HRM

The greatest damage after a GU on a Mooney is the bruised ego of the pilot and the insurance fine that is assessed on him for eternity. Oh, the aircraft? That's totally repairable and, in many cases, results in a better bird. Last note: Al had a gear up in his Mite. He got some guys to help him hoist it up while he lowered the gear. Then he got in and flew off!

Indeed. I'll point out that Porsche was on the rocks a few years ago and then unveiled the Boxster. I frankly think things are looking very good. It is very easy to engineer, manage and market a product from behind a laptop computer screen while reclined in an easy chair. The modification, production and sale of a certified aircraft is of a complexity not to be believed.

I need to add...Al would be pleased with where this is going. IMNSHO.

Philistines! Of course, I would prefer a paint job more in line with this gorgeous bird. Something about the way the bottom paint sweeps up the tail. Practically pornographic. I do, however, like the shaded windows with the black paint fill on the Ultra, gives that panoramic look to it. If I could afford one, I would own one.

Bittersweet admission: Ultra may trump Super.

An email, from Delta Aviation. A visit to their site revealed nothing, as did a visit to the Motherland. Presumably the March MAPALog will have an article. I hope The Mistress doesn't find out that I am lusting after another. The wife would just kill me.

Alas, the C is a fantastic bird, and it is, after all, a Mooney; but only one Mooney is Super. Three birds for the vintage pilots under the sky, The rest for the money-bags in their hangars of stone, None for Mortal Men doomed not to fly, One for the IA on his dark throne In the Land of Mooney where the Mooneys fly. One E to rule them all, One E to find them, One E to bring them all and in the blue sky bind them In the Land of Mooney where the Super 21's fly.

BTDT...

Truer words never spoken. Also, since the OP's handle is 'Supercop' he is hardly going to be satisfied with any Mooney other than an E.

There's the Minimax for 1.4 AMU, but I keep hearing horror stories. Then there's this weird thing. Guys are chucking portable drills (cheap ones from HF) to it to move their boats around. Who wants to adapt one to their Mooney?

Yes, jets are for air targets. Don't forget all those twenty-somethings in the boots. BTDT

Few things scare me more in the air than a 20-something in a multi-million-dollar-high-performance-state-of-the-art US military aircraft. While touring the USS Lexington yesterday I was blown away by Ensign Smith or some such label on the side of a fighter on the flight deck. Good grief, when I was a butterbar I barely knew my a** from a hole in the ground. Now that I am a sixty-something old fart I find that I have come full-circle Lastly, to our enemies--be afraid, be very afraid.

I know these clips from hell well...tarnishes the super-ness of my baby.

Colossal PITA to R&R the rear seat. The hooks are way back under there (the better to remove your skin, cause lacerations, require tetanus shots, etc.). If you fail to find them by <cautiously> feeling around, then just live with it. If you think the bottom is a PITA you have experienced nothing until you pull the back off.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here... Pull the old one out very carefully and use as a template for the new. At least this worked for me. Apparently in '66 these things were pretty much custom fitted. When I did my insurance sentence time the CFII asked about my carpet as he was astonished with how well it fitted (not original). He had a bad experience with carpet replacement in a C. I told him that it came with the bird. That was my first data point on Mooney interiors.

Well, let's not get carried away, I said I liked the scheme on that plane. As for new age paint on vintage airplanes, some take it well and are quite super...

Seriously? I think it looks pretty good, quite 'retro'.

I heard that the FAA inspector responsible for Vne on the Super 21 was taken to 189, puckered up and set the max speed there. I have heard of E's flying at 200 and not coming apart

Successful operation quite dependent on pilot skill. My E will not fly over 120 with the gear down, I've tried At that speed, gear down, you can forget getting the gear up (unless you have the upper body strength of a body builder). Doing the Mooney Nod (see below) is not advised at that speed. If you wish to experience weightlessness in your Mooney, along with anything not secured in the cockpit, try it. Pre-landing I use my gear like a speed brake when near 120. On climb-out you pulse the yoke forward sharply, nose dips and raising gear is effortless. This is the Mooney Nod and execution requires some coordination. Side benefit is that unsuspecting pax are freaked out. Especially fun at the start of a BFR with a non-Mooney CFI--sets the tone for the review.

I thought they had all been converted via an AD or something. That one is museum quality and should be preserved as is.

You don't need plexi, he thought you were talking about a cover for the indicator plate. Mine has no cover. What you don't want to do is remove the indicator plate and cables if you can avoid it (riveted on). I think with less effort you could repair the panel (fiberglass & epoxy technique) and paint it without removing it. You will need to channel back in time to your model airplanes/cars days.

Local prop shop? I ask because this discussion started on the assumption that the prop was leaking and you needed prop specific work. The question now is: who reversed the hardware (well, reassembled wrong)? Could have been disastrous since the phrase 'pressure build up' wrt the oil system appears. A good takeaway from it all is that you now know a place with very sharp and knowledgeable mechanics. I will wager they looked at the issue and were perplexed, then homed in on the crankcase hardware and oil separator based on deep systems knowledge because something 'just wasn't right.' Was it a group or a single A&P?

This is the operative phrase here. I conclude it was a CYA to CYA. Mooney issued it because it was a "Here's your sign!" phenomena and the SI describes a 'safer' procedure. This covers them in the same way that all those stickers on a ladder and my favorite "Don't use while showering" on hair dryers does. Generally insurance covers stupid (the source of many accidents) regardless of how they occur unless blatantly intentional. I imagine if the tail came off in flight and the Feds knew you to be a notorious tail-weigher they might do something to you, but then again, there wouldn't be much left to do anything to.