Got my Mooney back finally!

Salty

Salty

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Salty
As of today 79396 is back home. She’s a little worse for wear, but she’s home.

I have some interesting pictures that show just how badly damaged she was, and how that steel frame saved my life, will post them later.

Turns out, the Faa DID run the engine on the airframe, no ntsb presence about 6 months ago. It apparently ran fine, so we’re still left with fuel starvation or carb ice.

4ACB406F-8B99-4CA6-9314-306A445CFCE3.jpeg 3966E369-6114-4085-8526-EDE99D2846F9.jpeg
 
Wow I really expected it to look worse; I'll be interested to see more pictures. Did you buy it back?
 
Lots of good parts left on that plane, so should do decent as a part out.

A comment on the article said your wife had head injuries. How is she doing?
 
She had a headache and the ER freaked out when they heard “airplane crash” and in turn got her scared. She didn’t even hit her head, and other than a first layer of skin scratch that didn’t even draw blood, and some bruising from not having her seatbelt on tight and low, she was fine. They life flighted her to Tampa general and kept her overnight, saw nothing, and released her the next morning. They made 50 or 60k out of it though.

I had some bruised ribs and it hurt like hell to laugh or cough for a day or two, and a little “rope burn” on my arm that was pinned.

Wait til you see the damage to the frame…..
 
I don't mean to be insulting or disparaging in any way. @Salty, Im pretty certain you experienced a fuel unporting incident. If you haven't enough fuel it can slosh to the end the wing tank and unport from the fuel line. I would have never thought of this myself had it not happened to you, and I now mention this to new Mooney owners. A shame your airplane can't be brought back, but hopefully it will serve the fleet for years to come in the form of spare parts. I'm glad the Mooney protected you and yours. Mine goes back up for sale this Spring, I will miss it more than words can say.
 
@Salty I'm happy to hear that you and your wife are doing well. Sorry Mooney will not fly again.. :( Take care
 
steingar said:
I don't mean to be insulting or disparaging in any way. @Salty, Im pretty certain you experienced a fuel unporting incident. If you haven't enough fuel it can slosh to the end the wing tank and unport from the fuel line. I would have never thought of this myself had it not happened to you, and I now mention this to new Mooney owners. A shame your airplane can't be brought back, but hopefully it will serve the fleet for years to come in the form of spare parts. I'm glad the Mooney protected you and yours. Mine goes back up for sale this Spring, I will miss it more than words can say.
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No insult taken. Refreshingly, I do not disagree with you at all. :)

I have my doubts still, but I cannot argue that it is the most likely cause.

It will be mildly interesting to see what NTSB says about it.
 
steingar said:
Mine goes back up for sale this Spring, I will miss it more than words can say.
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I'm in the same boat, I'm putting my Baby Beech Sport up for sale. Going to do a good annual this spring, hopefully fly a bit this summer and sell in the fall.

I figure I have had a good run, owned it since 1996 flown it from coast to coast. With the loss of my wife in December 2022 and the loss of vision in my right eye in 2020 I figure it's time to hang the wings up. I'm going to miss stopping by friends hangars to BS, I'll loose my security GA badge when after the plane is sold..:(
 
For those that don't understand, the Mooney wing is one piece, tip to tip. So that fact that this one is now two pieces is why it is not repairable.
 
Pinecone said:
For those that don't understand, the Mooney wing is one piece, tip to tip. So that fact that this one is now two pieces is why it is not repairable.
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The frame has significant damage. In fact, I’d say that was a far worse issue than the wing damage, and why they chopped it up. Unfortunately, they destroyed a lot of good parts in taking off the wing the way they did.
 
Salty said:
Interesting fact. Aircraft aluminum doesn’t get as much as cans do, due to the alloy used.
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Sorry to see that Salty. Glad you were ok. What's the plan? Did you or are going to get another plane? Did insurance take care of you?
 
Got the insurance payout and replacement plane back in March of last year.
 
AKBill said:
I'm going to miss stopping by friends hangars to BS, I'll loose my security GA badge when after the plane is sold..:(
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Have the authorities make you an emeritus badge. You’ve earned it.
 
so how does that work…I thought when insurance pays out, they own the plane….did u buy it back from them?
 
steingar said:
I don't mean to be insulting or disparaging in any way. @Salty, Im pretty certain you experienced a fuel unporting incident. If you haven't enough fuel it can slosh to the end the wing tank and unport from the fuel line. I would have never thought of this myself had it not happened to you, and I now mention this to new Mooney owners. A shame your airplane can't be brought back, but hopefully it will serve the fleet for years to come in the form of spare parts. I'm glad the Mooney protected you and yours. Mine goes back up for sale this Spring, I will miss it more than words can say.
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This got me thinking... If you're at all close, should you choose right main for left traffic and vice versa? The tip tank Cherokee calls for takeoffs and landings to be done on mains due to unporting.
 
Racerx said:
This got me thinking... If you're at all close, should you choose right main for left traffic and vice versa? The tip tank Cherokee calls for takeoffs and landings to be done on mains due to unporting.
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If flying coordinated, it won’t matter.

If flying randomly uncoordinated, you can still mess it up regardless of traffic direction.

If flying intentionally uncoordinated, you can choose to unport or not.
 
ElPaso Pilot said:
If flying coordinated, it won’t matter.

If flying randomly uncoordinated, you can still mess it up regardless of traffic direction.

If flying intentionally uncoordinated, you can choose to unport or not.
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If an engine fails due to a non perfect pilot, we are in trouble.
 
Kritchlow said:
If an engine fails due to a non perfect pilot, we are in trouble.
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Many planes can unport a fuel tank during uncoordinated flight. Slips are a common technique during a landing. It wouldn’t be too unusual to have fuel starvation with a low tank in that situation.
 
Kritchlow said:
If an engine fails due to a non perfect pilot, we are in trouble.
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Just explaining the physics.

If folks assume that right traffic vs. left traffic is going to have any effect on saving the day with low fuel, they are in trouble.
 
Half Fast said:
Many planes can unport a fuel tank during uncoordinated flight. Slips are a common technique during a landing. It wouldn’t be too unusual to have fuel starvation with a low tank in that situation.
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That is good information to have. That is a concept that was never even broached by any of my instructors when I was in training at any point.

Being able to learn a lesson from somebody who was able to "walk away" is great.
 
Fwiw, I took it to mean a rhetorical utterance that seeks to draw attention to the fact we accept things like crashing because of a carburetor or lack of collector/motive tanks in 2023, where the public would bring out the pitchforks if airliners or even autos were held to the same technological limitations (by cost imposition proxy). But that's my inference.

To be clear, it's a money and lawyerese issue, we're not talking about Orion capsule mission sets here. Lawnmowers with airfoils and a set of seatbelts. This stuff is gratuitously more expensive than it has to be. But whatever, it'll never change so play or don't play are the Hobson choices here. Glad to have the OP alive and flying, that's what matters.
 
Ok, as promised, the images of the frame damage.

This is the right side where the wing should be attached to the fuse. Note the frame highlighted in yellow meeting the vertical frame member, and continuing aft (to the left). This is what it should look like.

IMG_1173.jpg

This is the same part of the aircraft on the left side. The weld was broken, and the two pieces of steel frame that should be following the yellow lines are bent 6" inboard. This was all protected by the bottom of the wing. My seat had collapsed and my left hip was resting on this frame when we came to a stop.

IMG_1174.jpg

A couple more pics of the bent frame

IMG_1176.png
IMG_1177.png
 
Yeah. That’s gonna take a lot of buffing…
 
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