cliffy

I had a conversation with Bill Wheat before he went west and he told me he did a 5 turn spin in a short body and almost couldn't recover. Said he'd never do that again.

We're getting to deep in the weeds here folks This is NOT "how to do an annual inspection" time I'm not suggesting a an end all where all video on how to do things, just a video (like the one shown) to give prospective owners an idea of what to look at to see if they want to consider a certain airframe for purchase or how do the different items work and how are they worked on. As an example show how the gear over center links are torque checked. MOST pilots have no idea how that is done and many (from personal experience) would like to see how it is done. Show how to check the stabilizer wear limits at the tip of the stailizer ( how many of you know about that check?). Its easy and quick but no one knows about it and it should be a preflight item, its that easy. How about plane on jacks to show how and where the nose gear steering works and how to check for excessive wear (8 second ride)? How about explaining what to look for in cabin tubing rust and rot and why maybe the interior needs to come out even on a PPI. Show where the most likely places are for wing spar corrosion and where fuel tank leaks show up. Show and explain how the gear retracts and what moves where. These are all things I have found that many pilots want to know (even the ones without any mechanical apptitude). All stuff that is easy to see but very important in considering a airplane for purchase. Items unique to Mooney. Smarter pilots equal safer pilots. What I'm suggesting is a "Get to know your Mooney" type of video. NOT an A&P trainig course.

Boy that is hitting the nail on the head!!!! Everyone forgets the basic premise of the 320. It was to be able to take an ab-initio EUROPEAN pilot with 400 hours and put him in the right seat (because Europe was not making enough indigenous pilots so none had any experience) and have an airplane "smart" enough so that the dunce in the right side couldn't kill the airplane. That's how it all started with AirBus. Look it up in history (if they haven't scrubbed that yet) Yet now we have made automation paramount so much so that when it stops for what ever reason our "trained" pilots (BOTH SEATS) don't know what to do or how to fly the airplane!! This was brought to the fore just this last Saturday at our local airport Saturday hangar breakfast when one of the attendees was lamenting how he was going for his 3rd try at his Instrument Rating. When someone queried him as to what happened the last time he related that he was vectored to intercept the final for the LDA and when he went to put on the autopilot it kept kicking off because of turbulence (?) He was so focused on having the A/P fly the airplane that he flew right through the final approach course. Personal gripe time- no different here when everyone HAS to have an A/P Let it do all the work IFR. And then we wonder why we have accidents due to hand flying skills! Now 30 or so years later we are entering an era in aviation where we have the USA in the same boat. US airlines estimate (from the latest figures I have heard) need to hire 14,000 pilots a year for the next 10 years. So the new training ground is going to be regional 135 flying with low time pilots. The regionals will be a revolving door hiring system for the majors. 1500 hours and they're outta there. And yet we are just starting to come to the idea that hand flying skills are deteriorating across the board. The problem has been been around since the first glass panels Check out "Children of the Magenta Line" by American Airlines.

I know Just a fun jab on my part :-) :-)

I went to the airlines for the SAME reason!!!!! Lear 135 charter was brutal.

How generous of an offer :-) :-) :-)

YUP To quote a famous line from Cool Hand Luke- "What we have here is a failure to communicate" :-) I offer here one of several Beech Service Clinics videos on Bonanzas as evidence of what could be done to help the entire fleet

I think 30-45 mins would cover everything one needs to look at for reasonable PPI NOT the log book inspections or AD research but just the airframe and engine stuff like the Beech boys do. Might be something to market to other maintenance shops with little Mooney experience hat to look at and what to be aware of. I just found a Mooney C with the carb hot air valve not working correctly. Owner was unaware of what to look for, Stuff lie this unique to Mooneys in the video.

Here's a picture of my Dynon panel and the mess I removed First flight next week

I've got it too Works great

Not quitting just scaling back. No more IFR didn't do enough of to stay current and 6 in 6 is not enough to stay current Now day VFR only After 60 years of this I don't need to be anywhere that important to go IFR or night SE anyway. Just stopped doing all my own maintenance as the years have made me not as "bendable" as I used to be. Bought the Mooney 23 years ago and said when I drop below 50 hrs a year we sell it. Its not for sale yet BUT I did just put a Dynon panel in it and should be able pick it up next week :-)

Not ALL traffic is reported to you by ATC so the "second set of eyes" has limitations also ADSB has been a big help BUT it too doesn't show all traffic. I went Orlando to Santa Fe NM last year at 1500 AGL and only used the radio when I was at an airport with a tower. Didn't feel in jeopardy at any time as I look outside all the time and not at 5 TV screens I guess I've just had enough of the cacophony of radio noise after 55 years of working as a pilot. JMO YMMV

HEY I flew #12 and it was owned by a tele-evangelist and looked like a French whorehouse inside with all the red velvet seats!!! Had the bent pipe control wheels long before the molded ones. Ya Flying with him was a real highlight for a very young pilot. BTW He'd go well above 410 if he wanted to- no alt reporting back then and Lears were the only thing up that high. I have it on good authority that they rolled real nice :-) Kalitta? Knew of the operation but didn't work there. AH the good ol' days :-) Burning as much fuel at idle on the ground as cruise at 410 Fuel critical at engine start Make enough noise on T/O to wake up the dead and always one engine taxi out to the end of the runway with a rolling start on #2 using brakes for steering with hyds off And then don't pull the power off too far for decent or you lose cabin pressure Lots of fun back then

#1 You did the right thing by getting on the ground!!!!!!!! Always err on the side of safety. A good A&P that knows mags can "repair" it almost like new. "Overhaul" enters into an entirely different picture as to what has to be done to gat back in the air. A normal 500 hr repair will work out just fine I used to do many dual mags on my bench and never had any troubles with them between 500 hr inspections. Points condenser, E gap grease bearings and a few other tests and checks on the bench. Not really difficult or time consuming. Make sure he looks at the distributor gear and distributor and finger closely. MAKE DAMN SURE WHEN IT GOES BACK ON THAT NEW LOCKWASHERS ARE USED AND IF EITHER ONE NEEDS TO BE LOSSENED AFTER TIGHTENING MAKE SURE IT GETS REPALCED WITH NEW (CAPITALS ADDED FOR THE SERIOUSNESS OF THIS ITEM) These mags have actually fallen off the engine when lock washers have been reused.

Interesting thought I too have a lot of Lear 20 time and their A/Ps left a lot to be desired especially when they got older. Of course I flew very old high time 20 series machines. The 35 was much better. Just an added mention- I got to ride along with Bill Lear as he flew a 24. Yup. older than dirt here :-) (A 20 Lear was the hardest airplane I ever hand flew at 410, had to at times because the A/P was so bad- Long before RVSM) Many hours hand flying at 410. I've also got many thousands of hours in several Boeings and never had the wallow on final in them in dead calm weather that I did in 319s and 320s, Either the airplane aerodynamics is conducive to wallowing or the stability program built into the 3 auto-flight computers isn't tight enough to eliminate the issue (for me anyway). 320s have Yaw dampers also! The plane still wallows.

Just a quick note for Jonny- No back spring really is affecting some Mooney owners in Australia If anything could be done to get them a few springs I'm sure they would appreciate it, I can get to the correct people over there. As for them ITS A MANDATORY REPLACEMENT as a time item. They are grounded without a replacement. Their rules are different than ours. On another note on how to transfer Mooney knowledge- How about someone (or factory) exploring a descriptive video on the proper way to do a Mooney PPI inspection? Shouldn't be too hard to make. Could even sell it for reasonable price. With our older airframes it might be a way to pass on knowledge and keep them maintained to a better level than I have seen many at. Knowing what to look at and for has value for the entire fleet! The Beech boys do a show and tell on Bonanzas that is perfect in scope and easy to follow. Theirs is a live- show up and we'll show you what to look at as we go through a complete airplane. Its a group thing that you can find a video on utube about it.

Wallow around? How about the Airbus 320? It wallows (Dutch Roll) like a drunken sailor down the ILS on a dead calm approach. Fly by wire stability program wrong? Or could it be a short body) short tail moment arm aerodynamics? What ever, I used to shut off the A/P and hand fly it as I was smoother than all that automation. Felt like I was on the head of a pin wallowing around with the A/P on going down the slope. Now my short body Mooney will walk back and forth in yaw in turbulence but it seems the period of each cycle is much shorter than anything in a V tail JMO

Still looking at all the options sited here Lots of good info

A&P secret- don't tell anybody- Use a little Titeseal (medium) on both sides of the gasket. Just a thin sticky coat all over each side. Get it on your fingers and then just a sticky trip around gaskets Yu should be able to see through the coating when done

My only thought was that not all F models have that problem. I would think that if the factory set it that way then all Fs would exhibit the same anomaly or like you mentioned - it left the factory that way and it might be wrong. If someone ever took the elevators off or the bungees out that could cause the bungee deflection to be wrong. Has it ever been repainted?

Have you ever verified that your stabilizer trim angles are correct and your elevator bungee angle is correct? where does your CG sit?

No as in older than dirt!

I walked the shores of Pangea ! :-)

Sorry but have to ask- Did any of you ever watch the Keystone Cops when you were young?

No 727s at T&T near MIA out in the swamp and 737s at MKC During the heyday of GI Bill training thousands of T&Gs were done at BFL in Lear 20s