donkaye, MCFI

Since I am very particular about how I recommend flying the pattern and landing an airplane in general (to keep it simple), I spend time refining most pilot's landing technique that is independent of the Mooney. Many, not knowing their airplane very well, will always want to land with power in a nose high attitude where they can't see the runway, or in a level attitude that chews up a lot of runway. I combine Mooney landing technique with eliminating faulty prior poor technique to become proficient with the Mooney. It will generally take 20-25 landings to hone in the skill that I think is necessary to call yourself a Mooney pilot. This includes normal, crosswind, no flap, short field, soft field, and most importantly practice with bounced landings, and go arounds. Certainly this should be done in transition training with any airplane, but with the Mooney bounced landings and go arounds require more skill than in the simple Cessnas and Pipers in my opinion, having taught in all of them.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, especially when it comes to the Mooney. Just ask Top Gun how many prop strikes they have had to repair. Although I have my type rating in the CJ, it was quite awhile ago, so I wouldn't teach in it now even though I am qualified. Same for the King Air and the single engine turboprops. The Mooney is way more susceptible to prop strikes than the oleo strut airplanes. And how much more trouble is it to find a Mooney specific instructor who knows how to deal with those issues? When it comes to my safety, I want the best instruction possible from the most experienced person possible. There are times to be a CB and times not to.

A quick look at last year expenses 4/1/14 to 3/31/15: Hangar 6,800 Insurance 2,600 Taxes 1,800 Annual 6,000 Maintenance (+/-) 6,000 Fuel (5.50x20x100) 11,000 Wash 450 Database Subscriptions 1,500 -------- 35,830 This year will be much more on maintenance due to needing 2 cylinders overhauled due leak in the intake valve guides and the turbocharger overhauled. Note there is not reserve for engine overhaul. I'll just pay cash for it when it's due.

Students come to me to learn the best way to fly their airplane. Over the past 23 years, I've had a chance to try out many different ways to do that. So it's been an iterative process. The more questions a student has the better. They are involved the learning process. From that perspective I suppose you could say there is collaboration. But most students don't come to me to try to talk me into why their way of flying their airplane is the best way to fly their airplane. I've have had a couple of those (3 or 4 out of all the people I've worked with), and we part ways very quickly. Instructors are in a position of authority because of the experience they hopefully have to more quickly impart their knowledge to a student in the quickest least expensive manner possible. I will demo a lot early on to give a student confidence in their decision to have me teach them and to show them how the Mooney should be flown---especially landing them. Nearly always that encourages them and they improve more quickly. So from that perspective flight instructing is Authoritative.

Purported teacher..... I am certainly willing to be banned from this site for my point of view, which is to contribute to Mooney and aviation safety. I am very experience in recognizing the five hazardous attitudes, as I review them in detail before I send a pilot up for their instrument rating practical test, and have personally seen the results of those being violated--two dead former students, one with an innocent passenger on board. So I will continue to express my point of view as clearly as I can. If you do choose to question authority, I suggest you do it in private where you can only hurt yourself and not on a forum where your ill conceived input could lead someone, especially a newbie with little Mooney experience and truly asking for advice, to go down a path they might soon regret.

As a landlord in the Silicon Valley, I have the opportunity to see the average salaries of the Engineers working at Google and Apple. I also know the average rents in the area. A small 1,100 sq ft house goes for about $4,200.mo. That house will sell for $1,500,000 in a couple of days and maybe generate overbids in the neighborhood of $100,000 to $200,000. Buyers are almost always from India or China. Americans are gone from the scene. Salaries for people out of school a few years run between $150,000-$200,000 per year. I've seen a husband and wife making $250,000 who can barely afford renting a condo for $3,500/mo. Flying and maintaining a Bravo, admittedly more expensive than a C, costs a minimum of $30,000/year flying it just over 100 hr/yr. Things are definitely getting out of hand here. Owning an airplane is not for the faint of heart.

We agree on the first part, never implied the second, just that Mooney specific transition training is the wise path to take when buying a Mooney. Maybe there is someone out there who has taught more in Mooneys than I have, but I have't met them yet.

Hopefully, the original poster will see that there are some, how shall I say, less than the brightest light in the room people to put it nicely in the Mooney family, as once again this poster demonstrates. Regarding advertising, I never have, never will advertise. I teach because I want to, absolutely don't need the money one bit, enjoy being of service to those smart enough to use me to improve their piloting skills, and it should be obvious from my posting on this thread am not making any friends with the Macho, Anti-Authority types. However, based on what I am saying, I hope the others will choose a transition and recurrent training path that will lead to their becoming better pilots.

Posts like the above are detrimental to those wondering if they should get training from a Mooney specific instructor. I bet I could fly with this guy and tear his flying apart in 1 or 2 times around the pattern. He is your Macho, anti-authority know it all. If he has CFI at the end of his name, he should be ashamed of himself. If not, he doesn't know what he is talking about. I've seen them before in all shapes and colors in my 21 years of instructing. Unfortunately I've had to fire a couple of those types of students. There darn well is a difference between the Bonanza and Arrow, oleo struts being one of them. I've been asked by Mooney in the past to go cross country to help convince a buyer who was lent a Mooney by the company, prop struck it, and then wanted to back out of his deal because of the landing characteristics of the Mooney, that he could land it properly. It turns out he was one of the best pilots I have ever flown with, but he froze on bounced landing because he didn't know what to do. After spending a day and a half with him, he went ahead with the purchase. So, Mr. non CFI don't tell me there's no difference in checking out in a Mooney vs other airplanes. Go get your CFI and train 450 students and then get back to me.

I recently checked out a 767 Captain in his recently acquired Mooney Bravo. While he was a very good student as you would expect, he needed a checkout, as flying the Bravo is much different than flying the 767. I've had some difficult times with students who thought they didn't need a checkout when transitioning from the medium body J to the long body Mooney. So far, all came to my point of view by the time the training was over. Your insurance company did not do you a favor by requiring no transition time, tons of ratings or not.

I feel confident that, if you talked to another Bose person or asked to speak to a supervisor and told him you were at Oshkosh, but that they didn't promote the conversion, that you are a long time Bose customer and love the product, that they would relent and give you the discount. Try it.

Well, that says it all. All you need is 2,000 hours test flying airplanes to not need Mooney specific instruction.

After 17 straight years of attending, I always check with vendors whose products I have to see if they have anything new that I am interested in. This year I saw the new system 6.0 Garmin will be coming out with in a couple of months for the GTNs, I was surprised to see the new ESI 500 and immediately wanted one, and finally saw and played with the GMA 350C audio panel and will be upgrading my GMA 35 to the 35C. Obviously the problem is that you want all the new stuff.

I've taught for over 5,600 hours over the past 21 years--mostly Mooneys. I think no matter what aircraft you fly you should get make and model experience from a CFi who has lots of experience in that make and model aircraft. I think this is especially true of Mooneys. Landing speed isn't the only issue with Mooneys. The landing gear is system is very different on the Mooney compared to the oleo strut airplanes that pretty much land themselves. It's very easy to get yourself into a PIO that results in a prop strike even if you come in at the proper speed in the Mooney, but touch down with too much vertical motion. An experienced CFI can have you actually practice that during transition training--at least I have my students do bounced landing practice before I sign them off on the airplane. In my opinion you're kidding yourself if you think you can be self taught in the Mooney. That may just come back to bite you when you least expect it. I've owned my airplane for 23 years. There were a couple of years in the beginning that I didn't go to a MSC. Big mistake!. Just like anything in life, if you practice at it extensively you get very good at it. So it is with MSCs. They know Mooneys so well, that problems can be diagnosed quickly and fixed much faster than with an A & P with limited knowledge of the airplane. When I leave Top Gun after an Annual, I feel very confident that my airplane has had a thorough going over and any problems that may have existed were found and taken care of. In my opinion it is penny wise and pound foolish to have work other than an oil or brake change done by anyone not associated with a MSC, but you may need to find that out the hard way.

A good reason to plan on attending AirVenture next year. There are always some surprise deals--most of them very good. I think I was in the MAPA tent when someone came in angry that he'd just bought an A20 a month earlier and Bose required an invoice to give him the upgrade. He'd have to find the receipt at home. I immediately went into the Bose tent with one pair of my A20s and immediately got one upgraded right there for ½ price. The other was in the plane in Madison, so I paid full bore for another one when they gave me an RMA to return the cable from the one in the airplane. When I got back to Madison I packed the old cable into the new cable's box and shipped it Fed EX back to Bose. I had my 50% rebate on the credit card by the time I got back home.

Interesting. In 3 OH's mine never did show level in that test. Why don't you run the test from a right hand pattern to see if there is any difference?

For the moment, hardware on the certified stuff isn't changing that much. Garmin has been really good at providing outstanding system upgrades to their existing products to keep them fresh. I think I like the G500 better than the 3GX, although I have no time on the latter. As an example, it's a lot easier to highlight traffic and get details on the G500 with its knobs and buttons than doing the same function on the touch screen of the GTN 750.

Does the G2000 have ADS-B IN and OUT? I bet not, yet, and when they do you can bet the cost will be a lot more than 20 times the cost of my system. If they think you can pay it on the jets and turboprops, you can count on their charging outrageously for it. No, I prefer the Bravo, thank you.

I CAN see the issue for a high time engine, since a reman installed can run $80,000. While I know I'm prejudice, having extensively taught in and flown nearly every model Mooney, the Mooney Bravo for the price is the best performing personal airliner in the Mooney fleet---by far!

As much as I love flying the Acclaim, I wouldn't take that option when I could have more capability for ¼ the cost, as I just discussed above. The only thing I would not have is 25 knots more speed and flying west that usually gets whittled down to a negligible amount. Oh, sorry---hijacked thread....

One other option. My insurance company incredibly says a Mooney Bravo not upgraded has a puny value of $115,000, which to me is just a ridiculously low price. Everyone should go jump on any one of those if they can find one for that price. That would be the best bargain in the flying universe. Anyway, if one should find one for that price and upgraded it to what I have, they would have less than $200,000 in an airplane that surpasses the avionics of the current production $800,000 Acclaim that does not have ADS-B in.

Go up and run this test with the KI 256. Run a standard left hand pattern. Turn base and then final. When you roll level on final, visually look at the KI 256. Does it show level? My bet is that it does not. Now think of being vectored to final from the left in IMC conditions. Having run this test, how comfortable do you feel?

Well then, I just hope the KI 300 gets its certification soon, because from my experience the KI 256 OH'd, due to its mechanical behavior and gyro peculiarities, is just not up to the task when it comes to comfortable instrument flying in this days and age--especially when its failure modes can be either mechanical, vacuum, or both. Recognizing the financial implication of upgrading even to the Aspen, is your life and those of our family really not worth the difference of just a couple of thousand dollars even if you are a CB?

The G500 is not a G1000. There is no reversion from PFD to MFD, although that would certainly be nice. I am also unaware of any battery backup available for the G500. Certainly nothing has been discussed on BeechTalk or presented at Oshkosh this year. My discussion above referred to the Genesis L-3 ESI 500 currently in certification and I am told will be available by November of this year. Like my ESI 2000 backup to the G500, it has a multi hour battery backup and additionally input from a GPS for navigation and SVT. I'm not sure what you are referring to with regards the GAD 43e and legacy hardware. Its job is to provide the interface to the AP, DME, ADF, and provide Altitude and Vertical preselect to a number of autopilots.

It really is an apples vs oranges thing. I've got tons of time behind the KI256, the Aspens (both single and dual tubes), the G1000, and most recently the G500 in my airplane (for the past year and a half). I overhauled my KI256 3 times. Each time it lasted a little over 1,000 hours. It only failed the first time and I preemptively overhauled them the two additional times, since I do a lot of IFR flying. In the end the KI 256 really never behaved properly after the overhauls, and maybe not even originally. It was satisfactory not to kill someone, but ALWAYS in a left turn to final when rolling out level the AI was off at least 5° from level. I never liked that. On the cheap, the new KI 300 looked really good at Oshkosh. I hope they get it certified soon for those who for cost or sentimental reasons want to operate with the legacy instrumentation. The Aspen is "adequate" and really does a lot for a modest amount of money, but as the saying goes (well, maybe I'm making it up) it isn't a G500. In my opinion the G500 is the Rolls Royce of the panel upgrades. It is the most comfortable panel I have flown behind, including the G1000. You do pay for that privilege, however. With the new ESI 500 that will be out by November according to my contacts at L-3, a backup similar to the 2nd screen Aspen will be available for the G500 that includes navigation (both lateral and vertical), SVT, VS, independent heading, sync'd baro, and backup battery. I plan to sell my ESI 2000 and put that unit in when it becomes available. It'll be like having a mini G500 in the panel as a backup. I've now made numerous trips all over the country with my system and the power of the new technology is just amazing. The Flight Stream 210 turned out to be a huge surprise as to its usefulness, even with a fully equipped airplane such as mine.