RobertoTohme

Quote: Mcstealth Okay, what do you make of this when it comes to Mooney? RR wants this powerplant to operate 13fl to 15fl, certified to 22fl. Kind of makes you go "hmmmmmm." McStealth

Quote: eaglebkh That's really hard to call. With regard to x-wind landings and given the same rudder (excluding the non-tailcone rudder models), the added moment arm of the longer body is almost cancelled out by the fact that the body is longer and has more weather-vein effects. In other words, the wind has a greater moment arm as well to match. Of course, this is just my judgement based on my recent aerodynamics/structures background in college. As I have never flown a long body, I can't testify to it's x-wind landings ability compared to my E. Wasn't going to post here since it's a modern Mooney board, but since the short body issue got brought up, I'd thought I'd chime in. Again, just my judgement and it's not based on any tests or experiences.

And forgot to mention... a handheld radio too. This will have you fully covered for the unthinkable (and undesirable too). I had an alternator failure once on my Eagle where I had to shed all electrical load to save battery for flap and gear operation at landing since my nearest airport was more than 100 miles away in the middle of northern Mexico where everything is far in between and an off airport landing is considered a felony until the investigation proves it was a true emergency (really stupid, but that's the way it works there), and on another flight (same route, 3 weeks afterwards) the #2 nav/com burned and the heat damaged #1 too, so I was left NORDO... Most people think that "it won't happen to me", but those handhelds can make the difference beween being just an inconvenience or having a really bad day.

Austin, welcome to the Mooney world... I fly both of my Mooneys with electronic charts (Jeppview) on my MFD's (G1000 on one and GMX200 on the other); the advantage of Jeppview over flitecharts from Garmin is that you can install Jepp Flitedeck on a tablet pc, hook up a bluetooth GPS and you have redundant backup for both enroute and approach phases of flight, fully georeferenced, as part of your Jepp subscription. You spent big bucks in getting a great airplane, so the difference in price between Jepp and flitecharts subscriptions is well justified just for the possibility of having a fully redundant backup if you fly IFR on a regular basis, as I do; it's priceless peace of mind knowing you have that system running at your side should the aircraft avionics suddenly decide to take a hike, IMHO...

Congrats on the excellent choice of colors for your interior, it looks lifted right out from a bizjet and into your plane!! Now go and shake the rust off your skills while enjoying your very well done job. Cheers. RT

I saw one in Kerrville about a year ago taxiing for takeoff... I inquired with MooneyMax if they had just serviced but was told that they didn't, neither know who owned the plane. I know very few were made, and had seen them just in pictures before until last year; beautiful airplane, and lots of history too that sprung up from it.

Quote: mooniac58 So, how do you mount your 1620 in your cockpit Roberto?

Pretty nice unit Garmin just presented... It's not that difficult to get used to that kind of bulk, though; I have been flying lately with a Fujitsu lifebook 1620 tablet loaded with Mountainscope by pcavionics (great mapping software!) and Jeppesen Flitedeck, which is part of my Jeppview subscription for the GMX200 on my Eagle. This combo makes the best of both worlds: Mountain and terrain mapping with mountainscope, including synthetic vision (they call it cockpit view), and charting (both IFR and VFR) by Jeppesen; all this for about the same investment not counting WX of Jepp subscriptions. At first is kind of cumbersome to figure where to put the tablet, but in the end I realized that since it's just a back up to a very advanced panel, I just get it going before the flight and lay it on the passenger seat or on my lap if I have a passenger. Since the GPS sensor is a remote bluethoot unit sitting in the dash, no cables need to be run to the tablet as opposed as having to set the unit where it has sky view for the satellites. Who would have thought where avionics are nowadays!

Well, my company is in close contact with Albuquerque FSDO at all times, and we heard rumors that Eclipse is shutting down by yearend; I guess the dayjet fiasco gave them a hard blow on top of all the problems they already had on their hands, including the revision of their type certificate. The only thing I'm sure of is that it's going to get really ugly throughout the next few months....

Quote: GeorgePerry How did your mtg with the folks in Kerrville go?

Well, I'm 6'3", weigh 245 lbs., and I'm as comfortable as it could get; also, my rear seat passengers have never complained about them either. I have flown in the back seat of an Acclaim and, although it doesn't have the legroom of a C182, it was very comfy. Bad rap and misinformation has killed many Mooney sales....

George, I have been using it to track my 135 planes for a while, and it works pretty good; I have it set up to send notices to my blackberry everytime one of our planes files, takes off, lands or diverts. On the other hand, I bet there'll be a few pilots that don't want this information to fall in the hands of their wives! I know a few of them...

Following up with my previous post on this thread, I spent 3 hours at the factory in Kerrville of which the last one was talking to Susan Harrison (international sales) and Cindy Roth (MAC marketing director). Ms. Roth politely listened to what I had to say, and confirmed that a new twist in marketing was being brewed and would be released in the near future, somewhere along the lines of my thoughts but without giving me specifics. Susan and I had a very interesting talk about the international market and what kind of drive and direction she needed to take to bolster Mooney's presence in Latin America, where there's a lot of untapped potential but the structure as it sits right now doesn't necessarily help the matter. So, I guess now it's sit and wait what the new marketing strategy will be... Hopefully a good one.

George, I will be at the factory picking up 8RT from Garmin updates this coming tuesday, and I'll take the time to talk Tom Canavero into a better marketing strategy. I don't know if my pitch would fall into the right ears, but it's worth a try to set them thinking in the right direction.... I have no aviation degree, but I've bought distressed companies and turned them around with sound common sense, good advice and strict cost control, so I know this is possible; I just hope Mr. Gowens is in the listening stage right now and sketching his plan of action for the short, mid and long term future of the company.

Let's face it, It'll take creative marketing to move new Mooneys; remember that Mooney is seen by the broad majority of the aviation community as the "exotic plane"... the one you need to sacrifice utility and comfort for performance, and at a price beyond the competition in it's class; this makes Mooney a "want" airplane" instead of a "need" one. Same as with any exotic car or pleasure boat, marketing those goods becomes more difficult because your prospective customer base narrows a lot. This is an area where Mr. Gowens, coming from and industry of strictly "wants" should come in handy; I've never met anyone that "needed" their Ferrari, or Porsche, or a pleasure boat for that matter, but all of those are being sold in greater quantities than Mooneys. The aura around our planes is full of misconceptions (hard to fly, hard to land, expensive to maintain, etc), and I've never seen an effort from factory to set the record straight. The right marketing can make a company a success; take Cirrus for example, that with a crappy handling airplane has become #1 in sales of the 4 seater class by selling the false sense of security of the CAPS system to yuppies that don't know a damn about aviation, but have the discretionary money for a plane purchase; proof to my statement is their accident record, even with CAPS. That being said, let's at least give Robert Gowens the benefit of doubt about the direction he'll be taking in the future; I'm sure he knows he grabbed a tiger by it's tail but feels up to the challenge, and 2 months is not enough to get a full grasp of the problematic of an old company; 6 months from now we'll have a better picture of the heading taken and then we all can start posting critique about it... On top of that, with this economy souring, the job just became much thougher. Talk about a pissed off tiger he's got now...

With t/o flaps, speed at no less than 80 kts, speedbrakes deployed, one hell of a crab angle that gets kicked out on the flare, and when wheels positively down dump the flap... The long body Mooneys have better rudder arm than the short body type so rudder is more effective. It helps that I operate on really long and wide runways, because it'll sway towards the side the wind is coming from and I let it go a little before correcting to keep the side loads on the mains to a minimum. Not pretty, but effective; and for passengers, nerve wrecking.

I think that a pressure vessel would need to be a new design, but keeping the Mooney lines and heritage. On the other hand, What is it that everybody hates wearing oxigen? I fly my Acclaim in the flight levels all the time and after 2 or 3 flights you get used to it... Hell, now anytime I'm below FL170 I feel like I'm scratching the surface! Of course, I fly mostly where the floor is already over 4000 ft msl... that may give me a bias, though. Even on the Eagle, which has no turbo, I'm seldom below 14000 ft, and most of the time it 17 to 18K (yes, it's running out of breath at those altitudes, but the ride is much smoother) Since I use my Eagle as a lab, I will approach Tradewind Turbines soon with the question of what it would take for them to look into the possibility of converting it to the RR they use in the Bonanza; if the A36 can take it, the modern M20's can too (I think), and it never hurts to ask. I'll be making a trip to their shop in Amarillo within the next 3 weeks to look at their A36's, and to pop the question about the M20. They may just politely show me the door, but I think it's still worth making the effort. I'll post what happens as soon as I do it.

I'm Roberto, proud owner of 2 Mooneys: The '08 Acclaim you see in my avatar, and a ´99 Screaming Eagle (310 HP) which was my ticket into Mooneys almost 3 years ago. This Eagle has very special meaning to me as it has been sort of a laboratory for me and El Paso Aero, as we've been transforming it from the capable but basic avionics package that came out of factory, to one loaded with bells and whistles... Garmin 500W, GMX200, XM weather, Skywatch, Stormscope, S-Tec 55X with altitude selector-alerter and flight director, Insight 1000 air data computer w/ fuel flow, and most recently, an Aspen Avionics display and electric stand-by attitude indicator, that makes it an all electric plane now; the vacuum pump is now just a ballast in the nose. Both are air conditioned, as here in the southwest gets really hot in summertime; and the Acclaim is FIKI TKS'd. Which one I like the most? The honest answer is: depends on the mission at hand, but I put a little more than 100 hrs./year on each of them since I got the newer one. I'm in love with my Mooneys...

Craig, One suggestion lifted from DAA (again...) As this thread is growing larger, Is it possible to add a button labeled "go to first unread" when you open the thread? I don't know if it's cookie based or plain black magic, but at DAA the computer seems to know where I left on each thread since last time I was on it... It's somewhat confusing having to go through all of the posts reviewing where I left last time, and jumping to the last page may cause to miss some postings. What do you think?

Quote: Greg_D HAHAHA, just wait...the drama that unfolds on these aviation forums is something to read. There aren't enough of us here yet....we just need to keep those Bellanca Super Viking guys out of here (for those of you who follow the AOPA forums)

Quote: TurboExec HAHAHA, just wait...the drama that unfolds on these aviation forums is something to read. There aren't enough of us here yet....we just need to keep those Bellanca Super Viking guys out of here (for those of you who follow the AOPA forums)

Quote: GeorgePerry I agree that strap hangers with no hope of ever owning a Mooney are probably not good for the site. Craig will have to do some policing as things mature.

Craig, Is it possible to make the page narrower a little bit? On both of my computers the screen width is not enough to display the full page and the lateral slider comes in... Just a thought. Roberto.

Well folks, this is the type of forum I hoped for... I would not mind at all that it becomes a paid subscription one, as it'll keep it sanitized (as much as possible) from posters that like to be "the sugar of all cofees". Craig, congrats on this effort and keep up the good work.