Thinking about buying a Mooney

Thanks Bob for the awesome write-up !! The plane is in for an annual
right now... I'll get to go up in her in a week or so... Thanks again !!
JK

Bob Miller wrote:
I've got about 200 hrs in PA28s and PA32s as well as a few hundred in
various Cessna products. I have owned an M20C modified to near-M20J
config for about 3 years and fly it 250 hrs/yr primarily for business.
I have also flown M20J, K and S.

- All M20's have relatively trouble free gear. The manual ones in
particular need looking at once per year and to be greased. Other
than that, no more problem than a fixed gear bird. Overall an early
Mooney, well kept is a very low cost maintenance bird.
- (Potential) weak points are original fuel tanks, corrosion of the
steel structure. There are very few recurring AD's.
- The M20 has the same cabin width as your PA28 and Beech. The Beech
gives you a perception of room due to the volume behind the
windscreen, which the Mooney does not. It is definitely smaller than
your PA32.
- For the life of me, I can't figure out the comments about the Mooney
being light in roll. AvConsumer's guide: "soggy ailerons". The plane
does not roll well. This makes it ideal as an IFR platform (partial
panel is cake) but poor in a flat scissors.....! However, you only
need a little throw on the control yoke to get full aileron
deflection.
- The flight control linkages are hands down better than cables. Fly
an M20 for a couple hundred hours then take a PA32 up. For a second
you might have an irrational fear that the controls are disconnected.
- Also don't know where the "high fuel consumption" comment comes
from. O360, IO360, TSIO360, IO550, TIO540 will burn the same
regardless of airframe. If you compare to an O235 or O320, of course
it will burn more!
- To say it's a whole different game than a PA28. We Mooney pilots
would like you to believe that. It goes about 15-25 kt faster in
cruise on the same HP. Look at the cross sections and the wing
construction and you'll see why. Other than that, they're not that
different.
- With a Vso down around 49 kias, the early (lighter) M20's will take
off and land short. Using a little brake I can typically get the
first turnoff at my homefield at about 700 ft. Again, you can call it
pilot skills if you want.
- the type club comraderie is a big plus, especially WRT maintenance
tips (www.aviating.com) There are several Mooney events each month
(Georgia, southwest, upper midwest) to choose from, active mailing
list, stuck pilot's list, etc. etc.
- There is a wide socioeconomic spectrum of people who own Mooneys,
which is neat. From us poor souls with the early ones to lawyers,
doctors, CEOs and DINKs with the later Ovations and Bravos.
- Safety wise the M20 has a long glide range, a strong structure, and
a steel cage around the cabin. Do some searches in the NTSB.gov on
inflight breakups in the M20! Really nice to know when you're going
over the mountains and hit some bumpies.
- Low gear door comment is more applicable to M20J and later which
have an extra set of doors. Earlier M20 gear doors don't stick down
much more than a PA28.
- My M20C stalls like a PA28, that is I can honk back the yoke and use
the rudders to hold it level.
- Because you sit on the floor, the visibility over the panel could be
better. It's a poor a/c to teach your kids to fly for that reason.
- There is more myth than reality to the hard-to-land stories. Look
out for speed control on final (fast in ground effect will eat up lots
of runway) and keep that back pressure in! Start on a long runway and
you'll be fine. But...any plane has its issues. The PA32's is that
if you come in on-speed and pull power to idle you can setup some
(relatively) hellacious sink rate. Choose your poison.
......beautiful airplane.

Huh ? A 'C' model Mooney is wider inside the cabin than a Cherokee 140
and identical in width to a Bonanza. The cabin isn't as tall as others,
but that's wasted space (and efficiency). A 'C' model Mooney sells for
the same as a Cherokee 180 of similar vintage. You don't have to be rich
or tiny to fly a Mooney.

The E that I flew had plenty of room in the shoulders...and even plenty of height
(I'm a long legged 6'1), but the place my legs go was awfully tight (rubbing uncofortably
against the center console). Actually, on the way out to OSH, I rode several hours in
the back seat along with the pilot's flight bag and some other miscellany. Not the
worst back seat I've ever been in.

Of course, the real speed comes with the J or later models.

Thomas Borchert wrote:

but I wouldn't be comfortable if it were a necessity rather than just a
convenience.

FWIW, a two-axis autopilot is required for single-pilot IFR in Germany.

How practical is flying in Germany? For example, if you were in Munich and
had a business meeting in Hamburg, would flying yourself *ever* make more
sense than driving or taking the InterCity train? From the regulations
I've seen and heard about, the legislators in EU countries seem to view
private aviation as strictly recreational, like driving speedboats in the
Mediterranean or snowboarding in the Alps, and thus have little to hold them
back from over-regulating it.

I'm not suggesting that aviation is the cheapest way to get around but it's
often practical in North America, especially outside of icing season -- even
in my Warrior, a 500-1,000 km trip is much faster by plane than driving, and
often, it's faster than flying commercial (especially if I would have to
change planes in a busy hub) and much cheaper than four round-trip airline
tickets. Since my plane burns 30 liters/hour (8 gph), the cost of gas is
only marginally higher than driving my minivan the same distance, though
engine and maintenance reserve is worse for a plane than a car. We have
lots of airports, many without landing fees, and pay no per-flight fees for
air traffic control use (Canadian small aircraft owners pay about USD
45/year fixed cost for Nav Canada service, a bit like a tax, but have
unlimited access to the system VFR or IFR; the Americans pay only through
fuel taxes). Most FBOs will give you one free night parking with a top-up,
and some don't charge for parking at all: when they do, the cost is
typically USD 10-15/night -- when I flew to a conference in Philadelphia
last December, I paid USD 10.00 less in total to park my plane at
Philadelphia International Airport for five days than I would have paid to
park a car at my hotel downtown.

If European citizens did start to see private aviation as practical, maybe
the attitudes at Brussels and the various national capitals might start to
change. Right now, Western Europe is small and compact with excellent rail
service and cheap discount commercial flights between major cities, but what
will happen when Turkey, the Ukraine, and Russia become more integrated with
Western Europe? There won't be cheap commercial flights to every town where
people might want to do business, and the distances will suddenly be too
large for efficient rail travel. Perhaps things will improve over there
before too long. We'll keep our fingers crossed for you.


All the best,


David

Ron Natalie wrote:

The E that I flew had plenty of room in the shoulders...and even plenty of height
(I'm a long legged 6'1), but the place my legs go was awfully tight (rubbing uncofortably
against the center console).

Yeah, that happens to me, too, at 6'0". I pull the seat up to the third hole in
the seat rails in order to be able to push the rudders to full travel, but that
means my knees are bent when I'm not pushing the rudder, and that means my right
knee rubs against the center console. I wish they'd put a radius on that corner
of the console so it wouldn't be so sharp.

Actually, on the way out to OSH, I rode several hours in
the back seat along with the pilot's flight bag and some other miscellany. Not the
worst back seat I've ever been in.

Yes, as someone else pointed out, the seat rails have a lot of travel. When my
pilot's seat is pulled up as described above, there's no shortage of back seat
legroom, at least by GA standards.


Of course, the real speed comes with the J or later models.


A lot of the J features can be retrofitted to the earlier models, if you're
willing to pay for it. Of course, you'll still have a pre-J when it comes to
resale, and you will have paid as much as if you'd just bought a J.

Thomas Borchert wrote:

Basically, it is nowhere near as practical as in the US. You haven't
even mentioned IFR time slots for ALL IFR traffic, enroute fees for IFR
traffic with an MTOW of 2 metric tons and above, the requirement to
have an "official observer" present at even the tiniest airfield for it
to be open/usable, landing fees and fuel cost.

Are those just IFR arrival slots, or IFR enroute slots as well?

But still, GA flying is practical and usable for some pilots -
especially if you don't want to go between the major hubs (like Hamburg
and Munich) but rather into the less populated areas of Eastern Germany
and Poland. Many midsize companies have production facilities there and
use GA to get to them.

That makes sense. As I mentioned in my earlier posting, I'd expect to see
much more of that as the EU and its economic influence moves eastward into
the former Soviet Union itself.


All the best,


David

Al,

Well, there was up and back with almost exactly the same results.
Does that count?

No ;-) If instead you would have switched and operated each others plane
with the same engine/mixture management you use in your own: maybe.
Determining the efficency of an airplane needs time and skill if done right.

Best Regards

Kai

David,

Are those just IFR arrival slots, or IFR enroute slots as well?


Both. And in lower airspace, where there is virtually nothing going on.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Wow! Since I haven't the slightest idea why that would matter, you
need to explain to me why this should be done in this, a very
unscientific and casual comparison.

I did go back and check the data, the trip was 544NM. So I guess I'll
restate that I was throttled waaaaaay back so as not to run ahead of
the Mooney, he was firewall forward to keep up with me and on both
legs I burned about 10 gallons less than he. He has the 200 hp engine
and I the 250 hp engine. Extrapolating the memory, it took me about
$25 less in fuel to make each trip than it did he. I probably could
have used the same fuel and arrived about an hour before, so the
potential owner needs to check his mission profile before making any
decision. But for $45K, I would look hard at that Mooney.

Al

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:18:38 +0200, "Kai Glaesner"
wrote:

Al,

Well, there was up and back with almost exactly the same results.
Does that count?

No ;-) If instead you would have switched and operated each others plane
with the same engine/mixture management you use in your own: maybe.
Determining the efficency of an airplane needs time and skill if done right.

Best Regards

Kai

What other plane does 160 knots on
10gal/hr?

Not the Mooney C model unless there is a good tailwind and running 2300 RPM.

A wood wing could be a disaster and you'd be foolish
to buy a Mooney with one.

I was thinking about a wooden wing mooney for fish spotting. Saw one floating
in a magazine article.