Jerry 5TJ

Thanks for the strategic advice to stay with an insurer. In the single engine turboprop world a problem has been that insurers are leaving the market. I have had the same broker for decades but different companies almost every year recently so it has been hard to follow your advice.

When I dug into the avionics harness on my C around 2012 I found it was wired up every which way except well. I removed it all and started over. The new harness terminated grounds in a single point using this grounding block Grounding Connector It made for a neater and electrically quieter harness.

How about Sunrise Aviation there at KSNA? They have several taildragger aircraft and teach acrobatics basic to advanced.

How about trying the Express PCB schematic tool — Express PCB Their “classic” package includes a very simple schematic drafting CAD tool. Free. Runs under Windows. About as simple to use as a Ticonderoga #2.

Like Don, I used to fly from the SF Bay Area to south of LA to visit my parents. I’ve made the trip hundreds of times in my Mooney and later in the T210. And like Don I feel FIKI is going to be important for staying on your schedule. I can confirm that V459 is no fun at 10,000 over Gorman inside moist orographically-lifted clouds.

I don’t mind too much if they don’t talk, but I hate it when they don’t squawk.

Haze with visibility less than required for the airspace is IMC. You are correct — having the minimum visibility for VMC doesn’t guarantee you have a horizon in view.

Maybe they are Densa members...

That is exactly how everyone starts their engines, right? No Mooney I’ve seen has a pre-oiler system installed. Spinning the engine with spark plugs removed (thus zero compression) seems ok to my engineering eye.

The Cirrus CSIP teaches you to make a call-out at (the minimum altitude for a successful pull of) 500’ AGL.

I suggest you find an instructor You like and you can work with Who has Mooney experience And, who has expertise using your specific avionics Right now I am training an instrument “learner” in his 182 which has dual G5, GFC500 and GTN750. We have made extensive changes to a typical instrument syllabus to include his plane’s complex but very capable avionics. The goal is not just to pass the practical test but to learn to use the systems in actual single pilot IMC. Adding to the syllabus probably is not going to increase the amount of simulated and actual instrument time he requires (still 40 hours) but more of the time will be dual than if he were “merely” training to pass the test in a simpler airplane. We are also waiting for suitable weather so that around 10 of his hours will be in actual IMC. I suppose you could call this a “decelerated” IFR training program.

Sad to see the feeble efforts of a once-great avionics company.

I heard that Inland Express is also going to sue the FAA for failing to revoke their charter certificate, claiming “the FAA is at fault as it failed to investigate our improper and illegal operations and shut us down before we killed all those people.”

Generally if you lose control of your Mooney in IMC the airframe is still intact on impact.

An oblique answer for you — on a round-trip flight from Baltimore to Sun n Fun in my Ovation we burned about the same number of gallons as the same flight the next year in the P46T JetProp.

Perhaps — “unport” is the non-spell-checked intent? That said, don’t you have a header tank?

On my home base the runway is 7,000’ long so I have done stop and go landings with Mooney transition students. The full stop landing is a completely normal procedure. We spend a few seconds while stopped on the runway to check and reconfigure the airplane and our brains and begin a normal takeoff with 4,000’ or more remaining. An argument against T&G is to ask “why practice something you don’t ever do as a normal or emergency operation?” Practice go-arounds from just above the runway, when the hypothetical moose wanders onto the pavement, those make sense. Low/missed approaches for IFR practice likewise are realistic. I feel T&Gs in a complex aircraft are an invitation to a higher risk of a loss of control and a runway excursion that rarely ends well for the sheet metal. So I chose not to do them.

I'm 6'2" and 200#, and Marauder is both taller and larger, and the two of us together in the front of any of our Mooneys look like a pair of sardines in a tin. But there's more room in the Mooney than in the front seats of the PA46 where he looks like a size 12 shoehorn wedged into a size 8 shoe. If you can get in and out of a Mooney, you'll probably be fairly comfortable once in the seat. IMO.

Have you seen the list of Mooney CFI from the Flyer? Mooney Flyer CFI List There are a few in your backyard, many in the NE.

The Mooney is not a great platform for a turbine because it is too light, IMO. 3400 pounds is about the Mooney wing limit for the 61 knot stall requirement. If you look at clean-sheet SETP designs they weigh more, a lot more. The Evolution is a sleek 4 seater with a gross weight of around 4,500 pounds. The Piper M600 is a 6,000 pound airplane and the TBM930 is near 7,400 pounds. Those two will carry four Americans and bags and fuel. If you really want to carry 6 people and baggage and a lot of fuel you need a 9,900 pound PC-12. The M20 was designed for about 2,500 pounds gross. It’s a sweet flying plane at that weight.

There is a market for Mooney owners to move to a turboprop, yes.

Something solid state and not any sort of spinning gyro. I've seen used RCA 2600-3 units offered for about an AMU.

There are two Mooney CFI in Colorado listed on the Mooney Flyer list of instructors. Mooney Flyer CFI List

My Tesla 3 Autopilot already drives the Interstate better than I can. Especially at night.

Steel tanks are tested every 5 years. A local welding shop can get your tank recertification done. I had a portable tank done this year for $30.