LuvFlying

I've heard that Gann at 9A5 La Fayette GA does excellent work for decent price. Chris (Mooney205KD, the former owner of my bird, had them install an Aspen and a G530W and a new panel layout. He (and I) are quite happy with the results. He has pics in his gallery of the upgrade work Quote: mooney205kd Gann Aviation in LaFayette (luh-FAY-it), Georgia - 9A5 identifier - did my install in February of this year. I highly recommend Gann. Excellent workmanship, great personal service. Tim Mathison is the avionics tech, 706-638-7921.

Quote: mooney205kd

Quote: JimR What a beauty! Chris' plane, I believe? I didn't know that he was selling, but it really does look like a beautiful example. Congrats on the purchase. You are absolutely going to love your Mooney.

Quote: Magnum Congrats! You'll have a lot of fun (and some extra knots compared to a 201) with your 205. It has some nice features. I downloaded the picture of your panel a couple of days ago and sent it to my avionics shop so they can make my Aspen installation look like yours. It looks really nice! But I will have the screws painted, too, IMHO it looks a bit "cleaner". Is it allowed to ask how much you paid?

Quote: Mitch AWESOME!! Most exciting for you. Whoopee indeed. Can you sleep at night?

I'm joining the ranks of OWNERSHIP on Thursday! And not just any ownership... Mooney Ownership!!! Some of you here already know my new plane as her owners have been active here on MooneySpace.com. Well they're moving up to a bigger, but definitely not better, plane. As a result of this wonderful forum, we connected and are closing the deal this Thursday - TWO DAYS FROM NOW! Whooooo Hooooo! In case you're not intimately familiar with her... let me introduce you to my Katie: 1987 Mooney 205 SE 2500 TTSN 200 SMOH from Gann Aviation with GAMInjectors 1015 Lbs Useful Load Check out this list of goodies: Garmin 530 WAAS Aspen EDF 1000 Pro PFD – eat your heart out! (which is linked to the 530 and includes GPSS* *will fly a FULL approach, INCLUDING holding pattern and missed, hands off. ) PMA8000b Audio Panel (includes connection for cell phone) WX-950 Storm Scope King KFC-150 Auto Pilot (pretty standard fare) Linked to 530, Aspen and VOR with Altitude / Vertical Speed Selector and Yaw Damper (not so standard items!) Hoskins Fuel flow computer (linked to 530) JPI EDM-700 Engine Monitor (linked to 530) Factory Speed Brakes Vertical Card Compass High Intensity Discharge landing light Digital Tachometer Just got one tank resealed from Willmar SkyTec lightweight starter Plane Power Alternator New Muffler, Battery, Goodrich tires Interior and paint are original. Rate about a 7 Interior has the tweed covering all the plastic panels With the awesome combination of the boutique, high performance engine rebuild from Gann, the GAMInjectors and the JPI engine monitor, this bird will cruise at 160kts while sipping just 9.5 gal/hr. WOW!

I like it!

The club ran out of the good de-ice fluid (I don't know what it was) last year and could not locate any (in less than a barrel size). We ended up buying a bunch of 90 or 95% rubbing alcohol. It's awful. It seems to just make things worse. It MIGHT work for morning frost, but that's a big MIGHT. It seems to just soak into the ice and then freeze harder.

Quote: skyking I have a flybuddy. $70 bucks and works great.

I just realized another benefit to pulling in return air from the cowling.... you don't need the expensive thermostat anymore. You can use the on built into the heater!

Your description brings to mind www.AdventurePilot.com primaraly. Secondaraly AOPA's flight planner, www.skyvector.com www.NavMonster.com has a decent planner that uses google/ajax information to show airports along a route. Seattle Avionics' FreeFlight got good reviews from Aviation Consumer http://seattleavionics.com/Downloads.aspx

Quote: ILXLR8 I went to the hanger today and the heater works pretty good. Outside temp 27 and engine temp was 65. This was without a blanket. In a few days I will be adding an additional hose to the intake grill of the heater. My thought is the heater will work much less by not trying to warm the cold outside air and will only have to maintain the warm air in the engine bay area. The heater intake hose is going to be placed in the front cowl opening along with the temp sensor and the warm air hose is going into the turbo inspection door opening. I guess this makes sense, my house heater does not heat outside air to room temperature. It takes room temp air and maintains it. I feel a little silly for not thinking of this earlier! The picture shows location of heater intake.

Did you install it yourself or have an A&P do it?

Quote: Buster1 I will pay any cost to strengthen the windshield in any GA plane...they are not very strong IMHO. ANR headsets are great, but they don't protect from birds.

That looks awesome! At first glance, my reaction was "How's it going to cycle? Must be for pre-heating". That external temp thingy is GREAT. I didn't know those exisited. <thumbs up!> I'm planning on using the "100W worklight in the cowl" method at first. If that does not work, I'm going your route. Will you be covering the cowl with blankets or such?

I was on the phone with Dana at Willmar and briefly got into a side conversation about a 201 windshild replacement. Off the cuff, he estimated 25 hours.

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I've heard that having a thicker windshield is most effective for noise reduction. I've seen 3/8" thick plex too - can't remember who sells that, but when I upgrade, that's the thickness I'm getting for the windshield. It was very small cost difference (90%+ of the cost is in the labor!)

Wow! I just looked at the Telex 50D Stratus. Seems pretty impresive with 50db noise cancelation. I think the other two are in the low thirtys range.

This is a great post! I hope to be buying my first plane/Mooney soon and have an empty hangar just ready to "fill up".

Ok. That's encouraging news. I knew that it was DEMONSTRATED, but I thought that demononstrated was very near capability. I'm comfortable with a 15kt xwind component onto one wheel. I have experienced xwinds beyond the capability of the C model... slip with the rudder crammed against the firewall... and still getting blown sideways. Was time to pick another runway. (can't remember what the winds were, but I'm guessing in the 20-25 knot component range. So I was hoping my new bird would have more capability - so I would have more options. Glad to hear it does/will.

Is there a spell check function hiding somewhere? Normally, when filling in a form, my browser (firefox 3.5.4) will normally point out errors. But for some reason, that does not happen here... and I don't see and spell check function built into the posting function of the forum. Seems like a basic / staple item to have.

On this topic... as I was educating myself on the J, reading a POH from a 1977 a friend had, I was really shocked to see that the demonstrated max crosswind is 12 kts. That's less than the 172 I currently fly. I thought with a more advanced bird, there'd be more x-wind capability. Am I missing something?

Why? One word...lawyers.

Quote: JimR The closest thing that I have seen are the articles that are published in the MAPA Log. If you haven't joined yet you really need to.