1980Mooney

I can't imagine any IA signing off an Annual if you have a tank full of yellow or light green (comingled) G100UL if you don't have the STC. GAMI is pretty smart with the color - anyone can immediately observe if you have G100UL either fully or partially in your tanks. A child could look at a fuel sample and tell the difference. Without the STC the plane is not airworthy. Why would an IA risk losing his license because the owner is cheap? Additionally if a pilot/owner is intentionally using G100UL without the STC they are knowingly flying the plane when it is not airworthy and the owner will lose insurance coverage in the event of a claim. And if the Airport FBO sells it to an owner without the STC and there is an accident, the Airport FBO will be sued. It's just like selling alcohol to underage minors. Ignorance is not a defense.

You are mixing up "Grade" with "Octane". AVGAS 100LL and AVGAS 100 are "grades" of leaded (TEL) aviation gasoline that both have ASTM Octane ratings of 100/130 (lean mixture rating and rich mixture rating). AVGAS 100 has twice the TEL as AVGAS 100LL. As a result, AVGAS 100 was phased out and is no longer sold. Your Mooney M20R TCDS is only certified for leaded grades of aviation gasoline with a minimum Grade of AVGAS 100LL and AVGAS 100. Historically in addition to AVGAS 100 (Green color) there was AVGAS 115/145 grade that had no limit on lead content (Purple color). It was used primarily by the military before jets took over but is still used in aviation racing engines today. (Warter Aviation) f Absolutely correct. The TCDS for your M20F states "100LL or 100/130 octane min. grade aviation gasoline". G100UL is not rated 100/130 per the ASTM D910 lean mixture rating and rich mixture rating. GAMI certified G100UL as 99.6 MON. I suspect they did it intentionally. You need an STC.

And it looks like it has speed brakes deployed in that pic. Doesn’t that reduce M20K fuel capacity to 72 gallons?

That is a very interesting observation regarding the possibility that he ran one tank dry. I was puzzled by his track just after he passed Prairie City, IL. at 17:19:19 It is pretty clear that he had been flying the entire trip in autopilot. The track always straight and baro altitude rock steady. At 16:36:18 he starts a step-down to 13,000 ft baro altitude- always straight and steady. At 17:01:35 he starts another long step down - heading straight with a pretty steady 400-600 FPM rate of descent Then at 17:19:19 (after descending 8,000 ft. in 17.7 minutes) his direction deviates 51 degrees to the south and his speed drops from 190 kts to 148 kts It is possible that he ran the tank dry and suffered an engine stop. As the Autopilot started to spool-up the elevator he probably disconnected it. While restarting the engine, the plane lost easterly direction and speed dropped 42 kts in 52 seconds. In my opinion you have to work hard to get a clean Mooney to lose that much speed that fast. A couple other observations The owner (if flying the plane) is 75 years old per internet data This is completely unscientific but if you listen to the liveATC recording the pilot sounds completely calm and nonplussed about the entire situation. The controller sounds more excited than the pilot after the pilot declared the emergency. The pilot almost sounds like "ho hum" when he says "I see a highway here - I might need to land on it" - this is when he is doing 95 kts without power and about 700 ft AGL. Also when he says "I am kind of over a town now" - this is when he is doing 75 kts without power and about 100 ft AGL at most - probably less. Obviously they had to be on oxygen most of the flight but I wonder if hypoxia played any role in the decision making during the flight. Just a thought

I am not sure why he didn't land on Rt 116 outside the city. He was less than 200 ft AGL when he was about 1/2 mile outside Hanna City. Perhaps too much traffic.

He declared the emergency at about 2,500 ft at about 17:27:36Z. I listened to the ATC at both PIA and SAF. LiveATC recordings are not exactly synched so worked back from the crash time and also compared ATC radar distances in the recordings. https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a31d71&lat=37.964&lon=-97.887&zoom=6.9&showTrace=2022-08-13&trackLabels&timestamp=1660411642 ADSBExchange shows that he started up his avionics at 12:31:28Z before taxiing. When contacting the tower at KSAF he did not ask for an IFR Plan on file or for VFR Flight Following. He just took off. They did not hand him off to Departure or ABQ Center He eventually cruised at 15,000 Barometric altitude. The Baro at SAF was 30.36 at take-off. That is an over 400ft correction. I believe he was flying VFR 15,500 and not talking to ATC. He contacted KPIA Approach around 17:21:40Z ATC assigned him 0442 squawk at 17:21:54Z when he was 26 nm out of KPIA. He then stated that he was leaving 4,500 ft at that time. He declared the engine out emergency at 17:27:36Z. He was at about 2,500 ft. He told ATC that he thought he had 10 gallons on board at 17:28:16Z Approach told him that he was about 9 nm out from KPIA and pointed out Rt 116 at 17:29:06Z The last data point was at 17:30:42 He had the engine on for almost exactly 5 hours (less the last 3 minutes). I don't know what the average K plans for fuel burn for take off at 6K, partial trip at about 12.5K and most at 15.5K. 12.5 GPH would use about 63 gallons leaving about the approx. 10 gallons that he thought he had. I don't know if he had speed brakes which would rob a few gallons of capacity from the 78.5 gallons normally on a M20K. Note that he taxied and flew the plane in the pattern at KSAF on August 10. I wonder if he topped off after that.

I have a former co-worker that geared up the same M20J twice. It does not float like an air hockey puck. All the aluminum or fiberglass (with a one piece belly) grinding into the asphalt or concrete creates a lot of friction.

It appears to have the intercooler mod by Turboplus with the NACA duct.

That is part of it. Look at the end of page 1. The latest gear up was at College Station TX on August 5. It is a really nice 1965 M20C in College Station, N5866Q. Registration shows it was just registered to the current new owner on July 15, 2022. If you look back at ADSBExchange history for N5866Q it first appeared in College Station on June 14. (Just keep clicking on “previous” day on the left). The owner appears to have flown it 25 times over the next 7 weeks before the gear-up on August 5. Perhaps many of those flights were transition training. The only intensive “touch and goes” were on July 23 and 24. Probably a big mistake- should practice often. So new owner appears to have owned it 7 weeks (FAA registration is slow) before the gear-up. Probably $40,000 in damage but more importantly in the current situation of A&P backlog and part delays, the plane will probably be down for 6 months. N5866Q | 1965 MOONEY M20C on Aircraft.com ADS-B Exchange - tracking 8763 aircraft(adsbexchange.com)

Isn't the cost for a Bravo, any Continental 6 or 3 blade props more? And that is the payout - not the cost to the insurance company. Parker, the underwriters, adjusters, etc don't work for free. Our premiums have to cover overhead as well as payouts - mark it up 30%.

I assume, since you are buying this on eBay by eBay rules that this "pre-buy inspection" is a "go/no-go" inspection. As they said in the description "Full payment can be delayed until after a satisfactory pre-buy inspection if desired (to be paid for by the buyer). Per normal eBay rules the Seller cannot agree to a lower price regardless of what the "high bidder" claims that the Pre-Buy finds. The "high bidder" has to either accept or withdraw. It then goes to the next highest bidder. If the Seller drops the price below the "accepted high bid" for any reason the other Bidders will cry foul and get eBay to intervene. Some buyers try to use the Pre-buy Inspection to try to renegotiate the agreed upon price (which doesn't work in this market). Others think the Pre-buy Inspection should simply be a confirmation of what was advertised and agreed upon. The "Discrepancies List" is like art - one person thinks it is meaningful while another may think it is garbage (i.e. cosmetic, nit picking, not material, window dressing, etc). After all an AI has just signed off that the plane is Airworthy. However the Pre-Buy Inspection may give you good reason to disagree - and good reason to walk away. That is the normal purpose of the PreBuy Inspection.

I am not following. Yes the risk is added in. But you also said "gear ups account for so little of a 0 claim pilot’s premium that it isn’t worth mentioning". Per @Parker_Woodruff on a J about $800 of the annual approx. $2,400 premium is to cover "retractable gear-up" claims. (Obviously C-182 owners have some claims in the landing phase such as hard nose landing that damages nose gear or firewall - but the approx. $800 premium on a Mooney is the incremental cost related to gear-up landings, porpoising resulting in a collapse, etc). In round numbers that means about 1/3 of the premium for a "0 claim" Mooney owner is for "gear-up" coverage. I think that is worth mentioning. If I could have saved 1/3 of all my plane insurance premiums over the past 25 years by opting out of "gear-up" coverage, that would have been tempting (if that is even an option). Of course hind sight is perfect. I don't know if I would have been confident enought to do it at the time.

Wow - a $800+/year premium to fly a retractable Mooney. (I would expect the premium to be higher for those with a Continental 6 under the cowl and 3 blade props). So with my Missile I bet I have paid about a $25,000 premium over 25 years for the right of others to gear-up. Ouch. You have not factored in all the administration, overhead and cost of doing business for the insurance companies. And 50 gear ups is too low. Assume at least 30% overhead. A $70K payout costs the insurance company about $91K at the end of the day. And at least 75 gear-ups per year. That is close to $7 million per year. That would be about $1,000/year per insured plane. That triangulates closer to Parker's estimated "cost increase".

MS24693C271 - Screw - Structural Machine - 100 degree Countersunk - Cross Recessed - 10-32 x 7/16 - Fully Threaded - Stainless Steel (alt part # AN507C1032R7) Looks like they are 7/16 inch long.

Look at 57-30-00 page 2 (page 727 in the manual). I think they are an507c1032r7. @M20Doc also confirmed this back in 2017 here on MS - see the 6th comment. BTW the M20J Parts Manual should also be in the MS Download section but I can't find it. I forgot to add Vol 1 of the Service Manual in the previous post http://mooney.free.fr/Manuels M20J/M20J/Mooney Service Manuel M20J Vol. 1 of 2.pdf