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Checking out M20Es


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29 minutes ago, atrosa said:

here is one that looks nice on paper:

1978 MOONEY M20J • $65,000 • PRICE REDUCED • Nice M20J - airframe 5500+ TT 1200+ smoh, all compressions 77 or better at annual, 1000+ spoh, 4 probe EGT and CHT, nice paint, recent leather, clear glass, new main gear donuts, electric trim, speed brakes, good tires, original King panel, autopilot inoperable but I have an STEC 30 that will go with sale, 4 place intercom, ADS-B installed, Rosen visors, all logs since new including yellow tags and receipts, annual due 11/20. $65K or reasonable offer. Please no Brokers, Dealers, tire kickers, or traders. This is a turnkey 201 buy and fly everything but AP works! Hangared at KBWC in Brawley CA • Contact Joel Thornburg , Owner - located Yuma, AZ United States  Telephone: 760.562.9301 • Posted March 27, 2020 • Show all Ads posted by this Advertiser • Recommend This Ad to a Friend • Email Advertiser • Save to Watchist • Report This Ad • View Larger Images

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The hangar is too sparse--seems like a flag to me.  No doubt a 201 is a nice plane and this one could be a good base to upgrade...just curious about the nest this bird resides in and attention it receives.

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2 minutes ago, Brian E. said:

The hangar is too sparse--seems like a flag to me.  No doubt a 201 is a nice plane and this one could be a good base to upgrade...just curious about the nest this bird resides in and attention it receives.

That is not an accurate way to determine the use or quality of maintenance an aircraft receives.   My Hangar is nearly empty, one small tool box and a set of shelves.  I don't "live" in my hangar and I don't use it as a storage shed. In fact since I am moving, I recently completely emptied my hangar.  It took a total of 2 small SUV loads to get all the "stuff" out.

My plane get all it's maintenance at a MSC, so I let them buy and store all the tools.  I have seen full hangars with dust covered aircraft that haven't moved in years.

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45 minutes ago, atrosa said:

here is one that looks nice on paper:

1978 MOONEY M20J • $65,000 • PRICE REDUCED • Nice M20J - airframe 5500+ TT 1200+ smoh, all compressions 77 or better at annual, 1000+ spoh, 4 probe EGT and CHT, nice paint, recent leather, clear glass, new main gear donuts, electric trim, speed brakes, good tires, original King panel, autopilot inoperable but I have an STEC 30 that will go with sale, 4 place intercom, ADS-B installed, Rosen visors, all logs since new including yellow tags and receipts, annual due 11/20. $65K or reasonable offer. Please no Brokers, Dealers, tire kickers, or traders. This is a turnkey 201 buy and fly everything but AP works! Hangared at KBWC in Brawley CA • Contact Joel Thornburg , Owner - located Yuma, AZ United States  Telephone: 760.562.9301 • Posted March 27, 2020 • Show all Ads posted by this Advertiser • Recommend This Ad to a Friend • Email Advertiser • Save to Watchist • Report This Ad • View Larger Images

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It's an early model J which typically top out at about $100K. This one would at least need an autopilot. And that's about the most expensive issue to rectify. Th STEC 30 that goes with the plane might or might not be useable. And would still cost $10K to $20K to install. The STEC would have to be STC'd for this serial number. If not, then it has to go back to Genesys for a refurbishment which often costs close to the price of a new one. And does this one include altitude hold? Most J's have much better autopilots than an STEC 30. Then you're gonna need a WAAS GPS and some radios...

The point being that you could buy this one and put $40K into it quick and have it sitting in a shop for 6 months. Or you could add $40K to the purchase budget now and get a turn key M20J ready to fly. 

Having said all that.... if you're gonna buy a plane to upgrade, the J is a good platform. It's the most desirable model and they aren't making any more of them. This one will just never be worth what a late 80's or 90's model J will be. 

BTW... this one hasn't shown up on FlightAware in the last 3 months. Not a definitive data point, but something I always look at.

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So I'm a super newbie a few hours from soloing therefore I recognize my complete ignorance so forgive the new guy.  My question is how much do you use your autopilot? I love to hand fly,  once trimmed out I'm mostly hands off in the 172.  I guess if I was crushing miles, which honestly is the mission of Mooneys, I might want to reduce my workload while i'm navigating, sipping coffee and such.  I think that I'm not far enough in my training to need it yet because I don't go cross-country and am not IFR.   Enlighten the young (not that young) Jedi.

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That J looks like a great airplane that is priced fairly. The panel is original which makes it a perfect clean sheet makeover candidate. The only thing I’d keep is the fancy multiple probe engine monitor that everyone is raving about these days. 3B4F5EE5-9155-4D07-BF32-AB1484146FB8.thumb.jpeg.b8cab2ce29ff7343f3728d1698b3de02.jpeg

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15 minutes ago, atrosa said:

So I'm a super newbie a few hours from soloing therefore I recognize my complete ignorance so forgive the new guy.  My question is how much do you use your autopilot? I love to hand fly,  once trimmed out I'm mostly hands off in the 172.  I guess if I was crushing miles, which honestly is the mission of Mooneys, I might want to reduce my workload while i'm navigating, sipping coffee and such.  I think that I'm not far enough in my training to need it yet because I don't go cross-country and am not IFR.   Enlighten the young (not that young) Jedi.

That's a very valid question. And there are a few on this forum who completely disagree with me on this point. But I wouldn't own a Mooney without an autopilot. And the nicer the autopilot the better. Even with a good autopilot, you can still hand fly all you like. 

As you said, Mooneys are made for travel and are uniquely suited for long cross country flights. Within 5 min of leveling off in cruise and knowing you're going to hold this altitude and course for the next 2 to 4 hours, and you'll be wishing you had an autopilot. An autopilot also makes otherwise challenging flights, much easier and can be a huge stress reliever. Soon after getting your PPL, you're gonna want an instrument rating. And then the autopilot becomes even more useful. 

An autopilot will be a nice added safety feature as well. In a task saturated environment like bad weather or even just busy airspace like around a class Bravo. I believe I even get better service and handling from ATC around busy airspace as they know that my flying is very precise and predictable.

There is more than one person on this forum who bought a Mooney without an autopilot saying it wasn't that important and would install an autopilot later if needed. They then tried to sell after deciding that an autopilot was indeed a very desirable, if not required option. And found out it's not easy to sell a Mooney that is otherwise in great condition, but missing an autopilot.

This J does look like a great candidate and it is priced well for a J. But if the owner would go ahead and get the autopilot fixed, I'm sure he could ask $20K more for the plane. The fact that he's selling it as is, is telling to me.

Just my $0.02

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What @gsxrpilot said!  An autopilot is both a convenience and a safety item, in my opinion.  I'm not suggesting you read a book or take a nap, but an autopilot allows you to go hands off to examine a chart or look up airport info or pee.  And on a longer flight it helps limit fatigue.  Trimming for "pretty good level flight" is good, but it's not the same as an autopilot.  If all you'll ever do is putter around your home drome, it's not necessary and you might never use it...but for anything else, they sure are nice.

PS - @MooneyStrike as the owner of an E with an autopilot, I fully support your search for a good E model.  I know this veered a bit into "hey, buy a J" land, but the E's a great plane.  Don't let the helpful suggestions cause you to doubt your original thoughts.  I owned an almost-new (factory demo) Diamond Star DA-40 for a couple of years.  It was a great plane and a joy to fly, but I'd not trade our E.

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I live in CT and have a vacation place in NH, about 1:21 according to skyvector or 4 hours by car, probably doable without an AP.  My dad has a place in CT and Florida, and of course I will have to do the pilgrimage to OSH.  Those will require OTTO.

 

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Everything is doable without an autopilot. Someone will be along shortly with tales of how they flew across the country without an autopilot. But even after you've made that flight to the place in NH a few times, and the thrill of owning an airplane has subsided just a touch (it never completely goes away), you'll wish you had an autopilot and will be back here trying to sell your Mooney and find one with an autopilot ;)

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Single point of data...

1) Bought M20C...

2) no AP or wing leveler...

3) Flew it on 200nm trip a couple times per month... for a decade...

4) much better than driving 1:30 vs 5:00

5) The flight was unusually tiring as if I drove the car the whole way. Nap after flight....

6) Moved up to Mooney with AP... and IR...

7) Same flight and return in the same day... not tired at all...

8) could have been the experience, the IR, or the 15minute shorter flight....

9) Probably was the AP that frees up your brain’s limited resources...

10) Getting an AP installed later probably would have cost more than my M20C...

11) getting anything installed later on is surprisingly expensive until you get a lot of experience....

 

PP thoughts only...

Best regards,

-a-

 

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4 minutes ago, oldguyscanfly said:

Well, recently I flew half way across the the country without an autopilot in my newly purchased E, and landed thinking the biggest mistake I made in my purchase was not finding one equipped with a functioning autopilot.

 

I've been 1300+ nm each way, WV-->WY and back again; also WV-->S. FL for tank reseal and back. Even on 30nm breakfast runs, the Brittain AccuTrak is wonderful! It ain't high on the AP features list, but it sure is a labor saver!! Frees up lots of mental bandwidth for traffic spotting, chart checking, Approach reviewing and all-important trip pictures!  ;)

So what if it only follows the heading bug. It keeps me from having to do that. It leaves my hands free so I can count on mynfingers and determine when to push on the yoke to start my descent. 

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expect a newbie trap...

1) existing AP doesn’t work...  probably a BK to match the existing instruments...

2) APs are integrated systems made up of about a half dozen components...

3) Plane comes with a different AP in a box as part of the deal...

4) Expect the removal of one system, to install a completely different system... to be calculated in AMUs just for the work...

5) Installing an STEC may require it to go back to the factory for legal paperwork... to install legally...

Newbie defense...  call STEC with all the serial numbers ready, to determine what it takes to install in your new 2U plane...

Find out what is broken with the existing AP and how much to get fixed...  sometimes it is as simple as getting the control unit OH’d where the capacitor cans have croaked...

PP thoughts only, not a mechanic... stuff I learned about on MS...

Best regards,

-a-

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Hank said:

I've been 1300+ nm each way, WV-->WY and back again; also WV-->S. FL for tank reseal and back. Even on 30nm breakfast runs, the Brittain AccuTrak is wonderful! It ain't high on the AP features list, but it sure is a labor saver!! Frees up lots of mental bandwidth for traffic spotting, chart checking, Approach reviewing and all-important trip pictures!  ;)

So what if it only follows the heading bug. It keeps me from having to do that. It leaves my hands free so I can count on mynfingers and determine when to push on the yoke to start my descent. 

And the second biggest mistake was letting the avionics shop talk me into removing my non functioning Brittain autopilot to facilitate with the avionics upgrade. After spending time here on the forum, I could have probably got it working.......

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2 hours ago, carusoam said:

Single point of data...

1) Bought M20C...

2) no AP or wing leveler...

3) Flew it on 200nm trip a couple times per month... for a decade...

4) much better than driving 1:30 vs 5:00

5) The flight was unusually tiring as if I drove the car the whole way. Nap after flight....

6) Moved up to Mooney with AP... and IR...

7) Same flight and return in the same day... not tired at all...

8) could have been the experience, the IR, or the 15minute shorter flight....

9) Probably was the AP that frees up your brain’s limited resources...

10) Getting an AP installed later probably would have cost more than my M20C...

11) getting anything installed later on is surprisingly expensive until you get a lot of experience....

 

PP thoughts only...

Best regards,

-a-

 

For #9 I think I will need 2 autopilots.

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To the OP consider yourself lucky that you discovered Mooney space before purchasing your Mooney. I am in the minority of pilots on this site that is not instrument rated and do the vast majority of flights less than 200 miles from home. That said I am very happy that our C model has a working AP it's only a single axis but it only takes a few minutes to trim out in cruise and once done will hold ALT with very little attention. Once our heading is set via portable gps I engage the AP and can just relax and enjoy the flight with an occasional adjustment on the heading bug. It's also able to track VOR navigation so on the rare occasion we are following victor airways I can dial in the r-nav and fly right to each waypoint. I probably knew less about the airplane we bought than anyone ever in the history of airplane purchases and remember asking my CFI during transition training what this thing on the panel was and he said that's your AP.  Oh, nice was my reply. On the very unlikely chance of flying VFR into IMC I am happy to know that I can direct a coordinated 180 turn by simply adjusting my heading bug back the way I came and if things were really bad would be able to follow ATC headings to get us out of danger.

so even someone like me that fly's VFR out in California where weather prediction is super consistent it's nice to have the AP 

Good luck with your search and flight training 

Edited by bonal
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On the topic of AP, my opinion is that it's a little more nuanced than an AP or not an AP.  Yes, a dual axis AP with altitude select & capture is fantastic, but there are other shades of AP too.  I used to fly a Mooney with just heading hold and it worked great for 90% of what I do.  And I used it on almost every flight. Now I have GPSS + Heading Hold in an old Brittain and it's great.  I have altitude hold in the same unit (B6) that is probably more trouble than it's worth.  The plane trims out easy enough and while I've read the manual on the altitude hold plenty of times, I still don't know how to get it to settle in without a +500 foot deviation!

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A couple of random remarks for the OP:

That J might be a good deal... for someone that does NOT have your requirements and has been around airplane ownership for awhile.  Those KX-170s are bulletproof...but are at the utter nadir vs the GTN you are waxing poetic about:D  My age addled brain needs at least a flip-flop so I can go back to the last freq and ask for the new one again:o

Not long after I got my F, I had the static and transponder checks performed as I was getting ready for long family trip...well, we depart into IMC, and here's why I don't engage an AP until I"m several thousand feet AGL, I click it on and WHAMO rolls hard to the left, YIKES!!  Disengage and go back to hand flying.... for the next 4.5 hours!  Then got to do that for another 4.5 hours on the way back!  It was some work to hold +/-100 feet for that period.  I won't go into how the shop screwed up my autopilot doing a static system check, but I learned you better check EVERYTHING after your plane comes out of the shop regardless of what they worked on.

Bottom line: You really want an AP if you are going to take long trips... even VFR.  It's easy to turn off if you have one; a LOT harder to turn on if you don't:lol:

 

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Quote

BTW... this one hasn't shown up on FlightAware in the last 3 months. Not a definitive data point, but something I always look at.

That's a cool tip, I'll keep that in mind.

As for an empty hangar on that J, it could have something to do with the fact they're selling the plane.

Quote

My question is how much do you use your autopilot? I love to hand fly,  once trimmed out I'm mostly hands off in the 172.  I guess if I was crushing miles, which honestly is the mission of Mooneys, I might want to reduce my workload while i'm navigating, sipping coffee and such.  I think that I'm not far enough in my training to need it yet because I don't go cross-country and am not IFR.   Enlighten the young (not that young) Jedi.

When you're just doing pattern work and staying within 30 miles of the airport, the C172 and lack of AP isn't noticeable. But take a flight for more than 30 minutes and it's definitely noticeable.

Personally I engage autopilot as soon as I leave any turns from departure, and you can engage autopilot to climb for you at a specific rate. I did a flight from Tampa to Miami in a C172 after doing some with autopilot in other models, and honestly, it just sucked.

Think of it like autopilot on your car. I always engage autopilot whenever I'm on the highway for more than 1 exit. Or even cruise control. I would never get a car without cruise control. Fatigue is real. And when flying, I want to do as much as possible to reduce workload so I can focus my attention on awareness, flight planning, safety, etc.

 

Quote

But I wouldn't own a Mooney without an autopilot. And the nicer the autopilot the better. Even with a good autopilot, you can still hand fly all you like.

@gsxrpilot could you specific on what a good autopilot might be, or what autopilots you might say pass on? I know 3 axis is what you want, but that's all I really know.

I've used the AP on a DA40 G1000 and that seemed overly feature-ridden/complex, and then I've used the KAP140 and that seemed just fine with what I want - correction for wind, or to just stay on a heading, and descend/ascend as I want.

 

I'm surprised there isn't a sticky thread here on 'hey let's chat up on these listings I saw

 

J's are cool but I want a perfect of what I want. I'd much rather have a perfect E, and pay a premium for even the right color scheme (white/gray/color, white/red/blue, some variations with gray in it, all look dope in my eyes). I know that perfect J is definitely going to be significantly more expensive, for a mission that I don't need. It's also increased maintenance costs.I really don't care about my 3-4 passengers comfort, I mean they can book they're own flight. Anyone sitting in my 3-4 seats, which won't be often at all, is going to be stoked theyre flying in a friggin airplane with me. It's not like I can charge them more than per rata share of the trip costs anyways!

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I agree a good E is much better than a lower range J. Particularly if it's in good shape and possibly has got the J mods such as windscreen and cowling.

As for an AP, I would honestly not want to fly any plane without one. My C model originally did not have one and it was the most expensive bit I ever did to upgrade it. It now has an STEC 55x which is not bad connected to an Aspen EFD1000 and a GNS430W. Flying it now is a totally different thing than what it was before. I took a long trip to Bulgaria in 2011 and handflying for 6 hours in 3 legs was fine but I was pretty darn tired afterwards. Flying some other 4 hour trips now are a piece of cake. The airplane will follow the route via GPSS steering and hold altitude or descend / climb at a fixed rate. This frees up a lot of needed capacity for other things.

I'd look for a E model which has a 2 axis AP and a good avionic setup with WAAS GPS and Mode S already done. That way, you get to fly rather than wait for upgrades done. If you can find one which has the J mods (Windshield and Cowling) and if possible Monroy tanks, well, that is the airplane I'd be looking for if I was in the market.

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On 4/13/2020 at 10:57 PM, carusoam said:

Brittain is technically still alive look for Cecilia...  

-a-

That’s good to know. They last posts I found on the matter was the last of rheee great technicians passing and something about shuttering while the company tried to sort out if operations would continue. I sent one email to them and got no reply some months back. 

My point kinda still stands. These are like flying typewriters and we are starting to run low on folks that know how to, and are allowed to, fix typewriters in some cases. Lol

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6 hours ago, MooneyStrike said:

@gsxrpilot could you specific on what a good autopilot might be, or what autopilots you might say pass on? I know 3 axis is what you want, but that's all I really know.

I've used the AP on a DA40 G1000 and that seemed overly feature-ridden/complex, and then I've used the KAP140 and that seemed just fine with what I want - correction for wind, or to just stay on a heading, and descend/ascend as I want.

 

For a short body Mooney, I'd be looking for an STEC 30 at a minimum. And one with altitude hold would be even better. I had an STEC 30/alt in my M20C and it was excellent. Coupled to an HSI and WAAS GPS, it had nearly all the capability of the big boys. It wouldn't automatically descend on a Glide Slope, but it could fly all the way to minimums with me only touching the throttle and the trim wheel.

For a mid-body Mooney you'd like to see the KFC 150 or at least a KAP 150/200. But a Century would be fine as well or an STEC 55/60.

I'd not be excited about a Brittain even if it was fully functional. The Brittain is a bit of a dead end. And I wouldn't consider the PC wing leveler an autopilot at all.

I would liken buying a Mooney without an autopilot to buying a car without air-conditioning. It just makes trips in the airplane so much more relaxing, comfortable, and enjoyable. And then when the shit hits the fan, it's like having a very capable FO in the cockpit with you.

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