Cris

Parker- I thought that Mooney Aircraft Co. had destroyed that prototype years ago. Was it sold to someone or is that the original factory A/C? What is it doing in Lakeland?

If you are considering an arrow there are various versions with differant engines, wings/tails. I have some time in a 78 Arrow which had the "auto gear", 200 HP, straight tail & the "new" wing. It had a very disconcerting safety feature whereby the gear would drop to prevent gear up landings. I do not recall the exact speeds but it would drop in a climb with a high angle of attack. Typically this happened at altitude but it was very scary as I remember since it led to the stall horn going off as the gear dropped.

If one "misses" the owners squalk list that would indicate to me a less than meticulous attitude towards maintenance. Unless you were waiting on third party efforts like the muffler repair nine weeks is outrageous. I'd be out of there in a heartbeat. Find a shop in which you have confidence & trust. It is your butt and mayby that of your family/friends. In my case I work at finding a shop that allows owner assisted annuals so that I really have only me to be concerned with the quality of the final product. BTW It never takes more than a week.

Jim -You handeled the emergency properly & no damage to you or the A/C Congrats!! As to a reset of the gear by maintenance that should not be necessary. I used to practice that manual extension in my 231 regularly. The cautioary statement is IF you continue to pull on the T handle after the gear down light illuminates it MAY bind the actuator & electrical retraction MAY not be possible until the binding is eleimated by ground maintenance. Also do not operate the gear electrically with the manual extension system engaged. In other words allow the handle to retract & put the lever back in place & reset the circuit breakers. Even if you forgot typically the circuit breaker simply pops tp prevent damage. Assuming you are going to maintenace anyway a simple gear retraction test on jacks should suffice. In terms of the alternator it might be as simple as a bad replacement alternator. Might be time for a PlanePower alternator.Or it could be a bad battery, voltage regulator, wiring etc. Let maintenance work their way thru it. I have the B & C backup alternator in my A/C just in case. Let us know what you find.

Hand held on the wing works just fine. Aim at the stall stripes.

Eric Did you get my PM?

It is true that Garmin has orphoned the mx20's which is why they are so cheap. They can't be repaired. Garmin offered a trade up to the GMX200 which is is quite similar but does have a faster processor & is still being produced. One option is to install the mx20 with the idea of replacing it at some point with the GMX200 or even another used mx20 if it breaks as they will only get cheaper. The installation cost to make the change will be modest if going from the mx20 to the GMX200. BTW I have a GMX200 and it is an excellent product displaying WX weather, flight plans, split screen, garmin approach charts and so much more. It also allows for a cheaper 430W if going used. In my case I have a KLN 94 mated to it.

Quote: orangemtl BTW: for all the berating I attracted with faster-than-average approach speeds, it sure keeps you off the rocks better than marginal speeds, before one is on final. "Too fast" is still appealing, until I'm on a reasonably long final; relatively easy to dump the remaining knots thereafter.

+1 BTW I did not read it as calling Walt stupid which as you point out he is not but rather in the generic of doing some thing whithout thought.

Quote: johnggreen I simply can't believe that anyone with $69m or access to $69m would be stupid enough to buy this airplane. The logical portion of the discussion about this airplane ended with the words, "salvage value"; in my opinion. It is a perfect example of why clean, well maintained aircraft, with no red flags, are worth every penny of the top dollar they command. Jgreen

I'm not a great believer in coincidence so I find it interesting that the Controller Ad references the fact "the current owner has misplaced the logs prior to 2005" & which coincidentally is when the A/C sustained the major airframe damgae & was written off by the insurance company. Coincidence or a deliberate attempt to hide the incident? If it smell like a duck quacks like a duck then it is a ..... Walk away IMHO

I am reasonably certain that the factory probe is the earlier J type. If you have a pre owned JPI 700 it might have the J type probes which are identified by red & white leads. The latter 700's switched to the K probes. The K probes can be identified by the leads which are yellow & red. Mixing the probes will give you erroneous readings-ie high/low. There are several options for you to consider assuming the factory probe is a J type. 1) Install a spark plug J probe for the factory probe & a standard CHT JPI probe in lieu of the bayonet probe. Make note of the temps before & after switching to the spark plug probe and prior to installing the JPI 700 to verify accuracy. Modify the JPI 700 with an JPI adapter for a Gem 602-610 which uses the J type probes and go to all J type probes. If this is a new unit JPI might be willing to switch out your probes and/or modify the 700 to accept J CHT probes retaining the K EGT probes which is/was an option. 3) Replace the JPI 700 with a GEM 610 or better still the new G1-2. BTW I have a brand new JPI bayonet K type Part # 5050 if for some reason you find you need it or someone reading this needs it.

Quote: Shadrach Non of these really addresses the issue, which is maintain a pattern speed that will make final approach speed (1.X VSO) attainable, stay coordinated and don't load the wing in a bank or otherwise. It seems to me it's that simple without worrying about all of the noise. Tell me what I'm missing?

I understand that initially the database will be provided free of charge but Voiceflight reserves the right to charge in the future. Presumably that is to cover the possible new FAA costs.

Have you ever lost an engine Sorry Jlunseth The above was my post but somehow the site decided it was yours. Oh Yeah, At night, IFR, in snow showers , over the mountains in a M20J. Glided down 20 miles or so to an airport and rolled out on the runway with no damage to A/C or passengers. But the point really is as Junsleth states: "The glide ratio is not very important to how one flies a pattern. Its only usefulness is to refute the argument that we should fly tight patterns because the engine might quit." Yet I still find comfort (safety) in a plane that glides so well.

Quote: Shadrach IMHO, the difference in glide ratio means little. A mooney is not basically " a motorized glider" (even the most inefficient gliders drop at ~20/1 and 30 or 50/1 is more common).

Keep in mind that the Mooney and its wing are basically a motorized glider. When the CFI suggests to keep the pattern tight so that one can glide to the field in the event of an engine out point out that our A/C will glide a lot further than other A/C. Hence no need to keep a pattern as tight as one might in a Piper or Cessna & certainly no need to overbank as John G points out.

Here is an easy tutorial http://www.flypierce.com/?page_id=760

Start with the AOPA agreement and then Google "Aviation Partnership Agreements". You'll soon have all the salient points you need. However agreements are just to remind one of their respective obligations. American law gives one an absolute right to violate any agreement. Ones only recourse is to sue & presumably be made whole with money. Thus the basic tenant is to be sure that the partner is financially capable and an honorable individual.

Are we really reduced to deciding on "The Most Controversial Topic" to be controversial about? What happened to sharing meaningful info that makes our flying more enjoyable or efficient. I think Mike is putting us on so let's not take the bait. LOL

I also just renewed with Falcon. I had them last year & this year my rate went down 10% while I increased my hull value 10k. I did need to get them to negotiate a bit with the underwriter as they would not give me a discount for MAPA PPP even though I took it twice in 2011 & I had more time in model. It pays to ask as opposed to just accepting the rate.

Mystery Oil, Camguard & howl at the moon on alternate Suns keeps the broken hardware troll at bay!!

Quote: Bnicolett My airplane, before I purchased it was flown about 5 -10 hours per year for the last 5 years. I put some money into it but nothing really happened to it that I would attribute to lack of use. I put about 70 hours on the Mooney this first year and expect to do about the same every year with a minimum of 50 hours. My experience is exactly the same with my A/C. It has been squalk free this first year & I am a happy camper. Even though I had a few things that needed to be corrected due to a so-so pre-buy they were relatively minor ie bad batt/amp gauge, a small crack in the muffler (discovered at annual) and a poorly adjusted gear door. This was on an 1999 aircraft with 310 hrs TTwhich now has just 400TT.

Quote: KSMooniac I think the real gems in the market might be the Eagles that were stripped-down compared to a typical pre-G1000 Ovation. They would make a great canvas for a G500 or Aspen upgrade and a horsepower upgrade to give Ovation performance and more useful load for similar or less money.

Well my experience with Moritz was reasonable I think. By that I mean I had to send back my fuel cluster which also includes the Batt/Amp guage for repair. In the prcocess I asked that the fuel indicator which read 37 gals per side for my S be reset to 45 gals per side same as the R which my Midwest Mooney 310 HP STC allows. Moritz said no way so I was dissatisfied. On the other hand they fixed the Batt/Amp guage & replaced lamps at no charge even on the fuel guage. The bill was $500 which I thought was a bit steep but they typically work on turbines so.... One thing I did find was that those lamps are not field replaceable so when they burn out it is expensive to have them replaced. Also they are running out of repair parts for some of these guages. I was "lucky" as the rep explained to me as they had the parts that I needed. Check out Moritz under one of the other threads for other opionions. I still like the units as mine work beautifully & am not ready to spend the $5000 or so for a full up set of STC'ed replacement guages. I'd just like to get the accuracy of the fuel that I now carry on my factory guage.