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If you're landing flat with full flaps, why not try 1.2Vs over the threshold and full flaps? Are you using 1.2-1.3Vs into the flare? I use 1.X Vs speeds on approach but as soon as the runway is guaranteed, I am focused on approaching an aerodynamic stall with the wheels as close to that pavement as possible. My F, while considerably lighter than your TLS, will still hit the nose up trim stop on approach when light. With full flaps the aircraft will land nose high on mains and still have just adequate pitch authority to hold the nose wheel off for a few hundred feet if the yoke is held full aft.

You should listen to Mike Busch's podcast on YouTube on a proper prebuy. He outlines exactly how it should differ from an annual inspection, and what he recommends looking for.

Don, are you saying that you believe that the aircraft sinks when the flaps are raised?

A Civic Type R is not what folks think of when one says Civic any more than a Focus RS is what folks think of when one says Focus. Honda makes fine cars, but my perception of Civics after years of conditioning is badly modded chassis with terrible aftermarket lighting, stroked and poked tires that rub fenders and fart can mufflers...VTEC just kicked in yo.

Lol. Some date themselves or should educate themselves as it’s not the 1970’s-1990’s. The Honda Civic Type R will blow the doors off the majority of your rides and corner and stop better as well. I take a Civic comparison as a compliment. Long bodies are like a Suburban to me and flying on oxygen when a commercial flight is ten minutes from my door is silly to me.

My theory on full flaps for short and mid body. And I landed half flaps most of the time unless I was high on the approach and needed them. If you look at full flaps on the ground at the wing root there is only about 5 inches between the flap and the ground. So full flaps is creating a pocket of air by pushing it down onto the ground. more air down means less braking response. The Long body really needs full flaps to slow down, so I would say the extra weight overcomes the cushion of air. The Long body really does land nicely once speed control is learned.

My baby! So many great memories in that bird.

Rocket Engineering did their last Mooney conversions in the very early 2000's.

Conversely, my F is bone stock and I am loath to have anyone mod it or touch the control surfaces for fear of slowing it down. Mine was a factory demonstrator for an East Coast Mooney dealer and I wonder if the rigging was given special attention in order to demo best case performance for potential customers.

Final plan. I will remove the two sections of damaged honeycomb as @jetdriven suggested and go all the way to the edge of previous repair that I just removed. Create a ridge of blue foam for both of those sections as Byron suggested. If I extend the foam about 2 inches beyond where it always cracks on one, and then about 3 inches on the other, it will stagger the lateral ends of the blue foam ridge. That may help relieve stress, but may not really matter since it will have carbon fiber strips extending beyond those transitions. I have a roll of unidirectional carbon fiber tape 2 inches wide. I’ll lay that up in layers all the way from end to end covering what remains of the existing honeycomb ribs laterally, and the new blue foam rib in the center. Finally, I have carbon fiber weave fabric and will lay that in a trapezoidal shape over the center section. Wider forward, and narrowing as it transitions aft. I can cut it down the center and overlap so that it lays flat. Thanks to all for the help. Will document in pictures as the project progresses.

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.