Hank

Some of us aren't planning to equip. ATL won't let me i side the Bravo anyway, unless my destination is there (hasn't been so far . . . ). Since I already can't play, I'm not gonna pay to keep not playing.

@carusoam, the second link in both of your posts returns "Server Error in '/' Application", followed by a screenful of tiny writing. That's why I looked for the link. Maybe your link only works for i-things and not my 'droid?

So which facts are wrong? Does the Caravan fly more than once a year? Does the whole group practice together, in the air, before going to Osh? I did study up on the pre-formation-training Caravan, as i had a decent shot at attending when based in WV. Now scheduling is somewhat more difficult . . . And the timing interferes with the CFO's annual family confab at the beach [tyoically 50-60 people]. Oh, I did discover that it's 61nm KMSN-KOSH, so 30 minutes is pretty close, takeoff to touchdown. With all the ground time, pilots probably log an hour, more so for those at the back. But the flight itself is still only about 30 minutes. This reminds me of a friend who invited me to join the Masons. I said "what do you do?" His answer, like yours, was "join and find out." My answer was "I don't have time to join every group I hear about to find out what they do and if I'll enjoy it. I find out first; if it sounds like a good fit, I'll go visit; if it's good, I'll stay and join." So thanks for your kind offer to join up and find out what it's like, but I don't have time to join even every flying group that I hear about to see what each one is like and if it's a good match for me . . . .

Scroll tomthe bottom of any page. Under the bright white "MORE INFORMATION" heading is a tiny little word "shop." That's the Mooney swag link to the Speed Shop. Real obvious and easy to find, isn't it? I thought I had seen it before, but had to look to find it now.

FTFY!!

In an emergency, just screw in a socket head cap screw [used with Allen wrenches], the tip of the jack will fit into the hexagonal hole in the bolt. Take a tie down ring to the hardware store to match thread size [5/16-18 x 1" should work], but I would not get inside the plane while jacked this way . . . . The bolt head is too small and will allow rocking, which could be disastrous! But you can work on tires, brakes, gear legs, doors.

The Blues and Birds fly lots and lots of practice with each other, then they have several dozen shows. Caravan participants fly some practice, not necessarily with who they are paired with to Osh. The actual Caravan is once a year., Madison to Osh the weekend before the Show. As for length, I'm sorry, is it a 30-minute flight? I'm not saying Caravanners don't practice, but they practice in small groups, not the elements they will fly in, and never as an entire formation. The Blues get hundreds of hours together before Air Show season starts. There is no comparison, and trying to do so is silly.

My wife bought two new seat cushions that tie onto chair seats. She's 5'3" and sits on both. Shoot, I'm 5'11" and sit on a tapered 2" gel cushion, which lets me see the tip of the cowl and greatly improved my landings.

Wow! It's the rare Twin Mooney! Performs like a small Twin Mustang, I've heard . . . .

Think how much they could have sold at Osh . . . .

We call ours "the Mooney" or "the plane." Not "da plane!", just "the plane" without the funny accent . . . 'cause we dont have Tattoo . . .

The left nose wheel door arm broke on mine, helpfully pointed out by the lineman while parking. Flew home gear down, called A&P on Monday, ordered new one from Lasar. The shiny new part:

The groundspeed envelope for my C, at altitude with pretty much the same power settings and IAS [usually 140-145 mph], is 68-186 knots. According to my owner's Manual, I should expect 158-164 mph [137-142 knots]. So neither GroundSpeed nor Indicated Air Speed is any good for determining performance. Thus the need to determine True Air Speed. Without scrolling, clicking and hoping to get everything right [my OAT is in ºF but the GPS wants it in ºC], there's a quick way to estimate TAS: just look at your Airspeed Indicator and add 2% for every 1000' shown on your altimeter. For 144 mph at 7500 msl, that would be 2 x 7½ = 15%, so 144 + 15% = 165.6 mph with a calculator, or 144 + 14 + 7 + a smidge = 165+ using my head. Close enough. Try this and see how it compares to your Performance Charts. Another neat thing about 7500 msl--the 15% conversion is also the same as mph-->knots, so 144 mph indicated at 7500 is also 144 knots True Air Speed. Makes the math easy.

My GPS gives groundspeed, unless I go to a back screen and enter altimeter setting and OAT. Such is life with steam gauges . . .

The Thunderbirds, like the Blue Angels, fly in dozens of shows around the country every year, each an hour or so long, and sometimes purposefully a fraction of a wingspan apart. The Mooney Caravan flies once a year, about 20 minutes, and they plan to be 1/2 mile apart until final when they shorten up to still be more than a wingspan apart to land. Not quite a good comparison . . . .

There are several monitoring our borders. These are monitoring and surveilling fellow American citizens! Do we really need Big Brother watching everywhere that everyone goes???

You young whippersnapper! I soloed at 43, PPL at 44, IA at 47. While I hope to become a UFI, flying at 93 is rather doubtful . . . .

They will never overcome the human in the left seat. Having the chute has been demonstrated to not keep people from departing into conditions that they can't handle, or to attempt flights (many safety completed, some not) that the pilot would not have tried without the chute. Very few if any will fly a plane with BRS the exact same way and mission profile that they would without it, thus the safety improvement will never be what the many apologists proclaim so loudly. And that also confounds attempts to calculate the real safety benefit, besides the fact that every situation when the chute has been pulled would not have been fatal without it.

This is how I did Alaska. Wasn't in Cali or Vegas long enough to fly . . . .

Nothing quite like beating a dead horse. Five posts? Really?????

My C has two static ports, just no tail trim to balance out, only slips. The only time I've had jssues with water in my static line was when a new IA did an annual, and apparently finished washing the plane while Imwas driving over to pick it up. The stall horn sounded as soon as I turned in the master, and his "fix" was to pull the breaker. That was the last time he touched my plane (Jan 2015). I used to religiously push both drains during preflight, but years of nothing even when parked outside in the rain has led to complacency. Guess it's time to recommit before something happens . . . . .

Call it 150 AMU for kit, engine, avionics, etc. They advertise ~1500 hours average build time. Skilled fabricators can earn $25-30/hour; benefits add another ~30% to that. So: 1500 x 30 x 1.3 = 58 AMU That's > 200 total for a basic 2-place airplane, no overhead, no administrative costs, no inventory, no inventory tax, no property or inventory insurance, no worker's comp, no liability insurance, no "extras" like fancy paint schemes, embroidered interiors, upgraded carpets / windows / avionics, no personalization and certainly no sales costs (advertising, literature, websites, photography ground and air, salaries, commission, demo flight costs, maintenance, more insurance), no warranty costs and certainly no profit . . . . Yes,mit really does take money to make money!

Just proves he's a normal human. When ABS brakes first came out, accident rates for equipped cars went down, enough so that I got an insurance discount for about three years. Then human nature asserted itself, people realized they could stop better without sliding and started driving faster and following closer because they had an "out." Accident rates went back up to where tbey had been and insurance discounts went away. Chutes in a plane are tbe same way. Long term accident rates will stabilize at normal levels as pilots figure out tbey can take those riskier fligbts, because if it doesn't work out, they can pull the chute. Like Mr. Breathless and his selfie video, which to me was more of an ad for his personal location device. In my Mooney, I'd have kept the gear up and aimed for that nice lake in the background, close to shore. That's not a good option with fixed tricycle gear, but it looks like the trees weren't, either. I'll say it again: look up Risk Homeostasis. It's human character, period, and it applies to all of us in varying degrees from one activity to another. Reminded me of the Cirrus pilot I read about in AOPA magazine who departed into low IMC, became disoriented and pullled the chute, landing a couple of miles from his point of departure. Betcha in a chuteless plane, he'd have stayed in the ground until conditions improved. So how much "safety" did his chute add to the flight? It emboldened him to make a risky flight, then kept him alive when the house won, which happens a lot when you bet against the odds . . . .

Review your logbooks, put post-its on pages to discuss with your instructor. Write paragraph numbers on post-its for flights that count, throw away the ones that don't.

And cannot be retrofitted onto our planes at any cost. So why keep harping on it???