kommers

yes, but it is a piece of rather cheap plastic that imitates wood. I was thinking many times of removing it, but as of now, it is still the face of my instrument panel

Ha! This picture was taken in 2016 when I bought the plane. Since then wings started peeling, hood lost some paint chunks as well. Since I am not young and I will see just one repainting of my Mooney in my lifetime, I decided to paint her now rather than wait for another 2-3 years as my mechanic suggested, because soon repainting job will be astronomically expensive, it is certainly headed that way...

It was LONG. I scheduled painting in July for the end of August. I delivered the plane to them on Aug 20 and, as it turned out, they were in process of losing their shop manager and hiring another one, so plane was sitting in their shop for a good month. They actually started in the first decade of October and finished a month later. Total what I paid, including taxes, some OSHA hazard crap, vinyl cutouts, etc was around 25K. Plus, I paid around $1000 for the painting scheme to the third party. So, my conclusions were: 1. The actual job is about 1 month 2. Prepare to pay for the vinyl cutouts that will not be in the main quote 3. Hire someone to do the scheme. 4. Deliver plane to them on nearly empty tanks because they will drain all gas from the wings before painting and you will never see your unused gas again.

thank you for advice, I'll look. The guy who dod the job has over 30 years of experience so I hope he didn't goof up

Griffin, GA. Advanced Aircraft Refinishers

Before... After...

No, my mechanic didn't recommend this option

My 1978 Money 20J is in the paintshop for the fresh paint. Their mechanic examined my bird and found that flaps hinge covers are all but destroyed and need to be replaced. Lasar supposedly had it but I received a message from paintshop that they have problems finding covers. Aside from poking through junkyard material, does anyone have any suggestions where these covers can be obtained? Thank you in advance

I would never fly Frontier Besides, a round trip to Tampa in my case is $11.20 since I am usually flying on award tickets. However, because I cannot offcially fly IFR due to lack of certification, I won't be able to guess a VFR day in advance to buy my tickets

I am based in LZU as well. Since a few members mentioned Calhoun, I am flying there next week to discuss painiting. As to the airplane tickets, all domestic tickets cost me less than $6 one way because I have tons of miles so it is not a an airfare that bothers me, but the fact that I don't have IFR certification which makes planning long distance harder, especially if you have a fixed date airplane ticket and it is pouring outside

thank you! I will visit them next week.

thank you!

I want to put fresh paint on my M20J, but the only good shop that was recommended to me was in Tampa, Fl. I don't want to buy airline ticket from and then to Tampa so I am hoping to find something in Georgia, or possibly Tenn, SC, AL or NC as long as it is less than 4 hrs drive time from Atlanta. Thank you all in advance!

typically, the limit switches or the motor itself. I had this issue for about two years in my 1978, my mechanic kept cleaning the switches, but after a few flights, flaps would not retract or extend, or both. Finally, he replaced the flap motor and this was the solution

Ventilation system? You mean these huge round plastic grills? When I was replacing my headliner, I got rid of the grills as well by replacing them with bullseye vent system. Plane Plastics didn't have anything for me to accommodate the grills either, so replacing grills with bullseyes was the only choice - and the right one because old grills were awful anyways. By the way, Plane Plastics used to have bullseye vents in stock so I bought both headliner parts and the new vents from them. I think addition of bullseyes added about quarter of AMU to my bill, but that investment was worth the price. And for bullseye vents, Plane Plastics had all headliner parts for 1978

Not sure what aft headliner part you mean. I see aft headliner parts via this link: https://vantageassoc.com/airplane/mooney/m20/1978m20j240378thru240763/interiordesigninstallation.html

I guess I can answer your questions I have 1978 20J and I replaced headliner along with door plastic in 2017. The company that has the parts for M20J (and all other popular makes and models) is Plane Plastics. They have a catalog with pictures for all the parts you need. Apparently, they recently updated their website and whoever set up their new environment wasn't a great IT person. I am getting a certificate error while accessing the site, but if you use Edge or Chrome, you can bypass the warning (not so with Firefox). Anyways, I give you a link to the plastic parts of 1978 20J below, be ready to see "the site is unsafe" warning. If you prefer to call, their number is (866)307-5263 https://vantageassoc.com/airplane/mooney/m20/1978m20j240378thru240763.html One thing to remember: hire a professional to do the install. Ordinary A/P won't be able to do it. It takes a lot of tweaking and playing with heat gun to massage new plastic into the plane, for each plane is unique while the parts come off the same moldings.

One of the reasons is that the number of insurance companies willing to deal with general aviation is shrinking. Last year, one of the big players, the Allianz, decided to not issue any more polices to GA pilots and naturally, these companies who picked up the slack enjoyed a chance to raise the premiums. My increase was over 60% and the only way I found to alleviate the pain is to reduce the coverage from full value to about 80%

The collie on the left is 1 year old and his name is officially Mooney, so says his pedigree. The collie on the right is 2 years older than Mooney, he was going to be named Mooney, but at that time, I met strong opposition from my family. My persistence, however, paid over the time, and the younger collie did receive the name of Mooney

If you still need mechanic in Atlanta, I have one. I am in Atlanta myself He did pre-buys for my both Mooneys and he was a Mooney owner before

I don't see a problem, just like the rest of us. I owned 20C, then 20J, total Mooney ownership time is 7 years. The only time I bought something from the factory was RPM cable. My mechanic told me there is an alternative cable that costs 4 times less, but it would take 3 weeks more to get. Since it was the end of the annual and I desperately wanted to fly, I opted for OEM equipment. Other than that, most parts that owner has to replace in his plane are either interchangeable or have alternatives manufactured by the third party. IMHO, the only time you need something from Mooney itself is when you replace parts of the fuselage, gear or some actuators. Even that is not an issue, 20J aftermarket part realm is alive and ticking, parts are available even on Ebay. Go ahead and own 20J, I promise you will not regret your decision

Well, if you come near Atlanta, drop me a private note, I will accommodate you on 20J flight, weather permitting.. Sorry, no "C', sold it in 2015

Try to say "aviatsiya". People will immediately realize that you are fluent in Russian and they will have tremendous respect for you

I did replace plastic with eyeballs, too. Not because I like eyeballs more, but because plastic became very brittle over the years. I bought eyeballs along with the liner and replaced them all at the same time. BTW, at that time, I had two spare plastic grills but decided not to install them; instead, I sold them on Ebay. As far as design, eyeballs look better and it is easier to operate them. Very easy to install, too

Ironically, new Johnson bar lock assembly was installed about 3 weeks before the incident for the sole purpose to replace old, worn-out lock that, according to my mechanic, could release Johnson bar unexpectedly at any moment. His own words were: let's not take any chances, this is getting dangerous, so let's replace the assembly before incident happened" Yeah......