pinerunner

I watched this vid too and came away thinking there was a bit more wiggle room than I had previously believed. But the rule isn't often used by small aircraft owners and you'd better be ready for arguments about it if you use it. And then comes the part where you try to sell it and the buyer's eyebrows go up. What I recall? It's different from exact reproduction of existing parts which rebuilding mechanics do all the time (my dad used to reproduce belly skins having only simple curves in his rebuild projects). There must be some owner involvement in the process even if just a token scribble on a drawing. it will be a one-time custom part for that airplane. Busch's vid says that its common on large carriers who have engineers on staff and make often make subtle mods; nothing structural. Maybe it allows some of these extra steps and tying points that you see on some bush planes. Maybe on a vintage plane that's got one stupid un-buyable broken bracket it gives you a way to not be grounded. Interesting point this vid.

I'm 5'7" with a 29" inseam and I still have one notch of travel left in my M20E. You step down from the wing into the Mooney and that probably makes the interior seem smaller. Also the door post is slightly back relative to the floor so I have to grap something and lean back when getting in. So it is a bit more trouble getting in than the Cessna's I grew up with but once in I'm very comfortable. With tall folks in front the rear seat passengers have it tough; I'm not sure how much better it is in the F and J models. But for the pilot and front seat passenger I think the Mooney is fine, even for a long trip.

Mooney might be a great choice. If you're in a position to really be considering multiengine you should be able to afford the upkeep. It's a buyers market for Mooney's these days so I'd make sure its what you really want. I don't think you can beat Mooney's for long range fuel efficiency (maybe some of the experimental plane can). Many of those selling Mooneys are motivated enough to let you fly it with an instructor. Don't expect the purchase price to be the end of the expense; the maintenance fun starts pretty quick. I'd have a mechanic lined up before a buy. I was lucky to find an airport with good hanger rates (you really do want a hanger) and one of the better mechanics in my state so it worked out great for me. I'd drive an extra half hour to keep my Mooney at a really great home base.

I really wanted to quote both of these. As well as bits of new tank sealing material, I wonder about bits of old sealant clogging injectors.

With dual magneto systems it takes terrible bad luck to lose spark so I would think fuel first. Its easy to overlook fuel problems while doing a great job on everything else. I was happy to read this response because I've wondered about the possibility of little bits of old tank sealing material clogging the jets and making trouble.

We'll see what the prices are when I get around to selling mine. I've gotten so much satisfaction out of the challenge of aviation that I have no regrets (or at least very few). My old M20E fits the mission perfectly.

I'm happy with my KNS80. It came with my plane and since I had laid off flying for a couple decades it seemed like I was getting an upgrade. I'm thinking about getting GPS of course but will probably skip getting a non-WAAS GPS which can be had cheap and hold out for a full WAAS capable GPS. I get access to my IRA in a year. The KNS80 that came with my plane died after a little over a year and I was able to replace it fairly cheap but I'm sure their days are numbered. I got my second one from Craig avionics in Concord, New Hampshire and they lived up to the glowing recommendation that I had got for them. A bit far for you to go from Texas. As a bit of a joke there's still Loran in my M20E.

I think you're describing an M20J. It's basicly the classic version that most people think of first when talking about Mooneys. I've got an older M20E with the same power but a little shorter and lighter. Its redlined lowner than the J for reasons I've never understood and can be had a bit cheaper. The price range you're describing would get you a nice older J model in great shape with pretty good radios. The only reason I can think of to go with the shorter Mooneys if you can afford a J might be getting out of shorter strips which isn't why most people buy Mooneys. Sounds like you can afford solo ownership but ask yourself if you have the time to fly it that regularly (sitting around isn't good for any airplane). If not sharing ownership makes sense if only you can find the right partner.

If you're flying around mountains there may not be one, simple, good answer to this question. If you were to get into good lift you might get an astounding altitude and if you got into bad sink you might struggle to get 10,000 ft. I was brought up around small mountains in Maine and the White Mountains and it mattered there. My dad had a flatlander commercial seaplane pilot help him out for a weekend and he scared the pants off our customers and himself by flying on the downwind side of a short range of 3500 ft mountains. The air currents held him and his C180 (or was it a 185) seaplane just off the trees for most of the trip and it was turbulent too. I think if you think a little bit like a glider pilot you and your M20C will be in great shape. Local fliers in some of your favorite mountain spots will be able to help.

This rings a bell. Mine started with a bit of dripping and progressed to quite a puddle under that tube. As you said turning the fuel selector to "Off" stopped the dripping. When it happened to me my mechanic found a pretty good place to get it rebuilt and the cost didn't go over a grand. Following that repair the fuel pump hit me with a seized up electric motor (bet the two problems were connected) with in a month that they fixed for free since it was so close to the original repair. I was grounded for a bit but it wasn't so bad. Welcome to vintage airplane ownership.

I've got #162. N1289X Small world.

I'm studying for my written now so I'll chime in and take a chance on getting flamed. Only 5 in the last 5 months; you're not current to file IFR and fly in IMC. But..you have 6 more months in which you only need to go under the hood with a check pilot and fly the needed procedures (under VFR conditions of course) and become current again. Let that second six months pass.. now you have to take a check ride again and I think it takes more than just an instructor to sign you off. You need the same guy you did your check ride with to get your rating (is that an inspector?). So the anti is higher than for plain old VFR flight but its not too bad. IFR is a big deal after all. That would mean that if you let it go getting a biannual would not bring your instrument currency back. A check ride with an inspector would count as a BFR I suppose. If you're working at it to keep 6 approachs, and 1 holding pattern each year so you don't have to take the check ride again that's a bit marginal I guess. If you're doing it every 6 months that's better but you'll be pretty busy for a weekend warrior.

I don't know first hand but I think the long body Mooney's gave extra space to the rear seat passengers while the front seat stayed the same; same cross section. I've found that it's rare for me to have rear seat passengers anyway and in fact I'm often alone. I'm short so that makes it a little easier on the rare rear seat passenger. So my E is fine for me. Jaeger's Spatial interior panels are at the head of my list of upgrades adding a bit more roominess and making inspections much easier. I didn't know I could climb faster than a J but that's a significant thing and might counterbalance a slightly higher cruise for the 201. With respect to panel space I'm looking at getting a Sandel HSI down the road since it can pack a lot of information in a standard slot. My panel will have more than enough space. No need for 201 envy.

I've certainly had this kind of experience. I end up flying alone most of the time. I recall taking the kids on a cross-country to a cool new airport and having them be asleep much of the time. You don't get the feel of the speed you're doing so there's not much excitement. My wife flew with me in the beginning but not now. We had some fiascos like the time we flew to a small airport near grandma's house and ended up walking in a downpour on a little dirt road in the woods (my grandma was literally over the river and through the woods). Most of the people who fly with me and enjoy it seem to be already primed to enjoy, people I meet hanging around the airport, for instance. My father was a pilot and of all his kids I'm the only one who digs it. I have trouble understanding how anyone could fail to like flying but it seems like we're a minority. It seems many don't pay much attention to their environment as they walk, drive, fly, or whatever. You see them plugged into some kind of entertainment or texting or dozing. They don't seem to want to look and see much. Go figure.

He hasn't made a penny off me while I've benefited a lot from his vids and articles. I suspect there are hundreds out there who could say the same. We all have the power to pick and chose who we listen to and whose advice we take, as long as we can find someone to do our annuals.

While I don't use Savy Aviator's service the only reason is that I'm just too cheap/poor. I like the idea of it and like Busch's articles and vid's. If I get the co-owner club situation that I hope for I think that using Savy Aviator to help us be on the same page in managing our maintenance would be a major benefit. I also think that their ability to help find good cost-effective help when issues arise in the middle of a long trip would be an important benefit too. I'll be watching this post to see if anyone here reports in with an actual positive experience.

Is it possible you have a bad spark plug? In one of Busch's vids he mentions that small cracks in the ceramics can make hot spots that can lead to preignition. He mentioned on old practice of mechanics to throw away plugs that had been dropped and destroy them so noone could ever use them. I can imagine a plug might look fine but be causing a problem and drive you nuts trying to find it. PTK's post made me think of that. If the cam lobe is wearing down on that cylinder's intake it would get less air and be be richer than the others right off. GAMI spread would be terrible.

If you're worried about lead exposure probably auto gas would dissolve it and probably (notice I make no promise) not hurt the paint job. There are quite a few slightly more polar organic solvents (like chloroform) that would attack the paint quickly so watch out what you try. You could get some blue nitrile gloves from Walmart to protect you from getting lead on your skin; that would probably be easiest. Would be good to have around for when you're messing with oil etc. I've used a little avgas (from when I check the tank) on a paper towel and it took the the blue stain off easy.

I'm with Hank on this. It was reading about Mooney's great glide ratio that got me looking at "those funny tailed planes" and I was quickly hooked. I'll fly full throttle 2600 rpm once or twice with my 63' E model to see how high an indicated airspeed I can get. But usually its a little bumpy so I pull back into the green (less than 150 mph indicated). I like that if I want to take advantage of higher altitude it doesn't take long to get there. I also like that at lower speeds I can skip a pit stop and come out ahead. I'm sure a Mooney is more expensive to maintain than a C-172 but for a complex aircraft I think its reasonable and I like the choices. I honestly wanted the extra complexity. For an older, classic, lead-in to the Mooneys, an old A/P mechanic/inspector friend of the family was just showing me his Swift.

I think calling the over-square rule an old wives tale may be going a bit too far. While I do violate it myself I have a good engine monitor, watch my CHT's, and generally have a care about how I'm doing it. If you set up a worst case scenario and go full throttle, ROP 100 degrees for maximum possible power, then pull the prop back say to 1800 RPM, and do it in a climb to make the cooling worse I bet you will induce detonation and preignition, even though Busch and Deakins have said its hard to get detonation. I don't think you should let the old rule be a straight-jacket to you if you want to try things out that you've researched carefully and have the instrumentation to monitor well. But I also don't think those old timers were stupid and even today I think the rule of thumb still has value. I do buy into Deakins advice in Pelicans Perch to drop RPM's in a low power setting like descent to help keep the CHT's up and think that might have particular value to folks flying in the winter. Note that if you're LOP the manifold pressure doesn't give power anyway so the rule should probably be reworked and based on RPM's and fuel flow.

Oh God, here we go with the "flaps on take-off"

I heard of that enrichment feature too. It was given as the reason it is dumb to take off at reduced power settings to "take it easy" on the engine. Dumb because without full throttle you're not getting to that extra enrichment zone and might not be rich enough.

This makes pretty good sense to me based on the 14.9 HP/GPH rule when LOP. I mentioned that on another thread and saw one reply that the rule didn't always hold. I think if you go too far LOP it starts to falter. After all if you you go far enough LOP the engine actually quits. I've heard that LOP slows the flame front propagation (but I can't back that up personally) so that should move the point of highest pressure forward and lower the CHT's as you say. At 60% power you can get away with almost anything (they say) so why not do the experiment on your plane and report back to us. Drop it to 50% if you like for even more security. I love it when people come on with real data.

My first thought seeing your fuel pressure take off is some kind of clog after the fuel pump. If the pump itself were screwed I would expect it to be unable to develop that high pressure. I try to thing this way before going into the part-swapping mode.

If you're talking about power loss LOP vs ROP at the same MP and RPM then you're missing an important point. On the ROP side oxygen (air) is the limiting combustion ingredient and RPM and MP (and also absolute temperature a little bit) define how much oxygen you're pumping through and therefore how much power. To someone who remembers PV=nRT from freshman chemistry/physics its no surprise that pilots use MP and RPM to set power (assuming running rich). On the LOP side fuel is the limiting reagent and power is set by fuel flow. Simple as that. 14.9 HP per gallon per hour works pretty well. So of course power goes down as you lean further at a given MP and RPM. It doesn't mean LOP is less efficient. If you want to compare power generated by the two modes we have another parameter that we don't usually think of as a power gauge, the airspeed! Carefully tweek your settings around to get the same airspeed in each of the two modes and you can KNOW that you're comparing at the same power. You can test for yourself that 14.9 number. You don't need to take anybodys word for any of it. Caveat added: Of course at the more extreme LOP settings the engine sputters and dies so we know the 14.9 rule of thumb stops working somewhere. I did my comparison with 20-70 LOP ( my GAMI spread about 0.5 GPH) vs 100 ROP about 1-2 inchs less MP. I fiddled with it to get the same airspeed averaged over about half hour each mode, maintaining constant altitude. I used the tables we all use to get the the ROP mode power (it was about 70%) and then used that HP along with the GPH on the LOP side to get the HP/GPH and it was close to the 14.9 number occasionally quoted here. Of course simple rules of thumb fall down if you push them too far; I acknowledge that. The simple logic here would predict no loss of power as you go further and further ROP and we all know there's a slow drop in power as you enrich past 100 ROP but with the benefit of decreased danger of detonation. So we put up with that loss during takeoff and high power-poor cooling scenarios.