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I heard Mooney may increase the recommended 1000 hour replacement on no back spring clutch in the landing gear motor assemblies to 2000 hours but add an inspection at 1000 hours. Does anyone have any info on this?

Recorded a landing in my Ovation with strong 15 tk winds as well as gust factor which I do not remember. Turned out really nice! Chris

Hey. Recently a good friend purchased a gorgeous 1963 Mooney M20C. Brand new paint job, 500 hours left on the engine, brand new prop. After picking it up, after an exhausting flight across the country in turbulent weather he wrecked it in a gear-up landing. For a gear-up landing it's in relatively good shape but the mechanic he talked to thinks his insurance will probably just total it, and he is, understandably, very overwhelmed and distraught at the thought that the plane he's been pursuing for months and saving up for for years might be done after just getting it home. Does anyone have any insight as to how to help lower costs and save his plane? As far as we can tell, he needs the belly panels replaced, definitely needs a new prop (2 or 3 blade is fine), and potentially will need to overhaul the engine. Everything else seems to be okay, and neither wing was damaged.

Got a new laptop! I tried it out by making this very short video, regretfully I had only one GoPro and no audio. But I tried to make it nice with some local color!

I think I'm in a landing slump! Sorry to dump this perhaps inane post on an unsuspecting public, but I need to just talk it out. For the last few weeks my landings have been abysmal, bordering on horrific! It doesn't help that the spring winds have been swirling out of the east, which is a bit unusual for Atlanta. And for some reason, it's just worked out that they always favored the runway where they come from the right. But man, I've landed my bird in cross-winds (from the left, mind you) that were 25G35 (gotta love Kansas) and consider my skills at least passable in that area. During my BFR (sorry, FR) in January we had gusty cross-winds and Mike Elliot passed me, said he'd let his wife fly with me, so that's something. But a quick rundown of my last few landings looks like this: 1) Rwy 5, winds 10-15 from 100°, skid-skid-side loading swerve and whew, finally slowed down 2) Rwy 3L, same winds, stable approach on the numbers until the touchdown and then WHAM! gust pushes me left, skid-skid side loading but got it under control 3) Rwy 3L again (okay, it's obvious, PDK) this time with two Angel Flight passengers, winds 10-15 from 100° to 130° (PDK hates using the 21s unless they have to) and it's looking pretty good all the way into the flare and then THE BOTTOM DROPS OUT because of wind shear and we come in pretty hard, little bounce, add power, settle it back down, and the rest of the taxi in I'm just praying "God I hope no prop strike, God I hope no prop strike...". (Prayers answered this time, but I think I scared the bejeezus out of my passengers.) 4) Rwy 5, winds 3-5 from 60°, nice stable approach and no drifting but damn if I didn't do a perfect 3-point landing! Where's my flare? 5) Rwy 3R, winds variable at 4 with slight gusts, okay, finally, perfect conditions, 75 indicated over the numbers, looking good, in the flare, back pressure back pressure waiting for the mains to settle...come on mains, why won't you settle, any time now, okay there she goes, nice touchdown, rolling out and WTF WHY IS MY NOSE SWERVING TO THE LEFT? Got it under control, but that was unnecessarily dramatic. For those of you who play or understand golf, it's like I have the landing yips. Just like those guys whose right-hand takes on a mind of its own when attempting a 3-foot putt, my feet and brain just don't seem connected right now on the final phase of landing. It's enough to drive a man to the bottle. (Well, okay, pilots go there anyway, but you know what I mean.) Does Dr. Phil know anything about flying?!

So I'm fairly new to my 201. I have done 15 hours of transition training with a great mooney instructor, a few solo flights with a handful at my home airport all within weeks of my bounced landings. Then I decided to take my wife and 18 month old on their first flight in the 201 just to see how the baby takes it. My home airport is uncontrolled, with a 2700' runway, but there are large trees on both ends. The winds were calm, and about 40 gallons of fuel. We took off, head north and my wife is feeling air sick and the baby won't keep his headset on and earmuffs aren't enough protection IMO. So we turn back to the airport. My first attempt, I clear the trees at 73ish kts, full flaps were in, throttle idle, bleed the airspeed down to touchdown and I bounce. Go around, clear the departure trees with tons of room. Come in a 2nd time a little closer to the approach end trees, on speed, and bounce again. Third time, same story. Now I am starting to think I should go to a longer runway, but i decide to try a 4th time. The 4th landing was perfect. I'm not sure what I did differently. My only thoughts are that maybe I pushed it to the ground as I saw the end of the runway coming, but not sure if there was something else. The only difference I can think of from when I flew with an instructor (who weighed about as much as my wife and son put together) and flying with the family was that the family was in the backseat with the front right seat empty. So, could having a more aft CG cause me to bounce? I would think the opposite, but I would love to hear your "expert" thoughts. I haven't flown since this, but have arranged an instructor to fly with me the next time.

During our last visit to Marathon, I filmed the approach from the cockpit of the Mooney M20F. Most of the instruments, including my Aspen PFD and the Garmin GTN 750 are visible. Due to the later evening, and the low sun, the outside view is ok, but could be better. To make the visual approach against the sun easy, I selected the visual approach to runway 25 in my Garmin GTN750. With this setup, I got an ILS-like vertical and lateral deviation indication on my Aspen PFD. Also you can see on the Aspen the AOA function and the synthetic vision.

For those not familiar with reported runway conditions for landing or departing (particularly in the winter), here is the criteria airports use to report conditions. They will be given by NOTAM or verbally by the tower during approach. There will be 3 numbers provided correlating with the 1st 1/3rd, 2nd 1/3rd and last 1/3rd of the runway (example 5/5/5). Hope this is helpful. Runway Condition.pdf If interested in the entire FAA circular, from which the chart was extracted, here is the link: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_91-79A.pdf

I like to say "flying is easy, landing is hard" Lots of threads of how to land recently. I am not an expert, but I like to study and become better. A normal landing for me is. Reduce throttle to descend. Touch nothing else. 15" in the pattern. If still above white arc at the threshold pull up a bit, hit white arc. Put gear out. Do a U turn to land. Throttle management and half flaps on base. It is all about energy management. Management of the energy in the plane and energy management of the winds for what they are that day. So it means you are slowing all the way from the threshold to touch down. Seems like my touch down speeds are 68-65mph according to the GPS videos. The only thing I really use the ASI for is to not go below 90MPH without flaps being out per the PoH. The rest of it is just flying the plane and making sure all the angles and distances in the 3D problem are lining up properly.

This thread is about landing attitude.... not the position of the plane, but the mindset of the pilot. As you are on final what is going through your mind? Is it "ya I got this" "do what you were taught" "make it a good one" "centerline is the centerline" "Oh wow this runway looks small" "show me some of that pilot stuff Mav"

Take off and landing with our Mooney M20E at the 6Y9, Pricket-Grooms Field. Located in Sidnaw, Michigan's Upper Penninsula. For reference: The runway is 2,600 feet long, elevation 1,372 feet. Density altitude on this day was around 3,000 ft. Single pilot + approx. 30 gal. of fuel. Take off: Rotate at around 65 - 70 mph, gear up as soon as plane is stable. Flaps up at 90 mph. Continue to accelerate in ground effect, then climb out. Landing: Speed 'over the fence' around 75 mph, full flaps. Flare until she is done flying.

I have seen a couple of different threads regarding landing/taxi lights. I would like to hear what others have found that works well regarding Whelen LEDs vs OEM replacements vs any others like boombeam/lopresti XeVision etc... I would prefer LED, but I would prefer to see more than having LEDs. Thanks -Joshua

I look forward to being skeward for my various sins.

Surely there must be many dozens of threads on this topic. But I'm new to the forum, and searches on "landing technique" or even just "landing" result in no hits. In my short (250 hours) flying career to date, I have only had one bounced landing that resulted in a go-around. Now 20 hours into having a Mooney M20F, including 15 dual received, with nary a problem other than getting the aircraft slowed down from altitude, I get four bounced landings/go-arounds in a row. I had previously read all the advice I could find on landing Mooneys. I am well aware that speed control is essential. Wind was calm, the runway was plenty long enough, the plane was light (me and less than half fuel). The first three times I came in over the numbers at the recommended 80 MPH/70 knots (yes, I was paying close attention to airspeed). I had a nicely controlled sink rate, low power, full flaps, and full nose up trim, flared, brought power to idle, held the nose off as the plane slowed, and... boink! The plane dropped, but only by a matter of inches. In my Cherokee, the struts would have dissipated the energy of such a small drop, but the rubber discs of the Mooney sprung the plane back into the air. The bounce was small enough that I felt comfortable letting the plane settle back to the runway, but on the second touch it boinked again and I was out of there. On the last attempt, I figured I was light enough that I could come in over the numbers at 75 MPH. The plane boinked once, I let it settle, it just barely boinked a second time, so I risked letting it settle a third time (please do not follow this example), it boinked again and I could tell a porpoise was starting, so I got the heck out of there. The airstrip was new to me in this plane (though I have landed a Cherokee there many times before) and is known to have a few undulations in the surface. Flying light in the Mooney was also new to me. At no time did the stall horn go off. I think the most likely explanation is that I still don't have the sight picture quite right. I definitely don't have the feel for setting the plane down gently after a small initial bounce the way I would in a Cherokee. I have already scheduled more time with my instructor. Would love to hear words of advice (encouragement?) from others on the forum...

Maybe it is just my plane. But really these things are not that hard to land. Gusty winds, 18-25 from 330 runway 34. stall horn getting beeped on approach, Thought it would be a bear to get down. kept in a little more power, aimed for a little further down the runway. She just settled in nicely. nary a fit or bump. made the 2000 foot turn off. maybe I need to go rent a 172 and see what I am missing out on. Mission to go pick up mother in law to get a new car was scrubbed due to bouncy conditions up there.

Hello Mooney World! I'm new to Mooney and haven't started my dual training on M20J yet. Hopefully in a week or two. I jump right into the subject. If we don't go with the numbers accurately on landing, it will float and it shouldn't be forced down to land at all. The decision is made, overshoot and try again. But if we follow the numbers closely and we are able to touch down, then how much error margin is enough for the landing distance compared to the POH. In other words, if the POH says for example 1900 feet is required for the given condition, how much more should we consider as error margin to be on the safe side? Really appreciate everyone's knowledge and experience.

My first try at a GoPro video. I went did a few circuits at the airport up the road (Bhisho - FABE) and the clip is mostly of departing my local field, Wings Park (www.wingspark.co.za) and of returning. http://youtu.be/cTAaBk8Nym4

Well, I just enjoy making these short videos. We had a Fly in last Monday PM and I made this video from my first IFR flight in Guatemala. I will be adding later our return flight at night. Enjoy

Anyone have a set for sale or know where i can purchase?