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I wish it was for sale now

Mine started acting crazy and it was a loose plug. Also I have this RPM app for my iPhone and it works great. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/engine-rpm/id340401811

Unless headwinds really dictate it, I really don’t like to run under 10k. Only way to improve fuel economy with the turbo is to go higher as all we are at 8k is a J model burning a lot more gas. If it’s remotely feasible, I try to get to the upper teens for this reason. Now that I’ve got the kinks worked out on my engine, I’m gonna get an O2D2 and check out FL190-210. I get too much ice at 16-18k if it’s cloudy as I don’t have TKS.

Swing the gear. Otherwise this could be you! -Matt

Hot off the press from my Bravo this week: All at 10k & +9°C Cowl Flaps closed. CHT will be #6, my hottest. I ran a few power settings and Peak, RoP & LoP. Note: not all Key 53’s are the same. 29”/24 was way hotter than 31”/22 key 53 for basically the same TAS. 29/24 Power 17.6gph 1595TIT 395CHT 169KTAS 29/24 Peak TIT 15.3 1720TIT 405CHT 166KTAS 29/24 LoP 13.2 1650TIT 375CHT 154KIAS 31/22 Power 17.9 1575TIT 387CHT 168KTAS 31/22 Peak 15.3 1675TIT 166KTAS 31/22 LoP 13.1 1615TIT 159KTAS 30/22 Power 17.2 1570TIT 390CHT 170KTAS 30/22 Peak 14.7 1689TIT 167KTAS I’ve got about 220SFOH, factory injection (0.4) spread, Finewires and Dual SureFly’s courtesy of my Lycoming warranty and 3 failed Slick Mags in under 200 hours. Fresh Paint as well. I’m not eligible for GAMI’s. It seems my CHT is what it is as Maxwell put new GeeBee baffles in for me and Brian Kendrick went through the cooling again when installing the SureFly’s. Consider this my ringing endorsement of SureFly’s as I’m running 15-60 cooler CHT’s in climb, 5-10 cooler in cruise, and cold start in 2 blades. For the long term, looks like I’ll have to run 30/22 power FF to get my best performance for the temps. At FL180 -4°C and the rest as above: 31/22 Power was 18.2gph 1540TIT 398°CHT 187KTAS 30/22 Power is normally 173-175KTAS at this altitude More on my next long trip next week As a side note, Book numbers for 24/22 are not a problem, 27/22 us right at comfortable limits and as you can see from my numbers, above 27/22 Peak FF is not pretty. Between Mike Busch’s articles, the APS class I’m working through and the GAMI operating recommendations, I’m pretty much tossing out the POH and leaning fuel flows in cruise until I hit around 1600TIT unless I bump up against 390CHT first for any given power setting. For takeoff that is WOT, 29.6gph, 1440TIT & in a 34/24 Climb 1440TIT works out to right at 26gph.

This has been fatiguing. I started this as a way to provide what I have experienced to be the safest way to do a go around. It has been mucked up by folks who think they know what they're doing but from my perspective don't. So the folks I was trying to help are left confused by much of this red herring nonsense. Too bad.... Just a couple of more things. The lock up on the Rocket trim was caused by using electric trim and running it to the stops on approach. If it had been hand trimmed I don't believe it would have locked. As mentioned above, the Rocket is very nose heavy with the 305 HP engine so with 2 people in front it usually needs be trimmed full up on approach. It took a lot of manual force on the center manual trim wheel to break it loose, but we did manage to do it. Finally, of course you don't raise the gear until until you are at least 50 feet agl to prevent sinking when you do start to bring the flaps up (after the gear). Now think about it. Regarding drag--you are about to touch down, you are in ground effect which reduces induced drag by nearly 50% and near the stall, you add full power and start to climb out of ground effect. You bring up the flaps to T/O position first. The nose pitches up, the stall speed increases, you lose the benefit of ground effect, then p-factor, torque, slip stream increase, you're aggressively trying to trim down, the plane loses lift and starts to sink, and you are in danger of stalling. Does that sound like the wise thing to do? And by the way, the flap motor moves much quicker than the trim motor on the Mooneys I have flown. I'm sure it was designed that way to slow things down on a possible trim runaway situation. In the end, if you want to work harder and have a greater chance of losing control of the plane, by all means bring the flaps up first. If you want to be a more proficient pilot, my advice might be worthy of consideration.

Same here. I think my F has every previously available speed mod; sloped windscreen, SWTA “201” cowl, one piece belly, wing root fairings, wing tips, dorsal fin, gap seals, flap hinge covers, updated antennas. Its roughly a 153 knot airplane with a three blade. Not far from 148. IMO it’s the climb performance and fuel efficiency that beats much of the competition. I don’t mind sacrificing a few knots in cruise for better climb performance.

When I did my panel upgrade I removed the annunciator panel. I no longer have vacuum, so that light is gone. The G3X can provide a number of other alerts. I had warning lights installed for the other needed alerts - see photo:

Wow, your Mooney is beautiful!

I did my private in a Cherokee. It’s the Ford Fiesta of airplanes.

This was MooneySpace owner and admin @mooniac58’s Mooney back in 2008 when he started this site. Very cool. I remember the tail number. GLWS! Jim

Apt for a short body. The mid body is an excellent family hauler so it does not quite fit.

Porsche 914

I'm very curious about this. Is there a write up of the technique somewhere? Would be some good insight and practice for me. Especially for less hurried transitions out of an instrument approach. I've been heavily biased to full flaps to have less distance on roll out and less time to worry about wheelbarrowing.

That is a better comparison...and the C172 is the for Taurus of aviation. Honestly the vintage Mooney is more like what Saab was prior to their demise. It's not big but it's big enough. It's not the fastest but it's it's far from slow. It's economical. It's quirky but well engineered. Generally designed to do more with less.

this is a very slight nuance "getting up to flying speed" last I check, you are already at flying speed on the approach. I don't go much above level while adding some power. It should not take much. Gear up. keep adding power, trim, get wing to flying then climb out. This is the same as take off where take off, go level get gear up, build speed, get wing flying, then climb out and get flaps.

@ArtVandelay this is like one of those pictures where you don't notice a guy with half a mustache because of a good looking girl in the foreground... took me 5 minutes to understand what you were talking about. I honestly thought my previous Cherokee was the Honda Civic of airplanes...

Hey, that’s hitting close to home.

Either you don't have many makes in your logbook or you are deliberately trolling. Civic is a poor analogy. A K model will only really outrun a similarly powered NA Mooney above 10K. An Ovation is faster than a 200hp bird for sure but one has to talk themselves into caring about 15-20 kts. If you need to go faster than get a turbo and a nose hose. Below about 12K it's mostly bragging rights.

Mod Works had a mod that worked really well. I’d try to find someone with pictures of it and copy it.

Blasphemy!!!!! But I kinda agree

….and it continues to happen. The following is a link to a C340 accident on Sunday at KDWH resulting in 2 fatalities where preliminary info suggests a door opened shortly after takeoff. The only access door into the interior of a C340 is at the rear pilot side of the cabin, a 2-door clamshell design with a small upper door on top and a large lower door below that are secured together when closed. I don’t know whether the upper or lower door let go or whether either would induce a controllability problem, unless the upper door let go and struck the horizontal or vertical stab. Back in the day during a high speed descent in a Piper Chieftain (PA-350) that has a similar rear door setup to a C340, the lower door unlatched (due to a faulty locking mechanism) and fully opened. I had no controllability problem and neither the door hinge nor the door itself were damaged. When open, the lower door is secured on both sides by covered strong cables that also act similar to handrail supports when entering or leaving the cabin. Apart from the noise, it was a nonevent. I was glad I had no pax on board.

I’ve done ‘slurry’ over foam with a transition, bid/uni/triax ‘tapes’, peel ply, then ‘stipple’ out the excess when doing repairs. Worked well with the Velocity I did. May be option if you want another acceptable approach… -Don

I’ve been curious about this too.

If it were me I would either learn to be content with what I had or buy a K model or an Ovation. A vintage Mooney is the Honda civic of airplanes. It fills its role nicely but it isn’t a sports car. If I needed to buy a new prop because something is wrong with the old one then yeah, I’d spend more to buy the faster version, but planes are already expensive to own so why blow money trying to squeeze out a few knots out of a perfectly functional plane. Next annual you could check rigging and make sure your gear doors are nice and tight. The step being down will cost you 2-3 knots. Do you have the retractable step and is it functioning correctly? A clean and waxed plane is supposedly a couple knots faster, is the plane all polished up? Weight kills speed…are there things that can be taken out of the plane to save weight? An aft CG helps with speed. Have you tried putting everything you can in the baggage compartment? In cruise move your seat back? None of these things will make a big difference but you might be able to pick up 5 knots without spending any real money.