TheAv8r

Hey Nick! Few things to think about: The fuel flow gauge might not be accurate - the way to check this is compare what the fuel totalizer is saying is USD against what you actually put in the airplane. If it's considerably off, then it could be the gauge or the actual instrument itself (which is basically a tiny little fan that counts pulses). You will see SOME variance in fuel flow because of density altitude, pressure changes, etc. I would not expect that variance to be 1.5gph at the same altitude and power setting though, more like .2 - .5 on the IO-360. Make sure your RPM setting is the same, when we're pulling that prop back in cruise we are taking a more efficient bite of the air which gives us comparably the same speed but better fuel flow, so if you were running 22/2500 rpm on one flight and 22/2400 rpm on the next, that 100 rpm would show marginal speed difference but you would see LOP fuel flow variance. The 4kt speed difference could indicate being leaner, but it's close enough that it could honestly be a lot of things and that might just be the conditions of that particular day or slight thermal/downdraft activity changing the TAS. My E will do 142kts some days, 145 kts other days at the same power and fuel flow setting because of these variances. Check your GAMI spread (pull your logs and put them into Savvy Analysis), it's the fuel flow delta from the time the first cylinder peaked to the last cylinder peaked. If you have a big GAMI spread, you COULD have a clogged fuel injector. The JPI 900 is giving you the comprehensive LOP setting for the engine, looking at each cylinder and basically averaging it out and giving you that "-20" number. If you have 1 cylinder that's way off from the others, it could be way lean while the others are not, and skew that -20, so while you're at "-20 LOP" by the computer, in reality, 1 cylinder is 80deg LOP, the other 3 might be right at or slightly above peak, which would result in higher fuel flow. Just something to rule out. If you want to go up and mess around with it, feel free to shoot me a text .

Hey Shawnson, CFI/CFII specializing in Mooney Transition training with over 700hrs in Mooneys. Not based out of Terrell but happy to help!

My GTX335 does this very rarely, maybe once every 150 hours. I got to the same state as you Rags, just turn it on and off again and it fixes it and it's so infrequent I don't want to tear the installation apart to fix it. Also have dual G5s in my bird.

If the paint is as rough as he's saying, a new paint job is $30k. It has no speed mods. The fuel tanks were resealed in 2001, so it's 24 years old, very likely a reseal is on the short-term horizon, that's $5-7k. Engine is high-time, compressions look surprisingly awesome so it might go over TBO but it might not, and that's a $50k+ job, so in the next 1-2 years you're looking at possibly having to put $85k into it, which at $63k is $148k invested. Take away the paint and $118k short-term horizon if you fast-forwarded to the market of a great panel with rough paint and a fresh engine sounds about right, if a bit on the higher side but you never get 100% out of what you put in.

I use Philips XC 20W50 with Camguard in my Mooney, but am honestly of the mind that the priority order is: Fly the airplane weekly Change the oil at least every 30 hours Change the oil when it's 4 months old Anti-corrosion additive when it's sitting Oil type If you fly it regularly and change it frequently, the actual oil type doesn't really matter much.

Hey Steve, sent you a text, happy to help if you still need a ferry pilot.

Sure thing Don, would be happy to help! Weather's been tough lately, when we get a break from the cold lets connect and talk through what you'd like to work on together. I'd love to check out your Aerocruze AP too, you can teach me a thing or two about how to use it! @rex280ia Absolutely, let's stay in touch, I'll DM you my contact information. I've coached a few through the Mooney purchasing process as part of their transition training.

Don is closer to you but if that doesn't work out, flying up to Dallas is a good excuse to fly and we can take my E up for a spin. I'm also a CFI/CFII and will let you do some flying .

Depends on the airplane, but for your J, I teach: Don't touch anything Pitch for a 500fpm descent Adjust mixture every 1000ft to stay outside of the red fin Adjust throttle as necessary so you don't exceed VNE (or target a % power setting) 7nm from the airport, pull the power back to 15" MP, slowly work prop to full, and adjust mixture as necessary, retrim to keep a 500fpm descent - this starts slowing the airplane down If you've done everything right, you'll hit TPA at 3nm from the airport with your power set for pattern and that 2nm from there to the pattern will bleed the remaining airspeed off and you'll enter downwind at 90kts. (VCALC on your GPS is an excellent tool for finding ToD to give you this time to slow down) There are certainly other ways to do it, but this is a consistent method that maximizes the speed performance of the airplane while still ensuring consistent airspeeds in the pattern and time to slow down. When you do it right, you really do hit downwind exactly at 90kts and don't have to touch the power again until abeam the numbers. The 2 most common errors I see with this are: As the airplane accelerates in the descent, the nose wants to come up (going back to the airspeed it was trimmed for) and most students will let it the first few times, leading to segments where we were only doing 200fpm so we end up high by the time we get to the pattern. The inverse when pulling the power to 15" MP, they let the nose come down and don't retrim it back to a 500fpm descent, so the airplane picks up extra speed and you end up hitting TPA farther from the airport.

The problem here is an uncoordinated stall runs a high risk of entering a spin. As others have said, you do not want to spin a Mooney. The recovery procedure is the exact same, keep ailerons neutral, reduce the Angle of Attack by lowering the nose, if a wing drops, use rudder to bring it back up and smoothly apply full power to minimize altitude loss (then clean the airplane's configuration up once positive rate of climb is achieved). Spin prevention starts by staying coordinated - and that's what we teach in airplanes not approved for spins. If you're always coordinated, you won't spin. There are lots of scenarios we could approach as "but what if it doesn't do that," but it's not always safe to train in the actual scenario which is why we train prevention techniques and focus on that. If you want to get better at spin recovery, go up with a CFI in another airplane that is approved for spins and do spin work, but the Mooney isn't the airplane for that. For example, lets say you ask "what if I didn't do my flight control check and the elevators were binding after takeoff, I'd like to train for that scenario." It's certainly not safe to takeoff with the elevators unable to move or some kind of control lock in place to train on how to fly it. What could you do then? Prevention - focus on checklist usage, flows to reinforce checking the flight controls, preflight verification, maybe have your CFI walk you through a trim-only landing. That gives you tools at your disposal to never get into that situation. Not every situation is recoverable, so the best we can do is avoid them in the first place.

The blue lever should be touched at a minimum, 2 times while inflight: When setting cruise power, moving the RPM to the desired RPM for cruise. Prior to landing, set at max RPM to have full available takeoff power in the event of a go-around. Outside of those 2 times, it's pretty normal not to need to touch it again .

I have a GTX335 that I've been wanting to upgrade to a GTX345 but I want the physical unit. If you get a physical unit and are still interested in a swap + cash for an upgrade, feel free to shoot me a note.

It was a remote install, controlled through the GTN750

I don't think any more details are needed other than he faced a truly nightmare scenario: engine failure, at night, shortly after departure, from an airport that has nothing but trees on the south end of it, and walked away. Well done sir.

I overhauled my IO-360-A1A last year (well, 2023, but didn't get it back on the plane until last year due to the 7m lead-time). New angle-valve cylinders were unavailable everywhere I looked, the shop told me it took them 2 years last time to get a new order so I went with overhaul. I did Nickel cylinders as I live in Houston and it's very humid here with nickel being more corrosion-resistant than steel. I did DLC tappets on mine, but nothing else. My hottest cylinder is #2 and at cruise at 75% power 150deg ROP, it runs around 340deg CHT with the other cylinders around 310-320deg CHT. At 65% power, 20deg LOP, it's 310CHT, so nickel cylinders haven't made the engine run hotter, but that's a N of 1 engine. I added a SureFly mag, GAMI injectors and fine-wire plugs but did not do any additional cylinder work.

Here it is in a '65 C model, same instrument panel / sizing. It's in the center.

Awesome success story, thanks for sharing Gary. Best of luck with the new plane, I own a '65 M20E and they are awesome, awesome airplanes. I just flew mine from Arizona back to Texas this weekend. I'm out in Houston if you need any assistance getting transitioned into it.

That's a beautiful looking C!

Trying to follow you here but I think you’re confirming what I’ve seen… So 26gal tank, you put in 14.6gal which means you had 11.4gal in that tank (26-14.6). And the fuel was barely visible so the tank appeared almost dry under the fill cap, which means roughly 10gal would still be in the plane even if the fuel was showing dry under the cap (unstickable). But the scary part is it could be 3, 5, 8, you don’t know. Am I following you correctly?

That has not been my experience in short-bodies, but all of the ones we've seen this on had bladders, so perhaps that is changing it. I have seen multiple cases where you opened the fuel tank and there was no wet fuel, but there was still 8-10 gallons in the tank. I'm able to know because I have CIES senders in my plane accurate to 1/10th of a gallon. If you don't, you have no idea how much is left in the area you can't see and that's dangerous .

Here's an example of a Mooney M20F that checks all your boxes that is priced at $164k: https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Single+Engine+Piston&make=MOONEY&model=M20F+EXEC+21&listing_id=2448117&s-type=aircraft . M20J with a KAP-150 AP but otherwise what you want for $175k: https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Single+Engine+Piston&make=MOONEY&model=M20J+201&listing_id=2446676&s-type=aircraft M20E with your panel and mid-time engine for $110k: https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Single+Engine+Piston&make=MOONEY&model=M20E&listing_id=2444592&s-type=aircraft Current market dynamics inform prices. There's some leeway there, but that's just what it is .

@CFIcare A few thoughts for you on this journey: The 1950s Bonanzas are underpowered and have convoluted fuel systems requiring careful management. They will cruise around 140kts at a higher fuel burn than the Mooney. That's why they command such a comparatively low purchase price when comparing to the 1960s and above V35 Bonanzas. It does not mean it's a dealbreaker, only that you have to stay on top of the fuel system and get well-trained by someone who knows the airplane. You will not find what you're looking for for $100k, as you've already seen on the market. $120k will step you up into a nice C model, an E or an F with a compromise. You will not get a J in this price range with what you're looking for, that would be closer to $170-180k for a J with these specs. I have been in 3 airplanes in the last 6 months doing transition training that had panels and engine times you described, 2 Fs and an E, that were recently purchased. Both Fs were in the $140-155k range, the E was in the $170k range. They also had speed mods and the E was basically perfect (speed mods, interior, paint, engine, panel, etc.). You're asking for a plane at the top of the market: good engine, top of the line modern panel, so you need to be ready to pay top of the market prices, or slim your list down to match your budget. I would budget $130k for a C, $150k for an E or an F for what you're wanting to find. Hopefully you will find one for less than that, but if you don't want to change your wish list, that's what you need to be ready for. I've owned Mooneys for the better part of the last 10 years. I've never had a grounding parts issue. I have had to replace the dreaded intake boot, but I was able to find one, and now I have a backup one I bought from LASAR when they did their last run. Parts availability is better on the Bonanzas, but also much more expensive. If you want to buy a plane to immediately fly the crap out of it, don't buy one with a run-out engine. The wait is 6-8 months to get it overhauled. Avionics work will probably be around 2-3 months, but will cost more, especially with a primary engine monitor and a GFC-500 ($20-25k install). If you are sold on the primary engine monitor, I highly recommend also looking for one that has CIES Fuel Senders, you can't really effectively stick the tanks in Mooneys past a certain fuel level and with inaccurate gauges you won't know how much fuel is in your airplane! For a 4-seat, fast, glass-panel, autopilot airplane, your options are really Mooney, Bonanza, Cirrus, Comanche, Rockwell Commander, Super Viking, or Experimental but 4-seat experimentals are equally pricey to obtain and harder to find. The Mooney is the cheapest price-wise of that group. Each has their pros and cons.

Do you have an engine monitor? That could bring some peace of mind too so the narrative to new buyers is: OHed by Zephyr, a well-known shop Everything done by the book, accessories replaced, hoses, etc., all well documented in the logs Here are the instructions from Zephyr and Lycoming for break-in, here is the engine data from the first 5/10 hours showing how the break-in was completed, power settings, CHTs, etc. Here is the oil analysis from the first 2 oil changes following break-in showing a reduction in wear metals

Yeah, the 3-blade prop is going to come with a cruise penalty. I also have a SureFly and GAMI injectors on my plane so I can run it really smoothly LOP which will get me down to the 7.5gph range at the same speed.

The only speed mod I have on my E is the cowl enclosure (LASAR), it has the 1-piece windshield (not J) but that's it. I get the same as you LOP, around 142-145kts TAS @ 65% power at 7.5-8gph, but ROP I will get 152-155kts TAS at 75% power, 12gph to be 150deg ROP. Book figures are actually like 160kts if you can believe it, but nobody is getting those numbers out of a stock E haha. If you're getting 148, it is a tad slow for an E, I've owned 2 and both had no problem hitting low 150s at 75% power. I routinely fly mine LOP, the 10kt speed penalty is worth the 4gph saving... Up at higher altitudes (e.g. 9000) I see even better, this past weekend I flew to NC and at 9k, 65% power (WOT, around 20" MP, 2450 RPM) leaned to 8gph (20deg LOP) I was getting 145-148kts TAS.