Sorry for the long post, but I think some of the more experienced members of this awesome group can help me.
I am not a Mooney owner or pilot, but I have long been a Mooney fan since I earned my CPL back in 1980, and especially more so after flying an Acclaim a couple of times some 10 years ago. We own a turbo Arrow IV in the family since 2006, which is a plane that has different pros & cons from Mooneys. So aircraft ownership background is not a problem.
We are thinking of a second airplane and the question is “how much a vintage M20E would really make sense” (although planes don’t make sense, I know). Some of my doubts are:
1. What are the differences for each year, considering corrosion, improvements, performance, etc.
2. When was the square window introduced ?
3. What real world performance is to be expected: TAS x FF x RMP x FL x range ?
4. I’ve seen vintage round window M20Es with lots of speed mods, almost looking like short body M20Js. What real difference does this make performance wise ? (we have all the speed mods in the turbo Arrow, so we know they do not add that much speed as advertised…).
5. There are different panel layouts, some have been upgraded, so for a newbie it is somewhat hard to know when the original panel layout has been changed in the production line. Some have throttle quadrants, other have vernier controls, but what year had what version under what ownership ?
6. I understand there are some model years that are better than others, e.g. not having flush rivets anymore, integral belly, or having poorer corrosion protection, but I cannot find out which years and which years should be avoided.
7. What has to be avoided, and what maintenance problems are chronical (tank sealing surely seems to be one of them) ?
8. Is it legal to remove the back seats and how easy is this ? The idea is to carry bikes, and the plane will be used for 2 POB most of the time (and after all, the rear leg room in the short bodies is very limited).