T. Peterson

Foreflight will give you the phone number for the actual controlling agency of the airspace over your departure airport, thus negating the necessity of the national 800 number. If you have ForeFlight bring up the airport page and tap on the Info block.

They have GCO now which I am sure is the same thing, but I don’t like it. Cell phone is the ticket.

Yessir, it does go that way sometimes! Fortunately your last statement is also my experience in the Mooney. Generally a direct clearance.

Yikes. But you accessed, adapted and overcame! Oorah! I only do that in solid VMC conditions.

If it is VMC and I am comfortable with the airspace I will almost always pick up my clearance airborne, especially from my home airport of Ennis. Just is simpler than shoving my phone into my ear canal while waiting for takeoff!

Very nice! Great music!

That’s a nifty way to do it. I will have to see if I can make that work. I have been taxing to the run-up area and when I am ready to go I call on the phone and emphasize I am ready to go now. The problem with the way I do it is that even though it only takes a couple of minutes, if someone is behind me I hold them up. So far it has only happened once and it was only a minimal delay, but I still felt bad. If I could call from the hangar and get a release time and a void time it would mitigate that problem. Thanks for the tip!

ForeFlight emails me an expected clearance. I load it into my ultra modern latest technology Garmin 450 and off I go. Occasionally I get a fix or two from ATC, but usually just a few minutes of vectors followed by “cleared destination”. Of course my destinations are not in the heart of busy corridors like you guys on the coasts. My destinations are pretty much, Kansas, Missouri, Alabama and Indiana. I did go to South Dakota one time and had to deal with that busy airspace around Aberdeen!

I certainly second this! I remember the first video when Irmin was just going out to see the airplane. He had a lot of misgivings questioning whether he was doing the right thing. He was pushing and prodding on the plane to see if it might be salvageable. What a journey and what a success story! I am delighted at how it turned out. Congratulations sir Irmin!

This is interesting. If I understand correctly you are actually receiving an effective time followed by a void time 5 minutes later. As I ply the recesses of my mind from years ago I think I may remember getting a release time followed by the void time, but it is foggy. If ATC actually will do that I completely forgot about it till you jogged my memory. My current experience is that if I am not right ready to depart they make me call back when I am within 5 or at the most 10 minutes from departure. Of course that may just be the procedural policy of the facility, but I am very curious as to whether I am interpreting your post correctly which would validate my fading memory, or if I am just having a senior moment!

Very very cool! Well written and informative!

You almost had me till I saw Rags laughing!!

Thank you Will. Did you do the FW thing on the bottom and Massives on top? First I have to get my ridiculous oil leak fixed. Plane is going to DM tomorrow.

What in the world did I write that was so inflammatory? I am utterly puzzled. You had to have misunderstood me or else I have a blind spot a mile wide which is very possible. If you will identify my offense I will apologize profusely and sincerely. I like people and I don’t want anyone to be hurt, offended or angry with me.

A two part question: Why do you run massives on top? Is it an operational reason or do FW’s on top just not make sense economically? Part 2: Is this something that I ought to consider in my 1979 231k, or is it more geared to the larger engines in the later Mooneys.

I am very sorry you are so upset. I have no idea what I said that was so offensive. I am certainly not angry at you or anyone else and I haven’t lashed out at anyone. I do have different opinions on some of the things you mentioned, but so what? My opinion and 4 bucks gets you a cup of coffee. I most definitely would not urge a moderator to censor your opinion. I honestly think you are reading too much into a post judging by your reaction to this one, because I am truly not trying to be offensive. If you were closer I would very much like to take you to lunch. You might see I am not the “d###” you suppose. Peace, my friend, Torrey

Good question. I went back and started from the beginning to see where the “political” bent started. This whole thread was toxic from the beginning and just got more caustic with every post which had absolutely nothing to do with politics. The political bent happened when one poster started talking about shutting posts down and all the folks that have been run off Mooney Space. It was his philosophical notion that sent the thread down an avenue with political overtones. As near as I can tell the political part of the thread was the only part which restored any civility to the discourse!!

Your concern is noted and appreciated. I too want to see increased participation and certainly don’t want to see it diminished. I can’t speak to the idea that political debate has killed off other forums as MS is my only social media outlet. I do wonder if it’s actually the debate or the nastiness that is prone to develop? Apparently one gentleman left because he asked a question about basic med and was buried under criticism. I have observed that it is not the threads with political overtones that have been the most caustic. Some of the LOP threads and more recently one about weighing an airplane generated more heat than I thought was warranted. The other issue is how do you keep out anything with political overtones? Political implications are overwhelming in this day and age and I think that is the main reason it creeps into so many threads. To attempt to totally ignore it is like ignoring the 1000 pound gorilla in the room. Maybe we would be better off calling out one another for being gratuitously unkind in our posts rather than censoring content?

I don’t appreciate that joke either because I don’t appreciate cursing and I despise the “F” word. However I just ignore that stuff and don’t go on a personal crusade. That just gives fodder to the perpetrators anyway. Fortunately I don’t see much low brow stuff on MS which is part of the reason I enjoy it. It’s sort of like eating fish. When I come to a bone I lay the bone aside. I don’t throw the fish away.

Because I don’t want to be provocative. I am not pushing an agenda and I have zero interest in offending anyone. I did find the recent thread on climate change informative and entertaining. I also think that how the government pursues climate change initiatives could drastically impact our ability to enjoy GA. I don’t have all the technical skills or math prowess that is demonstrated by so many of our erudite contributors, but I certainly enjoy reading them and learning something in the process. It would certainly have been a shame to shut down that thread just because there were political overtones. There are other things besides the hard sciences that affect our Mooney ownership. The point I was trying to make was very simple: “Live and let live.” I don’t read every thread on this forum. I read what is of interest to me and I don’t call for anything to be banned or shut down. I also try to be respectful to everyone, especially with those with whom I may disagree. I don’t want to be offensive, rude, overbearing or provocative. Unfortunately that is becoming almost impossible in a declining culture in which daring to have an opinion contrary to the mainstream is in itself offensive. That’s why I urge those who find certain discussions offensive not to read them. On the climate change thread I noted that most of those who objected to the thread never again appeared in the thread. Kudos to them! They didn’t like it so they went to other threads. LIBERTY is wonderful!!!

Your premise is that politics has nothing to do with Mooney ownership. Some would disagree. The philosophy behind some political agendas may be perceived as a genuine threat to our privilege of flight. Some people on MS may enjoy debating those concerns. Some detest the notion. So why can’t the debaters debate and the detesters read threads that are more suitable to their tastes? The irony is that those who supposedly hate politics/philosophy on MS are more than willing to shut down those who disagree. Is that an aviation position, or a political/philosophical position?

Their choice. No one is indispensable.

Folks may not move on. They may choose to linger, but it doesn’t stop me from moving on.

The tools are right at your fingertips. “To click or not to click.”

They were flying it like it was a jet. I initially did the same thing, but fortunately the light bulb went on after reading this forum and 3 or 4 go-arounds from porpoising down the runway like a lovesick “Flipper”! At first I had no idea why the durn thing was doing the dolphin impersonation. Everything looked good and the touchdown was not hard. Sure, the airspeed was 80 to 85 knots but I like airspeed, and it was a lot less than the 135 to 140 I was used to seeing. So I was all set up, feeling good and suddenly we were off to the races! Finally it got through my thick skull that the Mooney was not a jet and it loved airspeed for flying, but not for landing. So even though touchdown was not hard, my pride and joy would just skip off the runway if there was any flying speed at all if for no other reason than to embarrass me! Many on this forum contributed to enlightenment. Even highly trained professionals need the advice of other aviators. A true professional will recognize this and seek it out.