C Models not IFR?

[MBDiagMan]

Yes my Cessna 140 has acustom panel with six pack, center stack , glideslope and marker beacon.  Maybe I should have mentioned that to him.  His F apparently has a Johnson bar, so it is not as if he is in an Ovation or something

It just seemed to be an odd comment from a nice fellow.

[MBDiagMan]

Whoops!  I dont know how the pictures ended up there, but this is my new hangar five minutes from where I will be living soon.

I brought my taildragger over this morning and put her away behind the Mooney.  My friends Cherokee Six is in there also.

Next task is to bring tools, workbench, compressor etc. from my old hangar and add some decoration.

Both planes in the same hangar five minutes from homw with an FBO that keeps them full of fuel.:). Beats having one hangar 39 miles from home and the other plane in another hangar 45 miles the other direction in another state.

I am excited!  Life is GOOD!

[LANCECASPER]

4 minutes ago, MBDiagMan said:

Whoops!  I dont know how the pictures ended up there, but this is my new hangar five minutes from where I will be living soon.

I brought my taildragger over this morning and put her away behind the Mooney.  My friends Cherokee Six is in there also.

Next task is to bring tools, workbench, compressor etc. from my old hangar and add some decoration.

Both planes in the same hangar five minutes from homw with an FBO that keeps them full of fuel.:). Beats having one hangar 39 miles from home and the other plane in another hangar 45 miles the other direction in another state.

I am excited!  Life is GOOD!

Your C looks great! My friend tells me it's one of the nicest C's he's ever inspected.

[RobertGary1]

I suspect that his point is that most people are not going to put $30K into a panel to make a C a really top end IFR platform when the airframe is barely worth that. An F has a higher vRef value so it may be more likely. 

 

-Robert

[HRM]

1 minute ago, RobertGary1 said:

I suspect that his point is that most people are not going to put $30K into a panel to make a C a really top end IFR platform when the airframe is barely worth that. An F has a higher vRef value so it may be more likely. 

 

-Robert

Interesting point. As I converge on retirement I am preparing my final upgrade to my E, a glass IFR panel. I am anticipating about $30K--and yes, the airframe isn't worth much more than that. The fact is you don't upgrade for resale, you upgrade with your personal pleasure and mission in mind. 

Of course, an E is Super, which a C is not, but that should not dissuade a Cniac from upgrading. There are significant advantages to the short bodies.

[RobertGary1]

On 8/12/2017 at 9:21 AM, MBDiagMan said:

Yes my Cessna 140 has acustom panel with six pack, center stack , glideslope and marker beacon.  Maybe I should have mentioned that to him.  His F apparently has a Johnson bar, so it is not as if he is in an Ovation or something

 

I had a single KX-170b in the Cessna 140. Triangulating VOR radials was a pain having to switch frequencies. And getting ATIS was a pain as well. The SF Bay Area controllers seemed confused when I had to go off frequency to get ATIS.

 

-Robert

[rbridges]

26 minutes ago, RobertGary1 said:

I suspect that his point is that most people are not going to put $30K into a panel to make a C a really top end IFR platform when the airframe is barely worth that. An F has a higher vRef value so it may be more likely. 

 

-Robert

sadly, that's probably a valid point.  

[gsxrpilot]

23 minutes ago, HRM said:

Interesting point. As I converge on retirement I am preparing my final upgrade to my E, a glass IFR panel. I am anticipating about $30K--and yes, the airframe isn't worth much more than that. The fact is you don't upgrade for resale, you upgrade with your personal pleasure and mission in mind. 

Of course, an E is Super, which a C is not, but that should not dissuade a Cniac from upgrading. There are significant advantages to the short bodies.

Good advice if you already own a short body Mooney. I'd do the same thing and am doing that with my 252. I fully intend I will have put more into it than it will ever be worth when I finally have to sell it. 

But if you are shopping for a short body Mooney, it's worth holding out to find one that has already been done. There are plenty of owners who have already thrown the checkbook at the panel, have enjoyed the advanced capability for a few years and now have to sell with the full realization that they'll never get their money back out of it.

Unfortunately the difference between a C with an original scatter shot panel, no GPS, no autopilot, and a dual Narco comm stack, and a C with a $50K glass panel, WAAS GPS, Autopilot w/altitude, etc... is about $15K. Good if you're buying, not so good if you're selling. But that doesn't stop owners like myself from spending money on our panels.

[MBDiagMan]

7 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

I had a single KX-170b in the Cessna 140. Triangulating VOR radials was a pain having to switch frequencies. And getting ATIS was a pain as well. The SF Bay Area controllers seemed confused when I had to go off frequency to get ATIS.

 

-Robert

I wish I had a picture of my custo 140 panel at hand.  I will try to remember to take one next time I am at the airport.  It is a nice panel with Dual VOR's, dual radios, six pack.  Everything except a 430.  Triangulating VOR's is not a problem and the both in the audio panel makes it easy to get ATIS without changing from the assigned frequency.

I will post a pic of my mooney panel.  It has a nice six pack arrangement and a second radio with both in the audio panel.  It is quite capable.  The ancient yoke GPS that was there when I got the plane is now gone.  If a museum needs a donation let me know.

 

[MBDiagMan]

7 hours ago, gsxrpilot said:

Good advice if you already own a short body Mooney. I'd do the same thing and am doing that with my 252. I fully intend I will have put more into it than it will ever be worth when I finally have to sell it. 

But if you are shopping for a short body Mooney, it's worth holding out to find one that has already been done. There are plenty of owners who have already thrown the checkbook at the panel, have enjoyed the advanced capability for a few years and now have to sell with the full realization that they'll never get their money back out of it.

Unfortunately the difference between a C with an original scatter shot panel, no GPS, no autopilot, and a dual Narco comm stack, and a C with a $50K glass panel, WAAS GPS, Autopilot w/altitude, etc... is about $15K. Good if you're buying, not so good if you're selling. But that doesn't stop owners like myself from spending money on our panels.

Yes, Joyce not only had a capable panel, but was corrosion free and in wonderful condition in every way except the interior.  With a 252 hour total time engine and propeller, corrosion free, new paint, tight tanks and on and on. it is a worthy 2 or 3 place plane.  I am quite pleased to have a C.  Do I wish I had an F instead?  If I could have found an F in as nice condition and all the aminities of my C for the same or slightly more money? Sure!  For my budget and purposes as a two place traveler, I am quite pleased with her and feel that the panel AND the aircraft is quite capable, especially for the money.

[pirate]

I recently had $33,268.00 worth of aviaonics installed in my 70C plus several years ago I did the stec30 gpss and other goodies .Why not with a solid Mooney airframe and a bullet proof 360. These are extremely strong, economical IFR cross country machines. 

I believe (impeccable very well equipped)turn key C's and  E,s can and do sell for top dollar unadvertised quietly, locally by word of mouth. I see it often with our brands and others in my part of the country. 

 

[Cooperd0g]

I found a C before it was even listed through a friend of the seller. I offered the asking price, very much top dollar for a C, specifically because it has pretty much everything already installed. While it does have the shotgun panel, it also has a G5, GTN650,  KT74 ADSB, and a JPI EDM 900 already. I know it would have cost way more to get another plane to that level. Plus it has a RayJay turbo. Since it has the factory wing leveler and bit an autopilot I will wait for the GFC500 to come out and get that installed and clean up the panel layout at the same time. Overall I think I'll come out way ahead compared to doing it all myself. 

[Hank]

11 hours ago, Pirate said:

I recently had $33,268.00 worth of aviaonics installed in my 70C plus several years ago I did the stec30 gpss and other goodies .Why not with a solid Mooney airframe and a bullet proof 360. These are extremely strong, economical IFR cross country machines. 

I believe (impeccable very well equipped)turn key C's and  E,s can and do sell for top dollar unadvertised quietly, locally by word of mouth. I see it often with our brands and others in my part of the country. 

 

Yep, that's how I acquired mine in 2007, with Brittain AccuTrak and AccuFlite hooked to the 430W in the panel. She wasn't cheap  but was fairly priced according to Jimmy's Garrison's evaluation published in the MAPALog. It was never advertised, the previous owner had fixed it up as his retirement plane, then stumbled across an A36 at an estate sale . . . Just a couple of years later, the bottom fell out of the airplane market, but I've not regretted anything.

[steingar]

Yes, you can spend way more than your aircraft is worth putting boxes in the panel.  But if you were to buy a new aircraft with the capability of our Mooneys, you'd spend far, far more than you ever will on your panel upgrade.  Yes, you'll never get your money back from the upgrade, there's no doubt about that.  But that's just dwarfed by the depreciation on a new airframe.

 

Best buys are always the clapped out bird that you restore or the guy who just restored his and wants to sell.