donkaye, MCFI

The Aera 796 has been a staple for me for over 10 years (since it came out) both in my airplane and to" normalize" for me the different avionics in all of my student's airplanes. It's been with me on all my ferrying trips and all the teaching I've done over that time frame. It doesn't make sense, but I almost feel guilty about permanently retiring it to where ever old GPSs go when they have outlived their usefulness. The new kid on the block is the Aera 760. I know its been out a year now, but it was only in the last several months that I made the decision to purchase it. Part of the reason for the delay was that it also required the purchase of a GDL series receiver to get traffic, and weather and the GDL size made it inconvenient to place on the glare shield. First I bought the GDL 52 and a cable to enable it to play with the 796. That gave me traffic on the 796, something I didn't have before while teaching in an airplane without a way to get traffic to it. That cable was a monstrosity of wires, but it did work. So now I had the small puck of the original 796, the GDL 52, and a monstrous wiring mess to deal with. So I broke down and ordered the Aera 760 from Pacific Coast Avionics. It was on sale and there was a benefit of buying it in Oregon. I really didn't know what to expect. I had read the manual a couple of times, but until you have it in your hands and actually use it, it's hard to know how you'll feel about it. In the beginning I was a little luke warm about it. The screen was brighter and the menu structure was a takeoff on the GTNs, but getting around on it required a few more touches than were required with the shortcuts available on the 796. Then things started to change, as I began seeing the additional capabilities it had over the 796. For those interested here are some of them: 1. Larger icons and bigger characters. 2. Built in AHARS used with SVT. 3. The name of airports and VORs on the flight plan page instead of just the identifiers. I can't say how many times I had to look up what an identifier name was on previous handhelds. 3. Ability to load departures, airways, arrivals, and full approaches. 4. Ability to load any type of hold on any radial on a waypoint and have it display on the screen as a curved track. 5. Ability to overlay approach charts on the Map page. 6. Ability to load all visual approaches to any airport, just like the GTNs. 7. Show battery power remaining as a percent of total. 8. With MapMX input from the GTN the ability to show curved tracks and holds from the GTN. 9. Lighter weight than the 796. 10. Internet access for weather on the ground. 11. Shows fuel prices. 12. Choice of internet downloads of databases or direct downloads from a computer. 13. Runs cooler than the 796. The icing on the cake occurred last week when I had the 760 hardwired into my plane in conjunction with the GDL 52. I decided to mount the GDL 52 out of the way on the back side window with a suction cup mount. It actually looks good there. So now everything is hardwired including flight plan transfer, Sirius XM weather and Audio, ADS-B Traffic and Weather, with the option of doing the same things with Bluetooth either from the GDL 52 or from the Flight Stream 510 with data from the panel mounted equipment. The Aera 760 and GDL 52 just pop out for easy transfer to any other airplane, mainly student's airplanes. There are reasons for also having an iPad and I do have that, but In the end, for the reasons I have the need for a handheld GPS, the Aera 760 is the best handheld GPS I have ever had.

The best list so far is the Mooney Flyer List, but for my information it can be found at http://www.donkaye.com/Flight_Instruction.html

Freddy, from Mark at Top Gun: Mooney has the part. It costs $115 and its 2 hours labor to replace. It hardly seems worth it to do it yourself.

No.

Meanwhile, after a year and a half into having the Garmin GFC 500, it's the best autopilot I've flown. For a net $19K for the 4 servo model, why would you consider anything less, especially if that anything was vaporware?

Doesn't work on my computer.

I'm just about ready to start logbook number 11. I like the size and color of the ASA "The Standard Pilot Logbook". I only carry the last one with me. Since I need to manipulate the data in all sorts of ways and use a Mac, I wrote a logbook application on 4D a number of years ago. It comes in handy all the time. It does require me to record in both the ASA log and the computer log, but that doesn't take too much time. I am a year behind on totaling the handwritten one, but the 4D database is up to date. So far 6,259 entries.

I edited my original post to: "rate of descent at touchdown".

When actually teaching, I can convince a person to move to my way of thinking through the action of demonstrations, not words alone. On a forum like this, unfortunately, words are the only thing that can be used. Sometimes the certainty that comes through years of experience and expressed through words comes across as arrogance, and for that I apologize. My goal is to make anyone who cares to listen a better pilot by the most appropriate means available.

This is what I think of when I think of trailing link landing gear. With this setup it's almost impossible to have a bad landing.

Partly, but rate of descent at touchdown is what causes bounces. Mooneys don't have trailing link landing gear. They have shock discs that don't damp anything; quite the opposite.

With almost 6,400 hours of teaching most in Mooneys, I couldn't disagree more with your last statement .

Having flown the Citation, but not the T-34B, does it have oleo struts? In my opinion that is a big difference between the Mooney and other airplanes. Those rubber shock discs do make it prone to bouncing much more than those planes whose landing gear are better damped. If not properly taught how to recover from the "Mooney bounce" by an instructor who is very familiar with it, the new Mooney pilot is much more susceptible to a prop strike. So, yes, I think it IS important to have a Mooney specific instructor over one unfamiliar with it traits.

I had the 2nd Moderna shot on Tuesday 2/23. No temperature; not feeling 100% yesterday 2/24. Feeling near 100% 2/25 today. A little soreness in the arm. Shirley had no adverse effect at all to the 2nd shot. In 2 weeks, after immunity builds up, I'll be going back to flight instructing full steam ahead--at last.

Going hand in hand is slope management.

That reality is because the student was not properly trained and I place the blame directly on the flight instructor. If a person truly understands the pitch/power relationship as I teach it, then they understand what primarily and secondarily controls what in any phase of flight, and if they take time out from flying, but have been taught the proper use of that relationship, then they should return to flying with minimum loss of proficiency.

While you do need precision when flying on instruments, the required precision to fly an airplane should be taught at the student level. But, since most instructors haven't been taught properly themselves, they pass on their faulty training to their students.

If you understand page 8 of my Precision Flying Handout that is both on my website and included with my Landing Video, then transitioning to a Mooney should be no different than transitioning to any other tricycle gear airplane, assuming a knowledgeable Mooney Specific Instructor. As with transitioning to any airplane should be, the transitioning pilot would be comfortable with how to maintain airspeed within a knot in smooth air and slope management for landing. Until I met my mentor instructor, Robert Goldin, unfortunately I hadn't found any instructor who understood those principals well enough to teach them. The light bulb went on with his outstanding instruction and I am passing on his words of wisdom to this day. I have found that less flight time is usually better when it comes to transition training. There is less "undoing previous bad instruction" and "my instructor told me to do it this way" to be done. I just can't believe some people. Their previous instructors generally had very little Money time, but trying to change their habits validates one of the principles taught in becoming a flight instructor; The Law of Primacy, first things learned are most ingrained--even if they are wrong. Several students pilots have purchased their Mooney before they even got their Private including one who bought an Ovation 3. I helped him bring his plane from Atlanta to California, then, after he finished up his Private, we did his transition training in about 16.5 hours. I had another outstanding student who had just gotten her license, did her transition training with me, and flew her C Model all the way back to Florida on her own. Even Airline Pilots need some transition training, although most can transition in 5 hours. I even had a transitioning U2 pilot who took about 4 hours. Most transition trainings take about 15-20 hours and 25-40 landings. I did have one student who took 30 hours because it was an Acclaim and his home airport was Palo Alto with its 2,460 foot runway. I couldn't let him go until he was consistently able to handle that. Bottom line; with good instruction transitioning to the Mooney is no more difficult than transitioning to a more "draggy" airplane.

I flew the KLN 90B as the primary navigation for 21 years. I still think it is the best 2nd generation GPS out there. In 2000 I even recommended it be put in the new CJ1 that my student purchased. I skipped the 3rd generation GPS (430/530) because the KLN 90B was that good. However, even though it was good, it did take a lot of training to use it, and a full GPS approach with PT required a lot of work for the pilot. The 4th generation GPS such as the GTN series makes instrument flying almost trivial and leaves the pilot with much more time to both monitor situational awareness and have the excess time to be better prepared to handle emergency situations. The latest software update for the GTN Xi Series GPS provides a glide range ring and arrows pointing to the best airport at which to land taking into account weather, wind and airport suitability for your particular airplane. When weighing risks associated with flying, modern avionics goes a long way toward mitigating those risks. Additionally, until you've flown a total glass panel upgraded airplane, you can't imagine how much fun it is. They're like magic.

The only way to get enroute VNAV (multiple stepdowns like in a STAR usually flown without intervention by the pilot) on the GFC 500 is with a Garmin GTN.

Yes, I deliberately planned it to center over the yoke. The added benefit is the engine monitor right in front of me. The whole centering thing carried over to my upgrade to the G500 TXi shown below.

I wish he weren't in Texas so it maybe could be done without removing the yokes. That's a big job that doesn't buy me any new capability. Convince me otherwise.

Thanks. When I thought about doing everything imaginable in the way of avionics with the Bravo and loving the Mooney in general and its speeds versus buying a turboprop or jet without all the new innovations (although the Epic has been tempting), the decision was not difficult given the type of flying I do.

I had owned my airplane for 21 years before I started my upgrade journey. I thought it was a one time effort. It was not. It started in 2013 and continues to this day. So far there have been 5 major iterations and numerous small ones, each with a good reason. There will probably be more as other new technology comes online. For those interested here is the order: 1. G500, GTN 750/650, GMA35. GTS 800, GDL 88, GTX 330ES, ESI 2000, GDL 69A, WX 500, MVP-50. 2. G500TXI, ESI 500, GTX 335, FS 210, Alpha Systems AOA. 3. GCU 485 Controller required a panel change. 4. GFC 500, G5. 5. GTN Xi 750/650. 6. Aera 760, Landing Height System.

I'm using a 5 Amp circuit breaker switch with a 1 amp inline fuse.