I fly a Mooney too and carrying too much speed to the pavement always
ends up with you getting to record several landings. The hockey pucks
that Mooney uses for the shock absorbers are pretty unforgiving when it
comes to too much airspeed. The landing gear basically consists of a
couple pieces of steel with some hockey pucks in the middle for
cushioning. :-)

OK.. Here is my story... New Mooney pilot going to a fly-in lunch at
KBAK (Columbus, Indiana). Can't remember it is was the first time that
my wife flew in the Mooney or not but she hadn't been up in it too many
times. BAK is a nice class Delta field with intersecting runways.

I was unfamiliar with the field and the airplane and ended up over the
field a little disoriented as to which runway I was to land on. Once I
figured it out I had to be quick about getting slowed down so I could
drop the gear. Slowing down a Mooney takes being ahead of the plane,
which of course, I wasn't.

My goal was to show my wife how nice and smooth landing our new
low-winger was but I was 20 mph too fast on short final. Of course I
tried to force it on to the runway causing what could only be described
as a pogo-stick with wings trying to stay planted on the runway.

My inexperience in the plane actually caused me to be suprised that we
were now 10 feet off the ground again. No problem, I'll just flair now I
thought. I came down even harder than before and up we went again. I
finally occurred to me that at this point a touch of power may be in
order, so so in goes the throttle. This allowed me to arrest the
bouncing and set up for a proper flair and landing. We rolled to a stop
and I sheepishly walked to the resturant.

I'm quite sure that all the folks in the Tower were having a good laugh
at my expense. I did however log it as 1 T/O and 3 landings. :-)

On the return flight we needed to traverse Indianapolis International's
class Charley. No big deal and we were cleared. What I didn't know
what that my wife had her headset turned down so much that she couldn
hear the controller calling out traffic. As we passed the runway 23
arrival corridor I heard "Mooney 4443Hotel, traffic 3:00 o'clock, 3
miles, westbound a Boeing 757". I looked to my right and there it was
heading staight for us. I called to the controller "Indy Approach,
Mooney 4443Hotel has the traffic". Just then I saw the look of terror on
my wifes face. She had not been able to hear my exchange with the
controller and was a "little concerned" about what she was seeing out
her window. :-)

Needless to say we made it back home and landed uneventfully (using the
proper airspeed of course).

Lessons learned:
Airspeed is important for landing safely
Make sure that the wife knows how to work her headset volume

Jon Kraus
'79 Mooney 201
4443H @ TYQ

Tony wrote:

'Fess up' time. We were having a hanger session a while ago, talking
about firm landings. My worst was going into an airport near Urbana IL
(not sure of the spelling, this was back in the early 80s so it made an
impression on me.)

There was a cross wind from the left, and for some reason I I decided
to land close to the numbers. Turns out there was a big barn not far
from the runway threshold, and it really messed up the airflow right at
the runway. I fly a Mooney, and don't like to carry a lot of airspeed
into the flare.

The wind went from a headwind component of 5 or 8 knots to a tailwind
right at the start of the flare and the airplane quit flying a couple
of feet off the runway. I thought the gear would come through the
wings!

Turns out nothing was damaged, and the locals said they did like to
watch transient pilots deal with that problem.

I had to return there later that day, landed a lot longer on the
runway, and carried a few more knots of airspeed as well.

I learned a lesson most of you probably already know. If there's a
crosswind and there's any kind of obstruction to the windward side of
the runway, take special care.

That's my story (and I'm sticking to that excuse!). What's your's, and
what were the lessons learned?