Hank

Don't forget the improved visibility from inside the cockpit, since the 201 windshield goes several inches further up at the top. Lots of sheetmetal work to be done.

Stopping at KSAV: Sheltair. For fuel, KBNL, Barnwell, SC. KSAV --> KBNL = 68 nm, further than I remembered, more or less north. Expect 6-7 gallons for the trip. I thought the fuel prices were higher than the temperature at Savannah when I was there in June. Must have been 110-115º, sitting at the end of the runway waiting on an airliner to land on the crossing runway and taxi to the terminal before I was cleared to depart. How did I ever get through 2-a-day practice in high school???

There's only the one airport that I could find in Savannah, unless you consider Hilton Head to be "greater Savannah." There are four FBOs; I used Sheltair because I could see their big fuel sign. They took care of me, gave my wife directions to drive out and pick me up [she was already there on business], served good snacks, and gave us a ride to the plane when we left on their golf cart. They also drove [6-8 miles around the runways] to pick us up after I turned in my Avis rental car and brought us back to get in the plane. For fuel, I recommend Barnwell, SC if you are going north. It's about 20-25 minutes' flight, has a nice crew car with COLD air, and saved me over $2/gal since KSAV doesn't much want to sell nasty 100LL. If you have time, the folks at Sheltair also had a brand new LSA on floats that looked like lots of fun. Sadly, I had no time . . .

I like to pull the prop through 2 compression strokes before the first start in the winter. It just seems to help get things moving inside; it definitely gets easier to pull. If I've already flown once that day, I don't generally bother. When I forget, the first revolution is slow, but it cranks up anyway.

The new site looks great, and is certainly faster. Now I can post with my iPad 1; will soon test my Android phone. As of last week, neither could post here. Way to go, Craig!! So where are the emoticons? I want to include one . . .

I had mine stripped & resealed last fall in Ft. Lauderdale (wet wingologists). Don't remember if the warranty is 5 years or 7 years, but it's a long time. Shop the discount airlines, I went round-trip FL to WV for $143. PM for details, but Mooney tanks is Edison's whole business, and he gives a discount for MAPA members. You'll get some good cross-country time going down and back, too. I'm quite happy, and not used to the sudden lack of blue spots on the hangar floor.

Welcome! I'm a 5-year C owner, with lots of fun travel behind and ahead. 1. There is a gear buzzer that sounds in my '70 model if the throttle is reduced to 12" or less and the gear is up. There are two lights on the panel right by the switch--a red one when they are up, a green one when they are down. There is also a lighted mechanical indicator on the floor, red up and green down. 2. Adults find the back seat adequate for short trips. I've never carried four adults longer than ~1½ hours [four men, with only 34 gals of fuel due to gross weight]; they tolerated it to get to Kitty Hawk. Going for lunch or supper won't be a problem. 3. For visibility, I use an angled 2" cushion in my seat [which slides fore/aft but does not raise up]. My wife uses three standard chair cushions, but she's only 5'3". Most passengers use at least one for visibility. She holds 52 gallons, and burns a very predictable 9 gph at altitude [6500-10,000 msl], giving me 5½ hours duration. My longest leg to date, thanks to nasty headwinds and groundspeeds hovering in the 110 knot range [bottoming out at 68 knots clearing the hills around Knoxville], was 4.4 hours and I put in 41 gallons. You'll have a good time flying one! Traveling is great, although I typically run out of space before useful load when traveling with my wife. I measured the cargo door, then went to a Samsonite outlet with my tape measure, and she has the largest suitcase that will fit, as long as I feed it in at an angle until the top corner is inside. The cargo area, stacked near the roof, and the backseat stacked just above the seatback, will hold as much as the trunk of her Corolla [if we don't pack the car full]. It's a dependable 140-knot machine, and I can be in level flight, power set and leaned, trimmed out at 8000' within 15 minutes of engine start at my untowered home field [567' msl].

Kujo-- I had less than 100 hours when I bought my C; your additional hours should reduce insurance somewhat. George Perry has a great thread buried here about what to look for when shopping for a vintage Mooney. I highly recommend use of the search box, it has a lot of great information. C's are great for 2-person travel. I've had 4 adults inside a few times, but it's best for short trips and no luggage, as the back seats get cramped and there's little useful load left for luggage [depending upon the adults!]. F's have more rear seat legroom; E, F & J have more HP, but the fuel injection system management is somewhat more complicated than the carburetor in my C. Go for it, but don't rush into anything. Get a good pre-purchase inspection and negotiate everything that turns up. I bought mine a year or two before I was ready to start looking, because sometimes you actually find the proverbial "deal to good to refuse." I highly recommend attending a MAPA PPP to learn how to properly fly her once you finish your checkout and dual; my PPP started 34 days after finishing dual, and I'm heading back this week for a refresher [400+ Mooney hours later] to see what I've forgotten and what bad habits have snuck in. Either way, have fun and fly safe!

I visit a 2000' grass field with the gravel pile from a cement plant at one end. I never go there heavy, and I certainly never try to depart heavy! All the way to the end, with the tail sticking out over the unmown area; set departure flaps; trim set slightly up, lines mismatched as described above; go to full throttle, release brakes, lift off at 65 MPH. Once positive rate is determined, gear up; raise flaps when above trees or gravel depending on direction. If you can, roll the rough spots to smooth them out. Water makes an excellent weight that won't need transportation to and from the field. I maintain just a little bit of up elevator to lighten the nose. Sometimes a bump will put me in the air below flying speed, keep wings level and set her back down, concentrating on directional control. Other Mooneys live on grass fields, I'm only an occasional visitor. Grass, yes; wet grass is messy to clean up; mud and yuck, no thank you, it will dry out in a day or two, and make for a safe, not-so-messy departure.

Quote: gregwatts I, too, am from the political party that endorses the 201 windshield!

JGG is a nice field, good restaurant, and pretty close to the Historic District. SAV is a fun town, especially the old Waterfront. But the airport isn't close to town. HXD is a great place to visit! W05 is on my list--Gettysburg for me, Hershey for my wife. FFA is nice, be prepared for heat & humidity. It's a short hop [~6½ nm] over to Dare County for fuel. Watch out for other sightseers, and the big red Waco giving tours. I came up from the south, flew along the beach at 1000-1500 agl. Nice views circling lighthouses, detouring out to the end of the capes, etc. Haven't been to Luray since I was a kid, but it was lots of fun. Forgot about the Auto Museum, but it's pretty neat, too. I've heard a lot of good things about Put-in-Bay over on Lake Erie, too. Wherever you go, have fun! Your 2-hour range is a lot further than mine . . . . .

Rich-- Like the others have said, I fly my C into grass strips without any problem, but I avoid soft fields when I know about it. Last year, I delayed my departure from Sun-N-Fun to let the grass camping area firm up some before I taxied out, much less tried a soft field departure. Remember, you only have 9" of prop clearance, and having the nosewheel dig into the mud can quickly reduce that. My normal procedure when carrying a single passenger and light luggage is to put the bottom of the trim indicator even with the top of the "Takeoff" line, a little extra nose-up. When heavier, I put it right on the line; when operating near gross at home, or from grass, I use Takeoff flaps too, just to make sure I get up and over the trees. My Owner's Manual has no information about soft-field operations, but does have this wonderful paragraph that clearly shows a difference between departure in a Mooney and in a Cessna, which is where I transitioned from, too. As speed increases during the takeoff roll, apply back pressure on the control wheel at about 65 to 75 MPH. The aircraft will tend to rock into a nose-high attitude as it breaks ground. To compensate for this tendency, slowly relax some of the elevator back pressure as the nose wheel leaves the runway. Keep the nose on the horizon just after the aircraft breaks ground to allow smooth flight from the runway without an abrupt change in pitch attitude. Maybe Piperpainter will chime in with some tips here. He is also in the Pac NW, flies a C model, and visits all kinds of backwood strips with his tailwheel friends. Look for his videos on Youtube. I can't say I would fly my Mooney everywhere that he takes his, but he is certainly skilled in the types of operations that you are asking about.

I open mine whenever I see anything funny, removing top/left/right sides as necessary. I also remove all three at every oil change. Left cheek to drain the pan; right cheek to put drain under the filter; top to replace the filter. I drop the bottom to change landing lights. The next one will be Whelen Parmetheus LED.

Quote: rbridges not a big deal, but struck me as odd. I got an email yesterday, and he said the TSA came by our local airport. I don't know if they requested it, but he said he needed a copy of my passport or birth certificate and my pilots license to keep on file. just wondering if that's typical. I'm planning on bringing it, but just wondering if anybody else has been asked for this stuff.

Quote: Sabremech I want it to stand out, but not in the way the AOPA cover shot does.

Quote: Antares The addition of power on short final wasn't needed at my glide, except that I was about to induce a lot of drag from putting in rudder to straighten up for a textbook sideslip approach and needed to keep my airspeed up. You really can't tell how windy it is, but you can clearly see the white caps on the water. I approached with full flaps, and I think a combination of running out of (or not using enough) rudder and experiencing the issues with full flaps and gusty crosswinds. The landing that I succeeded at I came in with less flaps and didn't have as much trim dialed in, which I believe caused me to use less backpressure in the flare than I really needed, resulting in me landing flat. I still maintain that the botched landing was not flat. I've also reviewed GPS data of my approach and go around. Both final approaches were around a mile with turns being made at standard-rate.

I often make less-than-standard rate turns in the pattern. To keep from overbanking, I purposely don't press the PC disconnect thumb switch, increasing yoke force. Yet my pattern is still ~½ mile out from the runway. Must be because I fly downwind and base at 90 MPH instead of 100 Knots . . . Fly by the book for your machine, a C is not J, we only share a wing, empennage and landing gear. I'll have to go somewhere to watch the original video. No access to youtube at work, no high speed available at home, and the video won't play on my phone.

Go-arounds are always good to do. So said my CFI, after I did one between Landing #2 and Landing #3 on my initial solo. [she didn't believe me when I said it was just a photo pass!] I still do them from time to time. If something doesn't look good, go around and try again. My earliest one was when a wind gust stood me almost vertical on short final, ~200 agl--rolled level, powered up and landed on the next try; my latest one, like Brian's, was on bounce #2 on a night landing--full power, climb over the trees I can't see, repeating my mantra: make a normal landing, figure out what went wrong later, make a normal landing, figure out what went wrong later. For the curious, I quit flying in the flare, a very bad thing to do, especially at night on a short field with trees at the end . . . Second try was simple, and I thought it all through after I got home.

I have a 4MB copy that covers C models starting with SN 700001 and up. Since it's dated 1970, I don't think it will cover your 77 model. And yes, it's an "Owner's Manual" not a POH. Cool looking "Mooney Ranger" logo, too. Much too large to email, I also have copies of Parts and Service manuals, dated 2006, that cover C, E, F & G models. They run 26 MB Parts and 36 MB Service. I bought them all on one CD from the Vintage Mooney Group. Not sure if this is still available through them or not, but it never hurts to ask. Go to a fly-in and find out, you'll at least have fun and meet some people that way.

Good point, Ward. Partial carb heat works well if you have the "optional Carb Temp Gage" otherwise it should be all or nothing, as in the 172's I trained in. My Carb Temp Gage is an obvious aftermarket, marked in ºC where the OAT is in ºF. But it is functional, I've seen it move around. When it gets into the orange stripe, if the weather is hazy, below freezing and threatening, or in IMC I crack the carb heat until it moves out of the orange. So far, so good.

triple post--I hit "Refresh" twice, then closed Explorer.

double post--hit "Submit" and lost everything on the screen except the Mooneyspace.com header.

Quote: Mooneyjet Beautiful evening tonight so I took the mooneyjet for a flight, on top of the climb I selected the carb heat full on and the engine started to run rough, my first instinct was to shut the carb heat off I level the mooney and did a cause check, I tried mags, and it all check out. I then turn the carb heat back on and once againg the engine started to run. Very rough to the point that I was starting to look for a field to land, I reduced the power and tried the. Carb heat and voila it run smooth like it always has when carb heat is applied, I applied power to 25 square. And again the engine would run rough with the carb heat on. Has anyone experience anything similar to my snag. The irony is that one of my last post was about converting a carb to fuel injection go figure looks like the old girl is barking back.

Oh, the joys of being single. Fix up the J; add Aspens; trade the J for a K; do an Encore conversion; repaint . . . Do I remember correctly that you reserved an N-number but are now not painting it on the plane? I'm having [vicarious] fun just observing and reading your periodic performance reports. "Zoom, zoom" might be Mazda's new slogan, but you are doing a much better job of it. You are certainly more free to move around the country than anyone on Southwest Airlines, too, and in much greater comfort!

Quote: Parker_Woodruff 19-22 minute climb to FL200 at 100% power, 115-120 KIAS, approx 25 GPH = 8.33 Gallons 24-27 minute climb to FL200 at 85% power, 110-115 KIAS, IIRC approx 13.5 GPH = 5.4 Gallons (plus the initial 1000-2000 feet were at 25 GPH) so let's call it = 6.0 gallons I've also now sacrificed 4-6 minutes of not going 190 KTAS, and am more like 145 KTAS in the top of the climb.