Trenta

Howdy MSrs! I just had a mishap with my rear window. Today I lost my balance trying to get my cover on my plane and my knee went through the window. I have ordered a new one and have my annual coming up in a couple weeks so I will be able to get it done then. How was this for those who have replaced them? I seem to remember they were held in with clips? Any big pointers to remember when installing them? -Trenta

Happy Friday MS, I am once again coming to you with a myriad of questions and a couple pictures as I’m coming up on 6 months of ownership. Side Windows A couple of months ago I started hearing a very fast fluttering noise in the cabin in cruise to look back and see my side window seals/calking starting to peel off and flap in the wind. Nothing catastrophic but it’s just getting old and dry I think and needs to be redone. On all four side windows. I am religious about keeping the plane covered with my new Bruce’s custom cover that covers spinner past the baggage compartment. However I have heard that that moisture/rain can slide between the window and the skin and wreck the interior over time and even start corrosion so I want to avoid that at all costs. Also I’m convinced that If I seal and clean up the windows that I will get an extra knot. (Don't try to convince me otherwise) I remember reading somewhere that the windshield was off limits unless it’s A/P work. However I seem to remember that side windows had more room for owners to commit preventive maintenance. I feel like this falls under preventative maintenance like when people use silicone or 3M calk strips to seal up their avionics bay. Can anyone confirm? My approach was to find a plastic/rubber putty scrapper, as to not mar the windows, to remove the rest of the faulty sealant. Then from there clean, dry, and apply new sealant. My thought was a weatherproof/water-tight silicone for the new seal? Can anyone validate or refute my train of thought with experience? Interior Arm Rest This blasted thing keeps coming lose on the pilot’s side. I’m trying to get leather to stick to pleather I think or maybe “pleather on pleather” (some of the older MSers may have fond memories of this in their younger personal endeavors ) Any suggestions on a cement? I’m thinking one that dries a bit softer as this one hardened and cracked off. Maybe Silicone again? Grass Strips Fly ins are starting to become a thing again. I’m so sure that I’m the first person to ever have this idea (Not really) but does anyone leave their mains tire pressure a little squishy (not too much, still within specs) and their front on the hard side for landing on grass or say taxing in the grass at Osh? My Hypothesis: By increasing pressure on the front and leaving the mains squishy I think potential benefits could include: •The angle during taxi will have a very slightly more nose up attitude giving maybe an inch or two of more prop clearance. •Should the ground be uneven I think having the front tire harder will reduce rolling resistance for use with the tow bar and for starting taxi. •Having the mains on the softer side will assist the “Suspension” by soaking up some of the irregularities in a grass runway and will also be easier on the wings, tank seals, etc. These benefits albeit potentially small are all assuming that I am practicing good soft field technique and am landing buttery smooth in the first place as to not blow out the softer main inner tubes. What are your thoughts? Thanks for any and all feedback and I’m looking at seeing some of you at the West Coast Fly In at Catalina in a couple weeks and even more of you at OSH! -Trent

Just did mine in October. Not because they weren’t to spec just because I thought it was a good idea. It had been 25 years on the mains and 30 on the front. I wouldn’t replace until they are on the verge of being out of spec. The difference between 30 year old pucks that haven’t started cracking and still in spec vs new ones is so negligible. I couldn’t tell you I noticed a difference. -Trent

Thanks for the points guys! After it was all said and done I went for the TSOd versions from Alcor #46150 & #46151 and kept them separate. They are currently on back order but both gauges and complete kits were about 1 AMU but fingers crossed I won’t have to deal with it again. -Trent

Howdy MSrs! My EGT has given up the ghost and is ready to be replaced also my CHT gauge is limping along on its last leg. So I am going to handle both. I have a B Model. I have seen where some people do both in the same gauge and also seen where people have kept them seperate. I am probably leaning towards keeping them in separate gauges because that is the current set up and I like it. I also am not wanting digital for either as I don't want to have to pull more power from the battery and wire up additional gauges. At this point i'm not ready to make a jump for an Engine Monitoring System as I am not fuel injected and don't really have a desire to do anything other than (Trigger Warning!) ROP. This all being said what gauges do you all like for EGT and CHT? Would love to see pictures. I see some are TSOd but a lot aren't. Are there advantages to one or the other? I don't remember EGT and CHT being apart of required VFR or IFR instruments so does that mean that it's not a requirement to be TSOd? Any feedback is helpful here! -Trent

Everglades City (X01) is a great little strip to fly into! Make sure you are on top of your speeds and short field landing technique. There isn’t a restaurant on the field however if you call in to Camellia Street Grill (239) 695-2003 an hour or two before you are going to be there and give them a heads up that you will be landing at the airport they will have someone pick you up. I would land and as soon as I shut off the engine I would call in, by the time I had secured the plane and gotten pax out and everything a car would be there waiting at the gate. It’s a great little spot right on the river. Try the Gator tail or the crab when it’s in season. If you are in the mood for a good village swamp story ask the locals about “Square Grouper”. -Trent

Is there such a thing? I have only heard tell and legends.

Alright MSrs, So I may be jumping the gun a bit here, and let me know if I am, but after seeing all the posts from Sun n’ Fun im feeling pretty excited for Oshkosh this summer. Is there a Mooney group from SoCal/SW that is making the trek up? I feel like there has to be an official Mooneys or vintage Mooneys to Osh that stages at an airport nearby to do an arrival en masse? I haven’t been to Osh yet. I have been saving it until I was an owner and last year it happened so here we are. Any tips or recommendations for the whole Osh experience and/or camping? -Trent

M20B model. I am 6’1” and 250. I wear a size 48 suit jacket. I have broad shoulders and I find it very comfortable solo and moderately comfortable with someone slightly more narrow in the front with me. Just did a cross country from LA to Tampa with my buddy (5’ 9” and 220) with no issues. As far as height and leg room. It is not a Cessna or a Piper. Your sight picture, distance to panel, and seating angle are very different. Cessna is to a Ford Ranger as a Mooney is a vintage Corvette. When I tried to have my seat all the way up to replicate the distance to the pedals and sight picture of a Cessna nothing fit. It wasn’t until I scooted way back when everything fit right. -Trent

This was precisely the conclusion that I had come to as well via some light reading and this article. The recruitment for a willing A&P starts at dawn! Haha

Hello MS! Does anyone know of an STC for the leaky three piece avionics panel that allows for a single piece? On the older B,C,E models. I am wanting to close that area up better as I look to start IFR training. There was a headache of a few hours in a bad rainstorm (hurricane) with wet radios shorting out and a couple gauges that went inop (I posted about that one a few months ago). or is there another route to work with an AP/IA and a FSDO to get a field approval for a modification? Or a 337? I'm sure folks have done it. I would love to hear how they did it *In accordance with regs*. I looked for another thread on this but yielded no results. -Trent

I just delt with this when replacing the pucks. We did not install the additional laser collar when we did the new pucks on the front gear as it didn’t show in any diagrams that we could see however 1 trip around the pattern showed that there were huge ground controllability issues from the front wheel yanking the plane one side to the other and same on landing. Make sure that you refer to the correct directions weather it’s stock or the Lasar mod. -Trent

So my knee jerk wasn't that it was salt water until I looked at my trim wheel and saw salt crystals forming. I was at albert whitted KSPG. They are right on the bay, the storm surge splashed enough salt water on to the runway and ramp for there to be some standing water and I think the wind blew it around everywhere.

Bob Where did you get the new seal?

Thanks for the rotation! I didn’t notice any issues with the pitot static system however the previous owner rewired the static system tubing in the back to go along the top of the fuselage instead of the bottom to prevent clogging and allow better drain.

I found out the hard way that the avionics access panels are less than good as keeping rain out let alone a hurricane. I completed my cross country trip today with my return back to John Wayne however 3 days ago I cringed when I returned to the condition my plane was in after being stranded on the ramp during Eta this last week. I was at St. Pete Fl (KSPG) and they were fresh out of any hangar or covered space. I also foolishly left my Bruce’s cover at home because I was concerned about W&B. Suffice it to say I will NEVER leave it at home again. I will leave a couple pair of jeans home next time instead. Long story short, my carpet was soaked through. My entire panel had a bath and I was rather startled by the amount of water that shot out of the nose cone on start up. It was very soon clear that my radios were totally InOp. Good news is wasn’t any new dings, dents, or control surfaces damage. Also luckily I met a really nice Aussie named Hayden at the avionics shop on base after an hour of labor, compressed air, and some preventative corrosion countermeasures everything was back in working order. That night I started my journey back west and found hangar space at Austin Executive where I pulled the carpets, did a little rinse with distilled water, and set up a fan to blow the interior dry for 48 hours. Upon my return I found that there was some lubricating to be done mostly on the step wheel, fuel selector, and trim wheel. This week I am going to do an oil change and will be pulling the cowl. I will be inspecting for the signs of salt water in there and will be doing some rinsing and lubricating there. I also saw that we have a distilled water hose at John Wayne. Outside of a good rinse with that what else can I do? Also my CHT gauge is getting stuck and needs some tapping to catch up and my EGT gauge is intermittent. Any thoughts here? What other precautions should I take to ensure that I don’t have really big knock-on consequences down the road from having my plane covered in hurricane salt water? -Trent

Howdy Robert! I was in your shoes about 2 months ago. I have since purchased my Mooney M20B Model. If you are interested in a road trip my plane in at South Lake Tahoe currently. I had to terminate a X-Country flight a week ago due to weather in the Pacific Northwest. I fly into Reno Sunday October 25th and would be happy to show it to you if you wanted to see it then. DM me if you are interested. Trent

wow so glad everyone is safe! I have a B Model without the interior egress latch. It popped open in my first 7 hours on the plane at Bakersfield Muni. The baggage door was shut however the latch wasn’t secured. I heard a little buffeting in roll out after full power input. I thought that it was the main door then once I ruled that out figured it was the crosswind coming through the pilot window hatch. I however didn’t abort take off (because I didn’t voice my pre take-off abort protocols). Upon rotation the hatch popped open and the interior piece ripped off and luckily cleared the tail and landed gently on the end of the runway. I flew the plane, did a normal pattern, and landed to find no damage to the door and the interior piece clipped back in like new. I felt very fortunate and now will emphasize bag door check on my preflight. I'm glad everything ended up not catastrophic for you. Will make for an incredible hangar flying tale.

Update: After input and research on plastic safe compounds. A razor blade was used to clean old brittle glue off and score the surface needing to adhere to the window. New plastic safe gorilla glue gel was used and has worked like a dream. Feels solid and dried clear as a posed to the old cloudy glue.

https://www.ocair.com/generalaviation/docs/jwapilotguide.03.31.2017.pdf Save this to your efb. I’m based out of John Wayne. I reference this one pager all the time. It’s basically what niko is saying. The only thing that I have noticed is sometimes both runways are on 126.8 and sometimes they have the NW side of the field on 126.8 and the SE part of the field on 119.9. I have noticed that it seems to be based on traffic and workloads. Also be ready and aware that they may ask you to side-step to the other runway. This happens to me about 1/4 of the time. I always prepare my landing spot to need to land on the shorter 20L even if I was given 20 right. Something to note, the numbers on 20L&R get a really big washing machine action because the large operators hold short on the taxiway at the numbers between the runways and you can’t expect them to be aware of their jet blast. Anytime I see someone holding short between 20 R&L stay above them and shift my landing spot about 500 feet down the runway. Some VFR reference points they use OFTEN to familiarize yourself with are Signal Peak, Mile Square Park, Huntington Beach pier, Irvine Lake, and El Toro VOR. SoCal approach usually says something like “Proceed direct to mile square park and contact tower 126.8” they do it for sequencing and then may ask you to do a “cross the field over the tower at or above 1,300ft and enter a left downwind for runway 20L” or “proceed direct to numbers”. Moral is they expect you to know those handful of vfr waypoints to sequence you. Other than that they are good controllers. Very efficient. Do yourself a favor and get a spot on the SW ramp. Trust me. You will save a lot of time by being on that side of the field. You don’t want to get stuck in those taxiway Charlie traffic jams. -Trent

Thanks for all of this. I’ll look at the threads and trips you referenced. AMUs? American Monetary Units? I do need to try the heater. good point! I have the sentry ADSB for weather and a built in CO2 monitor. I am also getting the Garmin In-Reach that I have heard the backcountry guys use. Just installed a new tail beacon. I do have the WnB data and a good luggage scale. I have done some flying at big bear (L35) here in the summer as well as some north Idaho mountain flying so I feel Appraised of the take off and landing affects of high DAs.

Howdy! It hasn’t been a week since taking delivery of my M20B and I have logged 18 hours already but I have already started getting the itch to fly across these United States. I will be flying from Portland to Tampa and then spending some time in Central and South Florida before heading back west. I am not IFR and no auto pilot so I am giving myself about 4-5 days to do it. I am planning for the first week of November. The longest distance I have flown in one direction up and until now is SoCal to Phoenix. So I figured I would poll the experience of the Mooney community for this endeavor because after all that’s why we bought Mooneys; to go fast and far. Some of the questions I have: What would you have liked to know before doing your first coast to coast in your Mooney? What route would you suggest? Tips on portable O2? I have purchased a 2 place O2 tank to benefit from those great tail winds up high and to lessen altitude fatigue. What other tips do you have for this adventure? Also if any of you are interested in traveling on this trip with me in your plane, live along the route and/or would like to fly a leg in your Mooney with me I would love the company. -Trent

Yes absolutely! I am dealing with a couple squawks now before I make the trip up north but should be in the neighborhood in the next week or so.

I completed my 10 hours dual the past two days. Today I’m going up to start getting my solo hours.

It is! Zach did such a good job with the interior. Real nice guy!