M20 for private certification after LSA

[Spiderd68]

I will soon complete lsa certification (hopefully). At that point would vintage Mooney be appropriate aircraft to train for private certification? I am developing Mooney itch. Thanks

[Andy95W]

M20S Acclaim?  No. 

M20C/E/F/J- Yes/probably. 

[ShuRugal]

2 hours ago, Spiderd68 said:

I will soon complete lsa certification (hopefully). At that point would vintage Mooney be appropriate aircraft to train for private certification? I am developing Mooney itch. Thanks

I purchased my C model while holding an LSA certificate.  I used it finish my PP ticket, and I took my checkride in it.  My checkride was conducted with a local FSDO rep along to observe my DPE so that his DPE ticket could be renewed.  At the end, the FAA guy asked me if I could try and go for my commercial ticket the same time next year, so we could do it again.

 

TL;DR, absolutely it is doable.  Find a good Mooney instructor near you and plan to do at least your transition training and insurance parole with him (or her).  

[carusoam]

Welcome aboard, Spider.

That is the first time I have seen this question... 

Learning how to fly in a Mooney is usually considered, generally not a good idea... it takes a lot of extra precision that isn’t required for the trainer fleet... the extra precision takes extra hours... extra hours costs extra money...

LSA teaches you how to fly...  So...

A mooney makes a great next step...

There are a few pilots that have started with a Mooney.  Many more that began flying Mooneys with 100hrs of Experience...

See if you can rent a Mooney with an instructor to see what it is all about.  We have one in NJ for rent at the MSC...

How many hours in the LSA do you have already?

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

I had 100hours or so in a C152. Very Similar to LSA...?

A PPL, and a Mooney, the world becomes available to you to travel.... you may need an extra stack of cash to go with that...

Go Mooney!

Best regards,

-a-

[jaylw314]

8 hours ago, Spiderd68 said:

I will soon complete lsa certification (hopefully). At that point would vintage Mooney be appropriate aircraft to train for private certification? I am developing Mooney itch. Thanks

It's doable, but perhaps not the best.  The tasks I found hardest to learn were the constant-speed prop and trimming.  One nice thing about flying draggy, light trainers is that they respond quickly to trim, allowing your brain to move on to the next task.  Mooneys are heavy but not proportionately more powerful (with some exceptions), so trim changes can take a long time to settle, so it was difficult to juggle until I could do it without thinking.  The same goes for fiddling with a constant-speed prop.  SInce there are four times a many choices as just having a throttle, it was easy to get bogged down messing with it early on.

Not impossible, but things like that would make it harder to learn the basic stuff.

[Spiderd68]

• Very helpful! Thanks

[Spiderd68]

7 hours ago, carusoam said:

Welcome aboard, Spider.

That is the first time I have seen this question... 

Learning how to fly in a Mooney is usually considered, generally not a good idea... it takes a lot of extra precision that isn’t required for the trainer fleet... the extra precision takes extra hours... extra hours costs extra money...

LSA teaches you how to fly...  So...

A mooney makes a great next step...

There are a few pilots that have started with a Mooney.  Many more that began flying Mooneys with 100hrs of Experience...

See if you can rent a Mooney with an instructor to see what it is all about.  We have one in NJ for rent at the MSC...

How many hours in the LSA do you have already?

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

I had 100hours or so in a C152. Very Similar to LSA...?

A PPL, and a Mooney, the world becomes available to you to travel.... you may need an extra stack of cash to go with that...

Go Mooney!

Best regards,

-a-

Thanks for advice

[MBDiagMan]

I hate to be in disagreement, but I am puzzled when I read claims that a Mooney is hard to fly.  Yeah, there is landing gear and a constant speed prop, but it is a tricycle plane that is easy to deal with on the ground.  I see the Mooney as being quicker to learn basic flight than the planes I started with.

Just my two cents and my opinion, not trying to be difficult.

Edit:

To add to this, I have read on this forum things about flying a long body.  To exemplify what I have read, I have gotten the impression from some posts that it was sort of like; “ well, yeah, you can fly a C, but you REALLY need to get some training before moving to an F or a J.”  Well as always I took these comments seriously and was led to the point of expecting an F to be as challenging as landing the space shuttle.

This past Thursday a friend of mine took me flying in his beautiful F model.  He had flown with me in my C and felt comfortable enough with me that he told me it was my airplane.  I flew a hood off approach and flew it to the ground after telling him to take over if he didn’t feel comfortable with my flying or in particular my landing.  It surprised me, but I flew it to the runway and landed it.  It really didn’t feel much different than my C model.  You think I could pull off a shuttle landing?

Edited June 23, 2018 by MBDiagMan

[steingar]

Any airplane can be used as a trainer so long as the CFI is attentive and doesn’t let one crash the fool thing.

[midlifeflyer]

8 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

It's doable, but perhaps not the best.  The tasks I found hardest to learn were the constant-speed prop and trimming.  One nice thing about flying draggy, light trainers is that they respond quickly to trim, allowing your brain to move on to the next task.  Mooneys are heavy but not proportionately more powerful (with some exceptions), so trim changes can take a long time to settle, so it was difficult to juggle until I could do it without thinking.  The same goes for fiddling with a constant-speed prop.  SInce there are four times a many choices as just having a throttle, it was easy to get bogged down messing with it early on.

Not impossible, but things like that would make it harder to learn the basic stuff.

I don't agree about Mooneys being hard to fly.

But more importantly, it's easy to assume an LSA is easy, but it's a mistake. They tend to be more difficult to fly than a "typical" primary trainer. It's because the newer ones are anything but "draggy" and the light loading means they get tossed around far more by the winds. Crosswind and gusty landing are more of an adventure than heavier trainers, and definitely more difficult than any Mooney I've flown. I've seen more than one flight school where the LSA checkout is longer than the checkout for other models, based on their experience with transitioning pilots. My favorite example is a Cirrus Training Center which added an LSA to the fleet. After some experimentation they settled on 1 2-hour mandatory for the checkout, including for their experienced SR22 pilots.

[KLRDMD]

1 hour ago, midlifeflyer said:

My favorite example is a Cirrus Training Center which added an LSA to the fleet. After some experimentation they settled on 1 2-hour mandatory for the checkout, including for their experienced SR22 pilots.

Maybe that says more about SR-22 pilots than it does about LSAs 

[midlifeflyer]

10 minutes ago, KLRDMD said:

Maybe that says more about SR-22 pilots than it does about LSAs 

It's seems to be a favorite national pastime to make fun of Cirrus pilots, but no, the school's experience was based on more than their trainees. Except for their primary students, all their pilots had flown other make/model singles. Besides, the jokes aside, all the Cirrus pilots I've known personally have been quite good. 

[MBDiagMan]

A few years back an instructor friend of mine took me for a flight in his sons Cirrus.  All I did was take off and he gave the plane to the autopilot.  It went out to a VOR,  turned and went around to a waypoint the other end of the airport and then came in and on short final, he told me it was my airplane and i landed it.  His son was a low time private VFR pilot and flew it regularly from Texas to Minnesota on business trips.

Yes, the plane is quite impressive and will go lots of places by entering a flight plan and taking off and landing manually, with everything else done for you, but for me that in itself doesn’t take anything away from the pilots skill.  The only downside might be that he doesn’t get quality stick and rudder experience when doing this.

[midlifeflyer]

5 minutes ago, MBDiagMan said:

A few years back an instructor friend of mine took me for a flight in his sons Cirrus.  All I did was take off and he gave the plane to the autopilot.  It went out to a VOR,  turned and went around to a waypoint the other end of the airport and then came in and on short final, he told me it was my airplane and i landed it.  His son was a low time private VFR pilot and flew it regularly from Texas to Minnesota on business trips.

Yes, the plane is quite impressive and will go lots of places by entering a flight plan and taking off and landing manually, with everything else done for you, but for me that in itself doesn’t take anything away from the pilots skill.  The only downside might be that he doesn’t get quality stick and rudder experience when doing this.

That's more about the pilot than the airplane. I can do the same in the Mooneys I fly, although I admit I also have to turn the course indicator on the HSI by hand  (not GPSS)

[DXB]

19 hours ago, Spiderd68 said:

I will soon complete lsa certification (hopefully). At that point would vintage Mooney be appropriate aircraft to train for private certification? I am developing Mooney itch. Thank

No doubt it can be done, but I suspect you'd finish your PPL a lot faster using the LSA you're already familiar with.  If you want to own a Mooney, shop for a M20B,C,D,E,F,G,J in the months before you wrap up your PPL.  Finding and buying good one is typically much more work than the 5-10 hours transition training required to get a newly minted private pilot flying solo in it. 

[midlifeflyer]

5 minutes ago, DXB said:

No doubt it can be done, but I suspect you'd finish your PPL a lot faster using the LSA you're already familiar with.  If you want to own a Mooney, shop for a M20B,C,D,E,F,G,J in the months before you wrap up your PPL.  Finding and buying good one is typically much more work than the 5-10 hours transition training required to get a newly minted private pilot flying solo in it. 

The difference between Light Sport and Private is a pretty much limited to night, instrument, radio navigation and ATC communications, some of which he might already have. Not sure those would take much more time in a Mooney than an LSA once you factor in the additional Mooney transition training. 

[MBDiagMan]

I hate disagreeing again in the same thread, but with the right instructor I just doesn’t see the transition to be a big deal.  Five hours, maybe, but with the right instructor I just don’t see how in the world it could be ten.

[KLRDMD]

1 hour ago, midlifeflyer said:

It's seems to be a favorite national pastime to make fun of Cirrus pilots, but no, the school's experience was based on more than their trainees. Except for their primary students, all their pilots had flown other make/model singles. Besides, the jokes aside, all the Cirrus pilots I've known personally have been quite good. 

I used to own a SR22 and was involved in the Cirrus community. There are always exceptions but most of the Cirrus pilots I knew were button pushers, not pilots.

[DXB]

31 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

The difference between Light Sport and Private is a pretty much limited to night, instrument, radio navigation and ATC communications, some of which he might already have.

A reasonable point, which kinda argues for skipping the cost and prep effort of the Light Sport testing altogether and going straight to PPL.  The value of  the Light Sport ticket seems low for someone who is serious about finishing PPL soon.  And @Spiderd68 clearly would want a rapid trajectory to PPL if he is considering Mooney training right now.

[MBDiagMan]

I agree DXB.  I think the LSA has not been very popular.  It has a place for those who want to legally fly on a very limited budget, but even then, an old 150 ampnd the private would seem to be money better spent.

[carusoam]

Some summary... sort of...

1) the next step is getting the PPL to best travel the country... the LSA is too limiting for most here..

2) Some transition training is going to be required...

3) TT will be dictated by the insurance company of the pilot’s choosing...

4) TT for a low time PP can be 10hrs dual, with an additional 10hrs solo..

5) There is nothing more incredible than those first flights that go a couple hundred miles somewhere that usually takes five hours to drive...

6) Each Pilot is different from the next... you won’t know how easy or difficult it is until you try...

7) If you only fly one hour per week, transition training turns into transition retraining... over and over...

8) You can really get the TT out of the way by focusing on the project... a couple hours a day, a couple of days per week...

9) having a job, family, and crummy weather can really get in the way of flying goals...

10) it takes some motivation and a few AMU to make it happen...

11) it is worth it..

These are the ideas collected by a PP.  Not a CFI...

Best regards,

-a-

[skydvrboy]

I think it depends entirely on the pilot.  If you are one of those students who studied before you started taking lessons and was ready to solo in 6 hours, you are going to have no problem.  If you were one who constantly showed up unprepared for lessons, flew occasionally, and took 40+ hours to get your LSA, then I'd advise against it.

How comfortable are you in the LSA?  Do you FLY the plane or do you ride along and sort of make it go where you want?  Can you put it on the numbers, on speed, and stop in 1000' consistently?  If so, you are definitely ready to transition to a Mooney.  Your transition will be minimal and you will be able to focus on the additional requirements for the PPL.

By being proactive and posting your question on here, I'd guess you are the type of pilot who is ready to transition.