“It wasn’t our first big trip; we had been to the North America in 2014 and to South America in 2017/2018”, says Gunter.
“In 2017, when we were planning our South America trip, we thought about flying to Australia instead. Back then, we decided to fly the other direction, and flying to Oz was put on the back burner.”
After the last long journey
After our return in 2018, there was no discussion about a longer journey for a while. We were unable to set out for another flying adventure for a few years for practical reasons, nor did we feel like it. We considered a vague future project in the beginning of 2020 but the pandemic brought that to an abrupt halt. We completed the aircraft refurbishment that had begun in 2018 during the COVID period.
Let me take the chance to introduce our Mooney, RM and describe the work we have done.
Please allow me…
..to introduce our aircraft.
RM is an M20K 252 built in 1990. At 20% over TBO we decided to replace the engine after our return from South America. With the replacement we did an Encore conversion. The Encore is an improved version of the 252 Mooney built in the mid nineties in very small numbers (only about 30). The conversion meant replacing the TSIO 360 MB by an SB with 220 instead of 210 hp. The main benefit is an MTOM increase by 115 kg, not the 10 hp. This is not an STC, Mooney have
