How much money do I need for a quality Mooney?

[SantosDumont]

I paid $65k for my F. Did a lot of looking but I wanted to have all the boxes checked for my mission which sounds similar to yours.  The one compromise I made was that my plane has the KLN89B which isn't WAAS, so that will be a $20k upgrade sometime between now and 2020 to do that and ADS-B.  Other wishlist items include upgrading the STEC 30 to a 55x with GPSS so I can fly coupled approaches... but you can always make and spend more money. 

[M20F-1968]

Or find a nice F or E and install a new RayJay Turbonormalizer.  FYI:  I just have one for sale.  

John Breda

[gsxrpilot]

I gave $48K for my C - which might have been one of the nicest examples of the type with a great panel, Stec-30/altitude, WAAS, 2nd AI, etc. ALL speed mods, 800 SNEW, 8/10 paint and interior.

I gave $119K for my 252.

[KLRDMD]

On 4/24/2017 at 9:24 PM, carqwik said:

Just an FYI, 10k in altitude doesn't always get you out of the thermal turbulence in the summertime in AZ.  And 10k is pretty much the minimum altitude going northerly out of Phoenix too if IFR.

I've gotten the snot beat out of me at 16,500 ft in my previous Bravo in AZ.

[gsxrpilot]

A year ago in our C, we flew into FLG at about 5 in the afternoon. It was July. We were fully loaded for three weeks of travel. I told my wife before we landed, we'd better be sure this is our stop for the night. We won't be able to get off the ground again until the morning and cooler temps. We spent the night in Flagstaff and left at 6am. We were at gross and going West to the coast, so really only needed about 300 ft. of altitude. Clear the trees at the end of the runway and hold altitude. The ground drops away all the way to the California coast.

It was a wonderful trip and our C performed very well. But by the time we got home, it was sold and the 252 was under contract.

[chrisk]

10 hours ago, gsxrpilot said:

A year ago in our C, we flew into FLG at about 5 in the afternoon. It was July. We were fully loaded for three weeks of travel. I told my wife before we landed, we'd better be sure this is our stop for the night. We won't be able to get off the ground again until the morning and cooler temps. We spent the night in Flagstaff and left at 6am. We were at gross and going West to the coast, so really only needed about 300 ft. of altitude. Clear the trees at the end of the runway and hold altitude. The ground drops away all the way to the California coast.

It was a wonderful trip and our C performed very well. But by the time we got home, it was sold and the 252 was under contract.

I've never done mountain flying in anything but a turbo.   I'm still amazed at how much runway I use, (and yes it is expected and predicted by the POH).  FLG is an interesting airport.  As I recall they have a big light up sign indicating the density altitude.

One thing I have noticed about high density airports is starting is more difficult.  I typically end up opening the throttle more, essentially treating it like a flooded engine start.  I'm assuming this is because the compression ratio is fairly low at 7.5:1 and more air is needed.

[gsxrpilot]

4 minutes ago, chrisk said:

I've never done mountain flying in anything but a turbo.   I'm still amazed at how much runway I use, (and yes it is expected and predicted by the POH).  FLG is an interesting airport.  As I recall they have a big light up sign indicating the density altitude.

One thing I have noticed about high density airports is starting is more difficult.  I typically end up opening the throttle more, essentially treating it like a flooded engine start.  I'm assuming this is because the compression ratio is fairly low at 7.5:1 and more air is needed.

We did quite a bit of mountain flying in our C. Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Durango, Santa Fe, Taos, West Yellowstone, Kalispell, Alpine TX, among others. None of those are Leadville, but during the summer travel season, the DA's can get pretty high. Once I could afford a 252, we decided it would just be easier to do the same with a turbo. And you're right, it still uses a lot of runway. But once in the air, it will climb at 1000 ft/min all the way into the flight levels.  Which makes routing easier.