Comatose

Quote: maropers My 67 F - I use the flightplan app for iphone Stations EW 1717.9 @ 46.21 Oil @ -11.5 fuel @ 48.43 front seats @ 33 Rear seats @ 72 baggage @ 95.5 Limits 1645 @ 41 2275 @ 41 2470 @ 41.8 2470 @ 44.8 2740 @ 51.1 1645 @ 51.1 IIRC there is a sliding scale for the seats

They don't often break up in flight, they're very stable, they're good in crosswinds, they climb well and they glide well. Most of them run engines that are on the more reliable side. They're strong in a crash. They all have some sort of autopilot system. I don't know what more you could ask of the plane - the rest is up to you. On the other hand, if you're a newly minted pilot, it will take you 25 to 50 hours to stop being dangrously behind the plane. They're not very tolerant of poor speed control on landing. They're hard to descend and slow down in simultaneously, so you have to start thinking landing about 50 miles out. You have to remember to put the gear down.

As i sit here in my plane... at a closed dark airport... for the next hour... I am wondering why nobody mentions this disadvantage of flying a Mooney... going so much faster means waiting at the airport. Assuming the pilot's lounge is closed, what does everyone here do to kill time when in this predicament? Other than post to Mooneyspace.

I just had an EDM-730 installed and was a bit shocked that the factory gauge is reading 2770 on takeoff and 70 to 100 higher than the edm across the cruise range. I sure like the performance better at the factory settings... given that the engine monitor isn't a "primary" instrument, but is probably more accurate, what to go by?

Well, in fairness to them in terms of timeframe, Nine weeks is annual plus install an EDM-730. Its my avionics ship, they're a good avionics shop. I hadn't tried them for an annual before, figured I'd give it a go. Probably... won't... be repeating that experiment. They sent out an exhaust component for welding, and sent out my starter for overhaul. That, rework my landing light lens, replace a switch that was getting flaky odds and ends, and the bill isn't bad. But how can you be that slow AND ignore my squawk list? Most of my flying is over the appalachians, either over PA, west virginia or kentucky. I'd like to do everything I can to make sure the noisy part stays noisy until I am back on the ground.

Evidently my repair shop does! Inquiring into the invoice for my annual, which didn't have my 500 hour magneto service listed. They've had the plane for nine weeks. " Howdy John, 500 hour inspections are a great idea on magnetos. I did see that they were there, time-wise, but since you do not have impulse couplings there was no mandatory reason to pull them off. If they were on your list and they fell through a communication crack between Ben and myself then I am sorry about that. We check the timing and look briefly at them and look the harness over, but at 553 hours they did not jump out at me as something to recommend for you to do, although I suppose they might have been. I am fully behind you choosing to do the 500 hours on them, but we will need an extra week beyond March 2 to get them back and on. Let me know. Thanks, and, My apologies, Eric " Of my squawk list, which was brake pads, wing sumps, mag 500 hour service and nav light breaker, only nav light breaker got done. I'm furious. Am I overreacting, or should I just collect the plane from these chuckelheads and drop it off somewhere where they have a vested interest in my prop continuing to turn? Does anyone here actually skip mag service at 500 hours? They're slick mags, to add insult to injury.

I have bladders in my 66 C, and I love them. 64 gallons is a better capacity than 48 for our planes. Mine were put in in 06, so it'll be a long, long, long time before I have to worry about leaks. With the bladders my useful load is still 976lb. And yes, my fuel caps are dead sexy.

Ignoring my avionics addiction, my C model runs about: $2600/yr hangar. $2000/yr annual $1300/yr insurance about $7000 a year in fuel A couple thousand a year in repairs ~$500 a year in data and charts So about $15k a year. I'd say budget $20,000 a year, because there are a lot of big "gotchas" in airplane ownership that can rear their heads at any point. Twice that last year if you count panel upgrades, but I know I have a problem. I can't imagine financing a plane that's a personal toy. I figure buy something you can afford to keep up.

Summersvile lake is west virginia is an amazing place. KSXL. Scuba, rock climbing, boating, white water rafting, cliff diving, there are cabins nearby and its a 3000 foot, nicely paved strip that rarely gets much traffic. The airport is on the lake itself.

My plane has the manual "hold it down" PC override, the previous owner installed a great, super-low-dollar mod that works really well... My PTT is on a velcro strap. The velcro is sized to be a snug fit over the PC button. When I want PC off, I slide it up, it holds the button down. When I want PC on, I slide it down the yoke half an inch or so and it releases the button. I'd assumed that this was standard procedure.

I did my checkride in a Cherokee 180 with a hand brake. Are brakes even considered flight controls?

I flew over lake Michigan twice and over lake Erie twice last week. If I can get high enough to glide to shore (much easier in our planes than, say, a cherokee 140) I'm pretty comfortable with it. I crossed at the narrowest convenient points, and had life preservers onboard. Also, lots and lots of fuel. I'm not sure I'd do the same crossings at night. Calculated risks!

I figured, but evidently I was parked next to you Saturday night, and have a J prop/spinner/cowling/mods, and had a cover on. Small world, anyway!

Scott, was this J at D25 blue stripes, came in late Sat and left early Sunday? I think you just called my (C model) baby ugly! You do have a good looking bird, though.

Or sell it to a dealer, if this is for real. Plenty of dealers would take it off your hands tomorrow (at a price of their choosing, of course.) No reskinning, no dealing with annuals, no nothing. Couple phone calls and a signature.

1800 feet for me (North Bass Island, OH) but I look at anything over 2200 as pretty routine short field stuff. 3000 is a normal landing. Just don't come in too fast. If it is really short come in as light as possible, at 1.1x your stall speed on short final, and expect to land with more of a plunk then a nice smooooooooooth flare. Be ready to go around if you misjudge.

North Adams, Mass is right on the Appalachian trail, on the Vermont border. Great hiking. Seven Springs airport is on the Laurel Highland trail in PA, but I think i is closed.

I have the ARI closure, and can take some pictures for you when i get home in a couple days if you'd like. I think it is vastly better than the LASAR flat plate. Can't speak for performance, because it and a lot of other mods were there when I bought the plane. I think the big J spinner looks significanty better too. My spinner and cowl don't meet up exactly, which could have just been sloppiness on the part of the cowl installer, or could have happened when the engine was overhauled (15 years or so after the cowl went on.) I am the only one that ever notices that, though. The cowl closuere has been on since 1986. There is some minor stopped drilled cracking in two of the inlet corners, but otherwise it looks pretty good. On a good day I can get 150-152 knots true at 25 squared in my C, but how much of that is the closure, I can't say.

G force did my pre-buy last year. They seemed like they were doing okay then...

The overnight would be better in my opinion anyway - about four hours in the plane and I am BEAT. 8 would be murderous. PHD is a nice airport. Okay restaraunt, helpful people, great avionics shop. You might want to consider stopping at I40 instead, though. They're close to each other, Downing has nicer facilities and more importantly, almost always has the best price for gas around. Drive....... for 24 hours..... didn't you just buy TWO planes??? You can't even plead mechanical breakdown...

My 66 C model with literally every speed mod reliably does 150kt at ~5000ft, 2500rpm, full throttle, 100 rich of peak, and 145kt at the 10k I prefer to fly. Wish I could fly it LOP, at 5k I'm sucking down 11 or so gallons an hour.

I fly into a lot of east coast mountain fields, so I'm getting better at it. Clear the ridge, droplike a rock, short field at the end of it kind of stuff. The trick is the same as any other mooney landing... speed. 90 knots is best glide speed for me. Don't be there if you don't want to glide. I've found slowing up to about 90 MPH (75 knots) with the gear out, half flaps and idle power comes down pretty well. If that isn't enough, same configuration in a sideslip will drop you in as fast as you could possibly want. What always gets me when I get bit is coming in too hot and fast. On flat terrain I like to be at pattern altitude by 4 or 5 miles out. That way I have lots of time to get slowed down to the 100mph or so i like to enter the pattern at. If I'm doing the "Damn I'm too fast.. damn now I'm too high... damn now I'm too fast again" dance, might as well go practice some maneuvers somewhere before landing, because I'll be going around anyway.

I bought the 650. The only thing I miss with the 650 is a full keyboard for entering waypoints. The slider bar thing ... works... and its still MUCH easier than twisty twisty push, twisty twisty push, but having all the buttons at once would be nicer. Not four grand worth of nicer for my already overimproved C model, though. The graphical flight plan works, and is actually useful. Might be a bit easier with a bigger screen, but not much. I was flying around VFR Saturday, and decided I didn't feel like going over, under or through one of those obnoxious Bravo airspace extension wings. It took about fifteen seconds to make a nice smooth four-point dogleg around it, with one hand, in turbulence. All in all, other than the full keyboard like I mentioned, I don't miss the smaller screen real estate. You won't be unhappy with a 650. *edit* Another thing about the 650 that might actually be better than the 750. It is fairly easy to have a many-point grip around the smaller screen. I can be holding both the side and the bottom and hit anywhere on the screen with a finger. I find myself using the cutout in the panel where my tach is as my grab point, not the actual GTN. With the bigger screen I can see how this could be hard.

Finally got my plane with the 650 back yesterday. No end of datacard related problems during the install, but everything got straightened out. This was into a plane that had never had a 430, so I also had to get a new CDI and do a fair amount of panel rework to put everything in. Mine came out to thirteen even. So far, I like it a lot. I haven't tried it in turbulence, though.

Well, I played with my 650 as I was dropping my plane off to have it installed. Very, very nice. I don't see why it'd be too hard to use in light turbulence. Flight report in a week and a half! I was serial number 516. I'm hoping they started the numbering at 1 and not 500.