Chapter 25 - hired some painters

I hired a couple out of work painters to shoot the paint for me. They've spent 3 weeks intermittently working on my neighbor's RV10 and have done a pretty good job. I've done all the sanding and will do just a little bit more. Their rate is $50/hour or flat rate of $1500.  I provide the supplies/compressor.

I'm sure if I shot it, I'd be fixing a lot of flaws and it won't look nearly as good what their first pass is going to look like.

Mooney training

Vance Atkinson suggested that the Mooney was the closest handling GA aircraft to the Cozy in landing and speed.   

 I've got access to a CFI and an M20F (Executive) which still has the manual retract lever and manual flaps.   It also has cowl flaps and ram air.  My Cozy take off/climb/cruise/descend/landing check lists will be quite a bit simpler. 

The mixture/prop knobs are swapped from most other aircraft.  The tach is on the far right.   The Piper Arrow's panel was nicer with the tach/fuel flow/manifold pressure gauges closer to the knobs.  My friend's Comanche's panel has the fuel flow on the far left side making it hard to see from the copilot position.

A challenge for me flying different aircraft is to remember approach speeds and whether to flare or not.  Also right after touch down, my CFI has me raise the flaps before braking to avoid skidding tires.

It's nice to have the speeds on a placard on the panel. I've got over 6 hours in the Mooney so far and currently need to work on the emergency procedures the most.  I also occasionally tend to reference the tachometer when adjusting the throttle rather than the MP gauge.


Update 5/28/2020 - Got another 2 hours in and worked on emergency procedures/landing.   Things are clicking better, landings are better...  However, the radios aren't working great but will be fixed.

Update - Got a lot more landing practice and was also signed off with 8 knot x-wind and less than 5K runway length limitation (excluding T67).