For our mutual amusement, my pal Brian and I make a particular country airstrip a motorcycling destination to check on a parked J-model Mooney. And it’s really parked. Neglected, actually, which is a real shame. It’s been sitting so long on its rims that the landing gear doors have actually pushed through the pavement in its tiedown, the aircraft seemingly trying to bury itself from the misery. I found one of the fuel caps loose during one visit and in the process of doing a good deed by securing them for whoever owns this thing, noticed ugly rust around the tank structure. A peek inside through the crazed windows reveals spiderwebs, decaying fabric and a Garmin GNS430 GPS in the panel. Somebody spent good money on that rig, and someone might consider spending a whole lot more to get this airplane airworthy. My friend Rob-an IA, a Mooney expert and a Mooney owner a couple times over-warned that this someone shouldn’t be me. And that got me to thinking, when is an airplane such a basket case that it’s better suited for a salvage yard than a maintenance shop?