Parker_Woodruff

All I'm saying is it wouldn't be this expedient if they were sued.

This thread is one more reason to use shops that don't have to learn Mooney-specific repairs on your bird. Go to the ones that already know.

Now if the Court could get such a swift, binding judgment against the FAA for its failure to follow the law with the Part 23 re-write.

I have never seen this. would be interested to see pics.

On that note, Cayman GTS

I don't have a Mooney (since August 2013). I would have a Mooney. If I had a Mooney but had to trade it for something and also received a large sum of money to help with the purchase, I would buy a Cessna 206 on Wipaire amphibious floats.

General Aviation still sounds like a good option for the half of the year that ice isn't a factor or when the ice is light. No piston single should be flying in heavy ice. I think a Bravo will fit your mission nicely, though it is a thirsty airplane. i would probably be more inclined to a FIKI M20K 252/Encore for such a trip, but only because of efficiency and ownership costs. Probably in the order of 60% cost per hour to fly an M20K instead of an M20M. If that doesn't bother you, then by all means, get the M20M! I used to commute to my insurance job by M20J and kept my old Ford pickup at the weekend airport and my good truck for my weekday job. 9 gallons. Take your pick. Burn them flying 1 hour by Mooney or driving 3.5 hours in a pickup.

You bind the coverage and you are insured while accomplishing the 5 dual and 5 solo prior to carrying passengers. You would not be insured if you chose to not accomplish at least 5 hours dual and 5 hours solo prior to carrying pax

If he's going all the way to Kansas, he might as well keep going to Longview, TX.

I got my Commercial SES there in 2010. They are an excellent outfit and know what they're doing. They will email you some course literature that you should study. Get ready to learn some real airmanship.

I am not a claims adjuster, but I had a similar experience as you with my Mooney. My Mooney was tied in Dallas and an untied C172 blew into the leading edge during a thunderstorm. There was one affected wing skin panel. The insurance company paid for Maxwell to drive and patch the wing and then the pilot to ferry the aircraft (via special flight permit) to GGG (I was unable due to being on a business trip at the time and forced to fly SWA). Don had an excellent sheet metal subcontractor come from Louisiana and re-skin the affected portion of the wing. The skin was pre-cut from Mooney which helped immensely. I doubt this is a 250 hour job, but I could be wrong. All said and done, transportation for the plane, delivery pilot, and the repair was about $8800 for one panel (plus paint at another shop), if I remember correctly. I think it was the third panel from the left wing root. It wasn't the one on the very end of the wing, but the one just inside that. You should get the ball rolling with your insurance company so that it's on record. This is re-skin work. You don't hammer out aluminum that is already stretched out of line..

With the margins that FBOs make, I actually think it's unfortunate that municipal-run FBOs take a lot of business from for-profit FBOs because of their unrealistically low prices. The thousands of gallons that many municipal FBOs take due to their losses being subsidized by the public takes away from the economies of scale that would allow a for-profit, private business from reducing their per gallon price in the first place. Land leases, fuel tank maintenance, credit card processing fees, employees, workers' compensation insurance, liability insurance, employment taxes, equipment. They can't make that back at a low traffic rural airport selling gas for $0.25/gal over cost. The losses get paid for...by every taxpayer. The worst offenders seem to be the municipalities subsidizing airlines to the tune of millions of dollars. The big cities do it to and shove property tax burdens to small businesses (that said, if you ask me, neither small business nor large business should have to pay BPP tax). Rural populations would otherwise be buying airplanes to fly themselves. General Aviation suffers as a result. But we somehow have generated an idea that Americans have a constitutional right to cheap airfare. Don't even get me started on EAS.

I'm no longer on the sales side of the business. Moved over to the underwriting side... I have two friends in town from Florida this weekend - that's too bad!

This sounds perfect...Mike, I think you should take the work if your schedules align.

Mike, My schedule is pretty difficult for December. KP- I just sent you an email. Mike Elliott might be the best for you. My travel expenses might be less, but American Airlines is known for having a goofy pricing structure that makes TPA-DFW-GGG a fairly inexpensive ticket. If you don't mind traveling on the World's Largest HeAAdAAche. Then you could drop Mike off at home and do the return flight back up the panhandle.

I would probably still have a pre-buy done. You don't know which FBO line guys have been touching the plane. You don't know if there was/were any hard landings to the detriment of the airframe. It's some more hours that oil could have started showing up in the filter. I would still go pay Don for a complete pre-buy, but I wouldn't worry about spending the extra to make it an annual, unless that was a convenient time of the year to have your annual scheduled.

http://www.swta.net/ Short announcement is up on the website.

You can get a ferry permit for the annual. See if the seller will agree to a prebuy/annual at Don Maxwell.

I lived in Lakeland, FL for two and a half years. Loved it. There is a fly-in community north of Tampa...though I can't remember what it's called. Spruce Creek is nice, but certainly looks expensive. If you want to check it out for a weekend, call up Chester Lawson at Spruce Creek and get your MES rating (if you've already got the MEL to go with it). h2oflight.com I certainly miss Lakeland. Nice, slower-paced city with close proximity to Tampa. TPA is my favorite commercial airport to fly in and out of. And Tampa TRACON is probably the best group of controllers I've ever dealt with from the air. I can't say I'm a fan of Orlando (traffic and perpetual tourism). Cost of living anywhere in FL is a heck of a lot better than CA. The DFW area has more (and better) fly-in communities than Florida. But as I'm looking outside at 2SM visibility, mist, and 45 degrees, I really want to be in Florida right now.

I'm unable to help, unfortunately. But if you felt like a quick 25 minute flight to the south to Waco, go see my friend Aaron Dabney at ACT. He has a good amount of M20J experience: http://www.masterthetailwheel.com/

JD is a good friend and business associate of mine. I've mostly been biting my tongue till this deal finally went into place. Texas now has another great MSC. JD and his wife are both A&Ps and I'm certain will support the Mooney fleet very well. Congrats, JD and Laura!!

Send it to Don Maxwell at GGG

Yep...make sure to condition the brakes per Shadrach's above post.

That's fine, unless he has a radio and an indicator that jump around and aren't even good enough for real training. You're an active CFI. How many client airplanes have you flown that have indicators that jump around like crazy on an instrument approach...or when tracking a VOR? Then my suggestion above to have the best of NAV radios sticks.

Quick trip to FL230 in my M20K to watch it do 200 KTAS then back down to FL210.