FlyingAggie

José Was that a special or an everyday price? I found a Banyan Air at FXE by doing a Google search but didn't see fire extinguishers listed on their online store http://www.tropicaero.com. I need to buy a fire extinguisher for my new plane. Anyone have a suggestion of the best place to buy a small Halon fire extinguisher? (Well besides the "usual suspects" i.e. Sporty's, Chief or Aircraft Spruce?) Alan Quote: Piloto That's exactly the one I have on the pictures but I paid $40 at Banyan at FXE. BTW be careful when pushing back the seat, a local Mooney owner broke the pressure dial of the extinguisher on the spar when he pushed back. Set the seat stop forward to avoid this. $800 is definitely too much for the Mooney kit. For that money you can get two oxygen bottles with cannulas. José

Don Kaye, a very experienced Mooney flight instructor (http://www.donkaye.com/Dons_Homepage...struction.html ) delivered the plane to me on Tuesday and he did it quickly. Take a look at the tracks from SJC-MLF-LMO. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N262MB. Don said this was one of the fastest M20K he has flown! (He probably tells all new Mooney owners that ;-) but I loved hearing it!) He actually made the trip to CO in the Mooney in less time than his return trip to on a Southwest Airlines. My instructor, who has almost as much experience as Don, is Cleon Biter from Longmont, CO. Wednesday, I spent the entire day with Cleon. We did a four hour ground school in the morning. We then made two flights of 1.7 hrs and 1.6 hrs. On the first flight Cleon just let me play for a while doing turns and getting used to the controls.. He demonstrated setting the power by using the JPI to monitor TiT and watching the hottest cylinder, and how to use the mixture, cowl flaps and speed to control the engine temperatures. Followed by some slow flight, a stall and then back to LMO where I made my first landing. It was not my best, but certainly not my worst either. Next flight we did stalls and slow flight and practiced putting the plane in landing configuration and then we did three landings. Rather than just staying in the traffic pattern, Cleon has had me take off, leave the pattern, go into cruise configuration, head to a close by airport, plan my slow up, configure for landing, and land to a full stop. I am learning that landings are much easier if you use the right power settings in the pattern and trim, trim, trim and trim! We flew again early Thursday morning for 1.2 hrs going LMO--GXY--FNL--LMO. I felt good about all three landings. We did a take off without flaps. Cleon throws in some systems work in between airports. I have learned to use Shadin Fuel Flow, JPI 700 and the basics of the KFC200. So I now have 4.5 hrs and about half way through the 10 hrs insurance requirement. I have learned to use the fuel flow to make course leaning adjustments and then fine tune with the JPI. I feel like a student pilot all over again! I still have so much more to learn, but I am feeling pretty good about my progress. The snow storm today is interrupting the flying for a couple of days, but I plan to use the down time to read through the Garmin 530W and SANDEL Manuals.

Dave, Congratulations. She is an awesome find. Coincidentally, I have been on a Mooney hunt for the last 2.5 years and I became a Mooney owner on the same day as you. Don Kaye is to deliver my plane from CA on Tuesday and I hope to have my first transition lesson on Wednesday. We will have to compare notes. Alan

Buster, I think Ed's 252 is a great value, especially considering his price reduction to $125K and having the tanks and donuts fixed. I would be going after it had I not just not bought the 262. Alan Quote: Buster1 Aggie, thanks, I saw that one too. Couldn't find any damage history in the reports, but one webpage had a note about some damage repaired long ago. Seems a little low on total cost for a brand new engine. Thoughts? Yeah, I'll be avoiding the one in FL with the runout engine. Thx!

You may really appreciate it if you wind up with a 231 w/o autowaste gate and want to precisely control the MP. Quote: Buster1 Still seems silly huh?

While at my pre-buy/annual last week at LASAR, I asked about operating the TSIO360-MB in my new (to me) plane LOP and they said they don't recommend it and that it is particularly hard on valves. The valve need fuel for cooling. My plane does have GAMI's and an engine monitor, so in theory I should be ableto run LOP. So I am undecided at this point, but plan on taking the APS to find more about "the dark side."