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My "new" Mooney


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I am the excited, proud new owner of N803RM, the 1969 Mooney M20F lovingly cared for by another MooneySpace'r for the past 11 years. A lot of you probably remember my "E of dubious provenance," and her ignominious end. I'm not going to slam that plane; if I'd been more experienced, she may not have ended the way she did. (I believe the Swiss Cheese model played out in that situation. I do think there were problems with the plane, but looking back - and as fully discussed with the FAA :) - there were things I could have done differently.)

This is different. My "E" was a project. This F is turnkey. She needs nothing. ADS-B, WAAS, freshly sealed tanks, AP... she's equipped. Gorgeous inside and out. Purrs.

Picked her up in Yosemite this morning, flew her to PRB for the 53(!) Mooney fly-in, then brought her home.

Got a hangar for her at Torrance (KTOA). If anyone's on the field tomorrow, stop by, 1300-1900... (PM me for details)

 

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19 hours ago, N803RM said:

Congrats Chris.  Enjoy and please take good care of her.

Ron

Wilco. (FWIW, I'm still daily-driving the 1995 Jeep Wrangler I bought new when I left Missouri for SoCal. This year I'm finally going to replace the soft top. :) )

BTW, I may ask you to eyeball my database of routine maintenance items, if you're willing?

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Just now, teejayevans said:


And what is hanging down from the tail?

GoPro in a MyPilotPro mount. Not the best place for it (the lens gets coated in "gak" pretty quickly), but 3RM has the LASAR tie down / jack point combos installed, so I can't hang it under a wing. Thinking I'll get something to clamp it to the mount for the step...

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7 hours ago, chrixxer said:

Wilco. (FWIW, I'm still daily-driving the 1995 Jeep Wrangler I bought new when I left Missouri for SoCal. This year I'm finally going to replace the soft top. :) )

BTW, I may ask you to eyeball my database of routine maintenance items, if you're willing?

Yes

 

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So yesterday I took her out on her first "mission." (Can't believe it took me 8 days to play...) Departed KTOA and, following some advice from y'all, I've got the "rotate" thing dialed in. She's definitely bigger and heavier than my old E - exactly what I wanted, it just took a minute to get used to.

She doesn't climb *quite* as aggressively as BE, but still a respectable 700-800 fpm at ~2300 lbs (me, full fuel, sundry in the back), and I'm pretty sure I can wring more out of her once I get the speeds figured out. (Leaving Torrance in a box climb to 4500' to hit the LAX Special Flight Rules is a kind of specific scenario that's not really an enroute climb...)

During climbs, got a couple of alerts from the EDM-700 as oil temperature reached a bit over 200 (I want to say peak was 210F, might have been lower). Still in the green arc and way below the 245F redline, but higher than the 180F Lycoming recommends. I'm not used to having such precise instrumentation! (Except in the SR22, but that's a whole different animal.)

My first trip through special flight rules, I kept RPMs high (2500) but pulled MP back to be outside the placard range (avoid continuous operation above 24" between 2350-2550 RPM). Gained rapidly on a Cessna in the corridor. Getting down at Santa Monica was the usual PITA, and I slipped it down before stabilizing for short final. Greased it.

She's just as responsive as my E was, in landing / the flare. Very easy to make small precise corrections.

Showed her off a bit to my flight school friends over at Proteus, picked up my passenger (an old friend who returned to aviation recently and is training in their SR20s), and headed up towards Lompoc.

GPSS FTW! :) Great, easy flight. She purrs. Very comfortable, very stable. Those updated seats are "yuge." Sit a bit higher than in BE (which had the flat 1966 seats and your legs were right in front of you). Better visibility, better back support. Awesome. It's still no Arrow, and with my size 13 clod hoppers I have to be extra careful on ingress and egress, but that's a Mooney for you...

Lompoc had interesting winds, varying +/- 30 degrees or so through runway heading, 12 gusting 17. Mooney. Easy small precise corrections. (Can't do that in an SR22; with that spring-loaded side stick/yoke/whatever it is, there's no feel for what the aircraft is doing, and those tiny corrections can't really be made. IME anyway.)

Enjoyable lunch in Los Alamos (and brought back some Shokrian Syrah). Our Uber driver on the way back asked what we were flying. When I said "Mooney" he detailed how his father just got back from "San Antonio" where he bought a new Ovation. Small world.

Topped off the tanks in Lompoc (cheap(ish) AvGas) and compared with the FS-450; might need a smidge of recalibration.

Refining my ForeFlight checklists to reflect the systems in this plane.

(The fuel quantity indicators - left more than right - like to take a while before they read quantity. When they eventually wake up, they're accurate. Can't wait to rip out the 49 year old right panel instruments...)

Flight back was as expected. Blew through the practice area near Malibu at ~160 knots over the ground (~5 knot tail wind), as ATC pointed out we had a bunch of traffic (3-4 planes) converging from our 7-9 o'clock positions. MooneyZoom!

My friend Gary was working local at Santa Monica tower, didn't recognize my call sign or voice. Had us turn base early in a tight pattern, but still got it trimmed and stabilized for another greaser. Gary, on break, came over to check it out. Popular aircraft! :)

Departing, she climbed easily up to 3500' for the southbound trip through special flight rules. This time I configured her for 19.5/1950, which kept her below Vle. Perfect. By the time I got to the Torrance airspace, I could throw the gear down and get down to TPA almost easily. (Still had to extend downwind a bit, but at least I didn't have to overfly the airport and could just do a normal right pattern for 29R.) Another greaser. She's very stable and predictable. Taxiing back to the hangar, was blocked for a few minutes by a Sling 4 two doors down. Got to try out the phone integration on the PMA450. Worked perfectly. Love that audio panel.

Tucked her in - my second attempt at putting her in the hangar (a 38.75" wide T) was a lot smoother than the first. Getting the hang of this...

So much nicer than BE, in so many respects. Great plane!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited by chrixxer
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Glad to see you're getting the new plane figured out. Hangaring can be interesting sometimes. I had one hangar with 18" clearance on each wingtip, and learned to be precise. It helps if you have an aiming spot on the back wall to point the tail at.

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55 minutes ago, Hank said:

Glad to see you're getting the new plane figured out. Hangaring can be interesting sometimes. I had one hangar with 18" clearance on each wingtip, and learned to be precise. It helps if you have an aiming spot on the back wall to point the tail at.

 

3 hours ago, chrixxer said:

Tucked her in - my second attempt at putting her in the hangar (a 38.75" wide T) was a lot smoother than the first. Getting the hang of this...
 

My old hangar was plenty wide, my new one is virtually the same width as yours, 39'. A previous resident painted a with mark at the rear/top of the hangar where the center is. I have tape on the floor and painted lines out the front to line it up just after I moved in. I don't know if the airport there will let you but if you can it sure makes it a lot easier to push it back in.

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Edit: Looks like you were posting right as I did, nice to see you have the lines already.

Edited by Skates97
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