Precisemike

Good morning,, Not much to say about my life so far except have been fortunate to meet some nice people and not have too much time with the less nice folks. As far as aviation ......at a early age I wanted to fly so I went to work at a carburetor rebuild factory where on a given night after high school classes I would tear down and chemical-dip clean a few hundred carbs.....later taking engineering and machinist classes I saved enough money ($450) to buy a TG-3A WWII training glider and it was a hoot to learn to fly sorta.......it was HEAVY and ponderous and later in life it was a great trainer for a flying Old airliner with failed hydraulics. It took a couple years of savings but I finally bought a powered aircraft.....sorta.....a 1947 Stinson with a runout Franklin that I nursed along gently until it finally was just too tired to fly.....it was a easy airplane to fly but having a tail wheel the only instructor I could find was a WWII grumpy duster pilot that gave me 42 minutes of......."grouchy-instruction" and then he soloed me saying...."kid you seem inclined to kill yourself in this old wreck of a Stinson so I am just let you wreck without me". i would guess that he was close to right about my flying but so far I have yet to wreck a aircraft and have a bit over 13,00o hrs and some a couple of lines added to my pilots license. I did a fair amount of experimental test flying in a lot of normal and some insane not normal flying things and with all the skill AND luck somehow have survived. There was a time in my past I thought I was a pretty red hot pilot with a few ratings but looking back at some pretty famous pilots I have flown with I come to know that I was likely a just a fair pilot most days and better than I really was for a few minutes when the chips were down. i have been involved in a lot of aviation projects some worked out ok others were ........learning a learning experience to put it mildly. i have taken a lot of risks flying and some were not well considered and that maybe ok on a personal level but it is not ok to let other folks follow a dangerous path just because I got lucky. i have a great son inlaw and a couple years ago he informed me that he wanted to get his pilots license. They live in Seattle. He ask me if I would help him get started flying.........I told him that Seattle is not a great location for a VFR private pilot and even a inst. rating would not be good without the time and money to stay current. He had the flying bug bad so...........I found him a insanely expensive school to attend that would take forever to solo. This may seem mean but I really don't want to watch them at risk simply my flying life experiences make flying look easy and safe......it is not. Eventually aviation started to become a job and at times like having to pick through wrecks and funerals and court hearings the aircraft game started to lose its luster. Obviously I have descended into a bit of a geezer ramble here so enough is enough. If I have a wish for you Mooney folks it would be.........be safe and enjoy your aircraft.......for the most part I did. Fly sane and safe.....

Good evening, Once in a while I view Mooneyspace and just read the threads mostly about speedbrakes ......I was the founder of Precise Flight along with W. D. Thompson and Later partner F. P. Thomas (both passed away). I did most of the original speedbrake concept development and certification testing as well as experimental flight tests also. I sold my share of Precise Flight years ago, but once in a while I look into the general aviation fleets to just see how some of my old projects have aged. At the start of the speedbrake retrofit concept it was really tough sledding for a long time .........it was a lot of effort for little reward. Adding a whole new aero-control system to an existing aircraft was not a task for a sane person so being somewhat insane I had the gift needed to plod through a process that the FAA had zero protocol to guide them. Over the years I have come to fly less and less and feel fine letting the young folks enjoy flying safe as that was the main goal of the speedbrake concepts. While I know much of the early Precise Flight history, please do not try to obtain any current information on Precise products from me. Please contact Precise Flight directly. Enjoy your Mooney's ......I enjoyed a lot of them. Cheers, Mike McDaniel