Mooney Transitional Training Insurance Requirements (Houston)

[adamb.hicks4]

Hello again, all.  I am pursuing a few Mooneys and hope to acquire one soon.  I will be financing some of the airplane but I am a little fuzzy on what the insurance companies will require as far as training and sign offs before I start flying the Mooney.  Does anyone know what will be required and if there is any place around Houston where I can get instruction in an E, F, or maybe even a J?  That way my high performance and complex sign offs will be taken care of.  Thanks in advance!

[Bob - S50]

It will depend on the insurance company, how many hours you have, what type of hours you have, what type of ratings you have, etc.

 

When we bought our J, the three of us with at least commercial ratings only needed one hour of dual.  The member with 100 hours, 1 hour of complex, no instrument rating, and only a private was required to get 10 hours of dual followed by 10 hours of solo before he could carry passengers.

 

Bob

[BigTex]

Your best bet is to call around several insurance companies and ask what they require. When I was shopping for insurance companies, I found that everyone seemed to have different minimums. I use Air Power and they required 10 hours dual and 10 hours solo. I didn't have my complex endorsement when I purchased my plane so don't think you'll need that. There's a chance that you'll be able to find a Mooney for rent somewhere but not likely. The ones I've seen seem to be part of a flying club. If you want to obtain a complex endorsement, I'd look for an Arrow and go that route. Also, don't worry about needing a high performance endorsement as the models you referenced are not high performance aircraft. As for instructors, there are several MAPA PPP instructors that live in the Houston area. When you purchase your Mooney, finding an instructor to provide transition training will not be an issue. Good luck with your search.

[mooniac15u]

If you are planning on getting your complex signoff in your new Mooney I'm guessing you don't have any retract time.  That will likely mean more dual time for insurance and higher insurance rates for a while.  For what it's worth, the E, F, and J don't require a high-performance signoff.  That is only needed for engines over 200HP.

[orionflt]

when I bought my Mooney I was told by a couple of friends who already owned Mooney's to expect to pay per 2K a year for the first couple of yrs and be required to have around 10 hrs of instruction. at the time I had only had my private pilots licence for a couple of yrs and had only looged around 100 hrs on it, the advantage I had was I had been flying as a Navy Flight engineer for 15 yrs and had over 5000 hrs of logged flight time, that trumped the low PIC time and removed all the requirements beyond a proficiency check by an instructor. even thought they were waived I still spent my first 7-10 hours with an instructor or experienced Mooney pilot just to keep me out of trouble until i learned the plane a bit.

 

Brian  

[chrisk]

In my limited experience, insurance companies want to see 10 hours time in type.   And for Mooney's, my insurance company considers time in any M20 as time in type.    Further,  insurance companies typically want any PIC (your instructor before your endorsement) to have several hours of Mooney time. --So any instructor will not do. 

 

As for instructors in the Houston area:  There were two from Houston area at the last MAPA safety event, but I'd have to look up their contact info.   And I think "Jetdriven" is an instructor in Houston, but you would need to verify that.

 

Lastly, I would try to uses some of the 10 hours as training towards your instrument rating.  A Mooney is a traveling plane and having an instrument rating (and being proficient) greatly improves the utility of the plane.   700+ mile non-stop trips are very do-able in a Mooney. --and that's a lot of weather to deal with.

[bonal]

I had only about 250hrs all in my 150 AOPA required 10 dual and 10 solo which i did in my own Mooney. with one exception I have only ever been PIC in my own airplanes. I shure would like to fly more types. I have flown several other mooneys as right seat helper on ferry flights. those were fun as we had to find all the gripes on the aircraft so I got to do lots of precision flying,

[georgeb]

I had 70 hours in a 172 when I bought my F and it's pretty much what several have described here: 10 dual, and 10 solo before they'll let you fly with any passengers. I now have just under 900 hours in my E...never looked back

[smwash02]

I had about 550 TT / 1 TIT / 50 Complex. They (Chartis/AIG/AOPA) wanted 1 or 2 hours of dual.

[philipneeper]

I use TJ @ airpower, i have good rates. 1000k a yr for 50k hull and only 15 hrs in type. PVT w/Instrument tt 210 ish

[Mooneymite]

In my experience, whatever the insurance company says first off is negotiable.  There don't seem to be any hard rules and certainly no industry-wide guidelines.

 

The bigger issue is, "What do YOU consider safe".

 

The insurance company is looking at dollars and cents, you are looking beyond those at life and death.

[Hank]

I had 62 hours in Skyhawks when I purchased. Several companies did not quote; a couple wanted 15-25 hours dual plus 10 solo; I went with the one that required 15 dual including 5 IMC from one of their preferred instructors, who owned the FBO where I trained. Worked out well for me. Now I am switching to Falcon.

My advice: use your dual to learn the plane. Fly to many different airports within an hour or so, land and go back. That will expose you to various situations (runway length, width, slope, obstructions, wind patterns all vary tremendously). Work on maneuvers and such en route. Your first year, premiums will be high, but will drop significantly if you fly 100 hours in the Mooney (mine were cut in half).

Rates may be somewhat lower if you get your Complex Endorsement before purchase.

Good luck, have fun and enjoy learning your new ride! Join MAPA and run through a PPP with them (www.mooneypilots.com, search for Pilot Proficiency Program).

[lahso]

When I checked out three partners in a J, it was 10 hrs for the two privates who had their instrument rating, and 15 hrs for the low time private with no instrument rating. Up front I told each of them it may take longer, but they did well in that time frame.

 

Agree with Hank to go through a PPP, if able.

[Seth]

When I purchased my first Mooney I had 2 hours retract time and HP endorsement (even though I didn't need it) and about 120 hours TT.  I was required 10 hours dual and 10 hours solo prior to carrying passengers.  In my Missile, I had only 2 hours of "J" time vs "F" time so after a checkout I needed 10 hours solo before carrying passengers.

 

Good luck - just watch your airspeed in the pattern and final and you'll be fine.

 

-Seth

[HRM]

My "insurance sentence" was 10 hours. I called Trey Hughes at MAPA and he set me up with a Mooney instructor. The CFI flew out from KSAT to KBPT where I have my Mooney. After about an hour of ground school, we got in my E and began the flight back to KSAT. Along the way we did all sorts of things, lots of landings at various airports along the way, etc.. We wrapped up in KERR and after I dropped the CFI off at KSAT I flew back to KBPT with my sign-offs.

[JasonW]

A partner and I purchased a 1981 J back in Dec. and had to do a little leg work to find options.  Many just said no.  At the time I was an 80 hours TT private with 20 hours of it H/C.  My partner was 60ish hours with 0 H/C.  One option was around $2200 but required 20 hrs dual and 10 solo (not really an option). The one we ended up with was $2500/yr and only required a CFI that was preapproved with the insurance company to sign us off.    I found the transition between the Comanche 260c I was renting and the M20J to be easy and was signed off in a couple hours.  The broker (North Star Aviation in Fargo, ND) thought the rate would be substantially reduced next year and even more once we both complete our instrument certification.  

We have really enjoyed our Mooney, I'm sure you will too!  Good luck!

[Hank]

My insurance premium was cut in half as a VFR pilot after flying right on 100 hours the first year. Same next year, same rate. Then picked up Instrument Rating, it fell another third, to one third of the first year (3100-->1650-->1650-->1100). Now I'm under an AMU and happy! Having 550+ in my Mooney helps, I'm sure.

[Jerry 5TJ]

I think the focus on what your insurer wants is a bit short-sighted; a better question is what will it take for a low time VFR pilot to become comfortable and relatively safe flying his new Mooney VFR.  

Five to ten hours of dual with an experienced Mooney CFI will probably cover the plane, its basic systems and VFR proceedures.  If the pilot has been flying locally in a 172 and now plans to travel hundreds of miles in his new Mooney a few dual cross-country jaunts to introduce en-route weather, airspace and proceedures will take more time.  If the plane has new (to the pilot) avionics such as a Garmin 530 or 750 just covering the operation of those units will take another five to ten hours.  Maybe more.

I second the suggestion to take IFR training in the plane.  IFR training is a great path both to becoming more familiar with the aircraft and learning new skills that make flying the Mooney safer and easier.  

In my experience most GA pilots will need a few hundred hours to reach solid compentence in a plane of this category.  I sure did, and in 1990 my M20E did not have today's complex avionics to master, either.  (But I did have to learn to hand fly in IMC while folding paper charts, non-trivial...)

Have fun learning your new plane.

 

 

 

 

[IvoryM]

Hello,

I bought my Mooney M20E Super 21 In May 2013. I was still a student with only 39 hours. I spoke with Cliff at falcon insurance in Kerryville Texas and bought my insurance policy for $1700. for the year. I took my check ride and got my PPL at 45 hrs. I then took 7 hrs of complex training and was given my complex endorsement. I had all my training in a Cessna 172 so the mooney was a little different than what I was used too. In my opinion the Mooney safety training is more important for getting to know your plane than to save a few dollars on insurance. I now have 135 hrs and my policy was $1300.00 this year. Their is a guy in Clearwater Florida that will come to you for Mooney Training. His name is Mike Elliot 317-371-4164. He comes highly recommended. I flew a few hours with him this past spring and he was great.

Good Luck