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Changing the Oil in Your Mooney.pptx View File After emailing this to several people, I decided to add it here as a general reference. This is how to change the oil on a vintage Mooney with side cheeks; it is demonstrated on an M20-C with rear-mounted oil filter and includes photos of the process and the long, narrow piece of sheet metal that I slide under the filter to catch drips. No messy wad of paper towels here! Submitter Hank Submitted 03/09/2017 Category Safety & Techniques

This was preventable. It was a beautiful landing except that last part...then it got expensive. Where: San Antonio, Texas (KSAT). Runway 31L (The 8000 ft. one...) When: Saturday February 23, 2013, 11:15 a.m. What: Pilot Induced Gear Collapse. (beyond embarrassing) How: This is the interesting part and why I felt I should share the details of this event. The winds were calm so I decided that I would use full flaps. With 630 hours of flight time, 602 being in Mooneys flown on the coast of Texas, I have the partial flap landing pretty much figured out. (I seldom, if ever use runways less than 3000 ft.) Nonetheless, I developed the practice of moving the flaps on roll out to place more weight on the wheels and reduce float. On this unfortunate day, due to the perceived excessive float, as soon as I felt the tires touch the runway, I reached over to pull the flaps up...only..I didn't hit the flap switch...I pulled the gear switch out sufficient to unlock the gear, then apparently let it go---but too late. The 2004 Ovation2 set its belly on the runway gently and slid a couple hundred feet in a long arc to the right edge of 31L. The 3 blade scimitar prop came to a stop with one curled blade sticking straight up. I heard tower calmly request the aircraft holding short at 31L to turn 180 degrees, taxi via Alpha to Runway 4 and hold short. The plane came to rest pointing directly at the emergency response vehicles garage so when I saw the big green emergency vehicles coming at us, I snapped out of my 'oh crap' mode, turned to my wife and told her we needed to exit the plane so that they's know we we alright. Now, Iv'e told my daughter, as she has grown up, that the best thing to bring to a bad situation is a good attitude. I saw nothing but the best from KSAT airport operations from the moment they showed up to the point where we moved to plane to Cutter Aviation via a helicopter dolly and a large crane. The FAA investigator (FSDO), Mr. Richard Tarwater was the picture of thoroughness, courtesy and professionalism as I chewed up the lion's share of his afternoon.(He did his due diligence, as required, by checking all required pilot and plane certifications.) Because the gear was in the down position when the plane came to rest, I really wasn't sure that I had hit it or the flap switch. When Mr. Tarwater and I went back out to the plane (there was a 1.5 hr wait for the crane) to get some certification documentation, I noticed that the flap switch was still in the full down position and pointed that out to him. He noted that the gear breaker switch was out, even though the gear lever was down. Keeping an open mind, he said, "well, the FAA mechanics will sort it out." Nice guy, but I pretty much had it figured out: I pulled the gear switch out, but not up, at the point where the tires were barely touching (still in the full-flap float) but there was still enough airspeed going into the pito tube and insufficient weight on the mains to trigger these gear safety interlocks. In other words, there was a very narrow window of opportunity to screw things up, but I managed to do it with perfect timing. Hard lesson: I've seen other Mooney drivers comment on this site that taking flaps up reduces float and increases control. Unless your Johnson-bar equipped, I offer my unsolicited advice: don't touch any thing but power and radios until you come to a stop. Make landing practice to a full stop (rather than touch and go's). For reasons that even neuroscientists probably don't fully understand, my take-off sequence of gear-up-flaps-up crossed into my landing sequence. Maybe it won't happen to you. Maybe you can make a very strong argument that I made a boneheaded mistake and you won't, even with your similar practices. And you may be right to all of the above. I offer this only to those who can appreciate that my mistake caused serious property damage and it was entirely preventable. Phoenix Insurance and Dugosh will take it from here. ...now I've got to make some phone calls to engine rebuilders. Any suggestions?