Ben Woodard

That is pretty much exactly what I’ve decided to do. Do the easy non-mechanical stuff and have the mechanic address the few squawks. The kicker for me was the difference between VREF value in one condition vs. in another condition. Pricing the plane with that taken into account just is too much for me. The Mooney has been a part of the family. It is how I met my current wife which led to my daughter. Plus, there is still some limited debate about keeping the plane vs. upgrading. The mechanical stuff on the airplane is really good, that is where I’ve put most of my airplane dollars over the years. Looks have been a secondary concern. I totally understand the concern with the next buyer not liking it. I’ve seen some interiors which make me cringe. My wife is an artist though and I think if we steer towards timeless practical design and not something “stylish” in the current vernacular or “trendy” then we’ll be fine.

Lots of good points there. Thank you. Really thinking about it, I have to admit that I’m not quite ready to sell either the Mooney or the DeLorean yet and by that I do not mean, not emotionally ready to sell. I mean, there are a bunch of steps getting ready to sell a plane. These include things like you mentioned: 5) Price the plane appropriately. — I haven’t even plugged into VREF yet. 6) Wash and wax - need to do that 7) Address AW issues - just took it on a family vacation after annual and found a couple of squawks. Haven’t made it to the shop yet. 8) Take, gather and post pictures. plus getting all the logbooks in order. I’m more at the beginning of process than what I would call “ready”. 10) Yeah both I and the previous owner got our IRs in this plane. I grew up on the east coast where you actually have weather but I have to admit that I’m a west coast IFR pilot and soon after I got my IR, I really came to understand the limitations of this plane. In low lands of the the east it is fine, and out here It is fine for a quick “pop through the marine layer” but crossing the Sierras or Trinity mountains IFR in the winter when we actually have IMC is really not possible in this plane. You are starting to run out climb performance just as you are hitting the freezing layers and the MEA is still thousands of feet above you. I pulled quite a few “reverse course, descend below freezing levels to shed ice” aborts as a freshly minted Instrument pilot before I learned this. I’m personally a color screens kind of guy but I’ve always flown needles. Probably doesn’t matter to me but I would say that I’ve changed my last vacuum pump, The next time one dies on me, I’m going digital.

I guess I am so inclined. I was thinking of doing some of the interior myself. The carpet has like 40 years of stains on it. I figured that I could pull it out and install a new carpet. Then I was thinking of having an upholsterer who’s familiar with aviation redo the seats. My wife is an artist and was going to help pick colors. Regarding working on DeLoreans - oh cool. I’ve done a fair bit of that myself. There is a funny story about the DeLorean. The father of Paul Lowen, the guy who used to own LASAR, had a DeLorean and was putting it up for sale when I showed up for an owner assisted annual one time. I needed a car at the time and had just come back from Burning Man and wanted something cool and interesting and so I kind of started out trying to buy Paul Lowen’s father’s DeLorean but we just couldn’t come to an agreement. As part of the negotiation process, I searched for comps and had researched several other DeLoreans and when I was frustrated with Paul’s father I bought one of them. I think it was Robert Brown the service manager at LASAR that later told me, that the underlying problem was that Paul’s father really didn’t want to part with it even though he was getting to the age when he really shouldn’t be driving. Evidently, it took a few more months for him to finally get to a place where he was willing to let it go. The DeLorean was my daily driver for a couple of years and we had some really good times for a while until at one point, I kind of raged out trying to parallel park it on a steep hill in SF and I went off and bought a Tesla Roadster. Plus by that point, all the attention was starting to get old. I realized it was kind of like dating a celebrity, everyone feels at liberty to come up to you and talk to you but it is not about you, it is about who you are with. Sure it was great having my car featured in hip-hop videos, and the porn shoots were — uh — entertaining but people were not at all interested in me, just the car. Anyway, here are some unflattering shots of my current interior which I sent off to the upholsterer so that he could give me a quote and a couple of shots of the DeLorean (which really needs a bath - I just bought a case of kitchen stainless polish, the best stuff)

I have an old 1965 M20C which I’ve had for about 22 years. It has been a great plane but I’m really feeling the urge to upgrade to something newer and turbocharged; I now live in Truckee CA and am based out of KTRK. The old C model just doesn’t have the pep to takeoff from 5900’ then quickly climb up to an en route altitude which is almost always over 10K around here. My hope is sell a classic car that I have, a DeLorean, and the old M20C, and use it to put a good down payment on a K model. The paint was done in the summer of 1999 and is still in pretty decent condition. It could use a few touchups here and there but it is OK. However, the interior was last redone in I think 1974 and it really is showing its age. The interior has not been a priority for me. My question is: Knowing that often times people buy with their eyes, should I upgrade the interior and fix some of the paint chips before putting the plane on the market or just leave that for the next person? In other words, is it likely worth the investment to put some money down to make it look nicer expecting that I would get a notable portion of it back when I sell it. Mostly, I was thinking about reupholstering the seats with leather and replacing the carpet. The plastic is in remarkably good shape except for the door so I think that can stay. The other thing that is floating around in the back of my mind is, if it doesn’t sell for a price that I’m willing to accept then I have a nicer looking plane.