Amelia

Oh, yes, and lots of emergency landing options all along the route, OLFs, civilian and military airports, ag strips, and this time of year, miles of deserted beach. And it is a treat for the passengers. Controllers through that airspace are good folk.

If it’s a beautiful VFR day, asking for the beach route makes for a very pretty ride. Otherwise, it’s miles and miles of pine trees. I’ve always had the controllers happy to shepherd me through the military airspace right along the gulf, with views of boats, manta rays, sharks, and white sand.

And for a mere pittance of a nominal contribution to the company’s corporate health, Genesys will fix whatever went up in smoke, and send my original serial number back, with refurbished or repaired innards. Least that’s what I heard. Who knows? But I did have fun for a minute dreaming of all the new and sexy I could stuff in that lovely bird’s panel.

Yes. That, all the rearranging and add-ons, and the fact that I never feel the need to fly to 200 and a half, anymore, means the old and somewhat limited System- 30 will serve me fine.

Oh? There are a&p s looking for work? Mine taught it at a local college, they all made bee lines for the majors. He, good man, is looking to hire.

We ARE looking at technology 15 or 20 years old, analog stuff in an increasingly digital world. All the cool kids are going with Garmin, and other snazzy options not even certified for Mooney. The bins are full, if eBay is to be believed, of perfectly good old-school autopilots removed in favor of autopilots that will even rewarm your coffee. Will they work with what I have? Ah. That, my friend, is why I have an expert or two I’ll pay handsomely to do what must eventually be done.

Aw, Mike... you dear. ☺️

OK. A long look in the mirror has convinced me that the fancy and sexy boat sailed some years ago. So STec30 repair/cleaning/OH is the sensible way to go. An avionics tech I know and have great faith in will stop by next time he’s in the neighborhood, look things over, remove what he needs to, clean what he can, and restore what came with. And I’ll keep on using heading mode, once there’s no more smell of burning electrons. The idea of upgrade got to involving too much rearranging, of panel space and existing boxes, not to mention new pieces and parts and way too many weeks and weeks of down time. I’m truly grateful to each of you good people who offered thoughts and advice !! Now we placard inop and wait for the expert.

Wow. Just wow. I’m all for safety, all for giving generously to deserving organizations. I’m less enthusiastic about being beat over the head, threatened, and guilt-tripped. Maybe y’all should have a Southerner write y’all’s beg letters from now on, Honey. Bless y’all’s hearts.

Dear ones with good advice and real-world experience, thank you very much. Still pondering the options. Overhaul the never-quite-satisfactory stec-30 would be cheapest by far, even at $4000 plus labor. Maybe after service it would actually hold the set altitude and do the nav function right? As it was, I just used heading mode, because nav mode wandered all over the sky, and reset the altitude hold every few minutes. But. It wouldn’t require a boat-load of new-and-better supporting gizmos, or rearranging the whole panel. Going with Garmin, which doesn’t play nice with Aspen, which I like, would require a huge and lengthy panel update. At least $25k, probably substantially more. That’s money this aging Mooniac wouldn’t come close to being able to justify, much less recoup. Somewhere in between lies the stec 55x, a fair number of changes, but still old-ish technology, and a company apparently not very enamored of Mooney. (CF, stec3100 string-along. sighhhh. anyway, nobody’s going to have time to fool with it until after the first of the year. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Cool Yule, and all the other excuses to celebrate, my friends!!

I have. For 60 years or so. And now I’m beginning to shrink. Have flown with no extensions, 1.5” ones, and now 3”. The three-inch ones are obviously best for me. And the articulating seats add hugely to my comfort and visibility over the glareshield and nose. Funny thing : a recent passenger, an hour into the flight, finally said, “these Mooneys really aren’t built for somebody my size, are they?” At 6’6” and maybe 280, he was seated in such a way that his head was tilted sideways. I launched into a story about Al Mooney’s height, and then realized my last passenger had cranked the seat all the way up. Oops. He was much happier once he got the seat down where it needed to be for him.

Service Dog training flight cancelled for the third time. So, thanks, anyway, to you each for sharing your insights. I passed along the ideas here, but suspect the Mooney ride would have had little carryover to the commercial flight planned.

Maybe if the current one isn’t totally fried, (sure smelled dead!) they can fix whatever caused it to persist in drifting ever higher. I had to reset the altitude every few minutes, to avoid being reprimanded by ATC. The other tempting thing about alternatives is the idea that a center radio stack location would be within reach of my non-pilot spouse, should I happen to have eaten the fish, and he needs to get on the ground right side-up. We shall see.

And though a nice shiny Garmin system is so very tempting, the stec55x will work with my existing Aspen, use existing servos, and stec 55x can be found, allegedly working, on eBay for under $1000, or reman from stec for $6000, maybe the fist step is to find out exactly what failed on the late unlamented stec 30.

No, the 55x can probably use the old servos, I gather, but needs a whole new hole, in the radio stack, and a replacement turn and bank. I think. No word on what failed, probably until after Christmas. Everybody is slammed. thanks much for all the helpful ideas!!

Dear Santa, I’ve been a Really good girl all year....mostly. And my oft-maligned sTec30 must have been mortally wounded by all the trash talk aimed its way, because it rolled over and died a smelly death this morning. Good day for nearly 5 hours of hand flying, anyway. So, a replacement is needed. I’m happy with my Aspen, and don’t want to start from scratch with Garmins. Besides, I hear sTec might be a slide-in replacement, instead of erector-set build-it-yourself from Brand G. Any other thoughts on best/cheapest replacement for my apparently-toasted sTec30? I’d like to have one that would capture a glide slope. I was all set to order sTec’s 3100, but they never bothered to get the stc for Mooney.

Two Js, (1 is for sale) and my S. It’s a very quiet place.

Hurray. Let’s reschedule any hurricanes, as well. October 2x might be perfect.

How useful or necessary are these contraptions? I don’t own a dog, but very occasionally fly for pilots n paws, and have agreed to take a service dog, a Golden Retriever, for a familiarization ride with his trainer and his autistic little owner. Should the courteous hostess provide canine hearing protection just as she does for her two-legged passengers?

Agility and strength aren’t among this fat old bat’s finest attributes. Not named Grace for good reason. And yet I persevere. Here’s how I manage the mobility-challenged passenger: I usually enlist the aid of an accommodating line crew for Angel flights, or of willing relatives standing by.. Then, all the preliminary chores completed, including removing any chocks surreptitiously placed by aforementioned line guys, I climb in, kneeling on the right seat, swiveling around, and easing over to the left seat. (I said I was clumsy!) The passenger has been invited to leave dignity and decorum behind, but it will be worth it, I promise. I then lower the wing flaps all the way, and have the passenger sit on the wing walk, and using arms and legs as possible, ooch his or her way, still sitting on the wing, backwards up to the open door. The disabled passenger pushes backwards, bum-first over the door threshold into the right seat and lift legs into the foot well. The lineman often helps with this operation. They then fold up the wheelchair or walker, tuck it in the baggage hatch, and lock the hatch. I reach over to fasten seatbelts and lock door. And we laugh about not getting in a Mooney so much as putting it on. Egress is the reverse. Turn back toward door, scoot backside onto the wing, swivel around front ways, and ease toward the lowered flaps. Ideally, line folk will be there to unlock baggage hatch, retrieve mobility aids, and help the passenger off the wing.. This often a slow process, but has worked with a lady with a freshly-casted broken leg, a passenger with a knee replacement, a wheelchair-bound tiny teenager with halo-external-fixation pins through new bilateral bone grafts, a totally-blind vet, and several feeble 90-year-olds whose fondest wish was to fly again, just once. With one such oldster, the ground crew wasn’t there, so gramps managed to back out the door, and stayed put right there on the wing as instructed. I then climbed out, and eased around him, down the wing, fetched his walker out of the baggage hatch, and encouraged him down the wing feet-first, a few inches at a time. I held my arms out and he was able to get his feet under him enough that he could let me hug him to his walker. That dear old man talked nonstop at his nursing home about how he “still had it” flying the high-performance airplane just as he had in The War. And he had!!

Many ways to skin this cat, but I find that putting an iPad, and before that, paper charts, on my lap, or up high or off to either side, is hard to read, can be tricky lighting, and requires substantial head motion, which causes vertigo. Not fun at night or in the soup on a bumpy final approach. Stuck to a window blocks a lot of important peripheral view. On the other hand, positioned on the yoke horizontally and properly adjusted, my blended lenses allow fast focus, the iPad mini blocks nothing I need to see, and can easily be part of my scan. The x-back clip keeps the box nice and cool, with the air vent aimed at it.

20 Questions? Where in NC? What do you have in mind? If you’re looking at a turbo 182, you might also consider a Mooney 231. But do you need the turbo? There are two 20Js and a 20S at my teeny airport, KEDE, which you might look at, but not practical if you’re on the mountain end of the state. Wander out to your closest GA airport and ask around. Mooniacs are true believers, hopeless proselytizers.

Probably have the light in the machine too dim. I whined about that last time and the doc twisted a knob and asked solicitously if that was better. Well, yeah. Lots.

Welcome to this corner of the swamp! I have been well pleased with John Sanders. He’s at ECG for another couple of weeks, and in the process of moving his shop just down the road to Edenton, EDE. Should be all set up in this pretty place by Thanksgiving. He is meticulous, honorable, and quiet. Really knows his stuff, and gets work done on schedule as promised. Great about conservative repairs, but doesn’t let stuff slide. Another excellent option is Lynn Mace at AGL Aviation, a Mooney Service Center at MRN. He is also a very good guy, but a longer haul for you.

Haven’t seen that,, but I did get this surprise a couple of months ago. “Mooney 2170Bravo, squawk 2170.”