jelswick

Great post Mitch and appreciate it! I'm hoping the Martinsburg, WV and Indianapolis, IN events turn into opportunities for us. No "No"'s for it so far and they're both great locations well attended. We all I believe love to show our aircraft. We've been blessed with these wonderful birds (love the post of one of our members that has a sig line that says "I am the caretaker of ..." and hope to see our activity only increase. And also hope to see all of you at OSH this year!

I know some on here mentioned delays in delivery and that's unfortunately what I've grown to expect with major upgrades, so I wanted to let everyone know if you are anywhere close or reasonable flying distance to them, Ron Collins Aviation Electronics in Henderson, KY (right across the river from Evansville, IN for commercial flights in and out when dropping off/picking up your aircraft) was both on time and on budget on the estimates they provided me for adding the Aspens, an STec 30 autopilot, moving things around in my panel and redoing the panel (strip, paint and silk screen). I'm impressed and I believe they deserve at least my word of mouth recommendation. I'm picking her up on Friday and they sent photos (glareshield and final placarding will be tomorrow). Can't wait to get her back and finding a shop that hits schedule and their quote warrants me going back there for any future upgrades (about a 1.75 hr flight for me from Columbus). Very happy camper so far! One photo here and I'll post the others to the gallery.

Looks great Steve! I had the paint shop paint in the radiused corners on my 201 during the paint job. Had a devil of a time getting the paint to stay there, but finally had my local mechanic do it and it has stayed and looks great. I'm impressed with the job you did on yours; looks great!

Thanks all. Mitch you could be right and I might have mixed in my 2008 photos. I've been going since about 2005 or 2006 and can't wait for this years again. This year was my first taking my 11 yr old son and he's already coming in the morning telling me how many days left to AirVenture 2011 from their website. We came in on Thurs or Fri this year after they'd opened up / dried out more of the field. I don't recall the row number, but we were within a row or two of the nice new shower buildings in the North 40. Hope to see you there! And yes, Squirrel, I may have abused the Mooney's excellent ground effect performance to stay in the air, but not very high until we got to the green dot and then tried to stick it like a gymnast.

Not exactly Hollywood or even Bollywood quality, but video from the trip to and from Oshkosh 2009 in the 201. I'm always searching for any Mooney related video I've not already seen on YouTube, so thought I'd contribute one to any of you that can't sleep and like seeing Mooneys fly when we're not actually flying ourselves... Jim

Mine did the same thing ndirishpilot. Took off for fuel, no gear retraction, cycling made no difference and landed and turned it over to the shop. That was on my '81, so the timing of yours wearing out, if it's the same issue, might be about right. My mechanic isolated it to the gear motor which ended up sent out to and rebuilt by Lasar. I can't describe the exact issue that drove it, but it involved worn rods in it that they replaced. Tail # is N1145T and I would assume Lasar could let you know more detail of what the issue turned out to be. I was glad to just pay for the rework of the box and new parts in there knowing I should hopefully get another many years without it being an issue again. Sorry I can't offer more technically on it, but it sounds like a very similar issue to what you encountered and depending how many of these Lasar does, I'm assuming they should be able to help with details. My mechanic has always been very pleased working with them when the Mooney has any issues he's needed assistance with.

N4352H, Just curious what you mean by 201s being too underpowered to seriously consider the utility of TKS? I can't do it now, but in a few years when the kids are off to college I'm considering that for my J when it will be almost exclusively my wife and I flying around at that point. We get a lot of ice in Ohio down low and typically go to the beach or other out of state places at around 8,000-12,000 ft where we can definitely run into the stuff and I've found it before where there was supposed to be no ice. Are you saying from a performance standpoint or just from a cost/benefit standpoint? It is horribly expensive, but at the point I might need it and we can afford it, I'm thinking we'd be glad to have over spent.

Well, I hope this gets worked out to your satisfaction Roger and hope we're all done with seeing this issue. I knew they had early issues, but everyone's raved about their customer service and I'd just hope they have the kinks out of the units at this point. I went with the PFD1000 and MFD500 based on the finances. It does make a great case for the MFD1000 with it's reversion capability. We have the standby intruments to go back on I guess and I retained all of them and just got rid of the ADF and the CDI for the KX 165 to make room for the MFD. My plan is to eventually add the third unit with the MFD1000 but liked splitting it up because it spreads the cost out and gives me time to make sure I'm very comfortable with the move to using the glass as primary. Good luck resolving this one with Aspen and let us know how it goes.

That is interesting. This was supposedly converted from an '88 Porsche Mooney to an Ovation. I can't tell in the photo, but I'm not sure it has the same back windows as the Ovations (looks more like a K window, but could just be the angle of the picture). The panel also looks quite a bit like what I recall seeing in the Porsche ones. I guess I can't say I know exactly what defines a Mooney model as an Ovation or not to say it's inaccurate, but seems funny to me. I guess the Porsche's had to be converted into something else one way or the other and the Porsche's were the first of the extra long bodies.

Very sorry to hear that Roger and makes me a little nervous. Are they finding it is in fact issues with the unit itself or could it have anything to do with the install? Just seems odd and I'm sure very frustrating that you've have had the issue twice now. I'm picking up my J this Friday with the Pro PFD, MFD 500 and their weather box as well as an STec30 installed. Having read a few of the posts with delays on some of the installs, I'll also add Ron Collins Aviation in Henderson, KY would have been ready on time last week, but I had them delay a week. They said they were unable to do the flush mount because the part of the kit that goes behind the panel is taller than the unit itself and fell about 1/4" short of fitting against the fuel and engine gauge cluster on my 201 (that unit too apparently is larger than what is displayed in the panel). So, I had them take the money that would have gone into the flush mount to strip and powder coat the panel and they said they will be done this Tues with me picking it up Friday. Nice to see an install on time. Now if it's on price (they said they fix price these installs with what was quoted; they're confident from having done so many of them), I'll be a very happy camper. Can't wait!

Amen Carusoam. I don't intend to find out. That was one thing I was thinking of was what would happen in a turn in an approach with it possibly changing orientation; assuming in the heat of things that might be a little disorienting or at least an issue you don't want to have to worry about. There's still some way to stop it from doing that, but I don't intend to be that dependent on it. I think the iPad is a great tool and glad to have it, but I don't see it replacing anything other than having paper charts in the plane and then only if I have a backup on the PC or an iphone or such in the plane with me.

I should note, that is no disappointment with the ForeFlight app. I'm very glad to have that and looks like a wonderful tool I can't wait to use. It's just that the gps that is native in the iPad is not aviation use grade and as Flight2000 indicated, it wasn't designed to be.

That's great news Jolie! I've been a little jealous seeing all of the events being posted out west and wondering why we were not seeing more in the midwest. Glad to see those spots fill up so quickly and hopefully we'll have more opportunities identified and confirmed here in this area soon!

I've very sadly been without my Mooney for a little over a month now and will be picking it up from the avionics shop in KY next week with some wonderful new additions, but with the new iPad, this delay in use might have been for the better. I received the iPad for Christmas and put ForeFlight on it immediately (that was my primary want for it, anything work related that is a benefit is just icing for me). I've been test driving it in my car just to see how it behaves and I know driving from my house to the airport, it was a few miles off. I was disappointed at that. As soon as I got to the airport and turned it which changed it's orientation from landscape to portrait, it then apparently recalculated it's position and was spot on recognizing exactly where I was. I'm with Flight2000...It's a great tool for charts and secondary or emergency navigation source, but it needs to remain just that. I'll stick with Garmin 430 first and the iPad is a great chart reader and for navigation it's just great extra information, but not to be trusted as primary.

KDVN may be a little far for me for an out and back from Ohio, but sounds like a great opportunity. Any others from Iowa or neighboring states that would be up for that one? I've also contacted the Indianapolis Airshow which is May 13th-15th at Mt Comfort Airport in Indianapolis. That's a good sized event with participation by the Blue Angels and others. I also contacted Martinsburg, WV's Thunder Over The BlueRidge which is put on by the 167th Airlift Wing as suggested by Barry and that one is September 17th-18th. We're bound to get some hits out of some of these. Thank you for everyone's ideas and I'll be glad to contact as many as I can to see where we can find opportunities to show our great aircraft and promote GA. This could make for a very fun flying season for us this year!

Also Hank, if you have info on when HTW does their airport day or a contact you can reach out to there or someone you can point me to, we can see if we can make that one work.

Thank you, Hank and I've added you to the list. I spent high school in Winfield, so know Huntington well. Loved living there for those 4 years, all of the others were as an army brat moving around all over. JPs is definitely worth cranking the engine for their bbq! Just have to get a few approaches in along the way to help justify it. And thank you for the note Mitch! Hopefully we can get this area active and show the public why we're so nuts about these beautiful aircraft! I agree on the Sporty's comment. It's a great event and they do bring in vendors. I'd think they should have at least been able to allow us a couple of near enough blocked off parking spaces to put us together. Oh well, I'm sure we'll find other good venues around here. Have a great Friday!

Sporty's replied via email saying they were sorry they couldn't host due to limited ramp space unfortunately. Thank you for the additional ideas Cruiser. I fly into Mansfield, Put-In Bay and KPCW (for Phil's Inn Spaghetti!) a few times each year and those are all good ideas for locations. Do you know if they have airport or flying events that draw the public to those each year? If so, I can reach out to their airport directors to try to get something going with them. And thank you Barry. WV has some beautiful airports, CRW is a fun one to fly into as well. Do you know if any of them do airport days/aviation celebrations? If so, I can reach out to them as well. I'm starting a file to track interest in these. If you are on here regularly, I will post on here what I'm finding as I check these out, but if you're not and you want to send me your email address in a PM for privacy if concerned about that, I can add that info and make sure to email you too as I find info on these. I hope we can get an active group of us here in the OH, KY, IN, MI, WV and PA area to start promoting Mooney at events like what we're seeing others do in the west and Canada. Sounds like it would be a great time for all of us instead of having to wait all the way to Oshkosh to mingle with our fellow Mooney addicts!

I am checking to see if there's an opportunity to host a Mooney Ambassador event at KOSU's airport day and Sporty's Open House in Clermont County. OSU has not done an open house the last two years, but they've been well attended when they do by the public and they've welcomed us if they do one this year. Waiting to hear from Sporty's... It sounds like the West Coast and Canada are very active with Mooney Ambassadors. Do we have any Mooney flyers here in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennsylvania or other nearby states that would participate if we can find a few appropriate events? Any other ideas for events that might be good for us to pursue?

My step daughter calls our Mooney "Jim's other woman". I just call our Mooney "Beautiful".

"Keep Alive" sounds like a great conversation starter for passengers. I'd like to have a dummy one mounted next to it like in the Far Side cartoon that is placarded "Wings Stay On / Wings Fall Off".

They look great! I did mine a little over a year ago when the new paint was done and was very nervous of the grey tint making things look darker, but if it did, it's really not noticeable and I'm still loving it. I didn't have the skill to do it myself, but yours look great in the photos.

Thanks for the photo Ken. Which mount did you use? I received the iPad from my wife for Christmas and she knew it was the Mooney making me want it. Subscribed to ForeFlight already and glad to see so many good reviews on here for it. It looks great couch flying it and can't wait to use it bringing 45T home from the avionics shop later this month!