eyes_skyward

Problem solved! Thanks Layton

Hello all, and I hope your Memorial Day is going well. I’m a frequent reader but infrequent poster on MS. I managed to mess up Mother’s Day last year dealing with a flat tire on a taxiway. Today I’m in Chattanooga hoping to get back to Chicago this evening, but on run up I found what my IA suspects to be a bad spark plug on the #3 cylinder. Of course everything’s closed today. Any bright ideas on where I could get my hands on one or ideally two plugs for an IO-360-A3B6D? Willing to drive a few miles if someone has extras. It also wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if I have to wait until tomorrow, so nobody think about going to extreme lengths to help. Just posting in case there happens to be someone close who can help easily. Thanks! Bob

I just went up to the tower at my home field last month to say hi and ask some questions. I called the number and they said sure, come right over. Thirty seconds later I was met at the door and led up to the cab. Seemed like no big deal at all, but this was a very slow day and they were apparently well staffed for that particular day. It was fun, I learned a few things, and it was interesting to put faces with voices.

Came here to mention something similar to this. The deceleration was much more *ahem* instantaneous than I was expecting the one and only time I jettisoned an object out of the pilot side window, even when slowed down to 80 knots. (Yes, I'm an idiot and this sounds totally predictable, as I type this several months later.) So whatever the object is, it drops a lot less vertically than you might imagine in the time it takes to reach the horizontal stabilizer. Furthermore, on that side of the fuselage I think the air in the prop-wash is moving upward. Depending on the object, that could mean a bad day for the airplane and potentially its occupants. A mini pumpkin seems like it might have the right mass and drag to cause a problem if tossed out the small window. Just in case anybody was piecing together a few of the ideas on this thread. Bob

Yeah, this is very sad. Looks like N30EV, a K coming from New Mexico according to FlightRadar24. I'm in Illinois and had to make sure to alert certain people that this was not me before they started to worry.

First of all, yes, I also would have been upset to arrive at the airport to see my path blocked, particularly if the flight was for business. I probably would have done the same as you, including cooling off after a while and not spending the time with FSDO. I was just curious, @ilovecornfields, if you exchanged any words with the crew? I have no idea what it takes to move one of those machines once it's in position, but I would think a conspicuously worn hospital badge and perhaps a *slightly* embellished explanation of why there was no alternative to flying that day might count for something. I could see it working beautifully or completely backfiring, depending on what kind of day they are having.

My big opportunity! I’m at KARR with a relatively new-to-me J. PM you with a few details.

There's what I was waiting for! Thanks, -a-, now I feel like one of the family. I've already appreciated the interesting viewpoints you bring to a given conversation, by the way. Yes, I think the plane's been well-loved by a couple of different owners. Not sure exactly what happened with Kyle and Latitude, but I know they are on good terms.

Thanks @Hank! I did sign up for MAPA but hadn't been aware of the PPP. Looks like I'm going to just miss the last 2021 session in Wichita. That's another thing this site helped me with -- I found and made contact with a couple of good instructors in downstate Illinois, both of whom were extremely helpful and flexible in their offers to help me train. In the end, though, I found a CFI 2 miles away from me with lots of Mooney time.

Very funny, @201Mooniac. Somewhat interestingly, this plane has an Avidyne IFD540. Since I've almost exclusively used Garmin in rental aircraft, I was at first thinking, "Oh, that's simply going to have to go and I'll put a 750 in there instead." But the seller was so enthusiastic about it, I had to check it out, and sure enough it's quite a decent box. I'm probably going to keep it and may not end up doing too much else with the panel as far as upgrades. At least for a while

Greetings, Mooniacs! As of today we are the proud owners of a very-well-taken-care-of J, and we even have the Mooney baseball hats for the whole family to prove it. I wanted to thank many of you for all of the indirect help you've supplied to me over the last several weeks. You haven't seen my username before, because although I've certainly had plenty of questions, I really didn't feel the need to make any new posts because of that little search box on the upper right part of my screen. That and some in-person help from a few key people made the acquisition process pretty darn painless. I've already made a donation to help keep the site running. Are plugs allowed? I'll try one and see what happens. One of the guys who made everything easy for this first-time aircraft owner is @Kyle Koukol of KBK aircraft sales. He also owns a 201, I believe, and was able to spot a good one for me and knew what it was worth. He also didn't mind answering a million questions even before I formally retained his services. Think about contacting him if you are looking to acquire a Mooney or list one for sale. I've got a bunch of plans for this bird, some of which my wife even knows about and supports! So maybe at some point I'll have a unique question I'll need to ask. But for now, I'll continue to mostly lurk until I feel I have enough Mooney experience to comment on such important topics as in-flight urine collection devices and how many 5-knot multiples are acceptable to add to our claimed cruise speeds. Now can I please get my big first-post welcome from a certain somebody who is rather fond of ellipsis...?