Joe Zuffoletto

I don't know the answer to that question, but I have an interesting data point: If you routinely park a TN with full tanks (102 gal, 51 a side), it significantly reduces the lifespan of the pucks on the mains. I had to replace mine when the plane was only 6 years old because of this.

Indeed! Why didn't I think of that? And I'm not kidding. I'm sitting in my office in my dress clothes on a perfect, sunny, calm day for flying my tail dragger, but alas I have to go home first to get my sneakers. I should just keep them in the car or buy another pair for my hangar! Please thank your wife for me!

Hey, round is a shape!

Dress shoes or sneakers in the Mooney. Sneakers only in the RV-8. I've tried barefoot and flip-flops in the Mooney before. Neither felt safe to me for ground ops. Thank God I beat Marauder to this thread!

+1. Never been in an altitude chamber, and I've logged over 500 hours at FL180 and up in turbo Mooneys without incident. Like Andy, I monitor my flow meter and my pulse oximeter like a hawk. I'd like to experience an altitude chamber, but I'm not going to ground myself until I do, given that I have other reliable and objective means to monitor my high altitude O2 health.

Makes me want to cry. I sure miss flying on the West Coast!

Thanks for the video fix. I've been grounded way too long by work, aircraft mx and weather!

Here's a data point for annual inspection costs for the M20TN. Just got mine back from its annual. $6,700, but $500 was to install the 310hp upgrade. This is my fourth annual and they run pretty consistently between $6,200-$6,500. OP, what about the Cirrus SR-22T G5? Sounds like it will fit your mission, including a high useful load. Downside is that they cost a huge pile of money right now. Welcome, and good luck!

I've had a lot of bad experiences with lawyers in my life (divorce, real estate, business), and based on that, plus the seller's behavior so far, I'd be down the road post haste. I've purchased four aircraft in my flying career and count myself lucky that all four of my sellers combined have created less than 1% of the hassle that this guy has. You can definitely do better. Good luck, and I'm sorry this deal's not going well for you so far.

No, mine was a piece of cake. Just had to pass a light gun test on the tarmac of San Jose airport (KSJC) during mid day. I took the test with one other guy. We had to correctly identify the color of a light gun fired from the tower 1,500' away (red, green or white). There were about a dozen shots for us to identify. We gave different answers on 3 of them but we still both passed. I always thought that was kind of funny. I can't think of a single time in 30 years of flying that I've been hampered by my colorblindness, which is quite severe, BTW.

I have one for defective color vision.

Great way to start the new year! Love the photos! Can't wait to see your new paint job. Hope you'll post before/after photos. Can't wait to fire up my birds for the first time in 2015. Hampered by crummy weather right now.

Is it a service animal?

Lancair Legacy. Now that we're empty nesters we rarely use the back seats in the Acclaim.

Awesome! Congratulations! The repeated delays would have driven me crazy.

Not a lot of hours (40), but more flying than the numbers suggest. Had 28 hours in the Acclaim, including three round trips from Denver to points in California. 8 hours in an Xtreme Decathlon honing my tailwheel skills, then 3 more in my RV-8. I even flew one hour in (what used to be) my Encore! Flight time was curtailed by much more shop time than usual. Mooney was down for the last two months of the year getting an AD complied with, an annual inspection, and installation of the 310hp mod. RV was down for about a month for its first condition inspection under my watch (we tweaked a few things), and then another 3 weeks later in the year for troubleshooting and repair of an elusive fuel leak issue. The rest of the downtime was caused by bad weather and my pesky job getting in the way. Both planes are in my hangars and ready for action, so as soon as we get some better weather I hope to start really tearing it up in 2015!

Yes, that was the first Type S built and also debuted the BMW paint scheme. The original owner was a dentist, Dr. Dave Craddock, who sadly died of cancer 2 years ago. Here's a video of he and his wife taking delivery: There used to be another video showing some great footage of the aircraft in flight but I can't find it any more. Here's an article about the speed record: http://generalaviationnews.com/2009/02/23/craddock-sets-world-record-in-mooney/

I've been getting Cyrillic text spam emails for about a year now. They drive me crazy. I wish I could get my spam filter to intercept them.

I'd love to find a good cargo net solution. More than once I've hit turbulence over the Rockies strong enough to send luggage into the back seat (and once even the front seat by way of the windscreen!), and I haven't figured out a completely reliable way to keep it in place with the crummy tie-down straps Mooney provides.

Merry Christmas to all my virtual MooneySpace friends! I managed to meet a couple of you in person this year and hope to meet many more of you in 2015!

I never used to lock mine until the one in my Encore popped open during climbout a few years ago. Took a couple minutes to figure out what the problem was, but like the OP it started with feeling cold (it was a cold day) and the sound in my headset not being quite right. Returned to the airport and landed normally. Much to my surprise there was no damage to the door, hinges, etc., even though I was probably flying with it open for about 10 minutes. I always lock mine now.

Those are spectacular shots.

That's exactly what I did. Two years ago I was sharing a box hangar with a Pitts and a Cirrus. We organized the hangar so the Pitts never had to be moved, but I would often have to move the Cirrus when I wanted to fly, and vice-versa. The Cirrus owner's tug was an unwieldy beast so it definitely wasn't fun, but I just hung tough and waited it out until another hangar became available. Fortunately, no one damaged anyone else's planes.

Wow, that would have bumped my groundspeed up to about 375KTS in the Acclaim!

You might consider http://www.alpha2bravo.com/. I've seen their videos on YouTube ferrying all kinds of planes around the world, including an Acclaim that went from San Diego to Bangkok!