zaitcev

I gave Henriksen's a call, but the FBO lady said they don't have space in the community hangar, at least not for a Mooney. There is a tie-down available for $125/month. I'm looking into Smithville and Burnet at this point. Not had it this bad with hangars since I escaped San Francisco in 2001.

Since it appears that new pilots in Austin have to bum at whatever corner for months or years, does anyone have experience with community hangars? Several FBOs offer those. My biggest concern is a lineman repositioning the airplane and bending the front tower. I was told it's a serious issue with Mooneys. Has this happened to someone at KEDC or KGTU?

$35k is suspiciously cheap for a 1975 Chapparal with 300 SMOH. I paid $48k for my 1969 with similar equipment and times. In my search I looked at some $35k M20Es, Fs, and Cs, and every plane came with major red flags. One has even been in a flood.

Goodness gracious, now I have to ask how many pilots even seen a power curve and know what side of it is front and where the back side begins? Anyhing slower Vbg is on the back of it! Picture from John S. Denker.

I happen to agree with your point about proper approaches at short fields, but I cannot help observing that landing a Mooney you're always at the back of a power curve. In my M20E the tip of the curve is at 105 mph and nobody lands that fast. Nitpicking aside, here's a classic video that demonstrates the style of approach to land that you advocate above (I think that one probably still wants to land just a shade faster in a Mooney and use the excess to perform a round-out):

I was afraid that would be the answer. I presume I cannot just go to the nearest AutoZone and cut 20 ft off a spool of vacuum hose?

Apparently, nobody used PC on my airplane for many years. The valve button on the yoke is held down by a little flip bracket. Yesterday, I decided to test what's going to happen if I turn it on by releasing the button. The result is, airplane rolls to the right gradually. I only had the cookies to let it roll to about 45 degrees, but it showed no signs of stopping. The T&B indicated a turn properly. Is this something that I should ask my mechanic to investigate, or should I identify a specialist option? In an older thread on the topic someone suggested contacting Brittain of all people.

It's been a couple of months, any news? (sorry, my electric gear in M20E operates normally, just idle curiosity)

Remember how gliders carry water ballast. The glide ratio is the same but the speed is higher in a ballasted airplane. The Vbg moves significantly. Conversely, to maintain the same speed at higher weight requires a greater angle of attack. If you want to maintain the same pitch, you need to go faster with a heavier load. Where this becomes inconvenient is at touchdown. The flatter and faster you come in, the greater is the hazard of porpoising (and floating). Still, our airplanes were tested at gross weights, back in the day.

Just to quantify that theory, I wear 36 x 36 size pants and I unbuckle on gear-down swing all the time.

Actually, it's possibly to find a Mooney for rent. You may need to travel, but you can make a fun aviation adventure of it. I did that in 2011. As far as actual transition, one typically buys the airplane, then hires a local CFI for a checkout, then ferries it home. I did that too, although I think I could checked out myself safely. However, my insurance (Avemco) required me to put 3 hours in type. Instead of going naked in an unfamiliar airplane it was easy and prudent to hire a CFI. With the checkout under my belt, the ferry flight home was completely uneventful.

Dan MacDonald writes: "Existing seat belts must be inspected periodically, at least at every annual. Look for: - Frayed, torn, or faded fabric, - Broken stitches, - Bent or broken buckles, latches, springs or other hardware items, - Faded or missing TSO tags. Immediately repair or replace the belts if any of the above problems exist. It is possible to have new webbing installed on your existing seat belt hardware, however the cost savings are not significant and you probably need new buckles anyway." He implies that all that's necessary is adherence to TSO-C22g, contra Alan Fox above. FWIW.

I just finished taking 35 inspection covers off my E yesterday. It was my first time and it took me 10 hours. Had to cut slots in a couple of screws etc. Laying on my back does a number of my sinuses, too. Obviously a professional is going to waste less time, but it's a 300 dollars right there, with prevalent labour rate.

This is far from unusual. There was a TFR for Aliso gas leak in California in 2015, too. In fact, they were concerned that an aircraft flying through the plume would trigger a massive airburst explosion with at least several hundreds of ton of TNT equivalent power.

Cirrus G5 and later have an option of texting, and I think what's more, the cellphone is actually built into the airplane, so it's not just some Bluetooth thingie. The option costs $10,000. No, it's not a joke. But hey, for that amount of money you can use FMS console for texting.

It is one way to look at it, but just this Thursday I forgot to lock the hangar. Had to kick wife out because I had to disembark. Really wished I had an Ultra, or heck, even Beech Sierra. Cessna would work better for that situation.

Not the same for me. My first big upgrade is going to be shoulder belts. Indeed, a Mooney that can't fly into Bravo and Charlie airports has a very limited utility. I'm thinking Sandia 340 myself. I don't want to depend on the vacuum pump (although I still have the PC system, so I cannot get rid of it).

The accident rate per 100,000 hours flown is what you want to look at for explanations. During the WWII, they were losing more men to training accidents than to enemy action. Try doing this today, 1 in 100 will fly.

On the other hand, here's what Paul Bertorelli mentioned in SnF postmortem today: "I have observed that despite this focus on Europe’s Aero and the glimmer of hope for the Asian market, every sales executive or CEO says the same thing: Most of their sales are in North America. Vivek Saxena of Mooney said this and so did Daher’s Nic Chabbert. According to GAMA, 70 percent of piston shipments were to North America in 2016, while 10 percent each went to Europe and Asia." Apparently they designed M10 for the Asian training market first, but then realized that there's very little money to be made there. And such as there is, already spoken for by government-sponsored manufacturers (such as KAI in Korea and AVIC in China). The realization that the Chinese GA market is perpetually arriving and never arrives is what triggered the rethink.

It really depends on what kind of material you work with. Chinese and Russians put cadets into L7 and Yak-52 (soon Yak-152, which is the same airframe as L7, only with RED 350 hp diesel) respectively. If the student is struggling with the performance of the airplane, he's washed out of the program. In the 80s, they let people solo Yak-18 with 8 hours, retracrable gear and all.

The 210 is way more expensive than M20C,E,F. It's not a 172 at all in this regard. In addition, the gear system is not entirely reliable, and the plane carries disturbing ADs, such as the root cap crack. On the other hand, Richard Collins flew a P210 for decades. If I wanted a Cessna with a big engine, I'd get a 182 with straight gear. It's not as fast as Mooney or 210, but it chases Tigers/Cheetas, and carries a ton at that. P.S. I should note that I heard this line before, and also from a penny-pinching school. I suspect that the economics of racking hours on an airplane, as well as repairing damage caused by students, skews their perception a bit. They always took their IO-320s and 360s to the TBO and could probably go beyond 3,000 hours easily. They didn't because they also ran a Part 141 op and were legally prohibited from doing it.

For a buyer, it's not a big deal to visit all 4 (you forgot Controller). Mine came from Barnstormers, but could be any of them. I processed the following number of leads for older C, F, G, and E models: Mooneyspace: 6 Barnstormers: 22 Controller: 6 Trade-A-Plane: 17 ASO: 0 Other: 1 Regarding the need to be quick, it was not a problem. I only ended losing 1 airplane that was worth the trouble - from a guy in Wichita, who had essentially a full 2020 compatibility already, and was selling very inexpensively. Even if you do your rounds every week and contact sellers promptly, you'll still catch them.

Mooney has already built it, it was called "TBM". Its market success suggests you may be right.

I like Aspen's features, but it's extremely irritating how it likes to go into "big red X" at a drop of a hat. In an Arrow, I can cause it at will just by stomping the rudder. It starts thinking that AHARS is broken and throws red X. I found it because wagging the tail is a part of the checklist in case the gear gets stuck up. But it's ridiculous, don't you think? Aspen's AHARS is solid state. A simple AI without aerobatic caging button survives this much maneuvering, why can't Aspen do it? It's an Arrow, not Extra 300. Also, I lose the airspeed and altitude too, even though they are not driven by gyros. Fortunately, it self-recovers in 20 seconds or so, but still, losing PFD feels very uncomfortable. In one airplane it got into an annoying habit of showing X on the ground. It comes to its senses in the air, but jeez. Local avionics shop can't figure out what causes it. Something went out of whack with such a mysterious symptom. I have no experience flying with Garmin (either G1000 or G3X), so I cannot compare directly.

I flew in a rental with dual Aspens. They have 1-button take-over feature where the surviving Aspen can display PFD, using the red "REV" button.