1980Mooney

A few C’s have been converted to fuel injection by replacing the entire engine to an IO-360 by STC. As stated you need to look at the ad listing. Given the cost and importance of the engine, virtually every ad will provide some engine detail beyond hours if there has been a modification.

I’ve had a plane in Texas for about the same period of time. I have never registered my plane with the state, county or city yet it appears on the county Central Appraisal District property listing. It’s been there on the county CAD list pre-Internet and pre-ADS – B. It doesn’t make much sense to blame ADS-B when the real issue is that you don’t like your local tax rate.

"I gather the Mooney factory and their FAA production certificate are assets that Mooney Aircraft Corp is trying to leverage to salvage the company or to sell." The Factory is an "asset" when operating but not one that Mooney can technically sell. Mooney leases the facility from the Kerrville -Kerr County Airport. In 2004 Mooney entered into a 30 year lease that escalates. In 2014 it was revisited, the lease was raised to $6K per month rising with the CPI for the remaining 20 years to 2034. With current inflation it is probably $8K/month. As long as Mooney is manufacturing and the lease is appropriately priced, the company's "manufacturing capability" is an asset. But if a lot of it is idle and unused then it is a liability. In the past there were comments that the Chinese owners made investment in the plant building like improved lighting. Well although all those improvements were paid for by Mooney and its Chinese owners, they are now owned by the Lessor - Kerrville-Kerr County Airport, since the are part of the building (leasehold improvements). If someone buys the stock of Mooney Co. then they can continue to take advantage of or "leverage" (as you said) the "manufacturing capability" but Mooney Co. cannot sell the factory facility. https://www.aero-news.net/FullsizeImage.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=60120554-46DA-4B3B-9570-3455356CD184 https://dailytimes.com/news/article_76d3f886-3def-11e4-8961-c733c636b59f.html Saying it a different way - Mooney could remove all the machines and fixtures from the Factory and move somewhere else but they would still be paying the Lease for the empty Factory facility. That outcome is most likely worthless.

Well you are right, logically it doesn't do anything for those that don't visit this site. Just an observation but it appears that: Only a minority of Mooney owners join MS as members. Only a minority of MS members are frequent visitors to MS. Only a minority of MS frequent visitors post or respond to anything. Only a minority of those posting and responding come to the Safety and Accident Discussion Forum (look at the number of posts and the number of views and responses as compared to General, Modern or Vintage Forums. - easily an order of magnitude less. And it is like frozen in time with the first four (4) topics posted in 2019 -2021 and no responses since then.) Of those few MS members that respond on Safety and Accident Discussion, some only do it to complain either they are offended, that it just points out misfortune, that it is really just a way to complain about insurance, that is not constructive or useful and one even said it was voyeuristic. And some of those are vocal that we, like good children, should just keep our mouths shut, sit on our hands and wait for the NTSB Final to come out in a couple years (which rarely has any bearing on the epidemic of Mooney landing incidents). Of course when the Final does come out most have forgotten, moved on and have little to no interest at that point. So you are right. Few are interested and it doesn't do much if anything. It is not really worth the effort. Might as well just delete the entire Forum.

You may have noticed that this post by "Aviationist" is gone (actually all of his posts are gone). His profile says that deleted his 76 posts about 45 minutes ago. I wonder if he is one of the MS members with multiple screen names.

Aside from Mooney and most Beech (and a few percent of Piper and Cessna), the majority of SEP flying are fixed gear. And turboprops like the large number of Caravans are fixed. Saying that to every plane would sound ludicrous. Alternatively they would need to quiz many planes - "Beech 24, Cessna 210, Cessna 182, PA-28, PA-32, etc.. Are you fixed or retract?!). I suspect they would consider it a waste of time and distraction. And a large portion of the rest are pro pilots. I don't recall any tower tell a jet, turboprop or commercial to "Check your gear" as a normal reminder while cleared to land or on Final - perhaps it happens but seems unlikely.

Lesson #1 - Get ready to spend lots of $$$$…..

A New Encore Continental TSIO-360-SB at only $100k seems like a bargain compared to a new Bravo Lycoming TIO-540-AF1B at $175K (75% more). It seems odd that the Rebuilt Encore Continental is so high at $88K. All these prices are after providing a usable Core. Without a Core, the New Lycoming for the Bravo costs $216K ! More and more, when you buy a used GA plane you are paying for Avionics and the Engine/Prop and the rest of the plane is thrown in for free....

So that was back in mid July - $101K for a Factory Rebuilt. That same Lycoming TIO-540 engine for a Bravo now costs $111K for a Factory Rebuilt. Up 10% in two (2) months.

Watch both of these videos. See the second one at 3:30 min and 5:00 min

I wonder if he was surprised by the 720 foot displaced threshold when landing on RWY 05 which is a loss of nearly 25% of the runway. I also wonder if he was aware of the downslope. You mention “laziness” which I assume you mean is lack of preparation. In the “old days“ of paper charts inbound directories, which were hard to work with in the cabin, it was always important to fully brief everything before flight. Nowadays, with everything available, literally at your fingertip with a touch either on the panel or on an iPad, it’s easier to just “wing it. A pilot can just brief as he goes …. Or maybe not brief at all – hence the surprise.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/09/08/cottonwod-arizona-plane-crash-hospitalizes-pilot/75133618007/ Look at the first picture from Facebook that is embedded in this USA today article. I am not going to post it. It clearly shows the fire crew cutting the side of the plane out And they have the stretcher ready. The pilot is just lucky that the plane did not catch on fire – he would’ve never gotten out and they would’ve never gotten him out in time

Also since you are new to Mooney, not sure your total experience, but if you have not flown any long cross country trips, there other things than can throw you off your landing and give you a "bad day". Fatigue - noise, vibration, lack of oxygen, even lack of bathroom breaks. The M20F that geared-up in Rhode Island was at the end of a 4 hour 40 minute trip that varied between 14,000 to about 9,000 ft. Even if you are young and healthy and flying befow 12,000 ft, you may find that supplemental oxygen keeps you mentally sharper.

In Clarence's 2022 post, he noted that the old-style tube and rod end come un-drilled from Mooney. That is why he suggested drilling and installing larger diameter pins if the Factory would approve. As noted, the new style threaded ends make a lot more sense.

Read these two (2) posts. Specifically look at the comments by "Clarence". He owns and operates the Mooney Service Center, Tri-City Aero, in Ontario, Canada. He is also the Authorized Service Center for Cirrus and Diamond. He was a wealth of useful pragmatic advice before the bastards here ran him off with criticism. His MS name was "M20Doc" but his remaining comments just appear as "Guest" now.

The J and the F are electric - Since it's one of the first J's built, they are both probably Dukes. The G is a mystery - but none of the four (4) gear-up incident reports mention "forgot J bar" or "J bar came loose". they just say "forgot the landing gear" - maybe it is electric also.

There is rarely any discussion, let alone meaningful, in the "Safety and Accident Discussion" Topic. But it happens, and more than most think, know or want to believe. Perhaps you are right - maybe if we don't acknowledge or discuss it, then they will just go away on their own..... If it offends you then just don't read it. BTW - this isn't "every".....there are more if you are really interested.

This particular M20J/201 was built in September 1976, If you search Aircraft.com some owners/brokers over time have advertised early manufactured M20J's/201's as "1976" models, The odd thing is if you look at the picture, it does not look like the propeller is bent in any way - not even the tips scraped. And it is not a "gear collapse" as reported in the FAA ASIAS - the gear are completely up. I wonder if he had an engine out and then landed gear up by accident. Or his gear actuator failed, his emergency manual actuator failed/jammed and he elected to gear up intentionally shutting the engine down. Doubly odd because this is a towered airport and the incident was in the early afternoon when the tower was open. The airport was closed for 2 hours per to the article and also looking at FligtAware history. If he had an engine out or jammed gear he would have declared an emergency to the tower controller. This would have been reported to the FAA. https://www.mvtimes.com/2024/09/07/landing-incident-temporarily-closes-mvy/

FYI - the 1967 M20G at Petaluma is on its fourth (4th) gear-up/collapse in 24 years. 2000 - gear-up, 2010 - porpoise and collapse, 2016 - gear-up and 2024 gear-up. Clean gear-ups/collapses in a Mooney are generally repairable. It just takes time and money.

https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:93:::NO::: Gear-up Landings 1967 M20G at Petaluma Muni, CA (O69) . Looks like he was on the second "touch and go" 1976 M20J at Martha's Vineyard, MA (KMVY). Last known flight appearing on FlighAware was one year ago on Aug 14, 2023. 1968 M20F at Waterbury-Oxford (KOXC). Flying landings and taxi-back (on third landing). Pic shows right main and nose gear collapsed - slid off runway into grass. New owner in June 2024. Crash 1966 Mooney M20F near Cottonwood, AZ (P52) , Destroyed. Discussed in separate topic - appears to have been on take-off. Pilot in stable condition.

Not clear what happened. 1966 M20F, N9628M, departed Phoenix-Deer Valley Airport, AZ (KDVT) at about 6:30 AM local time. There are no ADS-B tracks once he gets north of Phoenix in either FlightAware or ADSBExchange. Aviation Safety Network claims that this happened at 9:00 AM. Possibly he had landed at Cottonwood, (P52) earlier and was departing. Plane crashed adjacent home at 71 Spur Dr., Cottonwood, AZ. (yellow circle) Propeller does not show any bending. No evidence of fuel leakage in the pictures. No fire. Engine failure? Fuel starvation? Don't know who was flying but owner is 82 years old per internet. Pilot hospitalized and stable condition. https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N9628M https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ad6710&lat=33.902&lon=-111.947&zoom=10.7&showTrace=2024-09-08&trackLabels&timestamp=1725802047 https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/420941

It's possible that they mean "former owner". When I first inspected the J that I ultimately purchased, I reached down to feel the back of the tubes on nose steering truss. I felt a flat dent. I mentioned it to the partners owning it who was standing there. He reached down and confirmed the dented tube with a simultaneous look of shock and anger and said "We just had the nose gear repaired last month because it was over-turned and bent by the FBO. The FBO paid for repair. I don't think that it has even been flown since the reapir. The same FBO dented it again."

That's great advice although it is just not realistic if your are actually trying to use a Mooney as a traveling machine. There are times when my plane needed to go into a heated hangar to melt the accumulated snow and ice off before a winter return flight. Other times, a sudden severe weather change necessitated towing the plane into a hangar. Some busy FBO's logistics don't work for the owner to move it themselves. You cannot be there all the time, everytime.

That didn't work in the Watsonville mid-air in 2022. The 340 had been flying in and out of Watsonville several times during August 2020. It was returning straight in after a short cross-country flight. Both planes were communicating. https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/ntsb-cites-pilot-error-in-fatal-midair-collision-over-watsonville-municipal-airport/

Before you pull the battery box, are you sure that there is not a current drain somewhere? There are two (2) hot wires that go from the battery to the front of the plane when the Master is off if I am not mistaken - 1) the hot wire going to the cabin and baggage lights (and a clock on some models) and 2) the wire going to the Master Switch which energizes the master power solenoid/relay when flipped on. If I were you, I would disconnect the 24 v. positive line coming from the battery box right at the master power solenoid/relay (which is in the tail cone next to where the original battery before the conversion was located.) Use an ammeter to see if there is any current flow that would be slowly draining the battery. You can also check the voltage before the Master is on. If you have a drain, then the batteries are just run down. You will need to find where the current leak is. If it is a bad cell in a battery, then they should be within the Concorde 6 month Full Replacement Warranty period.