WardHolbrook

As others have mentioned, I would check the rigging, the tach and the pitot/static system. Without an airdata computer, you can come up with a pretty good approximation of TAS by averaging your GPS groundspeed on the 4 cardinal headings. It's not exact, but it's close enough and gets most of the pitot/static errors out of the equation. Optical tachometers are pretty cheap and make it easy to determine the accuracy of the one in your panel. While you're at it, if it's been more than 10 years since your airplane was last weighed it wouldn't hurt a bit to get that done too. Oh, and most of those early POHs were wildly optimistic. It seems that they were written by the marketing department, not by the guys in Flight Test. (Nowadays, the POHs are written by the guys in Flight Test, but edited by the guys in the Legal Department. Sigh.)

I usually "fuel for the leg" and not just automatically top off the tanks at the end of each flight. I normally go out sometime the day before the flight and get the airplane fueled - especially if I've got an early AM takeoff. This gives any water or gunk in the fuel adequate time to settle out and make it to the sumps. The last thing you want to do is fuel, then immediately sump the fuel, then blast off. It takes time for stuff to settle out so what would be the point?

At some of the international airports (mainly in Mexico and South America) that we frequented, we would also hire armed security to "babysit" our aircraft while we were in town. Sometime I felt that it was like paying protection money to the mob, but we never had any issues. I also use security tape on the fuel caps, engine access doors, cabin and baggage doors. The tape is almost impossible to defeat (and easy to remove when you get back home) and makes it readily apparent if anyone has tried anything nefarious. http://www.aircraftsecurity.com/company/ted/

I respectfully disagree with this. I've seen things happen over night - ie brake fluid puddles that were not there the night before. In my working airplanes, the mechanics always do a "mechanics preflight" on our aircraft the night before one of our early AM launches and we still do our pilot's preflights and we occasionally will run across a discrepancy. Over the years, I've also developed a habit that I call "My last chance walk-around". Simply put, I never climb into an airplane without walking completely around it first. This last chance walk around has nothing to do with the normal pre-flight inspection and I do this even if I have just completed the normal pre-flight inspection. You'd be surprised at the things I've found over the years. Some days it can be a couple of hours between the preflight and when the passengers finally show up. Things can and do happen in the meantime. This practice has kept me from embarrassing myself on more than one occasion.

A preflight the night before? Seriously? I'm sorry, but that's not a preflight, it's a "Let's go to the hangar and look at the airplane". Honestly, how long does it take to do an adequate preflight? Nobody needs to be in that big of a hurry. I've said this before, whenever I find myself rushing doing anything associated with flying an airplane, I find that my screwup rate increases dramatically unless I slow down and become very deliberate. That guy is going to be spending some quality one on one time with the Feds. I doubt that they will view it as a preflight either. Just saying.

That would explain all the phone calls we got last week when I got lost in the Falcon.

And the key to all of this is proper initial training and ongoing recurrent training. If all you're ever doing is taking a basic BFR every two years, you're simply not doing enough. If you manage to keep IFR current without ever flying with a CFII then you're simply not doing enough. Grab a CFI/I once or twice a year and go exploring for your weaknesses. They will be there and you will find them. It's what the pros do and they fly much more than most of us. It's not going to break the bank and you will see and feel the difference in your proficiency levels. While you're at it go take an extreme attitude recovery / basic aerobatics course. Again, it's not going to break the bank and you can probably work a BFR and even a tailwheel endorsement out of it - all of which are good things when it comes to overall proficiency. All it takes is a willingness to take a small step or two outside of your comfort zone. The results will be worth it.

I'm starring retirement in the face myself. You left out a biggie... VNAV is nice, but we always seemed to make the crossing restrictions just fine without it in those old Jurassic jets. It's easy to wax poetic about the good old days, but we often forget about the flip side of that same coin... A good friend of mine, who is now well into his 90's flew B-17s in Europe during WWII and was called up and flew Grumman HU-16s during the Korean war in the USAF Air Rescue Service. It had been decades since he had been in a cockpit and a few years ago I took him out to the airport to see the new state-of-the-art full glass panel airplane I was flying at the time. I plugged in the GPU and lit up the panel. He was astounded by all of the capability that we had in our glass panel - triple FMSes, dual IRSes, dual digital autopilots, VNAV, etc. etc. etc. He asked all kinds of questions about what it could do and how accurate it was. He just sat there looking at our panel then my old friend got very emotional and started talking about how many lives would have been saved back in the day with equipment like that. Sometimes the good old days aren't quite as good as we might have thought. In the good old days it took a squadron of B-17s and 100s of airmen to take out a factory building - if they were lucky. Most of the bombs were dropped into a radius measured in miles. Nowadays, if they want to take out a building, the biggest decision that they've got to make is which window do they want the cruise missile to go through? A couple of nights ago, we were flying into a small airport out West. It was the classic "dark hole" approach. It was sure nice having a computer generated glide path to come down on. I've shot hundreds, if not thousands, of those types of approaches without it though. For my money, I'll take the VNAV thank you. I remember reading about Eddie Rickenbacker and Eastern Airlines. He did refuse to install autopilots in EAL aircraft - that's what pilots were supposed to be doing. The flip side of that coin is that when they finally got their autopilots, their fleet fuel costs dropped 6%. It seems that autopilots really can fly airplanes better than us pilots. After retirement, I've looking forward to getting back to the basics, but for now, I must be getting lazy in my old age. I'll take the glass and computers.

I'm a huge fan of pulsing recog/landing lights - the more the merrier.

Getting that commercial will allow you to sidestep one of the issues, but definitively not all of them. You're still going to have to jump through a bunch of "it's not a Part 135 operation so I don't need an air taxi certificate" hoops if you're using your own airplane. Those seem to be the ones that trip up most guys. Like I said, it's definitely doable, but it's not as simple as some might lead you to believe. Some here might poopoo the idea, but I would highly recommend that you get a short consultation with an experienced aviation attorney to explain to you the ins and outs of just what constitutes a Part 135 operation and the ramifications of using a personally owned aircraft. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

Pretty much what most of the others have said. When it comes to stuff like this, yes it can be done legally, but there are many i's that need to be dotted and t's that need to be crossed to do so. As they say, it's never a problem unless there's a problem and then you've got a problem. The FAA wasn't born yesterday and they will take a very hard look at all of those i's that needed dotting and t's that needed crossing and you wouldn't want to be found lacking. And, since you're dealing with the FAA, logic and common sense do not necessarily apply. Getting that commercial license simplifies things somewhat, but it doesn't make all of the issues go away, especially if you're using your own airplane. Before you get too excited about this, I recommend that you spend some quality time doing your due diligence on the AOPA website (and forum - they seem to discuss this in depth at least once a year) and talk to your insurance guy about your plans. Also, discussing this with an experienced aviation attorney would be time and money well spent. From a practical matter, not too many companies will allow this anyway, the liabilities that they are assuming are just too great without the appropriate insurance coverages.

There is nothing insurmountable about learning to fly in a Mooney. All it's really going to take is a bit more money and perhaps not even much more of that. Guys learn to fly in much more complex aircraft. (I've got a CFI buddy teaching two kids how to fly in their daddy's DA42 Twinstar and they're doing pretty good actually.) It probably won't much more if any time, but as in all cases, you'll need to find the right instructor. When it comes to training, it's all about the instructor and you'll not only need to find someone who "clicks" with you as a primary student and also knows his way around Mooneys as well. That's could be a tall order since that person probably won't be the new kid CFI at the local flight school. I'd suggest that you call your aircraft insurance broker prior to getting too excited. It's going to cost more for the insurance for a while and you will likely find that not every company will be willing to write the policy.

I know it's probably been beat to death and I should probably go back and read all of the posts, but nowadays O2 is O2 - it ALL comes out of the same tank and it's been that way for many years. Aviation O2 needs to be dry so that things won't ice up when it's cold and medical O2 needs to be moist so it won't dry out the nasal membranes - that's why they bubble medical O2 through water-filled humidifiers. For those of you who subscribe to Aviation Consumer there's an excellent article on this subject in the Feb 2004 issue called "Roll Your Own Oxygen" and Dr. Bruce Chien, over on the AOPA "red board" also has a "sticky" on one of the forums.

As for that second engine only being good for taking you to the scene on the crash... I don't want this to turn into a single vs twin debate, but I've said this before - There are caveats associated with the operation of any aircraft - regardless of the number or type of powerplant(s). The big caveat when it comes to singles is when the engine quits on you, you will be landing shortly. Hopefully, as a result of dumb luck or good judgment, you will be VFR over survivable terrain because you're going to be up close and personal with it in very short order. You can rationalize and play the odds all you want, but if you fly long enough you will have an engine failure at some point.Period. The big caveat when it comes to flying a twin is that when that engine quits on you, you had better have made the required investment in training and have the prerequisite level of skill and proficiency to avoid turning the airplane into little more than a lawn dart. Period. A properly flown twin operated by a proficient pilot within its limitations is inherently safer than a single. If they are not operated that way, they are more dangerous. Period. I'd guess that the majority of the non-professional light twin drivers and many of the "pros" would be safer in a single. It takes a lot of effort to gain the necessary proficiency and even more to maintain it. That's dang tough to when your recurrent training involves little more than a basic flight review with a CFI every couple of years and you're only flying a 50 to 100 hours a year. It also takes judgement and discipline to operate your twin in a manner that doesn't severely compromise the limited OEI performance capabilities of the typical light piston twin. Just like in a single, you can play the odds all you want in your light twin, but never forget that now you've got two engines so you've got twice the likelihood of a failure in any given period of time. In a twin, it's all about proficiency, not just currency and the only way to achieve and maintain proficiency is through a structured recurrent training program. If you're going to fly a twin, you need to budget the time and money to do it right and it ain't going to be cheap.

They were in a tail slide since before then. I left 11 years ago and haven't looked back. I do miss my K-Falls friends though. I hesitate to bring up my feelings on singles vs twins because I always end up getting hate mail. I would love to own a Mooney Acclaim S, but I'd NEVER fly one (or any other single) at night or in LIFR conditions. It's got to be during the day and there's got to be a VFR ceiling - I'll save the IFR stuff for enroute. I know, I know, the statistics don't bear it out, but my personal experience does.

I flew for Jeld-Wen for nearly 15 years and lived in "Kalamity Falls" for 8 years. Even that de-iced Baron isn't going to be able to "punch through" the crap on the days that a Mooney couldn't do it - they don't perform any better than a turbo Mooney. Jeld-Wen flew turboprop twins (Cheyenne and King Air) around the area for decades and had little difficulty. Those turboprops do not perform that much better than an Acclaim, Bravo or one of the big-bore Continental conversions. It's all about having the proper tools, training, experience and the good judgement to know when you can and when you shouldn't.

I use fltplan.com. It has its warts, but it's free and provides "one stop shopping". It's pretty much the defacto standard in computerized flight planning in the corporate jet world. It does a good job.

There's more reasons to fly high than just tailwinds. This is why you need to factor in things like comfort, winds, leg length, etc, etc, etc. Some legs it makes sense to go high, other legs it doesn't, that's nothing new. The thing is, there are a lot of guys with turbos who probably have no business up in the high teens and low flight levels - they are simply not prepared for the challenges that high altitude introduces into the equation. (There's all of that pesky training that isn't really mandated by the regs, but necessary none the less.) Those free and low-cost computerized flight planning programs that factor in stuff like time to climb, cruise IAS, winds aloft, and descent times and give you accurate enroute times and fuel burns for multiple altitudes makes the most efficient/economical altitude selection pretty much a no-brainer. If you're going to go the non-pressurized turbo route and play around up high, you're probably going to want to get some O2 refill equipment for the hangar. If you're only flying the occasional long trip, then it's probably not going to be worth the hassle. If you use your Mooney for what it was designed to do on a regular basis then it probably is.

You guys are all pretenders to the throne. Here's one at .86 M and 552 knots across the ground... That's not quite as good as I've seen, I once had nearly 150 knots right on the tail, the ground speed was hovering right around 600 knots and went over 610 for a short time in the descent. This is one of my favorite photos though... FL470, .78M, 482 knots across the ground. Oh well, enough of that. Turbocharging simply buys you options that you wouldn't otherwise have. Having more options is always a good thing.

There seems to be two methods of employment when it comes to TKS on FIKI certified Mooneys. One is that it should only be used to beat a hasty retreat in the event of an icing encounter. There is nothing wrong with that approach except that I believe that it's overly conservative and that's coming from me, the most conservative pilot you know. Having TKS and then not taking advantage of it is a waste. Icing is where you find it. Let me explain. Even when icing is forecast and reported, it is still usually found in bands or layers and usually a change in altitude is all that is required to get you out of the band. TKS will keep the icing demons at bay while you search for the icing-free altitude(s) and allows you to soldier on. Do you use it to drone on and on in while in actual icing? Of course not, but it does allow you to legally dispatch when the forecast is calling for ice. Like everything else TKS has its PROS and CONS and it can certainly be misused like any other piece of equipment on your tricked out Mooney, but it is nothing more than a tool that, when used properly, allows you to safely expand the capabilities of your airplane.

I've flown to Canada 100's of times. Crossing into Canada is almost always a total non-event. Coming back is not much more involved. The e-APIS thing is a total pain in the arse, but those sites you mention take away most of the headache. (The site I personally use is Flashpass.com) Personally, if it's just a 45 minute drive, that's what I'd do. Remember, like the USA, you must also land first at an approved airport of entry in Canada. Depending upon where you're crossing point is, you will save that much time and maybe even more. Check with your rental car company however, not all of them will let you drive across the border.

Well, not so if you use them properly. I've been flying behind FDs for over 12.000 hours and have never, ever had a problem nor have I ever seen or heard of a problem with any of the guys I've ever flown or trained with. Using a FD for every takeoff is SOP for turbine powered aircraft and there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be used in your piston single if it's so equipped. As for autopilot usage down low, there may be limitations in the AFM regarding the use below a certain altitude, so yes, use the V-Bars and if you're having problems with them get some training. But seriously, how can you muff up Go Around and Heading or NAV? And of course you don't fixate on the FD, you always back it up with your other instruments, it's called scanning - that's what instrument pilots do.

I missed this post. The number of people on board and amount of fuel are normal questions anytime an emergency is declared. When the trucks roll, they'd like to have some sort of idea of what they might have to content with in case there was a fire. The pilot is not the only one who can declare an emergency, ATC can do it for you and they frequently do. No need to be paranoid, your experience sounds totally above board to me. As for the "pains" we go through for declaring an emergency. I've had to do it a handful of times and a couple of times I did get a call from the FSDO wondering why. When I told them their response was essentially. "Oh, OK" and that was the end of it. Now, if you do something really stupid, like run out of gas or if you're VFR only and find yourself stuck on top of a solid cloud layer, then you'll likely be asked to explain yourself in great detail, but what else would you expect?

When it comes to turbo or not, I take the following two items into consideration: 1. High altitude climb and cruise performance 2. High density altitude takeoff performance If either one or both of these are frequent considerations then turbocharging makes sense. But if you spend most of your time down low, you'll likely have to pay a slight speed penalty for having an “unnecessary” turbo. Getting checked out in an turbocharged aircraft is simple enough, but a simple checkout may or may not be enough for a lot of guys new to aircraft of that performance level. Simple systems training and a few times around the pattern probably will not be adequate for guys stepping up to their first turbocharged airplane. There are a lot more things that need to be addressed. Since you can now readily fly up in the flight levels - are your instrument and weather skills up to snuff with the other pilots that frequent that part of the atmosphere? Have you ever been to an altitude chamber? There's a lot physiological stuff you really ought to know about and experience if you're going to play around up there. What about your altitude weather knowledge? And the list goes on... There's probably nothing more dangerous than a "low performance" pilot flying a high performance airplane and a turbocharged Mooney is as about as high performance as you can get in a single-engine piston powered airplane. A FIKI equipped turbo Mooney is about as capable as any light airplane out there and it is arguably more challenging to fly than a turboprop single. Being safe in one requires that you bring more to the table up front and that you get proper recurrent training as well. All that being said, I lived in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon) for several years and if I were to buy a Mooney there would be no question about it - turbocharged and FIKI.

^^^ This ^^^