dlthig

I've never flown an O, but I can comment on the Saratoga. I had a good friend allow me to fly his Turbo-Saratoga for a while. It was very plush with a/c and full glass. It had plenty of room in the back and my family thoroughly enjoyed it. Now my wife and kids have a fairly high bar for their comfort. The down side, it never saw a gas station that it didn't like and the useful load was only a little over 1000 pounds. I was shocked when he showed me in the logbooks. Older Saratogas/Lances have better useful load, some are around 1400. I suppose my point is make sure you get into the details for each airplane before you go too far down the road. Good luck.

I earned my civilian instrument rating 20+ years ago with dual MK12Bs and KR86 ADF in my Cherokee 180. I'm not a fan of paying for things twice, so I'd upgrade to the largest WAAS GPS/COMM that will fit and that should get you what you need. Your KX-155 is great and there are plenty used ones out there if you need a replacement. You may be able to find some used equipment from your avionics shop to save some money. I'm a big fan of training like I fly. While it's noble to want the experience of flying needles, you will be a better IFR pilot learning your aircraft and it's systems. Otherwise, you get to pay and learn twice. Besides, you can always turn the GPS off. Good luck and enjoy the training. DLTHIG IGI, CFII, USAF AIS - all of this and I only pay $5 for a latte.

Many years ago on the day that was supposed to be my first lesson, a Lance had a stuck nose gear and my to be instructor and I watched his landing, If I recall correctly, he had a two blade prop and did shut down the engine. However, he didn't get it positioned quite right and bent a blade. I don't know what else became of the incident. I didn't give it much thought at the time. Since then I've had a few more ideas. I think the idea of stopping the prop and saving the engine sounds good, but it doesn't fit into my risk-reward matrix very well. You'd better know what you are doing and you don't have a mulligan if you decide to shut down the engine. I'd guess that most of us fly out of GA fields that aren't 10,000'. I'm also willing to guess that most major airports would rather you go somewhere else to gear-up your airplane and not shut down their runway. Run the checklist, phone a friend or whatever, but backing yourself into a one-way corner unnecessarily usually isn't a good idea. Let the insurance figure it out. I'm a big fan of using superior judgement and avoiding the use of superior skills.

Many years ago when I had a Cherokee 180, I had similar problems with my Nav/Coms. That's when I bought a hand held Nav/Com. I don't know the Lear pilot who worked my relay that day but I appreciated it. I'm happy to relay crossing 30W when all of the HFs are ganked up from a sunspot, still paying it forward.

I don't know how to set up a fillable excel sheet online, but it would be interesting to see real-world numbers for cruise for various Mooneys. I ran the numbers on the AOPA calculator, but it didn't appear to compensate for altitude, you just plugged in whatever for cruise speed, altitude and burn rate. If the Air Force wasn't so stingy they would have given me a T-37 to play with after they replaced them with the T-6.

Thanks gents. I read the MAPA article and some others. I wanted some real world validation of their numbers. It will most likely come down to useful load and equipment when I finally go off the deep end.

Bringing back an old thread... I've got three likely profiles/missions. They are 550NM, 400NM and 200NM. I need to be able to make the 550NM trip nonstop with IFR reserves and the family. My family is about 500lbs and should top out around 650 over the years. I have a boy and girl. I know the K will make the trips faster, but which will burn the least fuel and leave me with more flexible options WRT ALTs or WX, J or K? I wouldn't expect to need O2. I'd probably fly the J in the 6-8K and fly the K in the 8-12K range. I may eventually get my family to wear O2, but not out the gate. Thanks.

This is most certainly a thread creep, but here is a fairly comprehensive list... http://www.mooneyevents.com/chrono.htm

Back to an old thread, she's back on the market, unless it's been for sale the whole time. I haven't paid much attention lately, $89,750.

I would hope that by 2016 engineers carry more weight than salesmen. Remember Piper's bright idea around 1978-9 to put a T-Tail on the Arrow and Lance? T-Tails on twins are OK, but on a single, not a fan.

She looks good. Just out of curiosity, what is the useful load?

OK, well I'm having some issues quoting.... I'm sure Boeing will let you have a C-17 for $200 mil, give or take. I'm guessing they are on sale since the line has shut down. For a scant 20K pounds per hour you can travel in comfort with 54 of your closest friends with 4 or 5 SUVs and all of your luggage. It's really a bargain. The runway length isn't that much of a problem, we can land on 3500' around 475K. She's a little girthy, 285K empty. Cracking the runway is the bigger issue. It's been around long enough that there are plenty of retired pilots to fly it. Yep, you should get one!

Kelly, Good luck with whatever you decide. I've lucked into flying someone else's T-Saratoga. It's a great airplane with wonderful avionics, but doesn't carry much over 1K, it has A/C. The Lance and earlier Saratogas are better at hauling than the later ones. I've also got some time in a Comanche B. That would be a great airplane and will fit your range and load requirement. If you have an imagination, you can call it 6 seats. If you go that route, watch out for the tail AD and try to get one that was maintained by Bill Turlow in Bartow, FL. I think a C-210 would be just about the perfect airplane for flying a family of 4 with good speed and payload. For me, every time I look at the calculator, I just don't fly GA enough to justify owning a airplane. Perhaps when I give up the C-17, I'll have more time.

Congratulations! It's an awesome feeling. My dad and I bought a Cherokee 180 nearly 20 years ago. I didn't fly it much after UPT and sold it. For the past few years I've been looking, lurking and searching. I'll pull the trigger again, but for now I'm babysitting a friend's M20J.

When I first started flying I bought a pair of P-51 headsets from Pilot Avionics. After I became a CFI I started selling them as a dealer. Their customer service was great and I didn't see much difference from Pilot and other more expensive headsets. Last month I sent my 15 year old ANR headsets in for a refurb. I think that it was about $100, which included a new comm cord. For about $500 you can get their ANR headsets. I think that they come standard with a wired music/cell phone input. You can buy a bluetooth option, but I don't remember the price.

Flew to Santa Maria today, so here are some more observations. I had warned the wife to expect all hell to break loose when they were deployed, based on my last experience. I had a couple good opportunities to use the. I had to stay three thousand feet high as I approached KSMX due to overtaking some traffic below me. I hit the button at about 135 knots and my wife braced herself and she's not the bracing kind. The speed brakes came out of the wings and...nothing. I don't mean we didn't start decending, it just wasn't the loud rumbling I had heard on the previous trip. Again, I found myself getting low quicker than I expected and I easily made it down without any problem (for burritos and a fried ice cream the size of a cantalope). On the way back to KBUR (at a place where I like to be at 3000 coming in to the airport), I was asked to stay above 4500, also, due to traffic (the pattern of the day). Normally, that would have been a problem, but having the ability to modulate my descent, we easily got on glideslope. This time, I extended and retracting them twice to fine-tune everything. In summary, you can use them coming into the airport with out freaking out your passengers (assuming you're below about 130 knots). Now my transponder is acting up (no altitude). Guess it's going back to the shop. By the way this is not dlthig. Mooney Space is doing something weird. 16LPilot...out.

As a CFII, I'd prefer to give the BFR in your airplane. Unless you are wanting to learn something new, I'd expect you to want to be the master of your bird. I gave a buddy a BFR last month in his Comanche. We did some things that he hadn't done since his Commercial. The point is to move some chips from you luck bucket to your experience bucket.

PM me and I'll send you a spreadsheet on the J. or tell me how to post.

You can check out TBR, Statesboro, it has an ILS for foggy days. It will depend on where you will live. I talked to a couple of guys this weekend with a Bo that live in Springfield that keep the plane in the 'boro. Also, look at Claxton, like the fruitcake.

Quote: agassi70 Maybe what about comparing the Comanche 260?

Go to planequest.com. There are operating costs on the left side. I made an initial spread sheet to compare some types. PM me or tell me how to post.

From what I remember. Mooney, Slingsby and Marchetti and maybe another one bid on the T-41(C-172) replacement back around the late 80's. Some folks think there was a backdoor deal to get the Slingsby T-3 for flight screening involving the C-17 sale to the Brits. I don't know. The plane was fun to fly, but it wasn't initially designed to do what it did. The program lasted a few years then the AF grounded the T-3 and crushed them into little bits. Shame.