I did a thing today.

[ragedracer1977]

Well look who I ran into at Kanab (KNB)

 

 

[Pasturepilot]

Yep! Good to meet you @ragedracer1977! 

 

Made it to Utah. Time to let the old girl rest her heels a few days while we do some hiking.  We’ll be wheels-up for a few more destinations soon! Stay tuned .  

 

 

Oh, and my latest Mooney tale, in print. 

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/tales-a-mooney-might-tell/

[carusoam]

About 400 national parks in the US...

A Mooney would be a great way to visit most of them...

Best regards,

-a-

[Pasturepilot]

I don't know that we'll ever get to all 400 but we're trending that way! 

Last night after dinner we rode out to the airport to enjoy the night sky... and to take pictures. 

Quote of the day from Amy: "If I ever have second thoughts about us deciding to not have children, I'll just recall the time you spent an hour taking pictures of the airplane." 

[Pasturepilot]

Quick and dirty writeup of the trip out west: https://mooneyspace.com/topic/31598-the-flatlanders-go-west/

 

[ArtVandelay]

I don't know that we'll ever get to all 400 but we're trending that way! 
Last night after dinner we rode out to the airport to enjoy the night sky... and to take pictures. 
Quote of the day from Amy: "If I ever have second thoughts about us deciding to not have children, I'll just recall the time you spent an hour taking pictures of the airplane." 

Gorgeous picture

[Pasturepilot]

So, back home after taking the old gal (and my wife) to Utah, word gets to me that someone wants an airplane ride. 

Someone who drove me to the airport countless times as a kid. Someone who flat-out refused to get into an airplane his entire life despite being listed on my airline travel benefits the last 12 years. 

Maybe he decided that if it hadn’t killed me yet, he’d probably make it through one little flight.

Yesterday, my Dad went for his first Airplane ride.  

He says he’ll go again, which I’m calling a win as bumpy as yesterday’s flight was. 

After the last 30 hours of “Mooney Zooming” straight-ish lines between distant points, flying circles for a sightseeing trip over the home turf was a great change of pace, though. 

[Robert Sailor]

Great pic of your Dad. 

[vorlon1]

Gotta love that! 

[Pasturepilot]

So, yeah. Filed under things I meant to look at earlier and hadn’t.  Someone was talking about their landing gear donut date codes and I made a note to take a look next time I flew. 

Which was today. 
 

landing gear donuts. These things are good for 50 years or so, right? 

 

I guess it’s time for lord mounts down below and firewall forward! Ugh. 

Edited November 29, 2019 by Pasturepilot

[carusoam]

Mooney M20C efficiency!  50 years on set of donuts! 

Can’t get that using a Long Body...

Best regards,

-a-

[Davidv]

I find that “checking” things on an airplane is usually an expensive endeavor .

[Hank]

2 hours ago, Pasturepilot said:

So, yeah. Filed under things I meant to look at earlier and hadn’t.  Someone was talking about their landing gear donut date codes and I made a note to take a look next time I flew. 
 

Which was today. 
 

landing gear donuts. These things are good for 50 years or so, right? 

 

I guess it’s time for lord mounts down below and firewall forward! Ugh. 

Don't feel too bad--i replaced mine [dated 6-69] just a few years ago . . . . .

[Pasturepilot]

I find that “checking” things on an airplane is usually an expensive endeavor .

You’re not wrong.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Pasturepilot]

Our little trip west, properly documented: 

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/flying-to-the-american-west/

it’s easy to lose perspective, bouncing between airliners and general aviation. In a four day trip, we’ll cross the continent a couple times. But each time I’ve recounted this trip to a captain as we’re hauling 200 folks at Mach .78, almost every one’s eyes glazed over. “That’s the trip of a lifetime,” many explained. Here’s hoping it will be one of many trips of this lifetime. That’s what this Mooney Zoom stuff is all about, right?

[Skates97]

1 hour ago, Pasturepilot said:

Our little trip west, properly documented: 

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/flying-to-the-american-west/

it’s easy to lose perspective, bouncing between airliners and general aviation. In a four day trip, we’ll cross the continent a couple times. But each time I’ve recounted this trip to a captain as we’re hauling 200 folks at Mach .78, almost every one’s eyes glazed over. “That’s the trip of a lifetime,” many explained. Here’s hoping it will be one of many trips of this lifetime. That’s what this Mooney Zoom stuff is all about, right?

Great article. The trip I made with my boys this summer from CA to NC was a memory none of us will ever forget. Amazing the places a Mooney will take you.

[Volare]

On 12/13/2019 at 2:55 PM, Pasturepilot said:

...“That’s the trip of a lifetime,” many explained. ...

It is amazing (for me at least)- when I was learning to fly, droning around in little airplanes, all I could dream of was one day getting to fly airliners. Now I fly airliners, and all I can dream of is one day getting to own a little airplane and fly it around...

[Pasturepilot]

3 hours ago, Volare said:

Now I fly airliners, and all I can dream of is one day getting to own a little airplane and fly it around...

When I was the airport kid, I thought all the airline pilots had airplanes.... because most of the guys with planes were airline guys. 

It was a shock when I started flying for a living and it dawned that most professional pilots hang it up at the end of a trip and don’t think about flying until they’re on their way back to work. 

[Volare]

It really is amazing how little GA flying and airline flying have to do with one another. I'm working towards getting back into GA after having been away since '97, and it's daunting.

[0TreeLemur]

10 minutes ago, Volare said:

It really is amazing how little GA flying and airline flying have to do with one another. I'm working towards getting back into GA after having been away since '97, and it's daunting.

General aviation has also changed a lot.   When I was a kid hanging around the local airport, most GA was piston.   Now it is at a minimum turboprop, with a lot of jet traffic.   Piston GA is greatly diminished from the 80's and 90's.   I find it amazing when I'm enroute at 7500 or 8500 in our C, how little traffic their is down where we fly.    Only when we near class C or B is there much conflict. 

[Pasturepilot]

On 6/19/2019 at 9:38 AM, Pasturepilot said:

Oh wait. I forgot to share this gem: How about a shot from 1980 when Chris picked it up from the previous owners?

Last night, Amy went to get the mail while I was fixing dinner. She comes walking in and said "You've got a letter from someone in Denton, Texas. The envelope says "*Additional information 46Q." 

I got fan mail.

I called Paul and we spent 40 minutes telling tales. His father may be the perfect embodiment of the American Dream. 

You see, Roswell Mathis dropped out of school in the 9th grade. His father died, and he had to tend the family farm. Eventually he upgraded to driving a milk route, and from there he wound up driving a city bus in Jacksonville, Florida. He saved his pennies whenever he could, but when the barnstormers came to town, a friend talked him into shelling out a few bucks for an airplane ride. Yeah, the bug bit.. Hard. Roswell took flying lessons, knocked out his tickets, and when World War Two rolled around, he instructed Navy pilots as a civilian. 

"My dad really wanted to go fight, but the navy wouldn't have it. They explained that he wasn't easily replaceable. He'd have to start from zero as a military pilot, and as he progressed, the navy would have to find a civilian instructor to take his place. So he instructed his way through the war." 

After the war, he hired on at Eastern Air Lines, starting on the DC-3 and flying until he turned 60 in 1974. Not bad for someone who didn't finish their freshman year of high school. 

His son had googled the tail numbers of airplanes his father had owned, and my story popped up. The plane is registered in my name, at my home address. The crumbs were easy enough to follow. He recounted tales of flying around in the Mooney - he remembered flying with his dad while Disney World was under construction, then again once it was finished but not yet open to the public. The theme park had a soft opening for locals, and they flew along I-4, eyeballing the traffic backing up for miles. 

The apple hadn't fallen far from the tree. Paul flew F-4s in the Air Force and went on to a career at Southwest that he recently retired from. We told Mooney stories, I listened to war stories, and we talked a lot about aviation books–we're both book nerds as it turned out. 

 

[carusoam]

Imagine that...

A plane that generates connections across time and distance... but not by flying... 

A magical time machine, distance machine, people connecting machine...

Thanks for sharing the letter!

Best regards,

-a-

[TheLachlan]

That's so cool, I'm a sucker for stories like this and connecting the past..

[Pasturepilot]

Holy thread revival, Batman. 
 

But… it’s my thread and I’m gonna do it anyhow. 
 

It’s been a moment since I bought the mooney four years ago and had big ideas about the panel. G5s. GPS 175. Engine monitors. Man, it just seemed like so much money. 
 

I don’t post a lot here but I do read the forums regularly. Just figured I’d check back in. Before we headed out west on that first big trip, I replaced a failing gyro horizon with a G5, and that’s about the last time i posted much about the panel. 
 

as you can see, the turn coordinator wasn’t real pleased with its new gee-whiz neighbor. 

 

The Pandemic struck and boom. Travel tanked, and as an airline pilot, I had a lot of time on my hands. I bought a GPS 175 after an IFR across country to Kitty hawk where every controller tired to clear us direct, so I took the hint. Also picked up an EDM900 engine monitor. I wasn’t ever what you’d call an electrically-inclined a&p so there was a lot of studying as I went, but the installs were both successful. 
 

 

We’ve done a few big trips, and have more planned. But I found myself using the g5 in HSI mode pretty often to follow a course and I’m better tracking a HSI than a CDI. 
 

and I’d stared longingly at y’all with your six-pack panels until it was time to act. Last fall I picked up a g5 HSI kit and… procrastinated.
 

In January, I began tearing the panel apart. 

 

and cutting metal 

 

 

And fixing 50 years of airline pilot “improvements” that included a lot of electrical equipment just grounded Willy nilly all over the plane. 

I laid out a bunch of placards and had them produced as dry transfer text. Applied over paint and then clear coated, they look great. 

It took a while, and there’s a few things left, but I flew yesterday, nearly squawk free. Oh, and I added a garmin USB port. I’m sick of carrying batteries to keep my foreflight devices juiced up on long trips! 
 

 

So… wrapping up. If you’re on a budget and have big ideas, hang in there. Things don’t have to happen quickly, or all at once. Like a mouse devouring an elephant, one bite at a time, you’ll get there if you just stick with it. 
 

Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

[Fly Boomer]

10 minutes ago, Pasturepilot said:

I laid out a bunch of placards and had them produced as dry transfer text. Applied over paint and then clear coated, they look great

Everything looks great!  I'm particularly interested in the placards.  Can you say more about how they are applied, and where you got them?