Looking for RH brake pedals '77 M20J

[David M20J]

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

[carusoam]

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-

[carusoam]

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-

[Vance Harral]

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.

 

[David M20J]

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?

[Vance Harral]

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.

[carusoam]

+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-

[Kent]

On 3/21/2022 at 12:28 AM, Vance Harral said:

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.

Hi, Vance!  I have recently come across someone that wants to be in your "almost" category. :⁠-⁠D Have you ever trained a zero-timer in a J with only LH brakes?  How about someone that soloed in something else and then finished their Private in a J?  I am extremely disinclined to train someone in this situation for all of the obvious reasons, but if you have experience working with your "almost no one" category, I'd be very interested in how you went about that and why you did what you did.  Thank you, sir! 

[Aerodon]

On 3/20/2022 at 9:36 PM, 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 a complete set for you, send me a pm.  Pedals, links, master cylinders, tubes to crossover to other side.  It does not look too difficult to install, but you will need to remove the belly panels and front 'tunnels' to gain access to the pedals and pipework.

I think there was a version that had valves between the pilot / co-pilot side and that made life difficult to bleed the brakes properly.  My set is out of a later model, with no valves.

Aerodon

 

[Vance Harral]

51 minutes ago, Kent said:

Have you ever trained a zero-timer in a J with only LH brakes?

No, that's something I just wouldn't do - too much risk.  In my case, it's easy to avoid that risk because I have instruction privileges at a local flight school.  I can take anyone who is a truly green newbie over to the flight school and put them in the left seat of a 172, which is frankly a better Discovery Flight platform anyway.  Over the course of a few flights at the flight school, I might build enough trust with them to get into a different airplane with only one set of brakes.  But there is a lot more to that conversation than just the brakes, see below.

 

54 minutes ago, Kent said:

How about someone that soloed in something else and then finished their Private in a J?

This is a little awkwardly worded, not sure what you're asking here.

I wouldn't hesitate to give instruction in a non-dual-brake Mooney to someone who already held a Private Pilot license.  At that point it's reasonable to assume basic competency with the brakes, along with an understanding of the (rare) conditions under which they're needed.  It's just transition training, a very common and reasonable operation.

If you're talking about a student who is a post-solo but pre-private pilot, transitioning to a Mooney for the remainder of their training, whether or not the Mooney had dual brakes is the least interesting question about such a proposition.

I'm not a naysayer about this sort of thing.  One can absolutely train for the Private Pilot certificate in a Mooney, and in fact I'm familiar with a person who successfully earned his Private Pilot certificate in a turbo Mooney.  But I declined to be involved with that operation for a couple of reasons.  One is that it predictably took them a very long time to finish, working in fits and starts.  It wound up being a multi-year effort, and to be honest that just didn't sound like any fun to me.  More importantly, this person did all their training "naked", because they couldn't find anyone to insure the operation of a turbo Mooney by a student pilot.  Even though I carry my own liability insurance for instruction in owner-flown aircraft, the details and dollar amounts just got too far above my comfort level, so I recommended they seek out someone else.  Which they did.  Another instructor I knew casually took on the training gig, and succeeded.  Based on observing their success over time, I did agree to give the student a single "mock check ride" right before their practical test.  But at that point, whether the aircraft had dual brakes (I don't even remember at this point) was irrelevant.

A J model is less complicated than a K, and perhaps more reasonable for primary training.  But I have no idea what the current insurance market looks like for that sort of thing.  And whether I would take on such a gig would depend more on the person than on the airplane.  In addition to physical and financial risk, I care about the likelihood of success, and whether it's going to be any fun for both of us; and training in an airplane that's not a trainer weighs on those goals to some degree, even if you think Mooneys are cool.  I think people who point out in these sorts of threads that the military solos people in an 1100shp complex turbines, inappropriately gloss over the fact that doing so is a full time job for both instructor and student.  Most civilian aircraft training is a weekend/afternoon hobby, and it doesn't take much additional overhead to make the hill of success too high to climb.

[kortopates]

Its also a really big challenge to find a DPE that will give a practical in any Mooney without Dual Brakes - even at the commercial level. The ones I know won't for a private, but they will in a Piper that has the parking brake lever they can pull from the right seat but of course the Mooney doesn't have this. Was hard to find one that would do the commercial without dual brakes, but more possible than private.

[FLYFST]

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

The M20J Advanced Training System (M20J-ATS) has RH brakes. Try searching for that. If you wish I can post the relevant pages from the IPC that will show the parts involved. You might try contacting Mooney Technical Support to ask if there was/is a kit available to install RH brakes when not originally in the airplane.


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