Becca

Does anyone follow AOPA's facebook page. Both that page, and then cross posted by Craig Fuller, contained a political link regarding entitlement programs. To limit this thread, I don't want to talk about your general opinion on this political issue, but rather the bigger issue of whether AOPA should be making political commentary outside of general aviation advocacy. We, as members, give AOPA a pretty big megaphone, and honestly I only feel use of that megaphone is only authorized for aviation advocacy. I get that greater issues with the government effect everyone, including aviators and the future of aviation, but going down that road is a slippery and divisive slope. I also get that the majority of AOPA's audience probably leans a certain political direction, but majority isn't all, and we could discuss the racial, economic, educational, and gender demographics of the pilot population all day. But I didn't join AOPA to join an entitlement reform advocacy org... I always liked how AOPA magazine's election issue endorsed both Republican and Democratic candidates that were aviation friendly. I think its important AOPA's partisanship should extend only to aviation issues. Anyway, the point is, this Facebook post from AOPA really disturbed me, and then Craig Fuller went and re-posted it. I thought maybe it was a social media intern run amock, but then someone went and even replied to the comments with the initials "CF". Anyway, I emailed AOPA and commented on the facebook and hopefully more members will do the same.

The average weight of a woman in the US is 167 lbs, and even in other countries its in the 150 lbss. If you look at 25-75 percentile of the adult female population you are looking at 140-180 lbs or so. So if your criteria is women < 125 lbs and likes flying (even worse if its "licensed pilot", which is only 6% of the entire licensed pilot population), you are shooting yourself in the foot. Actually maybe more than the foot. As for the so-called weight and balance limitations, I've found male pilots are quick to point out their weight and balance limitations when discussing a size 10, short, 150 lb woman while telling his 6'1" 200 lbs best buddy and his golf clubs to jump right in. Trust me a variation on this theme appears on aviation forums at a surprising clip and is never matched with the counter point of the other threads of "why don't more women like flying". Do what you will with that information, but don't bemoan with one side the lack of women flying companions while on the other side being neanderthals by judging women entirely on one part of their looks. If you want women to feel welcome in the cockpit, be welcoming.

With only 6% of licensed pilots women, most men will end up marrying non-pilot partners. My two closest female pilot friends have husbands that do not fly airplane and have no interest in flying, this, I think, is part of the reason both of them are taking a "break" from their flying hobby since they're caring for pre-K children. I fly with men not my husband all the time. In fact, that's how we ended up with our airplane partner, he and I enjoyed flying together recreationally for things husband found boring (amazing what a 400 hr pilot finds interesting that an 8000 hr pilot finds boring - for instance, like your wives, he far prefers trips to $100 hamburgers, I occasionally like boring holes in the sky) even before we bought an airplane. He has a girlfriend who sometimes comes with us, sometimes not, however, she does seem to enjoy flying she is just frequently busy with work and her other hobbies. Sometimes other guys come too, or sometimes my girlfriends (even non-pilot ones, I work in a community of aerospace professionals, so most people, men and women, are at least interested in riding along). I guess it all depends on personality. Probably a bit of a generational thing too.

The actual cost of the manufacturing of ours was ~$300, that was cost, not profit. So if you look into a place to do it locally with fab shop capabilities, suggest it will be more if they are going to make a reasonable profit. Also suggest you might choose not to tell them they are airplane parts when you provide the diagram, I think many places insurance directly prohibits airplane parts.

Well, as long as you are using us as a rumor mill. My two cents on the Mooney business situation is it has nothing to do with Obama or the general economy or anything, it has to do with product and price point on new airplanes. Consider what I would consider the two "in class" competitors - Bonanza and Cirrus, both priced around what a new Mooney is priced at, around $600k. Beech has the added advantage that they have a very diverse product line and they can spread fixed cost over multiple types of airplanes - Mooney just has Mooney. Cirrus has the advantage that they make not pilot passengers happy with their parachutes. Also Bo's and Cirrus's are simply more comfortable and better appointed than Mooneys are -- and when you have people with the money to spend $600k on an airplane, they aren't looking to save a few gallons of fuel and go for efficiency (something Mooneys excel at), they can afford to burn more gas and get to their destination in higher style and more comfort. I think if Mooney had managed to go after a lower price point customer, they might have been able to keep selling airplanes or only had a short down time. Unfortunately the cost of building a Mooney is so high, going to that price point would result in them selling at a loss.

I hope you realize as a graduate student that rumors shared on a pilot forum should not be used as a primary source for a research project (unless the project is something on consumer perception of the brand), or even a really valid secondary source (consider something with more editorial control and authority, such as a trade publication or something). You should probably look for more official sources of this information to reference to get a good grade, but we are happy to point you in the right direction.

We have some higher priority spending to do on the plane right now ... plus, I'm convinced you always need 10 more gallons no matter how much you have. I am convinced that we would find ways occasional to be short on fuel even if we had 10 more gallons. (Example: We had 30 gallons when we went to leave LVJ, we were in a rush, but took the time to refuel at LVJ's high priced fuel so we could tanker round trip - 55 gallons when full - to even more expensive fuel Padre Island. If we had bigger tanks, we might have had 45 gallons at LVJ and not spent the time and extra money topped off and tried to tanker that round trip with just 45 gallons and ended up in an even tighter situation coming back.)

We had enough fuel to make it back to Mustang Island or Corpus down the coast as the weather filled in, it was still clear to south and never forecast to build in south. We actually talked about our fuel situation as we passed Corpus and when we would have to turn back to land at Corpus at minimums (30 minutes) and had not gotten to that bingo when we landed at BYY. I would contend it would have been foolhardy to proceed up the coast had we not had a southbound escape route and I would not have been so agreeable to Byron's weather plan. Fleeing over water and ditching is not an "escape" plan if the thunderstorms fill in as they were forecast to do. It is also not a good escape plane or an excuse to fly into unpredictible weather surrounded on your 3 other sides by potential storms -- we knew in this case that we were storm free to the south down land and towards airport. Anyway it all worked out ok, if it were up to me we wouldn't have pressed all the way up to BYY or LBX but just called it a day at PSX when we passed by it, it was becoming clear the front was pushing toward the water and growing (we had good vis the whole time of what was going on) by that point and that it was unlikely we'd make it into LBX. Likewise, we really pushed it with the line of storms at BYY, we might have been better off fleeing all the way back to Corpus. As a secondary note, this storm system had been forecast to dissipate by 5 pm - which they did. If we trusted the forecast, teh right thing to do would have been wait to leave South Padre until the evening rather than out run it. We just didn't trust the forecast and thought it was possible the storms might linger through the night. The local weather guys seem to have been having a hard time this season nailing down exactly how the storms are going to behave and this was a particular unstable set up with a front and a sea breeze building on each other... Hindsight is 20/20

Though I am unwilling to refinance the house for the airplane, I would refi for other reasons if I could get a refi with lower closing costs which you both seem to have gotten. I have tried bank rate, several big banks, my current mortgage holder, my credit union, a mortgage broker and several online sources and have never got a quote with <$3000 in closing costs (no points) from any of them. This seems in line with what my peers are paying here on closing costs. Maybe closing costs in Texas are just higher? Or higher because of the low value of the mortgage? Any other suggestions on what I'm doing wrong here?

Plenty of equity in house but its already at a low apr and refi'ing will extend the loan term and cost approx $4-5k in closing costs, that's hardly a smart solution. houses in houston are very very cheap compared to national average and never appreciate in a meaningful way, so even if you refi to the entire value of house you have to save a lot of interest to make up for those closing costs. Also by rolling the plane loan into the house the interest rate may be low but not you have that loan on a term of 15-30 years - even 3% interest starts adding up on a term like that. We more considered would be to take a larger loan on our cars, car loans are at 1.74%, and even without the tax breaks of home loans, that's really low. But our bank offers a 2.3% 5 year loan ln planes, so thats not much of a savings compared to a car and keeps the loan in the partnership. But I think in the end we will work with stupid bank and just refi plane to get our cash back out when this is all over.

So we had hail damage on our plane a couple years ago, and we held off getting our claim actually paid out due to the lack of availability of Mooney parts. Now that they are available, we're dealing with the claim. It involves buying new control surfaces and getting a re-paint. The insurance company was awesome and very easy to deal with and gave us a full cash settlement based on full estimates, and because we are willing to put in some of our own elbow grease, their cash settlement is definitely more generous than the cost of repairs will be, leaving us with some money in the bank. We have a small loan on our airplane (its about the size of a car loan) for a variety of reasons (partnerships can be complicated). So the insurance check is going to be cut to us and the credit union as the lien holder. We were unable to go with a more traditional aircraft loan servicer because many had unreasonable closing costs/interest rates for such a small loan at the time we got our loan. Unfortunately our credit union has very little experience dealing with airplane loans and treats us like we are running a corporate jet charter business or something not buying something the expense of a midrange sports car. Anyway, our credit union's first position is that we do the work at our own expense, submit them the receipts when the work was fully completed and they reimburse them from the insurance check and then send the remainder of the check back to the insurance. I told them no way, we needed money up front to buy parts, as the paint job will come several months after parts purchase, and they said they can accommodating releasing funds from the check for parts purchases. And also that we wanted to keep the difference (and the insurance company considers the matter closed once they cut the check). So then they said if there was any money left over they'd apply it against the balance of the loan rather than just returning it to us in cash, which we don't want either but they seem pretty much unwilling to negotiate on this. The VP of the credit union's position is that damage devalues things, and therefore it is their way of buying down risk. Any experience with this? In their records, the loan is for 80% of the value of the airplane which makes them very protective of "their" asset, but we've significantly upgraded the airplane since purchased and now the loan is more like 40% of the value of the plane if you consider its value (probably 30% of the value of the airplane once it gets repainted with this hail damage). Do you think if I got the airplane re-appraised they'd be a little looser with the money? Or do you think we have to actually refinance to get that money back? Is there some magic words I can use here or strategies other have used?

We aren't going to be able to make the next few air races, someone else should head out there with their Mooney and represent.. The time to beat is 192 mph for a 201! The Hill Country Air Race at Llano, TX on the 27th is growing slowly. The race page is available on the web site: http://hillcountry150.com/index.htm The race following Llano is BCAF at Abilene, on 4 May. The SARL web site has been having problems for the last week and they are rebuilding it, so if you want more information, let me know.

I am 5'6", and I use 3" rudder pedal extensions in my 201. I could fit without them, but I'd have to pull my seat up REALLY close to the yoke which I do not like. What I will say is that all those comparisons about Mooneys having as much volume as Bonanzas are based with the idea you can sit with your seat all the way back and your legs stretched forward, pulling your seat forward to fly definitely reduces your volume available. But it works.

if you are referring to my statement "learn to lean and learn to monitor your engine" - I worded it that way in particular to be independent if you are flying LOP or ROP. You should know how to do it on either end of the curve, in that you need to learn how to find ROP or LOP, and you need to learn how to monitor your cylinder health because its a good way to prevent trouble or catch problems as they start rather than when they become catastrophic... For someone who's flown 172's, learning how to manage our engines, use cowl flaps, etc. is a big transition topic -- you wouldn't believe what you hear -- Byron taught a guy who's flight instructor just told him to always leave his cowl flaps open!

Make sure to get a thorough pre-buy from an independent mechanic. Make sure to read this board about common issues with an M20J and things to look for. Don't use your dual time to do cross countries -- make it valuable training, get to know the planes slow flight characteristics, land in challenging conditions, learn to lean and learn about how to monitor your engine, get some instrument time, etc.

GAMI spread is still way off compared to old engine, one injector just continuously runs a lot richer than the rest. We've swapped injectors, cleaned injectors, replaced injectors, still had this same problem. I am afriad we are going to end up having to spring for a set of GAMI injectors our old engine had a no problems with this. Our temperatures in Houston are still not up to "summer temps" for comparison, but the engine is running a lot cooler now. It took a lot longer than I personally expected to break in, though. When we flew to Florida and Bahamas over Christmas we had no problem keeping all 4 under 360 CHT. Of course we had other problems -- like flying into KLEE at night on only one mag - can't say enough good things about how they fixed our problem and turned us around in no time! Next month we'll be doing a couple air races, that will provide some good data points. Our current concern on the engine is the last few oil analysis has showed high iron (e.g. close to 100 ppm when adjusted for 50 hrs). Usually you get high metal at break in but we are concerned we are still seeing this with about 150 hrs on the engine. We contacted Lycoming and we are going to do one more oil change after next 25 hrs and see where we are. Also higher than expected chrome. We're not seeing any magnetic metal in the filter above normal. We borescoped at annual last month and didn't see any signs of wear. But we certainly want to see what's going on before our warranty expires in August.

You know.. this is going to be controversial.. but the more I think I about it, and read comments on the tower closure on "small plane" forums, the less I think this is really something that impacts us as much as we think. The Mooneys, the Cessnas, the Bonanzas of the world, we operate just fine at untowered field. Even at a busy untowered field, its managable for us. As several posters have already said - just do what the AIM says, we're all trained in this. Heck, some of these places, the towers are a pain in the neck for us, causing long delays before departure when we can just taxi and go. If you look at the list of closures -- the south florida ones in particularl particular because I am familiar with -- the real losers in this are the corporate jets and their clients. But what is good for your Citation doesn't always equal best for my Mooney (um, awesome FBO at Dallas Executive aside). My understanding is many corporate jets operate on corporate policies or insurance policies that prohibit them from flying to an untowered field. Luckily, my Mooney has no such policy! Even when corporate jets do come into an uncontrolled field with busy single engine traffic, without a tower, their thirty mile finals (yes, I know fuel ain't cheap) disrupt the traffic pattern and cause everyone else inconvenience. In the mean time the people who fly corporate jets into Boca or Pompano and can't go there any more are re-planning to the nearest towered field still open - Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach, clogging up those fields and interfereing with airline traffic because they can no longer go to the reliever fields with closed towers. For us Mooney drivers, worst case scenario I see is some cluttered traffic patterns (as if I don't already have that at my home field that doesn't have a tower) and some fancy airports suddenly without a tower that might be a little more appreciative of their Mooney customers as their G5 traffic has to go elsewhere... Long term, I don't think sequester or the tower closures are good for anyone or the health of airports in their totality, but its hard for me to get all worked up over this..

I think we, and our non-vintage Mooney (hahahaaa 1977 is not vintage!), would definitely be interested, though its too soon to commit.

No requirement that you run WOT nor at 1000', though we do. We have raced against a Mooney flying 24 squared. There is a warbird class for instance, an a couple of guys with the same type of plane make a gentleman's agreement on power setting (to save fuel) and they fly the race at that setting, and then it becomes a game of how precisely you can fly the course. Since we rarely have competition, we consider ourselves flying against our prior time. to see if we can improve our time between races. Its all in good fun and the other participants are a great community. We watch the CHT's very carefully and control the mixture to keep them below 380 (which usually requires full rich, which isn't actually best power.. I don't know where Byron is getting that we run at 320... ), and everything is below red line. I challenge you to tell me what about your or our engine wouldn't "like that" (heck, that's how we were told to break it in!). I am not sure I would be willing to do that, though, if I didn't have a reliable multi-point engine monitor. We usually stay at 1000', but we do range from 500-1500' depending on the course and the wind conditions. If you are curious about the rules, yes, there are some altitude restrictions (usually altitude restriction is "by the FARs", though sometimes they require us to clear an obstacle or a local airport by some distance). You are given a course at the start of the race and you fly the course, making turns around the outside of the waypoints. They time you when you start and stop and whoever flies it fastest (with some dividing of categories) wins. Start is in order of speed, so the fastest plane starts first, down the line, this nearly eliminates passing, though some closely paired planes will pass, its done in a very controlled fashion. Anyway, come give it a try!

Come beat our 201 SARL speed record. I dare you to help Byron prove his assertion that our new engine made our plane slower. Air race season is upon us! http://sportairrace.org/id4.html

Downtown Atlanta wasn't bad -- they really cleaned it up for the Olympics (I started in 1997), and I had been raised a yankee dreaming of an urban campus (that said, it wasn't quite the Boston I was picturing..). Apparently its even nicer now, at Georgia Tech has filled in the other side of the highway into midtown. I had heard stories of students before me hearing gun fire from the North Avenue projects (they are all Georgia Tech dorms now, so... Atlanta tore down all its midtown projects and put in mixed income housing, which became high in demand for the gentrified Atlantians, bringing in an entirely different dynamic) Interesting the effect of instate v. out of state. When I went, even out of state was downright cheap at $9000/year (plus another $4000 for room and board, lived on campus all four years) compared to in state tuition in many places (though not in Florida, where it was free for in state high school grads with over a certain GPA, but the quality of an engineering education at Georgia Tech was too high to turn down). (Now they are closer to $25k, but colleges, man, they have gone crazy). As for Houston, well, if you like hot and the south, I guess you'd like it. There's not much to do outside besides water sports on murky water. Its flat. Its ridiculously hot in the summer, spring and fall are reasonably nice. We have a great theater district and even better rodeo. I'd rather move somewhere on either the east or west coast myself, but I'm a yankee, not a southern girl..

To hell with Georgia! Go Jackets!

Electronics talked back to you?

Aerospace Engineer. (Didn't really fit your comments on technology related, so selected other...)