Mooneymite

Does he fly? Only on Delta, as far as I know.

Neat! Al Mooney had a hand in many designs which didn't actually bear his name. If you look at the Culver Cadet, it's vintage Al Mooney sans up-right stabilizer. His wooden wings are a marvel to look at.... Al Mooney's son lives in Atlanta. I've spoken to him; he's a real gentleman....I suspect his dad was too.

Mooneyspace is a great resource for Mooney owners, but I did a forum search on the M-18 Mooneymite and did not come up with much. The M-18 is "THE REAL MOONEY", the M-20 series is just a bunch of wann-be spam cans..........okay, I'm just throwing that out there for flame bait. I love my C. However, I'm interested to know how many present, or former Mite flyers there are reading this board. Anybody? I once owned N70DV and I noticed it up for sale again on WWW.MOONEYMITE.COM. It was probably the most fun airplane I've ever owned. 125 mph on 4 gph. Talk about efficiency. It's "THE REAL MOONEY"! .

First solo: 1968. First airplane: 1997.....49 years old, I bought my C. By this time, I had 20,000 hrs, all of it in someone else's airplane...I joke that the first flight in MY OWN AIRPLANE was the most terrified I'd ever been in flight, but there is some truth to it. Every other airplane had included ground school and a thorough checkout. When I took delivery of my Mooney....I looked over the POH! Aircraft ownership is not so much about "EXTRA MONEY" (I dont think such exists!)....it's about priorities. I live in a fly-in community where most of us make very basic incomes, but flying is a priority. We can do it; most people can, if aviating is a priority, or do I mean an adiction?

I, too sometimes get a 30-35 reading during taxi, but nothing in-flight. i figured it had to do with weird airflow patterns associated with ground ops. My cabin is hardly "airtight", so maybe the exhaust gases just swirl into any gap in the door seal, whereas, in flight, the airstream carries the exhaust down and away from the cabin door? Such low readings for such a limited time are probably not too dangerous as long as they stay low and occur only during ground ops.

If anyone needs a Mooney tail complete with control surfaces, or a cowling for a pre-J model at a very reasonable price, contact: Mike Smith POF Poplar Bluff, MO airport manager 573-718-7667 or 573-686-8669. Mike doesnt have any history for these parts, but he would really like to get them out of the hangar. ------------------ Mooneymite

Quote: Parker_Woodruff Do you really think posting unintelligible stuff like this somehow will profit you? Are people this dumb?

Quote: Awful_Charlie Careful - I'm not sure which flow sender unit that is, but the FloScan manual states: "Do not place an angled elbow joint immediately prior to the input port of the fuel flow transducer. There should be two inches of straight flow immediately before the transducer input port." Not doing this may mean you have problems getting the K factor to consistently reproduce the actual fuel flow Ben

Well, based exclusively on purchase price, I bought the FP-5L and am now working on the installation....hopefully, my friendly mechanic will be as enthusiastic as I am about the installation....

This subject has come up several times on the AOPA forum and thoroughly discussed in all its variables. Check it out. There's really nothing I can add except that the Metro makes downtown very easy. There used to be a shuttle to take you from the Air and Space museum to UH.....check the web-site to see if is still offered. it used to be very reasonable.

Quote: JimR Disregard. I see now that you already know about the $100 rebate offer. I just took advantage of it and am looking forward to installing the FS-450 at my next annual inspection. Jim

13 years! Can it be? I bought the plane for my son to build time in; it was the first plane I ever bought. I fully intended to get rid of it when he was done with it. However, after a year, I fell in love with it and even though my son has left home, the Mooney is still here! Had I known how inexpensive a Mooney could be, I would have owned a plane much sooner. It has a modern GPS in it and a reman engine, but otherwise, it is essentially stock.

My 74 C model is minimally instrumented. Since, by some miracle, I seem to have "a little" cash left over after Christmas, I'm thinking of adding a fuel-flow indicator such that my GNS-430 will provide more accuratel fuel information. (Yes, I have considered more elaborate instrumentation that includes fuel flow, but I have rejected based on a cost/benefit analysis.) After surveying the Aircraft Spruce catalog, I see there are three choices: JPI's FS450 $480 ADI's FU60 $225 EI's FP5 $498 Did I miss another manufacturer? The ADi model makes no mention of outputs to the GPS, so unless someone knows something about it, I can discount that one. The JPI seems very nice and I actually have taken delivery of that model...still sitting in the box. However, after I made the purchase, I discovered that EI is offering a $100 rebate between now and March. Soooooo, I"m leaning toward the EI model now, since $100 is a large inducement. Before I take the JPI unit back, I want to find out what the "group wisdom" is on these two units. Customer support? Ease of installation? Accuracy? Ease of use? Reliability/warrangy? Anything that would make the JPI unit worth the extra $100? Thanks for sharing your opinions. Mooneymite.

Quote: N9154V When I did my 69 insulation, I ordered it from Laser. My A&P said just put it in, do not glue it. This way we can remove it if necessary. I just cut it slightly oversized and installed it. It is always in place at every annual. Order extra, I doubled it up when possible and practical. Ron

A lot of speculation about airframe icing, but I took off (in a bizjet) from TEB 9 minutes prior to the TBM, headed down the same route, was held at 17,000' by NY departure/center for several miles. I would say that the icing was "light" when we passed through the area/altitude. Structural icing as a cause is pure speculation at this point. Personally, I doubt it based on what I experienced. Other possiblilities include pitot static icing/instrument error (AF447 comes to mind), or even plain old disorientation....who knows? One thing we can all bet on, the pilot did not plan to crash and was doing all he could in a very bad situation. The reason they call them "accidents" is that no one plans on having them. We all need to be careful.

Two parts of the problem: is there enough heat coming in, or is there too much leakage? When it comes to the "enough heat" part of the question, I had a Mooneymite that had a very weak heater. The Mooneymite crowd told me the fix was to take the heater box apart and wrap a "screen door spring" (yes, like you get at a hardware store) around the exhaust pipe thus increasing the heated surface area inside the heater box. Obviously, this is not an "approved" fix, but something similar might increase the efficiency of your heater if you can figure out how to make it legal. And if you work for the FAA, I have no first hand knowledge of any of this!

Quote: xftrplt I know interest rates are low, but, IMO, unless the plane is used for business, if you can't pay cash for it, and you don't absolutely need (as opposed to want) it, you shouldn't get it.

If you're engine is like my O-360, the accelerator pump theory is easy to check. Pump the throttle a few times, there will be a strong odor of gas. Pump it more, you'll see gas dripping. However, be very aware of the fire hazard. Have access to an extinguisher! Does the engine crank fast enough? A weak battery, or a worn out starter could be part of the problem, too.

Hard starting engine means one, or more of the fuel/fire/air components is not right. The only time I had trouble with starting my O-360 was when the capacitor in my SOS (shower of sparks) went bad. The capacitor was very cheap and we also replaced the points while we had it out. Once replaced, the engine started in about "two blades". However, there are lots of other things that might be out of whack. Any other symptoms? Did the hard starting happen all of a sudden, or has the engine been getting progressively harder to start? Were any changes made to the engine, or fuel system?

Quote: Hank It has always been my understanding that the gear warning horn is activated by a microswitch attached to the throttle quadrant, and is not related to anything on the MP gage itself. The switch is adjustable by referencing the MP gage, but it is either on the cable itself or inside the quadrant and activated by the throttle lever.

Quote: carusoam Mooneymite, On my 65 C (all M20Cs?) There were two switches that indicate a gear up situation. [1] J-Bar Latch, located in the J-Bar receiver under the instrument panel. Look for switches, bring your contact cleaner. J-Bar in and locked - switch is satisfied (light=green, no horn), Switch not satisifed (light=amber, horn ready) [2] Throttle switch, located behind the instrument panel (throttle in, switch is satisfied) throttle out, switch falls into detent in throttle control, horn ready. [3] Combination of gear not latched and throttle out activates horn. This can be annoying if you are trying to lose altitude or slow to VLe by pulling the throttle out. Most people will temporarily put their finger on the switch in the J-Bar receiver or bump the throttle in slightly to satisfy one of the switches. There is no MP switch on this simple go/no-go system. As far as the tiny vent hole in the MP line. If it is clogged, the MP will be drawn way low off scale when the engine is idling. Best regards, -a-

Aviation Consumer is essentially Paul Bertorelli. If you like his opinions, you'll like his magazine. If you tend to disagree with Paul, you're wasting your money.

Quote: smccray Just thought I'd follow up on this... Don Maxewell looked under the cowl a couple weeks ago and and addressed his preliminary hypothesis about the MP and found one other problem that was fixed/possibly related. From time to time the hard line on the right side of the engine that leads to the MP gauage gets clogged. There should be a small hole in the hard line near the number 1 cylinder, but if the like gets clogged (oil/gunk/etc.), or if the small hole is clogged/missing, it's possible that the MP line is blocked causing the problem that I experienced. The solution was to remove the MP line and clean it after making sure the small hole was there- apparently it's not uncommon for this vent hole to be missing altogether. The hard line transitions to a flexible line between the engine and the firewall. There should be some play in this line, but the length of the line on my plane was too long. I'm not sure how to describe it other than to say that there was large droop in the hose that Don felt could accumulate gunk (yes that's the technical term) and block the line. The solution was to shorten the line between the hard line mounted to the engine and the firewall. No solution for the gear warning horn issue as it doesn't seem to occur regularly, but I did get down underneith the panel and it doesn't appear that there's any play in the throttle that would keep the switch from engaging. I haven't tried the flight test Mike suggested above but I'll put that on my list for my Sunday flight.

Quote: M016576 I would follow George's advice instead. It will pay off in the long run if you can hone your full flap landing skills, rather than try to rely on half flap approaches.

Without going into an in depth analysis, I would suggest you try landing with less than full flaps and see if that helps. (Unless your landing distance is critical.)