Nokomis449

When an old friend was a young man and his family owned an FBO, his dad dropped him off after dark at an airport where someone had left their rental plane, to ferry it back to the home airport. Friend was concerned there wasn't enough fuel in it to make it back, and there was no fuel available. The dad said there was plenty in the tanks, and get going [cue crack of whip]. So friend took off in the dark, planning to run one tank dry and finish the flight with the other. About halfway the first tank ran dry and he switched; no problem. But 5 or 10 miles short of the destination, the other tank went dry. So he banked the plane to pool the unusable fuel under the port, and the engine came back to life. When that stopped working he switched tanks and banked the other way and was able to complete the flight. As Mark Twain said, “Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions.” I've often wondered if any of the "ran out of fuel and landed short of the runway" pilots have tried this. (DISCLAIMER: I do not recommend nor endorse this behavior or my friend's dad.)

It's near the top of my list for future mods. It's a mid body G but only 26 gallons per side, so I don't know if that's 'bent outbd arms' or not.

A lot of years ago I installed a new (might have been rebuilt) alternator that failed within a few hours. Turns out there was a wire internally that was misrouted to its screw-down terminal and the connector was "hanging over the board" instead of the connector and wire being routed on top of and supported by the board. This allowed vibration to flex the spade-style connector until it broke off. The easy fix was to replace the broken spade and route the wire correctly.

When VFR, I often come in a little high and slip down to "crossing the fence". I never slip below 90kts, and keep 90 nailed with full rudder deflection, until I'm at the desired height above ground. Crosswinds or wife on board might change my technique a bit. When coming out of the slip, I level off and almost immediately hit 80kts, my target at that point. Then it's a power and attitude dance to the numbers. 1500ft pavement or grass are no problem for my G. I went to an Mooney fly-in lunch at Cullman, AL several years ago. 7 or 8 Mooney's as I recall. What struck me as I watched others land is how much runway they wasted. (If you were there, I'm talking about everyone else.) The approaches and rollouts were more akin to Citation Jets than 4 seater pistons. Slow flight and stalls are to be mastered, not feared. Back to short fields, here's me getting into a 1,500ft grass strip with 2 adults and half fuel, and two hours later getting back out after a drenching rain. Song is by friends Tophat and Jackie from Orange Beach, AL. https://youtu.be/U6z4wA1mgG0

Last century when I was training for my PPL I took off for my solo towered landings to Huntsville, AL. Approach was by the book, flair was perfect, speed was nailed, stall horn sounded right before touchdown, and just when I thought the wheels of the 150 should be squeaking onto the asphalt, the Cessna fell the last 3 feet to the runway with an unexpected thud and bounce so obvious that the tower controller immediately transmitted a very loud "OUCH!". The only explanation I can offer for the bad landing is that the runway was much longer and wider that I was used to and maybe the sight picture out the windscreen was different. Regardless, pilot error is pilot error. Point being, trainers are built for hard landings. Mooney's... not so much. Train in a trainer, even if you buy one for that purpose and trade up when the time comes.

Here's a pic of how some line workers think a Mooney fuel cap should be seated. Regardless of fuel cap O-ring condition, a cap in this position will collect and dump rain into the tank. I've mentioned before that once in Kansas City the Mooney was tied down, fueled by the FBO, caps left in this position, then sat outside while days of heavy rain passed thru. A gallon or more of water was sumped from each tank, which I figure was enough to just barely kill me if not discovered during preflight. Since then I always wait and refuel before departure when traveling.

I saw a picture of Wrong Way Corrigan's cockpit one time and he had his iPhone next to his compass. And don't tell me it was Photoshopped, because they didn't have Photoshop back then.

I can neither confirm nor deny the use of a leather belt from Walmart, but it worked great. It was to be temporary until something more suitable was found, but it's still there after many years.

Wow, had not heard of them and they have great prices, thanks!

My G is soon going to spend a lot of time outside, in Florida, and I'd like to get a cover. Before I order a new one, I thought I'd check and see if someone has a used one they'd like to sell. Alternatively, have any of you CB's made your own? Better yet, anyone know of hangar space available in the Pensacola/Orange Beach area?

Next to me is an old V-tail Bonanza. The owner's 2 adult sons decided to get their PP in it because why not. After a year or two they figured out the why not and switched to the local school's trainers to finish up. They probably spent more on fuel and instruction in their own Bonanza than the trainer and instruction would have cost start-to-finish.

Link is working now, but no real info about the plane's condition.

Keep your eyes on a Mooney but buy a cheap trainer for... training. And time building. Mooney insurance will eat you alive if you can even get it with such low time and no IFR rating. On the other hand, taking two hours to get somewhere in a trainer vs 1 hour in a Mooney is great time building. A friend wants a Mooney for the speed but even though he's a PP at 150 hours, I can't get him on my insurance because he's not IFR rated. So he bought into a Piper140 because it's cheap to maintain, he can get his instrument rating in it, and he can fly it anywhere he wants to go, all while building time toward a future Mooney. And with proper care and a little luck, he can be reasonably assured of getting most all of his money out of the Piper.

Side note on ADS-B - IF you are ADS-B OUT, part of your data stream sent to the towers is set to indicate how you want to receive your IN data. So regardless of whether your OUT is 1090 or 978, you can tell the tower to "talk" to your IN on 978. The tower will then send all known traffic within your puck, including 1090 traffic, on 978. Of course this is only the known traffic, and only the traffic within your puck, and only when your OUT is hitting a tower, so it's not exactly the same as having 1090 IN directly via Stratux. For instance, aircraft that aren't hitting a tower and/or aircraft that is not being painted by radar will not be sent to you via ADS-B, whereas the Stratux might can see and report these targets directly. But for typical flying at altitude within range of a tower, the RANGR will report nearby 1090 OUT traffic. I personally want to see more traffic than just what is in my puck, so I use a dual band Stratux as my ADS-B IN like you want. I mention this because not everybody understands that the tower is able to combine all traffic into whichever frequency your OUT has told it. Also note that I'm remembering this from pre-ADS-B mandate research so it's subject to memory corruption. EDIT: I have confirmed that I am correct (no one is more shocked than me.) Your ADS-B OUT is configurable to tell the ground station that you are capable of listening on one, the other, both, or neither frequencies and the ground station will combine known traffic on the selected frequency. "Neither" tells the tower not to transmit anything to you.

I think the "trick" is that I use a Stratux instead of a Stratus so there's no proprietary communication option between it and FF. The Stratux is the Access Point ("server") and the iPad with FF, the iPad with the IFD100 app, and the IFD440 all connect to the Stratux and all devices show traffic and weather. This setup has worked for years, but maybe I need to run to the airport and verify. EDIT: by "worked for years", I mean it's worked ever since Avidyne released the version that allowed the IFD to communicate with non-certified ADS-B IN devices.

Another vote to try iFly. I used it for years and was even a beta tester, but reluctantly switched to FF because FF would talk to the IFD440 and iFly had it on the roadmap but no timeframe. This was several years ago so hopefully they've got the push/pull feature by now. 30 day free trial, and much cheaper than FF. CrApple and Android versions as well as their own dedicated hardware with feature parity.

Check your static drain and visually verify there's no water in the static system. I can easily see the lowest part of mine (where the water will collect) when I stick my head in the fuselage access door, but I'm not sure how the later Mooney's are plumbed.

I can't speak to those particular instruments, but I left in the Garmin glideslope when I switched and they talk seamlessly. It also talks to my S-TEC 30 and AV-30. Avidyne's business model (my opinion) is to play nice with anything that communicates with a standard non-proprietary protocol.

I upgraded from a 430 to an Avidyne IFD440 a few years ago when ADSB compliance was looming. I sold my 430 to a good friend at a good price after trying to convince him that it wasn't worth the money and effort installing such old technology. But he likes it and we're still friends so no harm no foul. As for the IFD440, here's a quick PIREP for those needing a 430 replacement: DO IT! Mine wasn't exactly a slide-in replacement because the Garmin wasn't WAAS, so I required a new WAAS antenna. Plus, to take advantage of some of the nifty features a few new wires are required between the 440 and the audio panel and maybe a wire between the new Avidyne ADSB-Out and audio panel so it can give me altitude alerts. Here's things that were game-changers for me: Flight plans can be pushed and pulled between Foreflight and the 440, even in flight. So if you get a re-route in the air and are better at making the update in FF and pushing it to the panel, it's possible. Also, it's handy planning the route at home on FF and pushing it to the panel at the airport. This feature is the reason I reluctantly switched from iFly to Foreflight, as iFly could not do the push-pull with the panel and had no clear roadmap to implement it. I think Garmin can do this too, but I believe it requires additional network hardware to be installed and Avidyne does it natively without exploiting my wallet. The IFD100 app (CrApple products only) is another fantastic feature. The free app is the equivalent of having an additional IFD (or two) but with a much larger screen. It runs the identical software as the panel IFD and can do anything the panel mounted IFD can do, including load radio frequencies (but not flip-flop them - that was an FAA requirement). It has the same databases loaded as the panel-mount (as long as there's a "seat" available). To be clear, it operates as an *additional* IFD, and not just a mirror of the one in the panel. And if you have two iPads, you can sit at home with one iPad running the free "IFD Trainer" app, which pretends to be a panel-mounted IFD of your choice, and the other iPad can be running the IFD100 app which allows you to practice loading plans, flying routes, loading/flying approaches, etc. Plenty of bang for your free buck there. The IFD has both touch screen and knobs to do most everything, whereas Garmin is touch only. Touch screen entry is great in smooth air but dicey in turbulence, so you have the knobs for better control. Additionally, the IFD comes with a small Bluetooth keyboard that allows direct entry of flight plans, frequencies, flight calculators, etc. If you can txt at highway speeds, you can Avidyne in rough air with the Bluetooth keyboard. The Avidyne will act as a WiFi Access Point for other devices (Foreflight, IFD100, Stratux, etc.) or it can connect to your own Access Point (Stratux, etc.). I have a Stratux as an AP. The IFD440 connects to it, and shares the weather and traffic to the IFD100. Foreflight on the 2nd iPad also connects to the Stratux and can therefore push/pull to the IFD440. Other Honorable Mentions include customizable data fields and easy USB updates. The Avidyne way of doing things is a different workflow concept that might seem a little odd at first, but the more you learn it the more intuitive it becomes. Yes, there's a (my opinion) downside. Avidyne strictly adheres to the "official" METAR colors for reporting stations, which is different from the commonly used Green=VFR, Blue=Marginal, Red=IFR, etc. Since I'm used to the common way, I use Foreflight for METAR display. I'm not aware of another product or website that uses the "official" colors, but I guess kudo's to Avidyne for sticking to the official protocol. So that's my PIREP on the IFD440 installation. I've had it a few years and a few hundred hours and very happy with my choice.

Beautiful pics.

My G looked similar until I replaced the entire exhaust system with one from Knisley Welding. The Knisley sticks out even further, to the point the guys I formation fly with tell me I can't refer to the G as a "she" any more. Yet I picked up a few knots with the switch.

I believe his numbers. My G with several speed mods added prior to my ownership (I’ve only added the brake reversal STC) regularly gets 148-150 kts at 10.5gph loaded to near gross and I don’t have the one piece belly or 201 windscreen, which are arguably the biggest speed mods. See the AV30 in the pic. Plugging the raw numbers into the Avidyne yields the same result, so I think it’s solid numbers. Pics are from different flights; the Avidyne pic was in a 40kt crosswind at 9k and still got me 147kts true. And they call the G “the slowest Mooney”!

This really works! I tied down the Mooney and left the flaps half-down for the 5 day stay. I kinda expected the flaps to rise as the air bled out, but upon return to the ramp the flaps were still down. So I raised them for the preflight, but when I pumped in takeoff flaps they moved immediately. Thanks for the info!

My '68 G was born with N6776N, a palindrome. On most flights, at least ONE controller will call me 67N, or take two or three tries to say the full N number. Had one controller in Mississippi that stumbled on a call when I was on short final and after a short pause asked "why in the world did you pick that number?". Reminds me of when Arnold Schwartzenneger Schwartzineggar Schwartzenegger the former California governor first came to the US to break into acting, and his agent told him the first thing to do was change his name because it was too hard to remember. His answer (and you have to read this in Arnolds voice) "If it's hard to remember, it'll be difficult to forget".