Newbie, intending to buy a M20C and have some questions

[DaV8or]

It is always an order of magnitude less expensive to buy one how you want it as opposed to building it yourself.

 

Agreed. Unless you are looking for a project and plan to do all the work yourself, the wisest thing to do is find one that is as close to your ideal as possible. Upgrades and mods cost a fortune and you don't get your money back when you sell.

[Flyingtexan]

Good advice. Learned that building cars.

[rob]

It's not quite as bad as cars, but it's close. Either way, you can hope for 50% ROI on improvements to a plane. You may not get it. I certainly won't on mine. I'll be lucky to get 20%

[garytex]

Flying Texan.  All the guys above have done a good job advising you.  The only addition I would have, if you have toyed with the idea of getting an E or F is to point up a couple of decision criteria for the C or E-F question.  And I think it boils down to how much you fly.  C's are cheaper to purchase and fix, but use slightly (1 to 1.5 gph) more fuel going slightly slower.  After flying carbureted engines for years, and trying to squeeze the last iota of efficiency out of them, the injected angle valve 200 horse IO-360s are really wonderful.  I regularly burn 8.2 to 8.5 gph in my SWTA modded F (the mods give me maybe 5 MPH) doing 165 to 175 mph true, dependent on density altitude for 19 to 20 mpg.  If I want to stretch it, I can usually slow down 15 mph or so and get in the 24 mpg range, which will save me a fuel stop ( 1 hr) on an 800 mile leg and get me there faster.

If you don't plan to fly much a C is fine, and the parallel valve cylinders are cheaper to replace than the angle valve cyls. But if you fly every week, the angle valve cylinders turn more gas into propulsion and less into noise. And I love being able to use the LOP side of the mixture curve, more options. But I think you have to fly a lot to make up the purchase price delta.

 

Holding the nose off:  On my landings where I am not over speed, and have enough trim rolled in to be at an indicated 80 mph on final, and if I hold it off till I have actually bled down to the slowest possible touchdown speed, and just kiss it on with very little downward momentum, I can hold the nose off for 1/2 the touchdown roll. Happens about half the time.  But if I touch down with much downward momentum, bang, down comes the nose.

[rob]

I regularly fly at 170mph true in my C while burning 8.5-9GPH. I can go higher and leaner and fly do 160mph sub 8gph. So the fuel burns are much closer than you're claiming.

[Mooneymite]

Well, my 'C' flies at over 200 mph and I always land with more fuel than when I took off.

 

Yep...The C is a very fast/efficient airplane.

 

Uh....Oh, April 1 was last week.  

[rob]

Where did you have the in-flight refueling mod installed? 

[Hank]

I don't have fuel flow but get 9 gph block time. Long trips areo 130 knots westward and 150 eastward.

[Apollo]

Welcome to MooneySpace.

 

I'm a CFII in Lubbock, Texas. I own a 1962 M20C. Let me know if any of the other previous CFI's in this thread aren't able to help you out when you get into your new bird!