201er

I did file a NASA report before even thinking of Mooneyspace. Is it necessary that I share that? I don't care that the guy cut me off accidentally. My displeasure was the absolute inability to communicate with him despite him being on CTAF. I wasn't the only pilot trying to get his attention about it. Even someone from airport staff who heard what went down on CTAF came by to express frustration/sympathy about the situation. Tonight I came into the pattern at Central Jersey and there was a Cherokee making a go around while I was on a opposite direction GPS circle to land approach. We calmly worked it out on CTAF who would be where and when and there was no conflict whatsoever. It's all about acting in a predictable manner but when you don't, at least communicating well about it.

A. My initial conflict was returning from a different airport B. I did not do touch and goes, I fly a Mooney.

I agree except the part about "for the purpose of landing." When an aircraft is on crosswind, the purpose is departure, climb, get to downwind.... not landing. I feel that the "for the purpose of landing" does not start until you reduce power and begin a descent. Why do you feel a climb on crosswind is for the purpose of landing? I've flown crosswind legs and even downwinds when leaving the pattern in a certain direction.

FAR 91.113d Converging. When aircraft of the same category are converging at approximately the same altitude (except head-on, or nearly so), the aircraft to the other's right has the right-of-way. He was perpendicular to my left. I was on his right. He was slower and could have easily angled the crosswind away a little and got in behind instead of cutting inside. Please point me to where in the regs or aim is says that the plane in the pattern has right of way and in what circumstances. I can't seem to find this.

Coming back to Linden, I made position announcements 10, 5, and 3 miles out. I joined on an extended left downwind to runway 27. A Warrior just departed 27 and called turning crosswind. His crosswind was just slightly ahead of my position on the downwind which made me predict a potential close call. However, I had a strong tailwind plus a faster airplane so I expected to end up ahead on downwind. The moment I saw him turn onto that early crosswind I made multiple attempts to establish radio contact. Paraphrasing, "aircraft departed linden, Mooney is on left downwind 27." "airplane on downwind at Linden, you have a Mooney on downwind 27, say intentions?" "traffic on downwind at Linden, are you landing 27?" He made a sharp left turn to parallel inside my downwind. At first I thought it was his attempt to avoid me, but later not so much. First of all, it would have made more sense for him to turn away and join behind. You don't want to box yourself in between the runway and another aircraft on downwind. He continues making radio calls such as "Warrior on downwind 27" completely unaware and unresponsive to my inquiries. Finally, he starts turning a really tight base inside of my downwind and I made a turn to the right to break off the pattern and re-enter. I stated this as well. "Mooney breaking off to the right to reenter downwind due to traffic on base." I might have believed one of us was having a radio problem if a helicopter pilot didn't chime in. He tried to explain to the Warrior that he cut off another aircraft in the pattern, the Mooney has been trying to reach you, etc. When the Warrior finally did respond, he said something like "Helicopter, I think I saw you land". I can see the helicopter pilot facepalm to that irrelevant response and at that point everyone just gave up and went on with their day. It's a good thing I broke off the approach and re-sequenced because this guy was clueless. I don't believe it would have been safe to try to work out the sequence with him or remain in his vicinity. Kind of reminiscent of when a Cirrus cut me off in the pattern twice. After I landed, I practiced several more patterns and so did the Warrior without conflict. He landed and went to parking before I made my last takeoff for my final pattern. I went all the way around the pattern and taxied back to the ramp and lo and behold the Warrior is still parked on the taxiway blocking my path to parking. I just stopped there idling on the taxiway and watched. Eventually the right seat occupant gets out and rushes around to push the Warrior back. With the pilot still at the controls, the right seater pushed the Warrior back by the spinner. This was the moment I gave up any hope of having a meaningful conversation and just went on with my day.

Just subject to a new engine

From what I heard, his fascination started when he took a 350lb pal for a flight and then couldn’t get him back out of the seat. @Marauder was never the same since that day. Think it ended something like this:

@Marauder is the resident expert on this topic.

Already have the LoPresti Mooney Cowl 1.0

I did 10 years on a Concorde since I bought the plane and don't know how much longer it got before that. I really milked it to the very last. The battery was so weak that if it didn't catch on the 2nd blade, that was it. I held my breath getting it started for the last flight when I flew to get it changed. Car batteries don't last anywhere near as many years but considering they get fired up multiple times a day and pretty much daily, I wonder if it's actually the car battery that lasts through more starts than an airplane battery!

What kind of features did they add that are so intensive? If not for battery/age issues my Ipad Air 2 seems to keep up just fine with WingX. It hasn't changed much over the years which I like.

Does it work with WingX?

Now it turns out Appareo Stratus 3 are out of stock nationwide till December

Thanks for all your comments. There's so much variation so it's still pretty confusing. So I went to an Apple store to find out what the heck is an ipad these days. There's about 30 variants but that's cause there's different colors, different memory levels, and wifi only vs cellular models. But in whole it comes down to 4 current models: Ipad Ipad Air Ipad Mini Ipad Pro Any idiot can understand what a mini is, it's the smaller one that's halfway between an iphone and an ipad. If you like a smaller ipad, mini and you're done. I mount mine on the copilot yoke so it doesn't block any instruments so I need a full size one. That leaves us Ipad, Ipad Air, Ipad Pro. Until recently I was flying with an Ipad Air 2 64ggb (max at the time) wifi only. It has always been more than enough for all my flying apps. Mainly it's just the battery getting worn out at this time and running glithy and randomly shutting off. Not reliable enough in the air. So my question to Apple was, if my Air 2 is sufficient for my needs, do I really need the new Ipad Air 4 or is the regular Ipad at half that price sufficient? They went down the specs and as far as I could tell there's no apparent difference between the $329 and $599 models except a faster processor and they couldn't even say by how much. Their only answer was "Your Ipad Air 2 has a #8 processor, the Ipad has a #13 processor and the Ipad Air 4 has a #14 processor. What does that even mean? How much faster is it? Nobody at the apple store even knows. Their answer is just that 14 is more than 13 and 13 is more than 8. So, the gist I got out of all of this is that we pilots have been running our EFB's on Ipads going back all the way to the first few generations without any trouble. The cheapest new ones are at least as fast and most likely significantly faster than the top of the line ones a few generations ago. The only obvious difference between the Ipad and Ipad Air 4 is that the Ipad has a familiar home button and the Air doesn't and adds some half inch more screen or something that you can't even tell. We're splitting hairs here in difference but twice the price. So between what I found and the Apply people said, there's no reason to get anything more than the most basic Ipad model they have for dedicated EFB use. Only get a higher model if you want to do really funky stuff with it at home and that's not reading email, watching youtube, and posting on mooneyspace. Although the last one can get pretty heated. The battery life on all Ipad models is the same. The screen size is virtually the same within an inch. There is no appreciable difference between all new ipad models for an EFB. Heck, I'm sure you can get a refurbished one from a few models ago and run perfectly fine if you don't mind it being refurb. However, the price of a new bottom end ipad is about the same as older high end refurb models so there's no point. Ok, all's good but there's one hiccup. After deciding which model to get they tell me "oh and by the way this isn't in stock. Not any variant of it, not any color, not at any apple store, not online, not for over a month." Why the heck are they putting them out on display and talking customers into them when they don't even remotely have them!? I have an IPC this Friday so I really wanted to have a new one available by then. I've never had a problem picking something up like that before. I tried Best Buy, Target, Walmart. Let me tell you what they're saying about shelves being empty is true. All of them are out of stock not only on this model but many other ones too. There is some kind of mass shortage going on. Online was no help either. I tried one large local non-chain electronic supplier in NYC that I trust and they happened to have the basic ipad just in a different color so I ordered it! Wow, couldn't imagine replacing an ipad could be this complicated and difficult. I'll post an update after I fly with it.

I said it once, I’ll say it again. You got much bigger problems to worry about than a gear up whoopsie. Faster airplanes crash faster. That means it hurts more. Having a “whoopsie” forgetting to put gear down will scrape your wallet and your pride. Having a “whoopsie” forgetting to maintain adequate angle of attack in the pattern and particularly the base to final turn will kill you. Having a “whoopsie” and forgetting to switch tanks and manage fuel properly could lead to an off field landing and possibly worse. Having a “whoopsie” and flying inadvertently into IMC will probably kill you too. A few wisdoms from my first glider flying instructor: ”Flying isn’t dangerous, crashing is” I asked what do you do if you screw up (particularly about making a landing attempt) and his answer was “don’t screw up.” If you feel you are prone to lapses of judgement you should seriously reconsider flying but especially a Mooney. The gear is the least of your problems. Poor decisions and lapses of judgment in the bigger picture cause a lot more damage. Higher speeds mean you gotta be able to think and operate at a faster level. That’s not for everyone. You may prefer to stick to fixed gear not just so you don’t forget to put the wheels down but because they are slower and more forgiving. I applaud you for not being cocky and admit your own vulnerability. That’s a good sense of judgement that you can use to prevent poor skills or whoopsies with. Best of luck.

If that's the most frightening thing, you got much bigger dangers to worry about... They've already had this on Mooneys back in the 1940s. They probably had their reasons to do away with it. Maybe some pilot crashed after getting so fixated on the mesmerizing warning that they realized it's less dangerous to have a gear whoopsie. I dunno.

Wow, I feel so old. Just looked it up. I can't believe how much this changes every time. In this case, can people also suggest a specific charger that is very effective and DOES NOT INDUCE NOISE in the intercom? I've had problems with certain chargers being the cause of trouble. Almost tore my panel around looking for the source until someone suggested to check that first.

Still totally confused but trying to weed through it all. I have another question, how's the power draw on these new high powered ipads? Can the cigarette lighter charger we can normally use in the plane sufficient to keep it from discharging at full brightness? My Ipad Air 2 loses percent lately it seems unless I lower the brightness. I wonder if it's because it's getting old or something else. But, I worry that the newer ipads may be effectively battery powered because their consumption would exceed the charger?

That's another reason I want a dedicated ipad with no lock at all. No fiddling with it in the airplane and not using it for anything that would merit locking it. Do you think getting one of the cheaper models and using it exclusively for the airplane is a better idea? I already have an iphone that I use for all the other stuff so I no longer end up using the ipad for those purposes.

My ipad is getting old, not holding charge well, and my 1 year old has claimed it as his so I figured I'd treat myself to a new one to keep exclusively for flying. I go to buy one and there's a bujillion different models. What the heck? I feel so old... back in the day you would pick between an ipad or a mini. Wifi or 4g. Life was simple. Has anyone bought an ipad lately? Does it make any difference at all for our flying apps from the bottom end to the top? I'm still using a 1st or 2nd gen ipad air. I would kind of rather get a cheaper one and claim it EXCLUSIVELY for the airplane and not have a bunch of junk for other purposes on it slowing it down. I just want my flying apps to run smoothly, keep the battery strong in case of power failure, and that's it. Anyone have a modern ipad and ipad air for comparison? As far as I can tell the only feature of the ipad air that sounds like a big deal to me is "Antireflective coating" maybe that helps when the sun is beaming in. I doubt the speed and other features will matter much if our flying apps run on old school ipads from back when there was less choices. Any advice?

I'm glad to know they have measurements on them so you know exactly how much someone hurled

Has anyone ever hurled in your plane? Was it because of the way you were flying (for example doing maneuvers on purpose) or just because they had a particularly weak stomach? Have you? Do you keep barf bags just in case?

No shit. But think about it. If a really bad emergency hits and you're too high up or over mountains or water... what are all you guys with your travel johns, piss tubes, gatorade bottles, film canisters gonna do!? Think about the resale value of your airplane after someone dropped an unexpected number 2 in your plane because there was nowhere to make it go! What about barf bags? Do you guys seriously not keep some ziplocks around just in case?

No. And it wasn’t easy even before Covid.

$3 a bag!? You guys with your Travel John’s are nuts. Aren’t you supposed to be Mooney pilots? Best known for efficiency and being frugal!? $10, 56 pack, sits on the hat rack. Will last for years. Versatile. Use these for number 1, 2, or 3! Now there’s a bag you can put your meat in.