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dylanac

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Ames, IA
  • Reg #
    N2554W
  • Model
    M20E
  • Base
    KAMW

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  1. Haha, my hypoxia symptom is euphoria so it's very hard to spot. I'm always happy while flying! Fortunately or unfortunately, no. I wanted to but the Air Force had other plans. I'm at Vance right now in the T-6. Sure miss how easy the mooney was to fly!
  2. Nope, the road was well compacted and a mix of gravel/crushed pavement. That's always a risk with grass strips/unimproved runways, they're hard on everything. I try to avoid them if possible but every now and then doesn't bother me. I'm not a bush pilot but I'm also not afraid to get a little dirty sometimes. Passing a neat airport town like this was certainly not something I was going to do. I bought this plane to have adventures with, after all!
  3. Appreciate the feedback. The older Moonies are not like a M20J, you've got much lower gear doors than I do. The main concern I've heard about grass strips is the bumps wearing on the tank sealant more, but my tanks already leak so that's getting fixed soon. Might as well have some fun before they get fixed. That's an added expense to living in Iowa with an abundance of grass strips as far as I'm concerned. That tracks left more or less just ripped the grass, it wasn't sloppy enough to leave anything deep in the ground. Looking back at the footage and seeing it from the video, I'm more convinced the sliding was from weather-vaning more than anything. Rain the prior day had not left much time for it to soak in, just loosen up the grass. Will do! Some things I forget from tailwheel training when I get in my Mooney.
  4. Always wanted to visit here ever since I saw Just Plane Silly's video on it. Finally got the chance on my way down to Vance AFB where I am awaiting UPT. Mooney is currently in annual and I cannot wait to go make some more adventures like this one. If anyone has some other cool spot I could check out around Enid, OK let me know! Excuse the trash thumbnail, I'm an aspiring douchy millennial YouTuber.
  5. I feel this. I do have some close friends that are also very involved in aviation but you have to be very passionate to make it work and it has to be a priority in your life, financial and otherwise. I find it hard to imagine life without it, like going from riding a bike to getting a car. It opens the world to me. I really hope there is some sort of revolution that can revitalize the propulsion of our little planes. I think the small planes like the Dark Aero 1 show promise from an ease of manufacture/efficiency standpoint. There are a lot of smart people working on this but until there is some breakthrough, it's not going to be lithium ion in our planes. We can all do our part to try and spread GA to younger people.
  6. This 100%. I'm 23 and GA is in a pretty sad state. I got my PPL in college and worked as a line boy to help pay for my addiction. The only way I was able to get into owning was by buying, rebuilding, and flipping undesirable, neglected planes. Lots of sweat equity cleaning up some real neglected birds. In the process I got to meet some, erm, undesirable people. I'd say more than half of the planes in our 50+ hangars didn't move the 4 years I worked there. None of the owners were even remotely interested in getting them moving or in annual or renting them, none of that. So they sit. Meanwhile, the divide between good, flying planes and planes that have been sitting grows larger while the cost of parts/restoration goes up. While few and far between, even worse are some of the guys that are still flying. If the attitude of some of these owners is at all common, and from my experience it is, GA will remain a "rich old white man" exclusive and for most people, perception is reality. It is marketing that drives what's cool, not the other way around. This is why people my age would rather buy flashy cars. Would chicks rather be rolling around town being shown off to all her friends from a Porsche or in a ratted out 1960s 172 that pukes oil everywhere, burns leaded gasoline, and has an original interior complete with cigarette burns from 1975? Even nice, more modern looking Moonies that have a good interior, paint, and avionics panel that wasn't hacked together is easily $200k+. Most people spend 30 years paying for a house that costs that much. Fortunately, I got to meet a great number of people my age that have managed to make their dreams of flying a reality. Unfortunately, few of them continue on to purchase planes or even rent anymore. Judging by the amount of people in the 25-35 age group I see out flying, even fewer of them make it a priority once families start to happen. That's a shame because my rose-colored glasses view GA as the ultimate family vacation tool. Musk has the ability to move crowds and influence people. Even with his talents there, I have a hard time believing he could sell GA planes specifically to people because of the immense financial and training hurdles in place. Of those that already have their license, I can't imagine very many of them would welcome electric planes with open arms. Look at how many people are still opposed to unleaded AvGas because it costs more and weighs more? They can't see past their own ways to understand this is better for the world and GA. How many airports have we seen California force out using the "Small Planes Still Burn Leaded Fuel That Was Banned Decades Ago" headline? Perception is reality...
  7. My thoughts towards the man aside, Musk has a lot on his plate already and has previously stated he would not do airplanes. GA has been dying a slow death for years and the electric technology is really not at the level to make it work yet unfortunately. A man with the kind of resources Musk has would not buy a dying company like Mooney. The same way he didn't start SpaceX with surplus NASA gear from the 60s. Trainers such as the Pipstrel are neat projects that show huge potential, but the market simply isn't large enough. Even if you could sell an electric plane with the same useful load and range as a 100LL on, there are many pilots who are too stubborn to adopt it. Look at how many people now swear they will never get an electric car. There are always major adoption hurdles to cross when a paradigm shift in technology such as this happens. I think Musk understands that air travel cannot easily be electrified, at least in the next decade or so, which is why he put his eggs in the Boring Company basket.
  8. Nope, almost everything he has done was taken existing technology, mass produce it, over promise, and under deliver. How long has "full self driving" been promised to be coming "next year" or "next month"?
  9. Our FBO just bumped prices $0.50 overnight. Up to $5.90. I thought BFE Iowa would be better than that.
  10. I understand completely, having driven Teslas before. They're impressive and have made great progress over the last decade. It will be very exciting to see what the next decade brings. Electric airplanes are going to be built from the ground up to be economic. Modern Moonies are great from an efficiency standpoint but with the weight of batteries, composite is almost a requirement. Additionally, the upfront cost of creating a new airframe will absolutely pay off. As I mentioned before: with the steel roll cage, flush mount rivets, etc., the M20 airframe is extremely expensive and labor-intensive to produce. Skilled labor is few and far between these days and no one produces products like this by hand. Back in the 50s and 60s, labor was cheap so it wasn't a problem. As we moved into the 70s Mooney realized that the only way to make money was to take this very expensive airframe and pair with with expensive avionics and engines and sell an even higher-performant airplane. The margins on the M20J were simply not large enough. Look at what they've made now: the Acclaim and Ovation are all larger, high performance planes with big 6-cylinder engines, fancy avionics, oxygen, and FIKI in many cases. By now though, the M20 is at or near the end of its production life. At the end of the day it still has more in common with a 1950s Mooney than it does something like a Cirrus. (sorry if the C word is not allowed here). While they are making improvements such as the composite fuselage covering, you can only milk a design for so long. Even with the bigger and bigger engines it just does not make financial sense to produce. That's why Mooney as a company has been for sale since it was last bought and they aren't producing new airframes anymore. Cirrus was able to make this work by designing these features into the plane to begin with, so it doesn't have abysmal useful load. Mooney had no choice but to add them to their existing plane. The beauty of the M20 design is exactly it's downfall: it was too well built. We have all seen the photos of the steel cage saving lives, and the stories of these planes surviving 10Gs. They truly are excellent airframes. But Al was an engineer, not a businessman. Unfortunately, the design was never made to be profitable. It was made to be perfect. That comes at a cost, especially 70 years later with rampant inflation, labor shortages, and a general lack of pride in one's work.
  11. This forum was the last place I thought I would run into fanboys. As an engineer, I embrace new technology but don't confuse Elon with actual geniuses. He's a great salesman, nothing more. As others have said, batteries of a compatible energy density needed for planes are still far out. Also, as much as I love the Mooney design, it is far too expensive and technical of a design to mass produce cheaply these days. You would be better starting from the ground up.
  12. I would agree with renting, especially to save you expensive tank reseals. You could learn just fine, assuming you find an instructor that's proficient in a Mooney. But you will have hard landings and overtime those have a tendency to cause fuel leaks in the wet wing. Best beat up someone's 172 or piper then find your dream Mooney. Sounds like you have a good plan. For reference, when I first bought my E model I had 200hrs TT, no complex, HP, or tailwheel. I insured for $50k and insurance was around $2500/yr. Now I'm 325hrs TT, 120 in type, and have it insured for $80k hull. Renewal just came back at $2300. Once I finish my instrument it will bring it down closer to $2000. Important to note, I'm only 23 so I'm sure that's what's hurting me now. Where are you located? If you're worried about fitting in a Mooney you may be able to find members near you willing to let you sit in theirs or maybe even take you up. If you're near central Iowa I'd be happy to take you on a flight. At 6'6" you are going to be fairly tight. I'm 5'10 170lbs and my Mooney Pit fits me like a glove, in a good way. I do have buddies that are 6'4" that fit fine and say they're comfortable but they don't look it haha. With that said, you're likely to be just as cramped in most other piston singles. The only other way you're going to get much more room is if you step to a twin. If you want to move to twins at some point, I personally thing the Mooney is a great plane to get complex time in because it teaches you to fly planes with heavy flight controls and they need to be flown by the numbers.
  13. Yep, that's the one! I've got a 100hr lube and check AD but I'll take that over the elusive NBS spring. It has not been modified to 40:1 gears yet, that's on the (growing) short list.
  14. For the most part, 20W-50 is the default choice for most engines. It does a good job of keeping everything clean and slick. If you let you plane sit for weeks at a time and/or live somewhere without large yearly temperature variations, going with a single weight such as W100 might be a good choice. The idea being the single weight is thicker at room temperature so it sticks to parts longer, providing rust protection. The exception to all of this being any oil that needs LW-16702. You can buy the additive and add it to any oil or buy oil with it already included, such as Shell oils with the plus designation. I personally steer clear of the 15W-50 as I haven't heard the best about engine cleanliness with it. You're also not going to get great rust protection out of it, being so thin. Additionally, there were some issues with synthetic aviation oils not being able to properly scavenge lead from piston rings. While this is a semi-synthetic, it's not something that's worth the risk when I feel 20W-50 is better (and happens to be much cheaper). I order through aviation oil outlet. Anything over $75 is free shipping so I get 2 cases at a time for $136 shipped. Hard to beat $5.67/qt. At the end of the day, the best oil is one that is changed often. I do mine every 25-30 hours. Oh boy, here we go! MMO ftw!
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