N201MKTurbo

This may all be true, I've never had wheel covers. I used my plane for commuting, taking wheel covers off to air the tires would drastically increase my travel time. Just taking the plane out of the hanger was over 10% of the trip time.

I've had people repeatedly slam the door as I desperately tried to stop them while yelling at them to stop all the while they were saying "What is wrong with this door"! I've started briefing people before they get into the plane.

This happened to me the day after I bought my first Mooney. Actually it didn't pop open, it was leaking, so being a Cessna driver at the time, I told my passenger to open it and close it again. A little background.... I had bought the plane the day before, I was 26 years old (young and stupid, well smart enough to buy a Mooney). I had about 2 hours in Mooney's with no instruction. It was night and I was on my way to Oshkosh 1984 from Denver. I was over the middle of Nebraska at 9500 and my passenger could not close the door! I said " I'm going to stall the plane, when it starts to tumble to the ground pull the door closed", so I did and he did and we got the door closed. I learned two things that night. One - don't open the door in flight, and two you can close the door if you stall the plane. I'm not recommending this procedure, I'm just saying I did it that night.

When my son was about 1 1/2 years old I took him flying. I had him in a car seat in the right seat. Just after rotation he put both feet on the yoke and pushed as hard as he could! That woke me right up!

Any tube that fails in a few months was probably installed wrong.

When I was flying every day my operation cost was about $60/hr now that I don't fly as much it has gone up to about 130/hr

I agree completely. Getting the Mooney to slow down is a challenge and having the gear up makes a big difference. I think the problem is people who are new to Mooneys or don't fly often enough to develop a routine and realize something is wrong when the plane won't slow down.

The 231 used to have a wing mounted radar. I only flew one that had it and it didn't work. I hear they didn't work very well when they did work.

Manifold pressure line broke

I had a strange engine failure about ten years ago in my M20F. I was flying along over some very inhospitable terrain when I heard a loud bang in my engine compartment. The engine continued to run and all indications were OK. I considered continuing on to my destination for about 30 seconds and then wisely decided to land and check it out. There was an airport about five miles away, so I landed there. When I got out the right side of the plane was soaked with oil, there was 2 quarts left in the engine. What had happened was the fan on the alternator flew apart and one half of it hit the oil cooler and made a small hole in it. It is amazing how much oil will come out of a small hole at 60 PSI. I was just wondering about any other stories about odd failures like this.

Well, the straight ones are moulded to the tube and come straight out of the wheel. Any pressure put on them while airing them up is straight down. The ones with the angled stem are metal fittings clamped to the tube and every time you put pressure on them while filling you put some side load on the tube. Nothing to get excited about one way or the other. If somebody gave me an angled stem tube for free I would have no problem using it.

Very cool! Just be careful out there There are evil monsters living in those clouds sometimes.

I use the straight ones, I think thay are more robust.

I have had two cracked cases. four weeks and $2500 with me R&Ring the engine and stripping it down to the case, I don't have the tools to split the case. I have always used Divco for repair and never had another issue with a repaired case. It sure gives me a knot in my stomach when I find a crack. Here is the difference between an airplane renter and an airplane owner: When an airplane renter is flying along and hears a big bang in the engine compartment, he thinks "Oh my god I'm going to die!" When an airplane owner hears the same noise he thinks "Oh my god, what is this going to cost me!"

I would bet mags also, have you tried doing the climbout on each mag individually?

You should check the rigging of the gear. both legs should hang pretty close to the same height in the up position. The gear doors need to be rigged with just the right amount of pressure on the bottom of the wing while closed. The gear motor is very powerful and can put tremendous stress on the gear doors if mis-rigged.

While it might be possible to build something like the G1000 using 7400 series logic, it would probably exceed the Mooney's gross weight limit. I mention displays because I've had two products I've designed that used off the shelf LCD displays, the displays became obsolete and we had to re-design the product. In both cases they were low volume products. We eventually redesigned them to use computer monitors although that wasn't as good a form factor as the built in displays. I just used displays as an example because my experience is that the vendors are constantly improving their process and building better, faster, higher resolution products and shutting down their existing production lines to build the new stuff, so the old stuff quickly becomes unobtainable. The certification of avionics requires every part to be accounted for in the certification. If you change out anything it requires at least a re-validation if not a complete re-certification process. A redesign around an obsolete part can be a big undertaking and most manufacturers would rather spend their resources on next generation products leaving the products with obsolete parts as orphans.

I get all mine made by custom duct, the finished ends are very nice.

The gear motor takes about 30 amps if everything is working well. A discharged battery will draw about 30 amps of charging current. With a dead battery the alternator is supplying all the current. The 30+30 amps is right at the current limit for the breaker. it sounds like everything is working correctly.

One thing to consider is returning from crosswind and downwind. Unless you always depart straight out until you get to 500 feet or so, there will be a different situation. If you are on crosswind do you do a 270 back to the runway or the 90? If on downwind do you do a 270 back to the end or dive for the runway and have none left to land on?

OK, I was a little snarky, but it always amazes me what people worry about. The chances of having an engine failure during the 30 minutes or so you are crossing the lake is about the same as winning the power ball. It reminds me of the discussion on AvWeb about traffic alert systems selling like hot cakes while you can hardly give away AOA sensors, yet for every midair there are 100 stall spin accidents. That being said, I have flown across Lake Michigan both IFR and VFR. IFR doesn’t bother me, because white nothing is white nothing no matter where you are, but when you can see the water and not the shore, it causes a bit of pucker. It is all psychological of course the plane doesn’t know the difference. If someone is worried about an engine failure the best thing to do is be sure there is enough fuel in the tank, that will take care of 95% of the engine failures. If someone doesn’t feel comfortable flying across the lake then go around. The risk of flying over the lake is probably less than flying at night anywhere west of the continental divide, yet people do it all the time. If it was dangerous to fly over the lake it would be illegal, but the FAA (Chicago approach) seems hell-bent on sending you 30 miles out to sea every time you go there.

There are plenty of boats out there, if you go down ditch next to one. Out here in the west there are many places where emergency landings would be nearly impossible because of terrain, yet nobody seems to mind flying over it. If you don't trust your airplane to make it 80 miles you shouldn't be flying it.

If you are really worried, pull off the two cylinders on one side and inspect it. it'll be about 8 hours of labor.

I have always wondered about how long these new glass cockpit systems can be maintained. I have been directly involved in the development of electronic devices for 30 years now and I can tell you that the components in state of the art display systems have a relatively short lifetime. By this I mean that the displays and the components to make the displays will probably be obsolete in five years or so. Unless the manufacturer stockpiles a great number of these components, they will not be available in the future, making the expensive hardware junk! I’m sure they will have a new box to sell you for a few more tens of thousands of dollars. My current instruments were designed in the sixties, still work as good as the day they were designed and I can get them repaired for relatively little money at hundreds of shops. I expect twenty years from now I’ll still be able to get them repaired. I'm just looking for peoples thoughts on the subject. Do any of the manufacturers guarantee a service life?

I can see using a rubber chicken on a Cessna, but on a Mooney????