FloridaMan

No problem at all in my m20f. Even landed without a scratch in this field (gear is down, you just can’t see it)

My personal recommendation is to get the dial gauges on the wings if they’re still available and call it a day (both of mine came with them). I’ve had one stick full, once, and it was obvious, but aside from that they’ve been spot-on reliable and accurate.

I’ve had a post maintenance catastrophic engine failure at 200ft on takeoff from a reputable shop and know of two other such failures from other reputable shops. Shit happens. Glad it wasn’t expensive and didn’t set you back too much time. This is also another reason why the dual mags have killed a number of people. Not only do the gears fail if not maintained properly, I can think of at least one fatal M20j that was the result of a loose dual mag. Poor guy went down in the salt pillars of the devils golf course in Death Valley.

My experience is that Rocket gives better support than Mooney.

Also, get it painted in Imron. My m20f was painted in Imron in 1994 over 2200 hours ago. This is what it looks like today. (On the left) It looks like it could’ve been painted last week.

I’d ask for an opinion from @cujet on maintenance costs before settling on the MT. @aviatoreb has one on his Rocket. The w&b advantages and prop clearance are certainly desirable, but I’ve heard that MTs can be expensive to own. Do you know which conversion number yours is? There are ADs with different intervals for the exhaust depending on which exhaust you have (I wouldn’t let that stop me from purchasing, just important to know). Another couple things are that mine didn’t have the optional 19lbs of lead at the rear of the empennage or the 3200lb max gross STC. I had both of those done. I’ve learned in aviation that if there’s a modification to a specific airframe that you have, that you’d best get it when it’s available. STCs get sold and buried and companies restructure and parts become unavailable.

Never experienced runaway prop myself, but I hear that it'll get your attention. Flat pitch prop == increased drag. 10% overspeed of your engine == teardown. https://www.lycoming.com/sites/default/files/SB369R Engine Inspection after Overspeed.pdf

4000ft? They like to send me over the glades so low I can smell them.

That always seems to happen when flying over unfavorable terrain or open water. My strategy for engine failure over a cloud deck would be to come through it with as much energy as possible to use to navigate to my landing site.

I generally go with Schottky diodes for protection. You could've used some flux on that. I usually do surface mount work with 186 RMA flux -- usually the pen is plenty adequate. You're better off using too much flux and then washing it off afterwards because too little will make things much more difficult.

I heard that pirates wore eye patches so that when they’d go below on a ship that they could have one eye already acclimated and not be blinded from their eyes adjusting.

Sheepskin. Aerosheep. I tried some cheap car seat cover first. It helped a little with the swamp ass. Bit the bullet and went with Aerosheep and realized that I should've done it 7 years ago. You spend a lot of time in those seats. If the price bothers you, try and thing of it in terms of cost per hour for comfort.

Always was the case with me previously. Somehow after 7 years and maybe 1200 hours in that same plane, some optimization of muscle memory tried to play a trick on me. I try to design my scans to check against other scans. I’ve yet to bend metal (knock on wood), because redundancy has saved me.

Took the m20f up to exercise it yesterday before doing an oil change. As I’m rolling down the runway to take off, I caught myself with my hand on the Johnson bar with my thumb on the button. Something didn’t seem quite right and I realized I was still rolling and hadn’t taken off yet. I’ve heard there was a member here who witnessed someone pulling their gear up on the ground after landing so thought I’d share this. When I pull my flaps up in any aircraft after landing, I make sure to call out “flaps” and “identified” as I’ve heard of similar gear up incidents related to grabbing the wrong switch (especially in old Bonanzas). From now on, I am going to make a call to identify that I’m securely in the air prior to touching my Johnson. It might be worthwhile for others to consider this as part of their takeoff call outs. My others are (turning onto the runway): trim, flaps, fuel selector; fuel pump (on the F), switches, radios; mixture, prop, throttle. Then, on the roll, verify airspeed and “instruments in the green” I don’t set takeoff flaps until after run-up and I box the controls when I set flaps. The redundant flap check on the turn onto the runway ensures that I didn’t miss the run-up portion of the checklist due to distractions or nonstandard taxi instructions.

Make sure your spinner is very snugly against your hub. You may need to add tape to the cylinder that it fits around or you will continue to crack spinners and bulkheads.

A friend of mine hit a sailboat on landing. He was in the backseat of an Extra and couldn’t see it. The airplane was absolutely totaled and resulted in a broken leg and a broken hand.

Someone most likely got paid a lot for a house, or got a great deal on one...

I would be nice if the FAA would enforce the FBO restrictions and rights from the Civil Aviation Act of 1938: https://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/publications/orders/compliance_5190_6/media/5190_6b_chap8.pdf * Right to self-service and self-fuel * Cannot grant exclusive rights to a management company (no single FBO unless the land on the field cannot physically support more than one FBO) "a. Aeronautical Activities Provided by the Airport Sponsor (Proprietary Exclusive Right). The owner of a public use airport may elect to provide any or all of the aeronautical services needed by the public at the airport. The airport sponsor may exercise, but not grant, an exclusive right to provide aeronautical services to the public. If the airport sponsor opts to provide an aeronautical service exclusively, it must use its own employees and resources. Thus, an airport owner or sponsor cannot exercise a proprietary exclusive right through a management contract. Note that while the policy technically extends to private owners of public use airports, private owners may not have the same immunity from antitrust laws as public agencies. A proprietary exclusive can be exercised only for fuel sales and support services, not for use of the landing area itself"

I'm not sure what's been going on with this forum as of late. I'm stubborn and am not the type to take my ball and go home if someone hurts my feelings, but what I've been seeing with the dogpiling and accusations of visitors and other members on this site is not healthy for any forum and can lead to alienation of its productive members to where it's only left with the remaining trash. Ask a question comparing one model Mooney to another, everybody is helpful. Get the occasional true professional (aviation or otherwise) on here and people start shifting the conversation to details where they feel safe. I don't care if the original poster is peddling his own software or not, filing an eAPIS is a pain in the ass and having a developer take the time to support such a small community in aviation is something that deserves commendation, encouragement, and not persecution.

I've written a parser and log converter for JPI files.

At just over 5ft tall, he’s tough to spot in a crowd.

California is occupied territory. They say the Ivory Coast of Africa used to be a nice place too. Now while there are good people who are fleeing the unfortunate political results of generations of indoctrination in the schools, based on the shifting politics where people from California and New York are moving, it seems that the overwhelming majority are simply parasites who are looking for a healthier host.

I've not seen multiple entries for a single flight in the data, or if I had I must've mended it. I wrote it so long ago that I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure that if I had a final datapoint at speed and altitude followed by a starting datapoint within a short time period that I would've aggregated it into a single set of points.