Joe Zuffoletto

Yes, I've heard this is an issue with Cirrus pilots transitioning to Mooneys.

I'm definitely in. I never knew this until a couple days ago, but Al Mooney was born and raised right here in my hometown of Denver! Only fitting that I honor him by buzzing around over the land of his birth on his birthday.

What can I say that hasn't already been said? Priceless!

Hey, Bennett, this thread is like deja vu all over again!

Concord (KCCR) is a good airport. About 25 miles from the city and almost always VFR. It's also easy to slide under the SFO Class B to get in.

Not at all! Just been snakebit. Last fall, shortly after I bought the Acclaim, I planned a tour that included New Orleans, points in MS and AL, Atlanta, Columbia and Miami. Unfortunately, one week before the trip, my CFO fell off his roof and cracked his head, so I had to cancel so I could offer him moral support in the hospital and cover for him at work. Thankfully he made a full recovery, and I'm hoping to take that tour this fall instead! Creating the map of my past flights was an eye opener. I hope to fill in the rest of the country as much as I've filled up the West in the next 5 years.

Absolutely. I've flown to Orange County, Napa and Seattle nonstop. Seattle is the longest flight at 5 hours. Eastbound I've made Chicago and Little Rock nonstop, 3 hours each, on little more than half tanks. I haven't ventured farther east yet, but to answer your question I just put KAPA-KBWI into ForeFlight and today I could make it nonstop in 6 hours flat with 20 gallons of fuel to spare at FL210. There's a 30KT tailwind today that would make that possible. With no wind I could make it nonstop to Pittsburgh, PA with IFR reserves. I'm flying to Cabo next week and could do it nonstop (5.5 hours) if they allowed GPS direct in Mexico, but since I have to fly IFR airways I'll go ahead and make my customary pit stop in El Paso, TX. The Acclaim is truly a traveling machine, and I hope to add a lot of new pegs to my map this summer. Not many birds will let you chug along in the flight levels at 200KTAS+ burning through 102 gallons of fuel at only 13.8gph.

I've had the Acclaim for just over a year. Before that I was too busy earning the money to afford it!

LogTen Pro, the electronic logbook I use, has a feature where you can plot your flights in Google Earth. I played with it last night for the first time and it was pretty neat. Makes it easy to see why my last two Mooneys have been turbos.

LogTen Pro for me.

Funny, I'm planning a trip to Cabo in a couple weeks and I plotted both of our routes into JeppView. Our paths will literally "cross." After a week in Cabo I'll be heading to KSNA, then back to Denver. Have a great trip!

120 for me.

I use LogTen Pro and am very happy with it. It runs on Macs, iPhones and iPads, and can be synchronized across all three. The publisher's website is here.

I agree. My PPL instructor taught me to do it to prevent locking up the wheels when braking, thus putting bald spots on the tires. It works.

In my old Encore's panel, the gear and flap switches were nowhere near each other, but I still flipped the wrong one. As the original poster said, it's a brain fart!

Ouch. So sad to hear about your unfortunate accident. I did the same thing once in my old Encore. I was a bit luckier, though... the squat switch had engaged and the gear didn't retract. Put the gear switch in the "down" position immediately and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

2008 Acclaim Type S, always flown at 16,000' or higher. At 50ROP I get 215KTAS burning 17gph. At 50LOP I get 205KTAS at 14gph. I fly LOP 99% of the time. Like others have said, I know my hourly costs but don't care to think about them. I love flying the Acclaim and I'm grateful that I can afford it.

Good question! It was my first turbo and I guess it took me a while to get into the habit of flying high. I bought it to get from Napa to Denver way up high on occasion but flew it like a normally aspirated plane otherwise. Old habits died hard. Wearing O2 masks never bothered me, so that wasn't the reason. After moving to Denver in 2006 and being forced to fly in the mid-teens and higher most of the time, I got into the habit and it stuck. I now fly IFR at FL180 or higher, no matter what the terrain below. You're absolutely right, it's MUCH nicer up high.

I purchased the covers for both of my Mooneys from Kennon Aircraft Covers and I was very pleased with the quality, durability and fit.

For a Mountain Flying course you might want to check with Independence Aviation, based at Denver Centennial (KAPA). Their website is www.ia-kapa.com/. I've not taken the course, which is described on their website, but I'm familiar with their instructors and they're all quite good.

Napa to Orange County used to be my milk route when I lived in Northern CA. I had a K model (Encore) and only needed the turbo to get above weather on rare occasions. I nice J will do the job, especially VFR. @astelmaszek, who said, "And you don't buy a turbo to fly high as some have stated, you fly high because you have a turbo so it makes no sense to stay low." Maybe, unless you live in Denver and often fly to points west.

The G1000 with WAAS and the GFC700 autopilot make an incredible combination. I would step up to that combo if you can. It makes flying approaches in the soup an absolute breeze. The Encore I sold last year had the G500, GAD43e, KFC150 and WAAS, and flying approaches with that combo is definitely more complicated than with the G1000/GFC700. TKS also rocks and holds its value pretty well at resale.

Do what you need to do, but please don't make it as annoying as the average newspaper site with content shifting up and down, being covered up, etc., to make room for the ads. USA Today and the Denver Post are especially annoying in this regard.

Yes, I once put 72 gallons in my Encore after running one tank dry on short final. Made the mistake of believing my brand new fuel totalizer and not my watch. I've done a few dumb things in my 27 years of flying, but that one haunts me the most. NEVER AGAIN.

Manufacturers' Representative selling cooling, power, racks, PDU's, raised floor and other similar products for data centers. Prior to the 6 years I've spent in this business, I spent 20 years in the software business.