David M20J Posted March 21, 2022 Report Posted March 21, 2022 I did a little looking around the forums and it seems they are either hard to find or not worth the time. I recently purchased my Mooney and it only has the left brakes. I was wondering what people thought about having dual brakes vs only left side. I would like to install brake pedals on the right side at some point, but even google has been having a hard time finding a kit. Thanks Quote
carusoam Posted March 21, 2022 Report Posted March 21, 2022 14 minutes ago, David M20J said: I did a little looking around the forums and it seems they are either hard to find or not worth the time. I recently purchased my Mooney and it only has the left brakes. I was wondering what people thought about having dual brakes vs only left side. I would like to install brake pedals on the right side at some point, but even google has been having a hard time finding a kit. Thanks I have them in my plane… I don’t think they ever got used… at least not yet… Once you have the skill to use the brakes… You won’t ever need a flight instructor to do it for you… Right side brakes are really important as a CFI training low time pilots, where the CFI sits right seat… and the student has no proven experience with rudder pedals and braking under changing conditions… Are you a CFI? Do you intend to train low time students in your plane from the right seat? Using this logic, you can see why so few Mooneys in the field got the extra weight / hardware… Every now and then… somebody is looking to find and install them… find those threads and see why they want to do that… There are some husband and wife teams around here that like sharing the full flying duties from both sides of the aisle… Call them the lucky ones… Best regards, -a- Quote
carusoam Posted March 21, 2022 Report Posted March 21, 2022 23 minutes ago, David M20J said: I did a little looking around the forums and it seems they are either hard to find or not worth the time. I recently purchased my Mooney and it only has the left brakes. I was wondering what people thought about having dual brakes vs only left side. I would like to install brake pedals on the right side at some point, but even google has been having a hard time finding a kit. Thanks how hard is it looking up copilot brakes and Mooneys at MooneySpace? (Probably hard, but it’s around here somewhere…) The maintenance and parts manuals detail all of the parts… and most of the procedures involved… I have them in my plane… I don’t think they ever got used… at least not yet… Once you have the skill to use the brakes… You won’t ever need a flight instructor to do it for you… Right side brakes are really important as a CFI training low time pilots, where the CFI sits right seat… and the student has no proven experience with rudder pedals and braking under changing conditions… Are you a CFI? Do you intend to train low time students in your plane from the right seat? Using this logic, you can see why so few Mooneys in the field got the extra weight / hardware… Every now and then… somebody is looking to find and install them… find those threads and see why they want to do that… There are some husband and wife teams around here that like sharing the full flying duties from both sides of the aisle… Call them the lucky ones… Best regards, -a- Quote
Vance Harral Posted March 21, 2022 Report Posted March 21, 2022 Having flown and given instruction in several Mooneys with no right side brakes over the past 15-ish years, I'd say the use cases for them are pretty thin. Not having them prevents soloing from the right seat. But soloing from the right seat of a side-by-side aircraft vs. left seat is not particularly interesting or noteworthy. A nervous, green instructor might balk at giving you instruction in your airplane if it has no right side brakes. But you don't want that kind of instructor anyway. It's a little more interesting that a lack of right-side brakes prevents you - if you are a CFI - from putting a completely green first-timer with no concept of toe brake usage in the left seat. Almost no one is using a Mooney as a primary trainer, so that's largely irrelevant. But I have given a couple of "discovery flights" to prospective pilots in my Mooney, where I would have put them in the left seat if my airplane had right side brakes. Instead, they sat in the right seat. I seriously doubt this had any significant impact on their discovery flight experience, though. Those that enjoyed it and wanted to start training moved into the left seat of a Cessna, and those that didn't, didn't. I've heard there are DPEs out there who will refuse to conduct a practical test in an airplane with no right side brakes, so it's possible a lack of right-side brakes could cause you some hassle taking an instrument/commercial/whatever check ride. Dual brakes are not required for practical tests, and most DPEs don't care, but it's their privilege to decline to conduct a test for any reason, and apparently some do. But as with the green CFI, if I was trying to use a DPE for a practical test and found they wanted to decline due to no right seat brakes, I wouldn't want to conduct the check ride with them anyway. In summary, I'd say you can generally trust the market here. The reason there are so many Mooneys with no right side brakes is that it's just not an issue. If you've got two pilot-rated passengers in the front seats, and the right-seater is flying, they can just ask the left seater to apply brakes under the limited set of circumstances where that's actually necessary. 2 Quote
David M20J Posted March 21, 2022 Author Report Posted March 21, 2022 Thank you very much for the insight. I did not think about the weight the WHOLE kit would add. I have no plans or desire to have low time/student pilots training in it, however I do plan to fly a lot with my girlfriend. The idea was to teach her enough that in case something were to happen to me she would be able to put the aircraft on the ground, but i guess if we are to that point letting it run off the end of the runway is probably the least of my worries. I am seeing a lot of Mooney's without RH brakes so finding the right DPE makes sense. On the topic of DPEs, I'm a Helicopter CFII and I'm planning on using my Mooney for Instrument add-on, but was debating on renting a 172 again for my Commercial add-on for the maneuvers and checkride. How easy/difficult would commercial maneuvers be in a M20J? Quote
Vance Harral Posted March 21, 2022 Report Posted March 21, 2022 The standard "pinch hitter" advice if you're incapacitated in flight would be to teach your girlfriend to pull the mixture to idle cutoff once on the ground. If she happens to be skilled and/or lucky enough to actually be rolling down the centerline, the airplane will coast to a stop with no brakes on almost any reasonable length runway. If she's not rolling down the centerline - which to be frank is the much more likely case - the brakes won't matter, and it's more critical to shut down the engine anyway. Also, don't rent a Cessna for commercial maneuvers. An M20J is a great platform for every commercial maneuver in the ACS. I can understand why renters might want to minimize time in a complex aircraft for commercial training just because of the expense. But if you already own the airplane, it's a no-brainer to just use it. 1 Quote
carusoam Posted March 22, 2022 Report Posted March 22, 2022 +1 for pinch hitter course… You are done flying… she lands it GU and all is good…. Nothing beats the stopping distance of aluminum against the pavement… Best regards, -a- Quote
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