exM20K

There are two versions of the Sidewinder for the mooney: the original, which requires downforce on the handle to engage the roller into the front tire, and the newer style, which clamps down. I chose the older style because it does not require a wheel cover change. If I were doing it again, I'd go with the newer style. For short distances and where there is no snow to contend with, it is a very good solution. I agree that a second battery is desirable. If going longer distances than just in/out of a hangar, something powered by dead dinosaurs would be my choice. -dan

Easiest thing to test is instrumentation. I'd start with a three leg GPS test. There are several spreadsheets published. One is here. Next, I'd check that the FF, MAP, and RPM are recording accurately. Best way I know is via FF against the power charts. Fill, Run a known setting for an hour, re-fill. If FF is not right, everything is wrong. I've had a major FF errors due to dirty connectors. Next step should be to check rigging. even if the plane flies straight, there could be offsetting mis-rigging maybe. Mine flies 8-10 ish knots off book speed as best as I can tell, but I don't run a book power setting. at 16,000 - 17,000 I typically see 200-205 TAS at 16.5 GPH. -dan

As airplane owners, I believe we are also an element of stewardship or caretaker as owners, not just of the plane, but also of GA more broadly. This stunt fails abjectly in this regard and is a sad artifact of our society’s preference for junk food titillation and outrage over accomplishment. Imagine yourself as a previous owner who served a caretaker or possibly,y restorer of this aircraft over its 80 year life. How sad to see all that obliterated for clicks and “likes.” I hope he learns something and doubt his “fans” will -dan

Can you share a part number for this? Bummer about the stall warning. Those things are spendy. Welcome Back! If you "Get" Mooney, upgrades are few and very, very costly. -dan

Mine came with CMI’s Platinum!!! Engine, this is flow and mass balanced. It’s a really nice piece of work, and it runs happily all the way down to 100* LOP. I do not believe that the TN induces more stress than the NA engine. Mine runs cool as a cucumber all the way up to the low FL’s. I simply point out the low hourly accrual for the top overhaul because others raise it as a show stopper financially. It is not, and I’ve seen no evidence that the TSIO550 variants consume cylinders at a greater rate than the IO550’s do,. Even if true, this MX cost doesn’t even make the financial needle quiver, especially in a world of $5+ per gallon a gas. Both are very smooth, efficient gas aviation engines, and I am very glad to be able to own one.

@Schllc the TSIO550G is kinda turbonormalized. It has the low compression pistons, though, so it is not as efficient as the IO550. HP LOP IS 13.7x fuel flow in GPH vs something considerably higher in the NA plane. IIRC, Ovations burn something like 12.5 vs my 16.5 to make the same power. Especially with gas prices where they are now, this is a big factor in DOC. Cooling inlets on TN are huge compared to Ovation, and I believe they generally run cooler. I’m somewhere between 320-340 most of the year, even in the Florida summer. The C&D hourly DOC estimates when the used to publish were something like $205 vs $187. Not life changing money. I topped mine but only because it sat idle for a long time, resulting in significant corrosion in the cylinders. The TN is much more capable, but that’s only meaningful if you’re going to use that capability. If you frequently climb to mid teens or higher, wouldn’t you rather climb to altitude at 12-1500FPM instead of 500 for the last part of the climb? I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a jerk, so I’ll just say it. If you can’t stroke a check occasionally for $1500 or so for turbo component service, you probably shouldn’t be flying a multi-hundred thousand dollar plane. Ditto a $12-15,000 top overhaul. Do the math. It’s $6 x $7.50 per hour. The fuel burn difference dwarfs that. If mission calls for a turbo, buy a turbo. Buy right, buy once. -dan

I'm with @N201MKTurbo: Find a torpedo heater and blast it in the unheated hangar. Shouldn't talk long. Like @philip_g, I used to keep a garden sprayer handy when commuting to KBED for defrosting. I do not think it will work very well on attached ice, however. -dan

There is a slider to adjust airspeed or fuel flow up and down in the aircraft profile. I don't think many planes are spot-on book performance. -dan

You have an 80% mission that a turbo Mooney does very well. FIKI Bravo or Acclaim would make you very happy. Shipping bags or gear ahead is usually no big deal, whereas shipping live human beings is, so if your useful load constraint is stuff, just ship it. The unicorn plane would be a FIKI Encore, which has better UL and requires less fuel (weight) per trip. When I bought the TN in 2016, I also looked at turbo-normalized A36 bonanzas with TKS. There wasn't much to choose from, and they felt overpriced to me. As with you, the Mooney is "the Devil I Know," and after 25 years of ownership, with just a few years off, the Mooney is the best value, best suited for my mission plane - short of a TBM, which is a bigger commitment than I'm willing to make right now. Good luck in your search. Some day, there will be pre-owned planes available... -dan

Ditto. One of the fittings in the tail let go in my 231. Even in the factory FIKI installations, they really don't give you a service loop in the tubes between proportioning valves and panels. I've no idea why, but it is a big PITA. Other failures over 25 years of operating a TKS equipped plane: Windshield pump seized. I learned then to run it at least monthly. (231) Tube let go in the belly. (231) cowl plug tether slipped between spinner and cowl, landed on copper TKS sprayer, and snapped it. (231) None (Various DA42's) ruined a 30 gallon drum by using a cast iron rotary pump, which promptly corroded and contaminated the fluid. If using a drum pump, be certain it is for corrosive materials. (TN) Suspected frozen line or panel membrane in flight. System would not wet at all at FL200, but worked fine on the ground (TN) Fluid misting in avionics bay. Traced this to a "P trap" type of sag in the fill tube which was trapping fluid pretty high in the tube. Suspect at climb pitch, low-pressure area in tail was sucking fluid out through the little weep hole at the top of the fill inlet. Tie-wrapped fill tube to remove sag and now blow into fill tube after every fill till i hear air coming out of the drain. (TN) TKS Successes I'm able to use the plane year round for long XC missions struck a bird with the right wing in the pattern. No damage, and running the system served well to clean out the bird guts and pre-digested grass. My plane is 8-10 knots slower than book. On balance, all of this nets down to a huge boost in capability for the Mooney, and I'd not be interested in a non-deiced plane again. -dan

@cliffy is right. Good, Fast, Cheap: pick two. You'll get one. Aviation Consumer does surveys periodically. https://www.aviationconsumer.com/maintenancematters/paint-shop-survey-downtime-costs-up/ Nothing in your area obvious from my quick scan, but the article may be worth a read. A friend is trying to get his painted, and the big name shops are booked out a long way - like 12-18 months -dan

The Loonie is sitting at its yearly low…… Inflation erodes buying power bigly up north! https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?p=d1&t=6C -dan

Mooney is same. Prop runs continuously. -dan

With the cool new retrofit glass and autopilots, a DX Ovation or Bravo would be quite a find for someone that wanted a project. -dan

GX and DX 2004+

In addition to all the good advice above…. 1. The windshield pumps are supposedly helpful in priming the system and are prone to seizure if not used. So a cycle of both is a good idea before departure. 2. Don’t be surprised if the system won’t come up to pressure (steady green) if the fluid is warm, especially on the ground. Just look for good flow from all the surfaces and the mist fro the prop slinger. 3. There is a good pre-flight checklist in the POH supplement which I’ve incorporated into my ForeFlight checklist. -dan

One reason to prefer the Deb would be short field performance, which is a lot better than the O. But with practice and keen attention to AOA/TAS on final, the O will be happy with 2500’ and up. -dan

A deposit is earnest money - It shows the seller that the buyer is serious. All of the purchase contracts I executed when I sold airplanes had a deposit that was refundable under specified conditions. Specifically, airworthiness or not squawks which the buyer and seller could not agree on how to cure were deal breakers that could result in the return of a deposit. In my experience, there was never a case of an unserious buyer who had sent $20-$50,000 in deposit money to escrow trying to break a deal over a rusty screw or some other trivial squawk. By putting language in the agreement about squawks that seller and buyer cannot agree on how to cure, both parties are protected. Imagine a case where you put a deposit on a plane and find several cylinders are worn, though this was not disclosed in the description of the plane. Should not they buyer get back his money if the seller refuses to fix the engine? Also, I strongly suggest using an escrow service such as AIC, AOPA, etc. I would never send money to a seller as a deposit. The escrow companies will, under most circumstances, refund deposits. -dan

Not any more, you can't. Closer to $1.6 MM and next available is out into 2024 last time I checked. -dan

@Jerry 5TJ I'd say the Austro engines have been a big success: https://www.austroengine.at/uploads/pdf/mod_products9/AE330FactSheet.pdf 1800 TBO, and the intervals are, in my experience, quite a bit less that providing for the care and feeding of my TSIO 550. The DA42NG is a superior product to the DA40NG simply because it was designed around a diesel, albeit the lighter Thielert now CMI powerplant. The DA40 NG had the much heavier AE300 grafted onto the nose in place of an excellent gas-powered installation. The W&B envelope that resulted was very nose-heavy when I flew one many moons ago. The gas engine DA42's, which diamond built to keep ERAU from blowing a gasket when the original 1.7L Thielerts proved to be not great, suffer the balance problems in the opposite direction: they carry lead weights in the nose. The long body mooneys, especially the TN with its nearly 500# engine ( and the "G" is the lightest of them all) already is kinda nose heavy. Grafting a CMI CD300, weighing 100# more than the TSIO 550 would probably exceed the ability of the tail to keep the nose up. The long-term viability of the high-horsepower gas engine planes is probably dependent on a suitable fuel. -dan

I doubt it. There is no mention of turning on the landing lights in the POH supplement. It's probably a sufficiently small area to have no effect on performance. -dan

That was where I was going in my post higher up. The difference between steam gauges and glass is massive in terms of situational awareness, safety, and reliability. The difference between G1000 and something with a touch screen interface is there, but to me it's a marginal benefit only. -dan

What avionics upgrade could I want to a WAAS, SVT, Datalinked, ASD-b, GFC700 equipped plane? It just simply works beautifully. I have had my share of component failures as pointed out above, but turn-around time has been very quick, including a warranty replacement on the MFD. When I bought the TN in 2016, I don’t think Garmin had their latest generation stuff out-especially the autopilot. So buying and upgrading a steam gauge Bravo was not possible. Today it is a very good option in a Bravo or Ovation if you want a project. If I were Ovation shopping today, I’d definitely look for an upgraded steam gauge panel, but in this thin market, one done the way I want it is probably a unicorn. A G1000/GFC700 plane is turn-key. I can’t afford the downtime and cost/time uncertainty of an avionics upgrade, so for me, the G1000/GFC700 choice would likely still win. YMMV. Another consideration is panel height. The steam gauge long body planes have a very tall panel that for me impinges on forward visibility. Can the new Garmin retrofits lower the panel? I don’t know but would want to find out. I hope some day to be in a place that I would enjoy the upgrade project and can afford the downtime. But until then, G1000 obsolescence or end-of-life is pretty far down the list of issues that keep me up at night, and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another. YMMV, of course. But what a great world we live in that we have to choose between these great systems. -dan

This. I posted on another thread how I had the same sort of failure after leaving the plane out in heavy rain for 2 days. Climbed to FL200 and hit the system. No worky. Worked fine on the ground and ever since. In my case, I believe the membrane in the panels themselves got soaked with water that froze, but it could have been anywhere in the system, I guess. Cheap Fix, though, LOL -dan

@Greg_D came by to bring my TN to DMAX for annual. I think it's the first time since i've owned it that someone else has flown it. Was a little weird watching him fly away. The plane is much quieter from the outside than I thought it would be. Maybe I need to ask Maxwell for some of those Loud Pipes the Save Lives when installed on Harleys. Really appreciate his making the trip as my schedule got packed this week.