201er

I don’t care what direction everyone else is landing, I’m not landing a Mooney with a tailwind.

What unapproved radio calls do you find yourself making at unpowered airports on the CTAF frequency?

Yeah, but they weren’t making so many by then. They built as many Cs in 1962 as that entire 1969-1977 period combined. Not to mention 300+ per year for most years up to 1965.

And here’s a video I did in my J of the real world measurements. Of course the J is a mid body and 10” longer than a short body C. However, to my understanding, the front seat room and amount the front seats slide back is the same. The only difference is that the rear seat occupant has to be a child or they could end up an amputee if you side back suddenly.

That’s a good plan. Mooney isn’t a good trainer to learn how to land a plane on. It has about the worst (in terms of hard landings when you don’t know what you’re doing) landing gear shock absorbers of any plane. You must land it aerodynamically and properly every time. It’s also fast which means things happen in a shorter time which makes it harder to learn and grasp everything. After earning your private and being truly comfortable in what you learned in, Mooney is a promising choice. It’s ok for complex and IFR training. You’re not pounding it with constant landings afterall! An M20C may not be the best IFR trainer (I’m gonna get a lot of hate for saying this) because most of them have the old cluster panels and limited avionics. If you can get an M20C with a 6 pack and GPS, then it’s great. Or, if you plan to make it your lifelong plane, then might as well learn to fly instruments with what you’ve got. An underrated benefit of doing instrument training in a Mooney is the ability to save a lot of gas by going slow. Afterall you gotta log a bunch of hours so you may as well go as slow possible to make it take longer. You still end up flying faster than a skyhawk while burning a lot less gas. In my J I was doing 120ktas on like 6gph while instrument training. I did my instrument and commercial in my J and it was worth it. But I would never recommend primary training in one.

A bigger question is how you manage getting in and out. If you have a hard time getting in and out of the skyhawk, the Mooney will be a disaster. If you’re comfy in a skyhawk and getting in and out is a non-issue, the Mooney is reasonably in play as a post Private Pilot plane to own. For the purpose of training, it would be a big disadvantage. Mooney isn’t a trainer. Unlikely to save money either.

^That’s a much nicer way of putting it than first instructor said when I passed my first ride. @Flyler keep that in mind! There’s more than can go wrong than can go right. It’s up to you to put in a continuous proactive effort to maintain a safe outcome. Congratulations and enjoy.

Isn’t that 16.1nmpg?

Someone suggested that VOR is a lot easier. Maybe I’m a 430W neophyte but doing a GPS direct to destination and seeing the same output as a VOR on my HSI is a really the same thing. Except it doesn’t require a long sequence of them. On my Garmin 430W I know how to skillfully: -Navigate direct to a destination -Add or remove waypoints enroute -Activate and fly a GPS approach -Activate a leg -Scroll the moving map, click on an airport, navigate direct -Dim the screen brightness That’s really all I need to be able to reliably go places under VFR or IFR. Everything else I find simpler to accomplish on my iPad (such as finding airport information, frequencies, traffic, weather, obstacles, etc) I may know a few more functions and remember how to do them while looking at the navigator but couldn’t really tell you off the top of my head. Let’s see what functions others make use of. Maybe we can learn something.

There was a discussion about modern tech being so advanced that we don’t know how it all works, particularly GPS units. How many functions do you know how to confidently operate on your panel mount GPS in your sleep? Like without reading the menus or looking for it, where you know what to do without seeing it?

I don’t see a need in opening the cowl flaps on downwind just in case of a go-around. It’s not an instantaneous demand like mixture or boost pump. Cowl flaps can be extended after the gear and flaps have been retracted. It takes some time for heat to build up. And if you have an engine monitor and forget to open them, as a backup you can have an alarm remind you before temps get too hot.

You don't have to look so far, unfortunately even Mooneys. I linked 3 cases in the original post.

I'm surprised it stopped in about a wingspan ~50ft. It's corn stalks, not trees after all.

You know how insurance companies wanna know how much retract time you have before insuring you in a Mooney? How much sky diving time do you gotta have to insure a Cirrus?

Insurance price increases have been a double whammy. Hull values doubled necessitating greater spending on insurance and on top of that premiums went way up as well. Net result is many of us spending double what we used to to have the plane insured for replacement cost. But if there is any chance for savings or fine tuning, Parker @Parker_Woodruff would be the guy to do it.

Which of these accidents would have been prevented if only the pilot had the latest technology? https://mooneyspace.com/forum/35-mooney-safety-accident-discussion/

It seems that pilots have a certain risk tolerance irrespective of their equipment. Add a panel, parachute, fiki, turbine, 2nd engine, the stats don’t get particularly better while the capability does. Even instrument rating isn’t a save all. About half the VFR into IMC accident rate is instrument rated pilots! As soon as a pilot reduces risk with new safety capability, he tends to immediately take on more risk by utilizing the capability. Let’s be honest, who gets an instrument rating to fly exclusively VFR but more safely? A 2nd engine, to fly only over safe terrain? FIKI to avoid flying in icing? Or a parachute to actually learn to fly the plane? Equipment is expensive so it is bought to expand capability. Let’s face it, we could greatly reduce risk for free just by not doing certain things, flying more within our capabilities, getting more training and practice.

I usually start right off the bat with “single engine Mooney”. Believe me, there’s been some FBOs where this conversation goes on way longer than it needs to and until I stoop to calling it a Cessna it doesn’t register or they want to charge me jet prices.

That's ATC. But when calling an FBO to find out the pricing, after explaining Mooney 3 times in futility, I tell them for pricing just figure it's like a Cessna. In the air it's fast. For ramp fees, it's a Cessna

Here’s another one. Distracted, lets the passenger close the door, of course the passenger closes it wrong, PIC doesn’t check, no checklist, just some random pre takeoff pointing and worrying about the cameras. Total non-event but could be worse in certain conditions or compounded with other problems.

I wouldn't be caught flying a Cirrus

Shoot, I must be guilty as heck of that one because I have a pretty endless list of stuff people do in planes that can't happen to me because I would never attempt it!

I just used the 5G on my phone. Reception this year was a lot better and faster than in the past.

That’s literally the idea presented in the video above. He went over the weather, icing potential, and even discussed the severe icing checklist procedure for that plane.