planeandpilotmag.com 63A Mooney is a hard airplane to love if you don’t own
it. They’re cramped, both in the cabin and in any space
you might be trying to inspect or repair. And since I was
paying my dues as a mechanic, I spent a lot of time with
my arms wedged into tight spaces. Sharp-tipped screws
abound on a Mooney, constantly looking for flesh to
puncture, and the maze of vacuum lines throughout
the bird offer a billion places to go looking for a leak.
Not content with simply running gyros with vacuum,
Al Mooney incorporated a vacuum-retractable step and
a vacuum-driven Brittain wing leveler, as well. Those
hoses don’t last forever.
And then there’s the engine. Once you pull the cowl-
ing, there’s a second cowling, “the doghouse,” which is a
plenum over the engine to direct the cooling air. Again,
it’s a smart design for owners and pilots, but it wouldn’t
surprise me if the Mooney engineer responsible for it
had lost a wife to his mechanic. The doghouse exacted
his revenge on all mechanics that followed.
Then came the day when Kelly decided it was time
to shuffle his toybox, and he called me with an offer
almost too good to be true. This is nothing new with
him; he had been trying to sell me his airplanes for a
decade. This time the tone was a little different, and my
situation was vastly different.
For years, I’ve helped people find airplanes. We’ve
scoured online ads, FBO bulletin boards and Trade-A-
Plane issues and randomly asked airport geezers what
might be gathering dust in a hangar nearby. I’ve done
pre-purchase inspections where I told the owners to
send a check right then if they wanted it, and I’ve had
to tell others to run, not walk, in the other direction.
Each time, I made sure to pass along one gem
of wisdom:
“Never let emotion drive your decision to buy
an airplane.”
Someone should shackle me to a chalkboard and
make me write that 50 times before I can go outside
for recess. I bought a J-3 Cub project that has proven
to require replacing almost more of the airframe than
we’re keeping because I had the emotional tie to an
afternoon spent shredding toilet paper into confetti
on the day of my first flying lesson.
The progress is slow, but as long as it flies before I
retire, I can live with that.
And now, the Mooney found me. I tried to get out of
having to buy it by taking Amy for a quick hop. I figured
she’d find it cramped and uncomfortable. Instead, she
said, “You know, if it only had a headrest, I’d be asleep
in no time.” PPucuctuct