Parker_Woodruff

C172, M20J, M20K... Now no wings. Hopefully that will change within the next couple years.

Being made whole where a shop makes a mistake and shotgun suits where NTSB findings of pilot error mean nothing are entirely different things. Being made whole is the right thing. Punitive damages irrelevant to circumstances have hurt this industry.

I guess we could all just do with a little less drama. This idea of suing the last 9 repair shops that performed maintenance on a plane before it crashes then finding one guilty party out of the 9 and then the lawyer making some bold claim that "the shop knew this plane would crash" as opposed to seeking out recompense while not denying we live in a fallen world where mistakes are made even by shops that aren't cutting corners and have good oversight.

I'd encourage you to get comfortable with the Mooney in slow flight, then transition to some power-off stalls...with a CFI if you aren't comfortable doing them alone. They're really not too drastic and by doing them you will be so much more comfortable with your new airplane. Confidence in how the airplane performs and reacts is critical to you comfortably flying the plane by the numbers. Of course, never spin a Mooney!

I taught a student whose instructor never taught him how to use the trim in a C172. He spent his whole solo cross country flight adding and reducing power to maintain 5,500 feet cruising altitude. Ridiculous.

In addition to the liability, there just aren't the economies of scale anymore. Mooney doesn't reap cost of production benefits from turning out hundreds of planes per year. These airplanes have lasted a long time...and many people elect to buy pre-owned. A decade ago, a lot of these nice airplanes from the 1960s and 70s started to sit...most won't ever fly again. As this trend continues and USA exports of planes continue to emerging markets, we might see an uptick in new plane sales.

I would fly it west to Don Maxwell at GGG.

You can edit the subject line of your first post to reflect that and maybe attract more views to this thread.

Good experience with Condor tires

Agreed...And I've seen it happen. It's not safe practice, even if it sounds like a neat technique.

While I would probably do more of the final approach at 80mph, you aren't doing anything wrong by making power adjustments in the pattern. As long as you aren't over-controlling the plane with the throttle, you're not using a bad technique. I've flown with you, and you don't over control the plane with throttle... Every day requires a different power setting. Use throttle as a tool to make the plane do what you want it to do.

very nice!

Hi Tim, Did you decide against selling N252BH?

I can travel pretty cheap and have some business up somewhat close to there later this week. Owned an M20K for about two years.

As a CFI that watches these things happen quite often, this is great advice. Unfortunately, many pilots get unnecessarily afraid of flight at the slower end of the envelope and shy away from good practice like this.

Your Mooney numbers will be about the same as the Cessna 182RG, depending on hull value and model year. I'll PM you my contact info for you to get ahold of me if you haven't talked to any of my excellent coworkers at Falcon yet.

$3.00/gal at SWI

It really doesn't have to be this hard. There are plenty of Mooneys in the model range you are looking for. Many of them are well taken care of, many of them are not. You live in the heart of Mooney country with Don Maxwell Aviation in east Texas available for pre-purchase inspections. As long as your purchase agreement makes you responsible for the pre-buy labor and the seller responsible for any airworthiness issues, you have a proper agreement. If the seller won't let it go to Maxwell for a prebuy/annual, then the seller probably has reservations about how well the aircraft has been maintained. If the seller walks, he's on the hook for the prebuy labor. This has been the case in both my Mooney purchases and both sellers have agreed that I should be taking delivery of an airworthy airplane. Plenty of Mooneys for sale around here. If you need help sorting through them, getting one delivered, insured, and learning to fly it, feel free to give me a buzz

Probably 150 hours, mostly giving instruction. Also getting my ATP Multi in March.

You won't hurt anything in your engine and prop. The prop system is moving 100% of the time you're flying...and quite rapidly during takeoff when adding full power. Not to mention when pulling the prop lever on runup.

M20F would be a great plane for the type of trips and distances you will be flying. I used to commute a similar distance in a similar speed M20J. I'm local when you are ready for your transition training...

While I admit my initial post doesn't create a comfortable learning environment, and should have been more tactfully stated, this discussion is largely the result of some extremely bad situations I have found myself in over the past couple years. Many members here can attest to my experiences. I can assure you that no one with a good attitude towards learning should worry about the above. Why? Because the problem is fixed quickly because they are *open to learning correct techniques*. It's not the attitude of learning you've described above. It's the attitude that when I have stepped in an aircraft I don't know why I'm there because the client has decided to act in their own ways. I've been on the bad side of the PTS before (failed checkride). It happens. Even to the good students. Hopefully I can help weed out bad habits to those who are willing to learn. Hopefully owners who keep up with forums and message boards will act in accordance with the study findings and do the items discussed that will make them safer. I know that I would be much worse off if I didn't have Avweb, MooneySpace, and (formerly when I participated) the AOPA forum.

BigTex, My post should have been a little more direct - my primary complaint is this: Poor airmanship is beginning at the CFI as the root. I stood on the nosewheel of a c172 last month. No CFI had ever told him, in 250 hours of flying a C172, not to do that. And my primary complaint about the lack of flying in airplanes isn't so much the VFR pilot or IFR pilot trying to "suck less". It's the flight review where I ask for a second day, but they want the sign off TODAY. This person didn't fail a flight review, but skills needed polishing to meet PTS. As an aside, it's also the situations I'm put in with airplanes with cobwebs that the owners refuse to spend a dime of money on MX because they fly so little. Part of the reason I have largely quit doing the airplane deliveries. I've yet to be stuck somewhere somewhere across this country with a Maxwell maintained airplane. In my first post, which didn't make it because Southwest Airlines was closing the door out in Midland, I made a comparison about the Colgan crash and how it didn't matter who you were, no one was exempt from lowering the nose in a stall. (And those guys fly a lot more than 50 hrs per year). My apologies for the brevity of the first post

They are a great company with a very good, broad policy

As a CFI/CFI-I etc I fly with a lot of pilots for the "first time". It's discouraging how poor airmanship is the biggest problem I am seeing. I can't teach something new without having to go back and correct a bunch of old stuff. Presently I've had a rash of clients who insist upon holding the elevator control at its most nose-low position during the ground roll on takeoff until reaching about 50 knots. Very few are exceeding 50 hours of flying per year...