74657

That was my plane. Preliminary NTSB report is published.

http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/Surveillance-video-captures-twin-engine-plane-falling-from-the-sky-198846181.html 2 failed attempts to land....

The weather here yesterday was severe clear. The runway is 8500 feet long. Something was seriously wrong with the plane for it to NOT be able to land. From what I can tell the plane made left traffic for a go-around and stalled out, rolled and landed right side up. One or both of the engines were still running after it crashed.

Info is still coming in. Looks like the plane touched down and went airborne and crashed near the airport. Apparently the pilot radioed ahead and said there were electrical problems.... http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/Breaking-News-Plane-crash-near-airport-198693261.html

Thats great. Hang on to that one! Kids dont stay small long.

Check the plugs. Mine would stumble really bad at low power settings unless we leaned it back. We had to do that to get the fuel flows up high enough at takeoff. I know another day or 2 of fine tuning would have eliminated the need to lean back but we were happy with how it flew and left it alone. I'd rather have too much fuel in the pattern than not enough at takeoff..... Plugs and check for too rich at low power and also your fuel pressure when it does that. Mine ran really high for aforementioned reason up top. The fuel pump on that engine has 3 adjustments. Low/High/Idle. If you adjust 1 the other 2 change. It is a balancing act..... Also look at your exhaust for cracks or burned out gaskets. Get ready to bend over if you ever have to replace the muffler from Rocket! I think they wanted 3500 or 4K. We had ours "remanufactured" with a yellow tag by a shop in FL that reused one of the flanges which I guess was enough to call the part a reman. With no cowl flaps there is a lot of heat in that engine and I don't care what Rocket says about how cool everything stays. You have to know how to fly the plane to keep the engine happy. I could climb at 1500 fpm in the winter time but a 90F day in June ~600-700 was all it would take even with 28 gph on takeoff. The EDM 830 you have is the best investment you could make for your engine.

They are amazing airplanes. I had one for 2 years and bought it as it fit my mission profile perfectly and was about 45k cheaper than Ovations at the time. They are easily 1000 mile nonstop planes if you can handle 5 hour stretches. We had no real maintenance issues to speak of and loved the performance. 175 kts all day long on 15 GPS at altitude and 185 on 17 gph under 8000 if you want to push it a little harder. We'd consistently see 1200 fpm climbs year round and 1500 in temps under 40f. Shoot me a pm and ill give you my number if you want to chat more. I'm sure Seth will chime in shortly.

The shop I stored my Mooney and now store the Malibu in has done 3 or 4 Mooneys over the past 3 years. Estimated time in man hours to do a full strip/repaint with a white and 2 accent color scheme is around 14-15K from memory. There is approx. 300 hours in labor that goes into a paint job. How people do these things for 8K in unbelievable but I can't say that I've ever seen an 8K paint job on a Mooney before. Between paint and stripper alone there is close to 3K in cost...... A Cherokee 140 runs about 250 hours while a Cessna 340 runs closer to 700. Lots of exposed rivets!

The kids aren't. The luggage and misc. stuff that goes with them is. Like I said, this idea wasn't kicked around until a month or so ago. I had my sights set on a new Garmin audio panel with bluetooth for the Mooney. This deal came together and given the nature of what the current administration has in mind for the next 4 years I thought it was best to live a little and make the jump.

The fallback plan would be to pickup an IPad Mini and install an ADS-B receiver. I'm really really going to miss my Missile. It is a fantastic plane. Things came together at the right time for the new one and I had to jump on it. We just got back from Florida. 870 miles in 5 1/2 hours with near constant 25kt headwinds. It truly is an amazing machine that I will dearly miss. I thought it would take me more than 2 years to outgrow. I didn't realize 2 years ago how quickly kids grow up!

Do you know if the Baron system needs its own XM subscription or would it work with the signal fed to the GTN750?

Pic of new panel.

I am getting into a new plane and my beloved Garmin 496 is staying in N888DF. I have grown to love the yoke mounted 496 since I started flying in 2008. The XM weather and AOPA directory have been wonderful to have in the cockpit. The plane I am moving into has a G500 w/ synthetic vision and a GTN750 in it. While I can get the weather displayed on the GTN I think I am going to miss having all of the weather data "at my fingertips". I currently fly with an IPad 1 w/ Foreflight HD which I use mainly for approach plates only. I have been looking at getting an Aera 560 and have also looked at the 796. I don't know if I want to get away from XM yet and jump to an ADS-B system for weather. In a perfect world, someone would have a Foreflight type system that could bluetooth XM weather onto a new IPAD mini...... I don't stay on top of avionics except when I change planes. I'm about 2 years behind the curve! I learned how to fly IFR using NACO charts and would prefer to keep using them. I am having a hard time justifying the 500 bucks a year for Garmin supplied charts for the G500 and 796. Thanks, Brandon