haters.

Lol. Always the victim. By 2015, they write, companies led by Musk had already gotten billions of dollars in subsidies, tax breaks, and other handouts. New York state even shelled out $750 million to build a factory for Musk's troubled SolarCity operation and then said the company would pay no property taxes for a decade, saving Musk another $260 million. "He seems to have a magic touch," says Harvey. "He's gotten so good at raising money from state governments, getting subsidies, tax abatements, and so on, that sometimes it seems as though the states are lining up to offer him money to come and do business." https://reason.com/2021/03/05/5-ways-elon-musk-and-other-billionaires-get-welfare-for-the-rich/

Not me. All of my landings are picture-perfect. [file not found]

Try: getting elected to state office. Then just wait for him to beg for government money for his companies (ignore his tweets about how government is actually bad, that's just for show). Best way to get his attention. Good luck!

Are Mutt Muffs one-size-fits-all? (Do they work for small dogs and puppies?)