davidfreedman

It's with a heavy heart, a new wife and a new baby that I put 1171P on the market. My next Mooney will be a few years off. Shoot me a PM if interested and would appreciate any feedback on price. I purchased 3 years back @ $8K more than offering price and prior to new interior. MAPA Log, vRef, etc show huge discrepencies. Here are the details: http://mooney1171p.weebly.com/index.html

Paul - tremendously helpful suggestions on operating procedures. That is generally what I was talking about in terms of "expectations" but I hadnt considered touch and goes or recurrency. To date, I've always been familiar with the skill level of anyone who's flown my plane as we'd flown together prior. But again, did not consider recurrency. As far as the relatively high bar for Mooney time, it's exclusionary but in alignment with my desire to partner with Mooney fliers. And aside from my opinions, the insurance requirement is what it is. And that's one hell of a fleet your club's got! Skyatty - Production house?

Jeff - thanks for the feedback. I'll bump up the price for any non-MooneySpace fliers:) Paul - your message motivated me to get more specific. I'm with Chartis (I think the old AIG was folded into it) and here's what I've got. For a pilot that meets the Open Pilot requirements, I can add up to 2 as renters (meaning they pay more than fuel and oil) for a 10% premium which in my case would amount to about $200. The requirements are 500TT, 100 Retrac Time and 25 in make/model. On the last requirement, I've never had a problem with putting non-renter friends on my policy who meet the requirements but in another Mooney model. Non-owner runs about $1200 annually at my hull value and can, of course, be used to cover any plane one flies. Flyboy called it on my resistance to leasing to a flight club though your points are valid. I want to have a personal relationship with anyone who flies 1171P. Its important to me that expectations are clear between us and that 1171P is treated well. While there are no guarentees that nothing bad will happen, it see a solid personal relationship as reducing risk. With regard to local rates, I'll have to research the buy-in terms to get those low club rates you list above.

Brian - the rates do no include insurance. If I do an equity partnership, I will add the individual to my policy at their cost and they would have to meet the open pilot minimums. For block hours, I will likely require that they get their own insurance and provide proof of insurance to me. I may modify this, but as I recall, my policy (at its current rate) has restrictions around rental. Thanks for the info on the E...sounds like I'm more than competitive. Paul - thanks, I will look at the latest valuations...haven't checked those out yet. Legallegend - I've spent a good deal of time in Nashville but have always flown commercial. I'll ping you if and when I ever get around to flying 1171P out your way and we'll fly. Jim/Nick - My motivation is really to preserve ownership, keep 1171P healthy and have good people flying her. I'm concerned that if she sits on the ramp, she'll deteriorate which is both a cost and health hazard. If figure the closer I am to "market" the tougher it'll be to get someone flying her. Making up some $ above and beyond incremental variable costs is good but my secondary concern. Nick - Your site looks great and is inspiring me to be more complete with my info and expectations on my site. I'm curious to know how things come together for you...keep me posted!

With the birth of my son a month ago, I anticipate my '83 M20J will see little flight time in the coming months. I'm looking to take on equity or block hour partner(s). For those of you that follow the market I'd love your feedback on my thinking in terms of pricing. And for anyone interested, please post or PM. Partnership: Value based on conservative vRef at $116k (split 2 or 3 ways). Not that it's relevent to today's pricing but I purchased her in '08 for $124k and have put in about $10k in upgrades. Block: 5 hr/mo @ $70/hr dry, 10 hr/mo @ $60 hr dry Equipment list and photos at http://mooney1171p.weebly.com/index.html

Quote: N4352H While some do it, slipping any Mooney is ill-advised. I used to do it all the time until I read up on it and looked at the data. There have been numerous articles in MAPA and elsewhere on this subject. Tails stalls can be sharp. With full flaps, gear down, throttle choked, decent rates close to 2000fpm are attainable, negating the needless risk of slipping. My preferred technique for getting your Mooney down that I didn't see anyone mention: cutting your power (or dropping appropriately so as not to overcool), nose level or slghtly high to bleed off speed and as you approach your desired speed, pitch down to maintain speed. In the process, you can really feel the plane lose energy both though your butt and control softening and you'll get a solid descent rate. This works like a charm, particularly when you find yourself close to the runway and high.

I have a Droid X and a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Here's what I use: Weatherbug Elite Widget (Come's with Weatherbug Elite) - I have this across my screen for a quick 3 day weather picture. Weather Elite - Good for 7 day forecast and hour by hour forecast Foreflight - Best app for METARs, TAFs and winds aloft AirWX - Not as good as Foreflight for METARs and TAFs but has PIREPs, NOTAMs, weather depiction charts and plates Aviation Weather from NOAA/NWS - Nothing of note that the others don't provide but I have it installed anyway. DUATs Mobile - This is a mobile web page rather than an app, but you can file flight plans and get "official" weather briefings. Enjoy!

Thank you all for the thoughtful feedback and support. Human nature to feel like you belong to the superior tribe (Mooney pilots) but in this case, its just true:) My thoughts: jlunseth - honestly never seen such a promising sight as the ASL and stack of crash trucks. Cruiser - pilot told me today it was a bad injector that fouled both plugs. Looks like we had plenty of engine left to get us down...though in the air the engine sounded like it was starved for fuel and was on the verge of ceasing. It's a little perplexing because I quickly checked temps on the EDM and would have expected abnormalities but saw none. George - Great advice on briefing and ORM. You mention "may sound corny." Rapport is a real issue. I checked weather beforehand and briefed likely approaches knowing I was flying right seat. I asked the pilot if he checked weather and he said "yep ceilings 600-1300, tops 4500 and icing at 10k. Our TECs dont fly above 5k so we're good." That was my cross-check and it corresponded with my info and assessment. I had mild self-consciousness about asking him a question I knew the answer to. Looks like I'm going to have to get over that if I'm going to do a proper briefing.Also, good advice on emergency practice. Like anything, going to the airport for a walkthrough is a discipline. Scott - VERY similar situation though I will credit my pilot with being in command if not a bit behind the airplane. On low ceiling...I learned a lot. With limited IMC experience, it didn't occur to me how limited ones options are for finding Best Field. It hit me after the BOOM - we've got the water or we are flying the approach. The may not be true in flat lands but with terrain and buildings that's what it is. Jolie - Guardian Angel...I have my first baby due in 3 months. Will be much happier to have him grow up in the back seat than hear stories about how daddy loved to fly. carusoam - Good questions! I have personal minimums and they were far exceeded on this flight as I'm a VFR pilot at this point. While I'm "IFR Capable" to the degree that I am, I haven't considered my minimums since I don't have my ticket. In that sense, I was in no mans land. I haven't considered minimums in terms of the condition of anothers airplane as 99% of the time, I fly my own. We did not compare minumums...I could and should have asked about his as PIC. "The problem seems to be rooted in mental overload during an emergency in IMC conditions. Would that have changed if you were both current and well practiced." Yes and yes. We talked a bit about the situation on the very expensive taxi ride from OXR to VNY and concluded that leisure flying and light IFR were insufficient for what we had experienced. I haven't thought about what the right routine looks like but it's a combination of practicing enough to be "automatic" and inducing stress with enough frequency that it doesn't significantly degrade my performance. Ned - Funny, I said to the pilot afterward that the only thing I hate about flying is that the good lessons always seem to come with pain. Dave - Great points on minimums and qualifying flying partners/equipment. I typically fly solo and VMC in a bird I trust with a pilot I trust:) On IMC, I'm inclined to engage more than I have. What came clear to me is that busting through a 1000' layer is nothing like soup end to end where there is no opportunity to settle in and get oriented...particularly when you are maneuvering constantly. I/we have just got to fly it more. lahso - Thanks and I hope you stay out of 'em. Dave - yep you got it....really challenging to get true priorities straight in that moment. What really matter's at this moment? It seems like the thing you're doing until your realizing that you forgot to fly the plane! Again, main thanks to you all!

I have the itch to retrospect my emergency (or precautionary) depending how you look at it, from last weekend in order to process my lessons learned. What better place to do it than here! A Mooney flier a couple of hangars down from me and I had been toying with the idea of doing some instrument training together for a couple of months. He felt a little rusty but was current and I had let my IR slip away from me a year ago when I completed my training and rescheduled my check ride a few times over as I had "gotten busy." One week turned into one month and here I am without a ticket. We agreed to fly this past Sunday in his Rocket (I fly a 201). Our original intention had been to fly VMC so that we could both practive but it turned out to be IMC (600' ceiling and 4500' tops). It still seems like a good opportunity for me to go through procedures mentally while he flew them. We decided to fly TEC routes and land in OXR then SBA before we went back to VNY. We flew the first leg and were in the soup the whole time. The workload on the first leg was significant given that with was maybe a 15 minute flight. I felt slightly anxious as I was not PIC and when I saw the plane get away from him a little here and there I think it was amplified in my head. I got the leans a couple of times and I'm not sure if he did as well but it looked like it. We had no agreed-to division of responsibilities, but I decided it would be helpful if I called out deviations..."you're climbing"...35 degree bank...etc. When the workload got real heavy during setup for the ILS, I confirmed a few frequencies, etc. We decided to land rather than touch and go so that he could give the brain a rest. As we taxied back for our next leg I found that a highschool friend who I hadn't talked to in 15 years was working the tower that day. He spent 10 years in the Navy and had been OXR tower about 6 months. "Leo, is that you?"..."Dave, is that you?"..."Yep, right seat today"..."Welcome to my little slice of heaven." We got our clearance for SBA and took off. Ceiling was at about 600'. At 2000' in the soup, we got a big BOOM from the engine. HUGE adreniline rush and momentary subtle panic. We reported to atc that the engine was acting up and requested to divert back to VNY as the engine had smoothed out. At 4500' we just began to clear the tops and we got a "ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug." MORE adreniline. The engine sounded like it was being starved. Mixture full rich, check fuel selector against remaining fuel, throttle in, fuel flow on the EDM...everything looked good. "ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug." I looked at him and said "Declare emergency." He did so immediately. Controller cleared the aread and cleared us. We requested vectors for the ILS. They provided. Pilot was working on setting up...head down to look at the plate...radio tune...instrument scan. The plane was getting away from him, particularly on attitude and bank. I called out "2000 foot per minute descent"..."40 degree right bank"...I found myself applying pressure to the yoke for correction. He responed, I've got it. When he corrected, I released. Once on course, we were way low and about 1/2 mile left of course. When we broke out at about 600' we were fishing for the runway. Tower gave us some hints and we saw the lights and got on course. We flew down under power. We were welcomed by a runway full of fire trucks. We got on the ground and thanked the firemen...also extended some humble apologies. My old buddy called me from the tower and invited us up after a gentleman took some of the pilots info. To be blunt, the possibility of death crossed my mind in a very real way on the way down and I didn't like it one bit...I've never experienced that before. There were some things we did right, some things we did wrong and some new learnings. Right -Declared an emergency and got on the ground -Both of us stayed fully engaged all the way down -Two pilots when flying in challenging conditions -I brought my 696...allowed me to get my own questions answered and be helpful without interfering with the pilots workflow Wrong -No honest conversation before we took off about whether we were both up for serious IMC when our intent was just a little practice. We had never flown together before. -No prior agreement on division of responsibilities. I could and should have been communicating and perhaps splitting the navigation load during the emergency. He should have been focused on aviating (though it's pretty intimiate with navigating under IFR) -I did not familiarize myself with his panel beforehand which limited my utility during the emergency. Observations -You are a different pilot in an emergency...our little monkey brains get overwhelmed quickly. It never occurred to me that I should do recurrent training that includes pushing me to saturation to make sure that THAT pilot is as sharp as the one who flies 400 mile cross countries in clear and a million conditions. -Experienced pilots need it too. My partner that day flies 150 hours/year and has about 25 years under his belt. He got us on the ground and I'm thankful for that. I also saw where he got rattled. -CFI training seems a lot more interesting even as a non-teaching pilot. Some amount (or maybe a lot) of my own anxiety was likely an overreaction to not being in control and not KNOWING the state of mind of my PIC. -The response crew was empethetic. My buddy in the tower told me it was his first real emergency and that it was good practice half jokingly, half seriously. -Shame on me for not finishing my ticket the first time around. -While atitude is always my friend, it's a little less friendly when I've got a low ceiling. Short of flying the approach or landing in the water, I'm not sure what our outs would have been with only 600' of ground visibility. Thanks for listening all. I welcome feedback, insights, commentary. Waiting for word back on what was going on with the engine.

I did half of my training with non-Mooney CFII and half with. I agree that it's not necessary for the purposes of an IR but when you spend that kind of time with an instructor, you can pick up a lot of good info if they know Mooneys...particularly if you are a first time Mooney owner. I would invest a week on researching local Mooney-specific instructors.

I should mention that I replaced my pump with a Weldon model A8163-A from Aircraft Spruce. It ran around $800 plus installation.

I had the same issue last year with my '83 J...I know that squealing sound you are describing. Got so bad that the boost pump switch wouldn't stay on for more than 10 seconds or so before tripping. I replaced the switch but that didn't do the trick. I ultimately replaced the pump and problem solved. No idea on question #2.

Late to this discussion but here's my 2 cents (though looks like you've settled on normally aspirated). For practical purposes I wouldn't focus too much on J vs K vs S vs M given your mission. I would focus on condition and features. Buy the bird that has the panel you want and had a good previous owner that took care of her. New stuff depreciates fast and getting work done takes a lot of time for both intial installation and debugging. I think fixer uppers are mother *uckers unless you're really into that sort of thing.

Christine at Able Avionics ((818) 779-0265) offered it to me and characterize it as a "dealer demo" and then explained it to me. She said that she could do one plane at this price and that it has to be on the field. It's the sort of thing where you'd conctact your authorized dealer and see if they've got one out yet or not. If not, tell them to contact Bendix and inquire. If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll find out who Christine's contact is and pass it along.

You're going to have a blast! Check this out: http://www.funplacestofly.com/

60.3 hours. Finished my PPL and picked her up in New Jersey 9 days later. My first "real" cross country was the ferry flight from N87 to KSMO.

I've been happy with Able and would recommend them though I haven't really put them to the test. They did a software upgrade + new antenna on my 480 and then this latest flux valve replacement. One big benefit is that you can drop off and pick up at Pentastar (FBO right next door) any time of day/weekend which is good for us working class folk that can't get in during their normal operating hours. For the 3 years that I've had 1171P, I've had most servicing including annuals done by a gentleman at KTOA, Rob Riter of Riter Aviation (http://riteraviation.com/). He's a CFII, IA and former Mooney owner. He's been entirely impeccable. Just don't get turned off when he tries to upsell you into renting one of his twins...he's got a young flight school and always promoting.

Here's the conclusion to my story...drove down to Global Tech (Thanks for the tip, Dave) with my 102A and 525 in hand for bench testing. They agreed to do the tests while I waited as it was a 75 min drive for me. Both tested solid and they suggested it was likely the flux valve (as many on the board have already commented). They gave me an overhauled unit for $450 on the condition that I'd send them my old one. I also had a slight slight errors corrected on the heading bug and glide slope deviation indicator...$200 for what looks like 3 cents worth of metal. I got out of there for just under 1 AMU after having the metal resanded and painted + knob replaced. To make the longer part of the story short, first me and then my local avionics shop (Able Avionics at KVNY) removed every conceivable access panel without being able to locate the old flux valve. A call to very helpful Mooney Headquarters confirmed that it was located 3 panels inboard on the left wing. This seem unreasonable is it was rivoted rather than screwed. The shop removed the rivots and there is was. They modified the access panel for easier removal next time around. Turns out those were factory rivots. $660 worth of detective work for 2 minute swap out...little frustrating but happy to be back in the air!

I finally finished a flux valve replacement at Able Avionics (KVNY) today...more details on that in a separate thread. Apparently Bendix/King is trying to get one demo unit out to each airport (I assume those with reasonable traffic). The avionics shop wll sell you the unit for $6800 + installation if you agree to let them show it to prospective customers every now and then. The constraint is that you have to be on the field where the avionics shop is located.

Quote: DaV8or ...and there in lies the rub. It would still be a used airplane and I suspect most people would say "What??! $200,000 for a 40 year old F??!! I can just buy a beater for $40,000 and paint it for $12,000, new interior for $10,000... blah, blah, blah." Unless they can really convince new airplane buyers that the reconditioned airplane really is a new airplane, new plane buyers won't be inpressed and used airplane buyers will see it as an inflated rip off. They may be able to 0 time the airframe, but I think it will still be a 196X or 197X whatever.

I recently completed my BFR with a CFII/IA that had several hundred hours of Mooney-time. I picked up a few new tips, some Mooney-specific or at least Mooney-adapted...well worth the BFR. As mentioned early in the thread, I fly my plane and that's the one I want to be proficient in. I recommed you take the extra time and potentially incrimental expense to do your BFR with a Mooney instructor. I'm not sure about Oregon...but you've got some great Mooney instructors 3 hours away in the Bay Area...head over there to do your BRF...and a good excuse to do some flying.

Here's one more for you... I went the auto-shop route last year which a fellow Mooney-owner did prior to me with a great result. New Life Upholstry 310-841-6556 in Los Angeles. They stripped the interior down to the frame, reinforce and repaired all the plastic, covered it all with microfiber, took care of the seats, side panels, kick panels, headliner, carpets...all approved materials They did a beautiful job. Three squawks coming out of it: 1) they pinched the tubes to the airvents which travel through the headliner 2) the heat rating on the glue that they used for side panel inserts was insufficient and wasn't holding on hot days. 3) Slight wrinkles in the covering on the door. First two issues remediated. Last issue which was my own screwup...I wanted to do two-tone gray. The darker gray ended up having a bluish tint which I didn't notice when I was looking at the swatch. Clashes with my maroon paint...but I need new paint anyway.

Lew, don't start talking about an Aspen PFD...I'm almost financially irresponsible enough to go for it:) Dave, thank you for the referral! I'll give them a ring tomorrow and let you know how it goes.

I found/cleaned the connector and no joy. Avionics shop estimates $2200-$3900 for a KG102 overhaul depending on what needs to be done. Ouch.

I'm having the same issue as of today. Tower must of wondered what the hell I was doing taxiing in circles for 20 mins trying to get my HSI and GPS to agree. jlunseth, was the loose connection readily accessible or did you have to open up the panel?