Jeff_S

My wife would argue that the Mooney IS my new valentine...good thing she's very understanding. We had a nice day in Atlanta so I was able to get up for a fuel run and to keep familiarizing myself with the plane. Tonight is filet mignon and crab cakes with grilled asparagus and southern-style creamy cheese grits, accompanied by a Napa merlot. And after that, well...it IS Valentine's Day, after all!

Ah, interesting. The plane does have a "maintenance Hobbs meter" which is installed on the back bulkhead of the baggage compartment. Something to check into.

Good points all...the usual suspects always apply. The tip from Don Maxwell about the Master switch corrosion seems like the easiest and cheapest way to start.

Hello all. Still going through the shake-down period on this J. I'm working with my A/P on this and also discussing with the prior owner and his A/P, but sometimes I know the wisdom of the multitudes can help. Here's the deal: 1) Plane comes down from Nebraska to ATL two weeks ago. It gets flown heavily for 15 hours over two days, and then sits in ATL for 10 days until I can get back to it. 2) On Sunday I get in for my first solo, battery is dead. But jump start from the FBO gets it going, ammeter/voltmeter seems normal, no annunciater voltage lights, everything seems fine in flight, and battery has charge after shut down. Next day, my A/P checks the battery and it's already down to <10volts so we suspect it's just gone bad...three years old after all. 3) Newly charged battery goes in yesterday, and now there is a definite pulse on the ammeter and a pulsing whine through the headset that both increase with RPM. (Prior to the new battery, there was a constant whine through the intercom that increased in pitch with RPM...so that's been there, but now it pulses instead of whines.) But still, no annunciator lights, and the JPI gauge shows the battery at 14.3-14.6 with the engine running. I know electrical system issues can sometimes be quixotic. With my general understanding of things, I would say this sounds like an alternator or voltage regulator problem. There is a log entry for work done on both two years ago, with a new voltage regulator put in. But what would cause a drain on the battery in a dormant state? (Yes, double checked that both dome lights are off.) Anyway, thoughts are welcome. I went through something similar on my Warrior once and we tried everything else first, and then put in a new alternator and that solved the problem. But the hunt is on again for a cause...

Thanks all. I did go through the FAA Wings course and it was informative and nicely done. More than likely if/when we take this trip we'll go IFR since my wife likes the added safety, so I don't expect any problems. But it's good to get feedback from others who have gone before.

Directions? Who needs directions when you've got two different GPS units and an MX-20 moving map?!

Ah, videos...thanks George! I'll head over to them right now. I'd been on the JPI website but didn't see these.

Okay, slightly tangential to the topic but I'm wondering if anyone can give me quick pointers on how to get the most out of my 700 w/FF. I have poured over the manual (very tiny print!) numerous times and it has about the worst user interface I have ever seen. But I'm sure once I get the hange of it I'll find it quite nice. Can anybody give me the Cliff's notes, or point me to something of this nature? Tips like when to use Percentage vs. Normalize view, etc?

Nor do I have anything to compare it to since this is the first CS prop I've ever owned. But when I was doing my sign-off work with the CFI, which as you can imagine included more Touch n' Gos than I can remember, there was a noticeable lag between when I added power and the prop bit in. And during runup, I'd say it takes about 2-3 seconds before the prop cycles. But it's always passed annual so I assume it's fine.

Ah, good to know there's a sense of humor! As I suspected, this is probably something so particular to my plane I'll have to dig into the avionics area and see what it could be. But if it really is a Flux capacitor then I got more than I bargained for with this plane!

This was very timely, as one of my fuel sight gauges has become flooded with water and hard to see. Glad to know there's an easy fix!

Well, today the learning began in earnest as I did my first solo in the J, 10 days after getting signed off. It turns out flying it was the easiest part. I was met with a dead battery on start so we're definitely still in the shakedown phase for this plane. On my first real thorough, unsupervised preflight I was going over all the systems, pushing all the drain buttons, etc., and found this other thingamajig on the belly of the plane. It's in the right-center of the attached photo, surrounded by the three screws. I couldn't find any reference to this in the POH, and I checked on a few neighboring J's and they didn't have the same thing. Anybody have ideas on what this is? It may be related to any of the various avionics or other components that have been added to this plane, but if you can help me ID it I'd appreciate that. Thanks!

I did a big OSH event last summer so I may not be able to take the time away again this year. Of course, this year I have a Mooney instead of a Warrior, so it makes an out-and-back overnight a bit more doable. We shall see.

Colin, as noted by others above, there is no one right answer, and the first thing to determine when pursuing an airplane purchase is to think about your mission and what you're trying to accomplish. No one airplane will satisfy all your mission requirements, so find the one that satisfies at least 70% of them and be willing to work around the remaining 30%. Included in this mission is the general cost to keep and fly the plane as it compares to your budget and willingness to spend. Only you have all those answers, and it may take you some time to figure them out. As to performance, it's really the same deal. I'd agree with George and others that your current experience level (e.g. current flight hours) isn't a sole determinent. But your general aptitude for flight should be a strong consideration, as should be the amount of time you expect to spend in the new airplane gaining additional experience. It may be true that military pilots get their first solo in a high-performance retractable plane...but only after they've had intenstive training for days and weeks...and let's not forget the folks who never make it to solo because they just don't seem to get it. This is where I think you do need to trust your CFI if you have a good relationship with him/her, and have a serious talk about how comfortable you're feeling in your training and how you're handling aircraft with more performance requirements. But part of the fun is figuring all this out while you're drooling over listings in Controller and Trade-a-Plane, so enjoy the process!

I'll preface this by admitting that I've owned my J for all of a week now, so take what I say with that in mind. As you can see, it has the Hartzell 3-blade prop. The only thing I've noticed is that the panel vibrates a little more noticeably when the prop is running at 2400 than at any speed lower or higher than that. I haven't done anything about this yet but suspect that balancing the prop will help with that. It's one of the things I noticed during evaluation of the plane but no one, either here on the forum or others I talked to, felt like it was any big deal. Either balancing the prop, or ensuring the rubber panel mounts are in good shape, or most likely both, should clear it up. My plane's W&B also shows it being more nose heavy than when she came from the factory, but I checked all the logs and weights and the 3-blade prop seemed like an almost exact match for the weight of the original McCauley, so that wasn't a factor. Probably just all the fancy avionics gew-gaws that have gone in over time, since it was pretty bare-bones coming from the factory as an AT model.

Dang! I just got my first Mooney and now I wish I'd bought an older one! :-) I understand 1990 was a good vintage for Bordeaux...can I still attend the meeting even if I'm not technically "vintage"?

Okay, now that I've got my personal traveling machine, my wife and I were looking at destinations for our first real trip in it. We were looking at Destin FL as a likely quick jaunt from Atlanta. But a glance at the Sectional for that area shows it's surrounded by all kinds of restricted airspace for Eglin AFB. Does anyone have experience flying around there? Are there general procedures to follow for either IFR or VFR flight into Destin that make it simple?

I agree with the above. It's easy to get emotionally attached to an airplane for sale. But you do NOT want to be in a position where you invest time and emotional energy, not to mention money, into an airplane that you all of a sudden have to get rid of because you just can't afford it. And frankly, in this market, getting rid of an airplane is not the easiest thing to do unless you fire-sale it...which doesn't help your economics. You can ask the seller if they will accept a deposit to hold the plane for a certain period of time, but I doubt they would do this unless the deposit is fairly substantial and non-refundable. In this market, Sellers (of which I am one) need to be able to take the first reasonable offer that comes along to close the deal. There will always be more airplanes out there.

Quote: JimR Jeff, While it is fresh in your mind, can you compare and contrast the 201's actual flying qualities, interior room, & performance with your expectations? Well done, by the way! Jim

Thanks all. A few folks have asked some questions so I'll give a some answers: Did I get what I thought I was getting for a good price? In a word, yes. This plane started life as a trainer so the logbooks are full and sometimes confusing, but they are complete, and the pre-buy showed full life history for all major components and all ADs complied. Not that I haven't already found a few things to fix...this is an airplane of course. But nothing major or too expensive, and I've already budgeted a few months and a few grand to fix up those niggly thing to get it exactly where I want it. I didn't do an annual since it still had six months to go before needing one. And I REALLY like the mechanic who's taken care of my Warrior, so I want him to take ownership of all the major components and start the long-term care of the plane. Lessons and "gotchas"? Well, try to avoid getting excited about buying a plane just as the worst winter weather in 20 years sets in all across the country. That will cause some delays! And if you're financing any part of the purchase, make sure you get the loan origination company to fully document just which terms they've "locked in" and held for you. This was my biggest frustration, because I originally sought a loan for a smaller amount (X) and they gave me good terms at 6.74%/20Yrs. "But wait" they said (I should have seen the Ginsu knives coming), "how about a larger loan (Y) for only 6.17%?" I said okay, thanks, that gives me some options while I look around. Of course, once the pre-buy was done and I wanted to get the loan finalized pronto, it turns out they'd only locked in the Y amount and the rates for X had risen 20 basis points and required an extra $300 in loan fees! I raised bloody hell and showed them all the emails where I had been specifically quoted the rates for X, so in the end they had to scramble and find a new bank to essentially match those rates. But this meant going through all the new bank's loan requirements (which required greater documentation, photos, etc.) so we were scrambling to get it all done by the target closing date...which we did miss by one weekend. No matter, see the first point: the weather wouldn't have permitted delivery of the plane on the actual closing date anyway. So things all worked out.

Well, many folks know I've been on the prowl for J for several months. It arrived yesterday! And I've had a blast (and fair enough weather) to get my ten dual hours in and signed off by the CFI. I'm pretty sure I can get it up in the air and back to the ground pretty safely. But there's a slew of doodads and gewgaws to learn about, which adds to the fun. Many of you may recognize the photo as a plane that received some discussion a few months ago here on the forum. That was actually quite helpful to me in my negotiations so thanks for that! As with any plane, we've found a few niggly things already that didn't show up in pre-buy but overall she's solid and flies great. And not slow, either, as noted in the FlightAware track from her delivery yesterday to Atlanta: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N1077G/history/20100126/1410Z/KCEK/KPDK/tracklog Yes, of course, strong tailwinds, but still: 800 miles in 4.25 hours on about 35 gallons of gas. Me likey! Cheers, Jeff

This was timely input. I had the pre-buy done last week on the J (yes, it's getting closer...hope to close in the next week or two depending on weather and ability to ferry home!) and this happened one time to the pre-buy mechanic. No CBs or anything, just that the flaps stayed down. But they just cycled it and then they came up, and he tested it 15 more times over two days and it didn't repeat so I just chalked it up to "one of those things". I'm not going to sweat it, but I'll have my A/P look it over when I finally bring it home.

FlightCheetah supports XM WX but does not have any facility for also including the radio entertainment.

Carl asked about the FlightCheetah and I've been a happy user for three years. I've written extensively about it over on the Piper Forum so rather than repeat all that here, I'll put a link to one of the threads: http://forums.piperowner.org/read/2/79987 There are a few others going over there but this one has stayed alive for a few years. In short, I think the FL190 is still a great device, although facing stiffer competition from the 696 and the BK Aviator ACE than it had before. Still, worth a look and a very dependable system.

Seriously, no auto-pilot? I've never heard of an M20J that didn't have an auto-pilot, since it came as standard equipment. Is that because yours started out as an AT model? Did those not include a/p's for "training" purposes?