Last Landing May Have Been my Best

[WaynePierce]

So I flew my Mooney, N5807T, over to 1T7 (Kestrel Airpark) for Jimmy to sell. I was fortunate that the wind was almost directly lined up with runway 12. Any of you that have flown in to or out of know the beauty of that runway. 12 is down hill and the top quarter is only slightly downhill then it drops rather dramatically for the rest of the way. 40 x 3000 I just barely missed the top of the runway then just let it float until it touched down. It was beautiful. I will miss this time machine, but whoever gets it will be getting a great Instrument platform. 2 GI 275s, Avidyne IFD 550 and audio panel, and the latest installation is a GFC 500. It flies so much better than I am capable of... :-)

We were going to retire to the Mountains of either East Tennessee or North Carolina but there are no hangars available and I can't afford to live in one of the fly in communities in the area so we made the decision to buy a Condo on the Ocean and get a 38 - 42 foot SLOW sailboat, currently looking at Cabo Rico's if you're in to that sort of thing. I'm going to miss the time machine that is flying, but especially Mooney flying.

Adieu

[slowflyin]

Enjoy the next chapter!

[WaynePierce]

1 minute ago, slowflyin said:

Enjoy the next chapter!

That's what my wife and I said, last night after my Commercial flight from San Antonio to Memphis, via Charlotte got me home after midnight!

[slowflyin]

I'm sure your attitude will improve at sunset on your new sailboat!

[gmonnig]

2 hours ago, WaynePierce said:

So I flew my Mooney, N5807T, over to 1T7 (Kestrel Airpark) for Jimmy to sell. I was fortunate that the wind was almost directly lined up with runway 12. Any of you that have flown in to or out of know the beauty of that runway. 12 is down hill and the top quarter is only slightly downhill then it drops rather dramatically for the rest of the way. 40 x 3000 I just barely missed the top of the runway then just let it float until it touched down. It was beautiful. I will miss this time machine, but whoever gets it will be getting a great Instrument platform. 2 GI 275s, Avidyne IFD 550 and audio panel, and the latest installation is a GFC 500. It flies so much better than I am capable of... :-)

We were going to retire to the Mountains of either East Tennessee or North Carolina but there are no hangars available and I can't afford to live in one of the fly in communities in the area so we made the decision to buy a Condo on the Ocean and get a 38 - 42 foot SLOW sailboat, currently looking at Cabo Rico's if you're in to that sort of thing. I'm going to miss the time machine that is flying, but especially Mooney flying.

Adieu

Sounds like a great retirement plan! My wife and I plan on retiring on a sailboat and not having a land house for 5-10yrs. It's going to be so hard to hang up flying and sell the plane. But letting my plane rot in a hangar while I sail the globe would be horrible too. Good luck and enjoy the slow life!

[Danb]

Enjoy retirement have as much fun as available our time goes fast.

[KSMooniac]

Congrats & condolences!  I saw Jimmy's ad and recognized your tail # and name from here, even though we've never met.  Tough choice to give her up in retirement, but understandable!  

Were there any difficulties integrating the Avidyne with the Garmin 275's and GFC-500?  I think your's is the first I've seen and I'm interested as an existing 530/430 owner still waffling on panel upgrades.

[WaynePierce]

1 hour ago, KSMooniac said:

Congrats & condolences!  I saw Jimmy's ad and recognized your tail # and name from here, even though we've never met.  Tough choice to give her up in retirement, but understandable!  

Were there any difficulties integrating the Avidyne with the Garmin 275's and GFC-500?  I think your's is the first I've seen and I'm interested as an existing 530/430 owner still waffling on panel upgrades.

The Avidyne works flawlessly with the 275s and the 500, but I bought the Avidyne because I hate the monopoly that Garmin has and wanted to break free. Then a few years later I got the 275s and the 500 (I kept the 430W as a back up Nav and Comm) in hindsight, if I knew I was going to drink the Kool-Aide I would have probably gone with a Garmin Navigator to reap the full benefit of the Approach function in the 500.

[KSMooniac]

Thanks.  We share that opinion re: monopoly!  I sure wish Avidyne would have finished their DFC90 autopilot system... it sounded wonderful and was ahead of Garmin at the time.  I thought it would make a ton of sense for them to finish that, and partner or merge with Aspen for PFD/MFD synergy and make their own full system.  Oh well.  Maybe Dynon will finish the Mooney autopilot this year and announce at OSH?  That would be wonderful.