Taking my Mooney Cross Country

[StinkBug]

LOL, no I believe that's the previous owner of the plane. I just bought it in January.

[kmyfm20s]

Nice flight. I looked up your FlightAware. Long day... Quick question for you. I see another MooneySpace member posts using the N number you have in your profile. You have a partner or just a run of the mill split personality thing going on?

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He likes to play good poster, bad poster on MooneySpace:)

Looks like a fun trip Dalles, fly safe!

[AZ231]

What a great trip, Dallas!  Just saw it on the board tonight for the first time and read every post!

 

A buddy and I just took the first major cross country in my Mooney last month, flying from KDVT (in Phoenix) up to OSH.  My parents actually live in Wheaton, IL so we landed at KDPA as well.  Great service there, and the overnight ramp fee was only seven bucks, which I thought was a great deal for Chicago!  Following OSH I flew the plane up to Willmar, MN to drop off at Weep-No-More to have the tanks resealed. (Will plan to do a before and after post here on MS after the job is done).  

 

Will be picking up the bird at the end of this month from Weep-No-More, and doing some business in the Midwest. Then out to Virginia briefly, before making the cross country trip back to Phoenix.  

 

I'm anxious to continue reading about your trip and see the pictures.  Have fun, and stay safe!

[StinkBug]

This trip is beginning to be a blur of locations and flights. All I know is that I now have a nasty sunburn. The budget resort that Brandon and I stayed at in Marathon, FL came with free use of Kayaks and bicycles, and we made use of both. After getting up yesterday we grabbed a couple kayaks and made our way out to a tiny deserted island inhabited by hundreds of birds. It was beautiful, and the water was amazing. This was also the cause of my sunburn. Later we took the bicycles and rode to the airport where we took the plane down to Key West. I'm not so sure about Key West. It was hot, humid, full of tourists, and everything seemed to be about shopping and souvenirs. I won't say that I disliked it as it was a beautiful place, but I'm glad we chose Marathon instead.

 

 

Today we were up well before the sun to head back to the mainland. We watched the sun come up over a scattered layer of clouds, which was gorgeous. The highlight was when I asked Orlando Approach if I could do a low approach at KTTS (the space shuttle landing facility). We weren't sure if this was gonna be possible, since the restricted area it's in is sometimes active, and they do still use the runway for other things. Today approach simply told me to stay clear of the other restricted areas to the east then passed me off to NASA tower who said "cleared low approach at or above 100'". As we were coming in you could clearly see the gigantic shuttle assembly building, the external tank and boosters at the nearby museum, and the launch pads in the distance. Lining up for that 3 mile long runway was pretty dang cool and flying the full length at 100' was definitely a neat unique flying experience. I made sure to thank the tower and let them know how far we came. He laughed and told us to have a good flight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[StinkBug]

Oh, just thought I'd mention, when we did the planning for this trip we budgeted based on 10gph, 135kts, average $5/gal fuel price, and a total of about 50 hours.

 

I need to do the math on some of those numbers, but we're staying pretty close on price, a bit slower due to having headwinds on every flight before today, BUT we are averaging 7.78gph!

 

So far the cheapest gas we found was KFMY at $4.03. 

[kmyfm20s]

Your saving enough for a 12 pack of beer an hour! Good times!!

[yvesg]

C models are pretty cheap on gas. What is your cruise MP and RPM settings?

Yves

[StinkBug]

I generally run it right at 2300/23" or whatever full throttle gets if I'm up higher. Today we were mostly around 7500' but all the other days have been 10k or higher which is where the fuel burn seems to get pretty good.

[1964-M20E]

I'm going to have to try the low approach sometime when I'm going to Orlando sounds cool.  I'll bet you wanted to touch the wheels on the ground just real quick like.

[gsengle]

How did you know they'd approve that?!

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[Deb]

How did you know they'd approve that?!

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Ever since the shuttle program ended, it's been approved. The only time they won't let you is if they're having a rocket launch.

[gsengle]

Ah haven't been down since I flew in to see the very last shuttle flight!

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[Hank]

I generally run it right at 2300/23" or whatever full throttle gets if I'm up higher. Today we were mostly around 7500' but all the other days have been 10k or higher which is where the fuel burn seems to get pretty good.

 

Stinky, I generally run 23/23 down low on lunch runs and step down descents, generally 3000 msl or so; above that up to about 6000 I like either 22/2400 or 23/2400; above that, it's WOT - a tad/2500. I pull the throttle back enough to make the MP needle move, hoping to create turbulence in the carburetor and get better mixing. Now that I've repaired my doghouse twice and the carb heat valve once, I'm not only faster but seem to be able to run slightly LOP.

 

Keep up the safe flying, and have lots of fun! Be careful of the SFRA headed to New England!

[StinkBug]

Well, we made it! Despite the warnings we did land at 5B6, and yes it was a bit tricky, but not bad. The hardest part was finding the airport while also avoiding the TFR inner ring which is roughly on the south downwind. I'm so used to the CA landscape where airports cant hide easily that we were right on top of it before I found the runway. Made for some interesting maneuvers to get lined up without busting the TFR. Thankfully BECAUSE of the TFR we were the only ones flying! I did get a bit of a roll on short final as we cleared the trees which got my attention, but I was able to salvage a safe, if not elegant landing with plenty of runway to spare. Even ran into another Mooney Pilot who is based at the field and was taxiing to get fuel. Really nice folks here.

 

The flight here was pretty exciting too. We stopped in Georgetown, DE to get fuel and lunch and the people there couldn't have been nicer. Spent some time at the desk chatting with them about the trip, and when we left they gave us a couple shirts as souvenirs! They also offer a 10cent/gallon discount if you eat at the restaurant btw. Pretty good deal if you're in the area. The clouds had closed in though and we had to go IFR to get in, and got another clearance to leave. We had really wanted to do the Hudson River Corridor to check out NYC but we were starting to think that just wasn't gonna happen, as we had been solid IFR the whole way up. Just as we got off shore of the VZ Bridge the skies opened up for us and I called approach to tell them I wanted to cancel IFR and do the tour. They kept me on my squawk and guided us through at 1500' so we didn't even have to do the exclusion. We actually transited the corridor 3 times, North, south, and north again to head to the cape. Once past Alpine Tower I asked for an IFR clearance to Falmouth again and that's when everything got stressful. They climbed us into the clouds on an initial heading, then gave us a rather long clearance while getting tossed around trying to figure out all these unfamiliar intersections and navaids. It took some work but we got it headed in the right direction, clicked on the A/P and I finally got to breathe......while getting bounced around in the clouds. Fun stuff. I think today is my record for actual IFR at a bit over 2.5 hours. Most of it was fun. Getting set up on that second clearance was definitely work though.

[Marauder]

Well, we made it! Despite the warnings we did land at 5B6, and yes it was a bit tricky, but not bad. The hardest part was finding the airport while also avoiding the TFR inner ring which is roughly on the south downwind. I'm so used to the CA landscape where airports cant hide easily that we were right on top of it before I found the runway. Made for some interesting maneuvers to get lined up without busting the TFR. Thankfully BECAUSE of the TFR we were the only ones flying! I did get a bit of a roll on short final as we cleared the trees which got my attention, but I was able to salvage a safe, if not elegant landing with plenty of runway to spare. Even ran into another Mooney Pilot who is based at the field and was taxiing to get fuel. Really nice folks here.

The flight here was pretty exciting too. We stopped in Georgetown, DE to get fuel and lunch and the people there couldn't have been nicer. Spent some time at the desk chatting with them about the trip, and when we left they gave us a couple shirts as souvenirs! They also offer a 10cent/gallon discount if you eat at the restaurant btw. Pretty good deal if you're in the area. The clouds had closed in though and we had to go IFR to get in, and got another clearance to leave. We had really wanted to do the Hudson River Corridor to check out NYC but we were starting to think that just wasn't gonna happen, as we had been solid IFR the whole way up. Just as we got off shore of the VZ Bridge the skies opened up for us and I called approach to tell them I wanted to cancel IFR and do the tour. They kept me on my squawk and guided us through at 1500' so we didn't even have to do the exclusion. We actually transited the corridor 3 times, North, south, and north again to head to the cape. Once past Alpine Tower I asked for an IFR clearance to Falmouth again and that's when everything got stressful. They climbed us into the clouds on an initial heading, then gave us a rather long clearance while getting tossed around trying to figure out all these unfamiliar intersections and navaids. It took some work but we got it headed in the right direction, clicked on the A/P and I finally got to breathe......while getting bounced around in the clouds. Fun stuff. I think today is my record for actual IFR at a bit over 2.5 hours. Most of it was fun. Getting set up on that second clearance was definitely work though.

Welcome to the Northeast! Georgetown (KGED) is a great airport. You picked a tough weather day to come through the area. Good to see you made it through before the big boomers came through. Looks like you had a nice time outside of NYC.

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[StinkBug]

Welcome to the Northeast! 

 

Funny I heard that on frequency today just after the controller explained to a regional jet pilot that he couldn't get him any higher and that he was stuck at 6k. We waved as the RJ passed over us, flying at 5k in the opposite direction. We started laughing as each jet that came on frequency asked for higher and got turned down.

[Marauder]

Funny I heard that on frequency today just after the controller explained to a regional jet pilot that he couldn't get him any higher and that he was stuck at 6k. We waved as the RJ passed over us, flying at 5k in the opposite direction. We started laughing as each jet that came on frequency asked for higher and got turned down.

Bet your clearance was a satanic verse as well...

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[carusoam]

Clouds to the west side of NJ were topping out at 45k' today. Some pretty strong thunderstorms.

At 5B6 did you get close to the tops of the trees on final?

Was the Mooney person there named Rae? (Old fuzzy mooney memories of mine)

Best regards,

-a-

[Marauder]

Clouds to the west side of NJ were topping out at 45k' today. Some pretty strong thunderstorms.

At 5B6 did you get close to the tops of the trees on final?

Was the Mooney person there named Rae? (Old fuzzy mooney memories of mine)

Best regards,

-a-

As in Rae And Candie? I haven't seen them in years, but did email Rae asking about another Mooney owner I lost track of.

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[StinkBug]

I'm horrible with names, so I don't remember but he had a nice looking 201 with only numbers after the N :-p

 

Yes I did keep it low on final, but I ended up adding a bunch of throttle when I got that roll so I ended up landing a lot longer than planned anyways. I rolled all the way to the end, but didn't need to. I probably had 800' remaining still once I was down to taxi speed.

 

We seem to have gotten quite lucky with weather on this trip. Everywhere we have gone it got much worse AFTER we went through. We hit a lot of IMC today, but nothing big or scary. In fact the vast majority of it didn't show up on weather radar at all. It was just a layer of fluffy white stuff from 2500 to 7000 or so that we went in and out of all day. 

[StinkBug]

This is kinda silly, but since we've gotten to our stopping point for the week, and our real destination for this trip I decided to run through a few stats on the trip so far. In one week we have entered the airspace of 19 states and landed in 6. Previous to this trip I had only flown in 4 states, all of which we have hit on this trip. We've burned 239.11 gallons of fuel (not including our last leg) at an average 8.05 gallons per hour and average price of $5.03/gal. We've also talked to 71 enroute traffic controllers plus tower and ground controllers at most of the airports we've stopped at. Total logged hours so far 33.1, 5.2 of which were in instrument conditions.



Yes, I am a nerd.

 

https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/11873421_10207482000518328_4752331486049239387_n.jpg?oh=0d9eb0b2ee55d6bf9d267e0d5a2bdcbe&oe=5671DD10

 

 

 

 

 

[kmyfm20s]

Wow, that is cool!!

[carusoam]

That is our Freedom Tower, standing tall in lower Manhattan, and Lady Liberty waving at all that fly over her!

Rae and Candice have a Maroon Mooney, I believe.

They are genuine generous Mooney people.

Memories from a lifetime ago...

Thanks for sharing your trip.

Best regards,

-a-

[mpg]

Yes, I am a nerd.

 

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Yes,,,   you are!!!!!!

 

And,,,,      YOU are doing a flight   /   tour,,   that Most of us only Dream about!

 

It is a remarkable  story,   with great photos,   and a life time of memories.

We could only hope to something like this ourselves...

 

 

 

 

 

[Marauder]

That is our Freedom Tower, standing tall in lower Manhattan, and Lady Liberty waving at all that fly over her!

Rae and Candice have a Maroon Mooney, I believe.

They are genuine generous Mooney people.

Memories from a lifetime ago...

Thanks for sharing your trip.

Best regards,

-a-

They own a Missile. I met them back in the early 90s at a Homecoming. They were acquaintances of the guy who got me hook on Mooneys in the 1980s.

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