Opinions on a M20J

"Julian Scarfe" wrote in message ...
"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...
http://www.aso.com/i.aso/AircraftVie...craft_id=84399

I flew this yesterday and it was nice (but what the hell do I know) He
is asking 105k but Vref says it is worth $113k. That seemed high but
again what do I know. Any Mooney owners out there want to give an
opinion on the M20J? Thanks in advance.

If you're in the market for a fast, fuel-efficient single-engined tourer,
there are 4 reasons not to buy a Mooney:

1) It doesn't haul as much payload over short ranges as some comparable
tourers. On ours, one the IFR equipment was on board, it was 480 lb with
full fuel, which means 670 lb with half fuel. Of course half-fuel still
keeps you in the air for 3 hours at 160 KTAS. By the time you get to longer
range missions, it matters less because the others have to carry more weight
in fuel. If most of your missions are two up, no problem.

The useful load in a 201 will be right around 1000 lbs. Don't hold the
fact that the plane carries 7 hours of gas against it. I never fill
mine to the top.


2) It doesn't like rough surfaces. In my part of the world there are a much
greater proportion of grass runways than in the US. I've landed on grass,
it's OK, but I'd be very reluctant to base a Mooney at a grass field as I'd
be worried about the prop the whole time. If you don't intend to operate on
grass, it's not an issue.

Grass may not be very good (unless its very short). However, I've
landed my Mooney on the beach many times in Mexico.


3) Its landing distance is greater than many compatible tourers: because the
airframe is clean, it floats. So for short fields it tends to be the
landing distance that is limiting. I wouldn't want to operate a M20J
regularly out of much less than 2700 ft as you don't have much safety margin
at less than that. If you have that and don't visit short strips very
often, no problem.

Sounds like you are coming in too fast. My home field has about 2000
feet of landing runway (4000 available for take off). Even fully
loaded, it isn't too hard to stop in 1000 feet. Shoft final speed
should be around 70 mph.


4) Its crosswind performance is ugly, particularly for take-offs. The
undercarriage uses rubber disks for its springs, and the wing is very low to
the ground. Hence any bumps and you lose any side force from the wheels,
and you have a lot of lift relatively early in the take-off roll. If you
operate an M20J from a single runway airport in a windy part of the world,
this may be an issue. If you only rarely have to deal with 20 knot
crosswinds, no problem.

I fly around the Southwest. Take off and landing with 25-30 knots of
cross wind is no problem. The plane sit so low that you don't even
feel the cross wind in the flare.



If none of those things bother you, just buy the aircraft and spend 12
years, like me, enjoying 160 knots on 10 gallons per hour and trying to
figure out why anyone would buy anything else. :-)

The 201 is great. If you don't mind going 10 knots slower you can buy
an F model Mooney for about 1/2 the price. The laster F's have the
same panel, etc as the 201, just w/o the speed mods.

-Robert, Mooney owner and Mooney CFI