Low time pilot - intimidated by Mooney

[40_Year_Dream]

I've recently joined a flying club, which has, in addition to a 150, a pair of 172s, and a 177 - a recently acquired M20J, N727KC. As a low time pilot, with most of my 150 or so hours in 172s, the club Mooney is looking like a serious challenge to learn. At 61 years old (had a late start getting the PP certificate), it seems to take longer than I'd like to learn things (but I can learn, given enough practice). I've had a few hours in the Cardinal, but am not quite yet at the point the instructor is ready to turn me loose in that. I did ride along in the back seat of the Mooney FWIW, when someone else was getting an intro - and liked the ride!

Given all that, getting to my personal goal of VFR proficiency in the club Mooney seems almost as big a challenge as passing my PP checkride. Am I making this out to be harder than it really is?

[toto]

What are the specific areas that you’re having trouble with? We have several very experienced Mooney instructors here that might be able to help

[40_Year_Dream]

Haven't even touched the controls of the Mooney yet (other than just sitting in it on the ground), so there's nothing specific at this point. Really, just the overall impression of what all's going on with a fast complex bird (when compared to a 172)/

The instructor I'm working with (who I informed that the Mooney was my goal) recommended getting some time in the Cardinal first, to get used to dealing with the prop & cowl. I'm still working to master that.

[hammdo]

I'm 60 and had not flown since I was 39. All my time was previously in Warriors. While the Mooney takes some getting use to, it will come with practice. I now have over 100 hrs in my Mooney but the first 25 we're all 'learning' the Mooney. Probably took me 30 hrs to really feel comfortable but, I was really hard on myself to perfect my technique.  

Don Kaye has great videos on landing the Mooney - 

https://donkaye.com/landing-video

Helped me get a good idea of what to expect... all about speed control ;o)

As Toto noted: what areas are you having trouble with?

-Don

[Jsno]

I am 60 and a low time pilot.  I just bought an M20F.  I flew it back cross country with an instructor from where I bought it.  It totaled 15 hrs flight time and ten take offs and landings.  That is what my insurance wanted.  All the rest of my time has been in Cessnas.  The difference is a constant speed prop, fuel injection landing gear, flaps on take off and a low wing.  The Mooney also needs to stay a little faster in the pattern.  After the time with the instructor I feel very comfortable.

Just follow the checklist.  I check it on down leg, base and again on final.  It lands close to the same speed as a Skyhawk.  If you come in 5 to 10  fast, it will float.  And unlike a Cessna, on landing be sure to have in your mind to go around if you bounce.  The second bounce will be a prop strike.

When me and my instructor landed in Amarillo, the crosswinds were 30 and gusting.   Would not have been able to do that in my Cessna.

Just have a good instructor and rehearse the procedure in your head before take off and landing and you will be fine.

[Mooney in Oz]

Age is just a number. If you have the passion to fly a Mooney, when the time comes, get proper training from an experienced Mooney instructor and that will set you on the right path.

[JWJR]

So if the club will allow you …. Go sit in the left seat for little while. Get accustomed to the layout of everything. Get a copy of the POH online or elsewhere. Read it over and over again for a few evenings at home. Get with the club Mooney instructor and get started. I can’t speak for all but I doubt anyone would say the transition is difficult assuming you have the basics.


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[toto]

12 minutes ago, 40_Year_Dream said:

Haven't even touched the controls of the Mooney yet (other than just sitting in it on the ground), so there's nothing specific at this point. Really, just the overall impression of what all's going on with a fast complex bird (when compared to a 172)/

The instructor I'm working with (who I informed that the Mooney was my goal) recommended getting some time in the Cardinal first, to get used to dealing with the prop & cowl. I'm still working to master that.

The move to a low wing is a minor adjustment to the site picture on landing, but you’ll have it nailed after a few circuits. 

The Cardinal vs the Mooney .. if your goal is to fly the Mooney as your primary bird, I’d do the complex endorsement in the Mooney. No reason to introduce the Cardinal at all. 

Mooneys really aren’t hard to fly. Just fly the book numbers and you’ll be fine. Spend plenty of time with your instructor to gain confidence, and by the time you have your endorsement, the Mooney will feel like an old friend. You’ll forget all about model C

 

[tony]

Just don't forget to put the gear down and go have some fun.  Remember GUMPS and take an instructor,  You'll have a blast and probably not look back.  Life is short.

Edited October 27, 2021 by tony
spelling

[Ragsf15e]

The pattern and landing are where you’ll want to spend most of your training.  Well maybe practicing an appropriate descent from cruise as that is somewhat different than a cessna too.  However, the controls (gear, prop, cowl flaps, flaps) and speeds and responsiveness in the pattern are where you’ll focus your training.  Find an instructor who uses a checklist and religiously adheres to airspeeds, you’ll be better off than trying to “John Wayne” it which you can sort of get away with in a Cessna.  I doubt you’ll have a problem.  It’s just going to take a few hours to get comfortable.

[MikeOH]

I've flown a Cardinal just once, but I see no reason to keep flying it if what you want is to fly a Mooney!  It makes more sense to just get your complex sign-off in the Mooney.   As others have said, the real key is speed control on final; make sure you adjust for weight.

[ZuluZulu]

Wasn't this plane "on sale" for more than a year?  Personally I'd probably let other people fly it for a while before I tried it...

[40_Year_Dream]

I don't know a lot about the history of this particular plane, but it does look like it changed hands a few times. 3 club members / instructors flew it back from the East coast recently: several other members in the club have have flown it already, and there's been a few bugs to work out. So far, the biggest issue has been a prop overhaul for leaking seals. An ADS-B install is in the works.

The plan is to get my complex endorsement in the Mooney - the Cardinal is intended as a step on the way to that. (Gotta admit - those big doors do make it a  lot easier to get into the seats!)

[GeeBee]

Mooney pilots put their pants on just like you (and occasionally forget the zipper). You can master the Mooney, it is not a huge wall, just an obstacle you learn to climb over. The only question is how diligently will you apply yourself.

The first time I checked out in a transport jet, I wondered if I was "up to it". Then I remembered all the checkouts in light aircraft I did as an instructor with airline types who unimpressed me as pilots. I thought, "if those numbskulls can fly this airplane with paying passengers, so can I". 

So go for it!

[Wayne Cease]

The hardest part of the Mooney after of flying Cessnas will be getting in and out of it. That's not a big deal, but definitely different.

You will need learn to adjust the prop pitch and to _always_ put the gear down. Another item will be the speed. Depending upon how high up you are cruising you may be surprised at first on how far out you start a descent.

Just some adjustments.

If you want to travel a Mooney is a great option.



Wayne

[Rusty Pilot]

I made the transition a few years ago.  Not bad, make sure you manage your speed and GUMPS.  Once you fly the Mooney you wont go back to the Cessna.

[Hank]

28 minutes ago, Wayne Cease said:

You will need learn to adjust the prop pitch and to _always_ put the gear down. Another item will be the speed. Depending upon how high up you are cruising you may be surprised at first on how far out you start a descent.

Just some adjustments.

Most of us learned in Cessnas before getting a Mooney. It's only a little different--mostly airspeed control in the pattern and descent planning. Starting down > 50 nm from your destination took a little getting used to . . . .

[A64Pilot]

Being wary shows your intelligent. No one can learn much about anyone on the internet. Listen to your instructors they know you, your abilities etc as opposed to us internet folk.

There is no harm at all in being methodical and taking all the steps, shure some get away with skipping a few steps, and some land gear up too, or stall in the pattern and smite the Earth.

Not that my opinion is worth anymore than anyone else’s, but my opinion is that every different airframe you get to fly and get checked out in, you learn something and it’s often knowledge that’s usable in the next airframe.

it’s experience, gain as much experience as you can as you climb the ladder

Edited October 27, 2021 by A64Pilot

[KB4]

Get the checklist and sit in a chair and go through the checks and motions as if you are in the J.  Getting very familiar with the the checklist for each phase in advance will help prepare you and reduce any anxiety. After that it’s just speed control and recognition that Mooney’s love to fly, they don’t love to land. Keep your speed up in the pattern and always check the mechanical gear down indicator.  

[Yetti]

It took me about 90 hours to get good at the mooney.   You have to start somewhere.   Yes things happen faster,  but in the pattern you are going mostly the same speed.

[midlifeflyer]

15 hours ago, 40_Year_Dream said:

Given all that, getting to my personal goal of VFR proficiency in the club Mooney seems almost as big a challenge as passing my PP checkride. Am I making this out to be harder than it really is?

Yes. It's not really about the Mooney. You are a low time pilot with Cessna 172 experience making your first transition to a complex airplane. It doesn't matter if that first complex transition is to a Mooney or a relatively sluggish 172RG. Early transitions are more difficult than later ones. I've seen pilots struggle with the transition from a 172 to a 172RG or a Cherokee to an Arrow - and those are the easiest transitions around?

Can you remember when you first learned to drive? If like many, you did all your driver training in one make/model and it felt really weird the first time you drove something different. That's basically what's going on.

Think about the things that are different about the Mooney compared to what you have been flying. Constant speed prop and retractable gear. Low wing as opposed to high wing, so it's a whole different view. Faster so it's more difficult to stay ahead. Slicker, so it's not as easy to slow down and is less forgiving of poor approach technique. That's not a high number of differences but they are big ones for a newish pilot.

So give yourself some time to get acclimated and don't be so hard on yourself.

[philip_g]

That's a nice J. 1994. Reg still shows it owned by air mods. I wonder what the history is.

[dzeleski]

Its just an airplane at the end of the day, and its certified to the same standards as a trainer. That being said I would finish your PPL in a trainer, reason being is that landing a mooney is difficult, and getting your PPL is also difficult. Do one thing at a time.

In a Mooney airspeed management is critical, nose down in a 172 and you descend, maybe pick up a few knots, in a Mooney you'll pick up 30+ knots and be at redline in a hurry. You cant force things to "work" if you mess up, you must plan ahead and correctly execute whatever you are doing. If you mess it up, just ask for time and space/go around and try again. Dont rush it, dont force it.

The laminar flow wing also has aggressive stall characteristics. Respecting that and not getting too slow is important, especially in a pattern.

[donkaye]

If rigged properly, the Mooney is a pretty docile airplane compared to the C150.  If the pitch/power relationship was taught properly, transitioning to a Mooney would not be difficult.  Unfortunately, from my experience with transitioning students, most instructors don't teach primary students this concept properly.  The  result is speed control is an issue with many people transitioning to the Mooney.  Once the easy method of speed control is mastered, flying the Mooney is no different than flying the more draggy airplanes.

Landings are an issue for most transitioning pilots, too, because of the simplistic landing gear structure.  To save weight and complexity Mooney went with shock disks.  This means that the transitioning pilot needs to really be able to control the rate of descent on touchdown.  This goes back to really understanding the pitch/power relationship and slope management, which, from my experience, is also not taught well by many primary instructors.  Without oleo struts to absorb the shock of a landing with too much vertical speed, the combination of too much forward speed and vertical descent rate will lead to a bounce from which many new students are not properly prepared to recover.

So the transitioning student must necessarily be trained to understand the pitch/power relationship so well that they can control their speed within a knot or two in combination with slope to maintain the descent rate necessary to touch down lightly on the mains.  The perfect landing occurs when the energy available for flying is dissipated at such a rate that it is just above zero as the mains touch down.

A good Mooney specific instructor will be able to provide this guidance to make for a fairly easy transition for most.  The attached document contains the secret to making good landings.

Precision Flying With Don Kaye 8-11 .pdf

[WaynePierce]

I am no expert, unlike a lot of the folks that have given answers here. But I was a lowish hour VFR only pilot that transitioned from a Cherokee, and I'm only a little older than you are :-) 

The hardest part for be was two fold, both of them in the landing phase. Proper speed control on the pattern and learning the sight picture on the flare. I'm still getting better but not mastered after about 50 hours in my  J. I have gotten much better at speed control and a little better on the flare and touch-down. I have also started to not trim all the way down but to trim to short final and once I've gotten the runway made and power to idle I use both hands to slow the decent in the flare and keep it just off the ground. This seems to be working better for me than trying to land with one hand. The Mooney is a breeze to fly and to get where you are going. One of the worst things about the Mooney is how hard to build time in it. Where your Cardinal or 172 will take you 3 hours to get there, the Mooney cuts that time considerably.

Have fun, learn well and you will love it.