The plane has been washed and pulled out of the hangar. Thirty gallons of fuel is ordered and the preflight is completed. Thinking back, fourteen months since we first saw the Mooney and four months since our company purchased the plane. This is a long time to wait for the first flight as the new owners of a new airplane. The weight and balance is completed. We have 935# capacity. I haven't even looked at the 530 display yet! I haven't flown this plane for six months, when I did a prebuy flight. Time to run it up, launch and test the autopilot with our avionics man, Mark, on board. He is 90% sure everything will work. Now if we only could decide where to go on this beautiful windy day. Enough talking already.
What a great panel in the sunlight. I am in first, followed by Mark in the back. He will be relaying commands while the 55X is tested. I am not familiar with it. I have flown a Bravo with a King 200 and a flight director, but this is different. I have read the manual, but am glad Mark is here to guide my fumbling fingers. Joe, my colleague, is in the right seat. Little do I know, but he already is familiar with the 55X. The engine fires up easily. After we copy the ATIS, we taxi for departure but need to lean up the plugs. As I take the active, I wonder if I will be able to get this on the ground in the same wonderful shape we are leaving in?
I rotate at 70 and the 201 does its thing. This is cool. Airplanes really want to fly. Back to reality. Gear up, check list complete. At traffic pattern altitude, I ask where they want to go. Joe says South. I suggest Northwest to the practice area. The terrain is flatter there. If we have to make an emergency landing, there is lots of open ground by the swamps. I give ATC a courtesy announcement that we are testing and calibrating new avionics. They help out with flight following. I keep a watchful eye for traffic while the boys have fun. I even have time to grab a couple of photos of the swamp area but no shots of the panel. It has been very dry here and the lake with associated area is much smaller than I remember. Meanwhile Mark is calling out commands to test the GPS roll steering, altitude hold, heading hold. We use the vertical speed control to drop 200' to our 3500' ATC assignment. Everything is working flawlessly.
I use the 530 and the 430 to plot some direct courses to local airports. Next we tune a VOR and intercept a course. We keep circling around the water below. I am running 140kts airspeed in the maneuvers. It is pretty bumpy here today. I am getting kind of tired of the bounce. We turn back and announce to ATC our calibration chores are completed and request the ILS. Now, it is time to test the approach function of the 55X! We dial a 500 fpm decent while I get the ATIS. I am familiar enough with the 201 to drop the speed to around 120 on the extended downwind. As we turn base, the localizer is captured automatically. What fun. At the marker, I slow to 115 for gear down. GUMPS check and adjust the throttle for 90. Two planes in the pattern, one is the Piper Cherokee I used for my instrument rating and he is doing touch and goes. The other is announcing a 45 entry for the pattern. Finally, I see both planes in the pattern. Relief. I want to reach down, manually adjust the trim and grab the yoke, but I resist. All I am doing is keeping speed by throttle only. This is different. As I hear the middle marker, I switch off the autopilot, reduce throttle and put in full flaps. I have the numbers a bit high and there is a considerable left headwind. I am gliding as I glance to the airspeed indicator. I want 70 but will take 75 on the landing. I blip the throttle and hold back as it flares in at 70 for nice centerline landing. Joe and Mark immediately compliment me on the landing. Both have apparently seen Mooney jockeys do much worse. As I taxi off the active, I announce the secret of my technique. "This is really all I did do today, so I wanted to do a good job!" Lots of laughs and smiles as we taxi to the ramp.
The door is open to adventure, but at what cost? All we have to do is mount the standby GPS with the WxWorx to complete the installation. We plan to do regional crosscountry flying and having on board weather is going to be very helpful. That is planned for next week. We also need to place identical chips in the GPS units. For some reason they were delivered with different data bases and can not cross talk yet. More photos to come as we complete the installation.
