Ed Guthrie said:
Moxie, you're a Mooney owner, aren't you? Don't you hear the usual collection of Mooney misnomers?:
Can't operate off anything but paved, perfect runways.
Small cabin; no head room and/or no leg room and/or no shoulder room.
Impossible to land.
Vicious stall characteristics.
No load hauling capability.
Can't land in short fields.
Yada yada.
I spent last evening talking Mooney capability with a bunch of non-Mooney owner/pilots, hearing most of the above and several more. After that session I wandered home to read the same misnomers here. Good for a laugh at least.
I have a ~300 hour private pilot right now, zero complex time, transitioning into his new (to him), very well equipped, '87 M20J. By the second landing he had become convinced to fly pitch for airspeed, power to hit the aim point, and to nail 71 kts down final -- IOW he had whipped the Cessna/Piper pilot bad habit of letting the nose tuck under when high and counting on the broadside 4x8 plywood sheet aerodynamic characteristics to cover for less than stellar technique. Third landing and he was landing on the numbers and turning off inside 1500'. How many folks believe significantly less than 2000' is a normal landing distance for a Mooney?
The good news is that another Mooney fanatic was born.
Flying the airplane is a piece of cake. I transitioned into my mine with only 28 hours in the log. For the most part, very forgiving of bad landings, thankfully
I get nervous even taxiing off the hard surface onto the grass...only takes once to ruin your day and I ended up with a nice nik in the prop the last time I did that. The structure is designed for the wings to hold the fuse in the bumps, not the other way around. Does that make a difference? Not sure, but I dont like betting alot of money on what I'm not sure of. As for stalls, well, mine stalls and recovers nicely but I have a buddy who spun his J model. He was not pleased with the result. He was uncoordinated when he stalled and he said it just whipped over on its back. Thats all I need to hear to know enough not to do it. I live in Mooney country up here. There's more Mooneys here than in Kerrville by a large margin. The fbo's been sellin' Mooneys since they were available and the owner says that if you let a spin develop, after 4 or 5 turns the plane will flatten out and result in the disruption of the air flow over the tail surface. Recovery after that is problematic. When it comes to flying that airplane, I trust his judgement without question.
I let the nose touch down first once....only once
At Stinson actually. I didtn push forward on the stick because I wasn runnin' outa runway or anything like that, just tired and wore out from the heat and lotsa stop and goes and I let it settle ever so gently...then BANG!! The nose leaped into the air like taking an over inflated basketball and slamming it on the runway as hard as you could. Got my attention. I held the yolk back because I had been taught what to do, and not to do when and if that happend and I just came down a little hard on the mains.
Its a wonderul airplane, great speed for the money, hauls a ton of stuff, takes off in like 600 ft given the right conditions (my e model anyway) and will haul 3 200lb guys and another 50lbs of stuff plus full fuel and still get off the ground in 800ft. Wings and gear are in the right place
I dont know why most people dont own one. If ya tried to give me a 172, I wouldnt take it, yet they're not significantly less expensive than a c model. Not worth keeping up, where ya gonna go at 100mph? Anyway, to each his own and all that.
