Mooney M20A landing on Mustang Beach in the Gulf of Mexico

[RonBand01]

I, too, was wondering how you were going to put that LW down on the beach. I was waiting the see the fishermen running. Thanks for the vid

[RenderMeThis]

Why did you choose the M20A model over the M20E model? What engine is in the A?

[BigDTexas]

I wanted to pay cash and own the airplane outright. The A model is one of the most undervalued retracts right now. It's got a Lycoming 180hp carbureted O360-A1A and it'll do 165-170mph. The wood wing in the A model is 5-8mph faster than the metal wing.

[w5cdt]

The wind gods humble all pilots!

[OnShortFinal]

NIce vid. I checked it out a few months ago and then decided that me and a biddy of mine would go down and check out Mustang Beach (I'm somewhat new to TX (1.5years)). I posted my departure from KRAS since you did the approach. I will say that on the day we departed, I pulled onto the runway twice and tried to get up, but I was looking at about a 19kt crosswind. I finally got up after about a 2 hr delay. Again, Nice vid.

[midwestaviator]

I tuned in expecting to see a Mooney landing on a beach! Now, that would have been something.

Regarding your comment about being "forced onto the left side of the runway by the crosswind" - interesting way to say that you just didn't correct for the crosswind.

[BigDTexas]

It was one of my early flights, and I wasn't very good at handling crosswinds yet. See my later video for how to handle a stiff crosswind in an early Mooney

[BigDTexas]

It's a 1960 Mooney M20A. The reason why I ended up left of centerline is that I was a fairly new Mooney pilot and did not take the crosswind into account. You can see the wind sock at the very end of the clip and tell I was being pushed to the left, causing my turn from base to final to not be very square and forcing me onto the left half of the runway.

[Outlaw1257]

Don't sweat the critics too much, BigD!!

Ya' did goodly!!

[tufnel1970]

Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. :) Thanks for posting the clip.

[stoniez]

nice landing, what are you flying ?

[totoandthewhiz]

He needs to learn to land on the centerline.

[dreamworks18]

how long did it take to fly from dal to the coast?

[BigDTexas]

It took 2.2 hours to fly from Dallas to Mustang Beach that day in the Mooney

[rednecksinspace]

That's great part of planes, you can make a maybe five hour car drive take less than 2 and a half hours.

[BigDTexas]

In this Mooney, I generally estimate my flights will be 3 times faster than a car trip. That takes care of both the "direct line" improvement you get in an airplane, as well as the fact that the highway speed limit is 75mph, whereas my plane has been clocked at over 220mph ground speed when the winds were favorable.