I got my first taste of flying at 12 years old when my
cousin took me up for a night flight out of Rockford, IL
in his Cessna 205. The next day we flew to Meig’s field. I was hooked. Now I
understood why I was so enthralled with Sky King as a younger lad, and it
wasn’t just Penny!
I
started flying lessons at 16 in J-3’s out of Zahn’s airfield in Amityville
on Long Island,
NY. I remember riding my bicycle
from my college dorm (before I even had a car) the 25 miles each way to get
to the field. I solo’ed and had some fun flights up and down the eastern
seaboard but never did finish my license then. Like many of you after that
it never quite seemed like both time and money came together at the same
time long enough to complete the license, although I did get a lot of flying
done here and there along the way.
Finally, when I got up to Seattle and had started and
stopped lessons another time or two, I realized if I didn’t buckle down and
just get licensed it might never happen. Within two months I had finished my
lessons and passed the flight test.
It turned out that my instructor new someone who wanted
to sell his third share in a 1959 A model Mooney, N8335E. He wanted only 5
grand for his share. I didn’t really know a tremendous amount about Mooneys
but knew enough to think this was a great chance. A pharmaceutical rep I
knew who was an ex Prowler pilot and flight instructor promised to give me
my checkout. This is after all my time in PA-28’s for training. We flew
around for a few hours and he asked me to drop him back at his home drome
whereupon he hopped out and said you can take it home from there! That’s
when I realized (after he left) that I didn’t know how to switch back and
forth between com one and com two! The A model also had a third fuel tank
under the rear seat. I learned that the fuel gauge on that tank wasn’t very
reliable when the engine died coming out of Hillsboro Airport
in Portland
one day with my Aunt and Uncle aboard. Gee, what was that sudden engine
dying sound my uncle wanted to know as I quickly switched tanks.
My second Mooney was a 201. By then I had learned how to
switch between coms. The problem with the A model was I couldn’t find an
instructor who felt safe enough in it to fly IFR in the clouds while
training me. Fortunately, N201XG came along. I actually got to fly to
homecoming in this plane before I bought into that partnership. That
convinced me of the great value of the Mooney as a long distance traveling
machine. I flew that plane for several years before turbo-itis started to
itch. As it turned out the owner of N52202, a 1989 252 which he had owned
since new had just decided to look for two partners to share his plane. Best
yet, this plane was not only well equipped but also based right at Paine
field, my home drome.
Some of you will recall that this plane is the one that
my partner successfully landed engine out on a small field near Seattle when the engine seized.
That
was a great plane but after the engine rebuild that plane was eventually
sold to someone in the Midwest.
While I was looking for my next Mooney I had the fortune
to be able to fly N355RZ a 1996 Bravo both locally and on several coast to
coast trips, and N300M, a 1978
Missile conversion. I also took that plane coast to coast once or twice as
well. Fast, fast, fast, 300M was but a turbo was always my thing for out in
the Northwest. I badgered the partners in that plane into joining me in
purchasing N252MK, a 252 that had received an Encore upgrade. As soon as we
bought it we put TKS on it and installed an MX20, CNX80 (now called Garmin
480) and a new audio panel. While that equipment now seems paltry compared
to the new glass stuff you see in new and retrofitted Mooneys, it has always
served me well and does everything I need.
I have flown my Mooneys to OSH three times, to New York
and New England five or six times, and multiple other destinations in the
Midwest, southwest and of course the West coast.
Unless someone gives me a TBM850 or D-Jet I don’t see
myself changing planes any time soon.
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