Leaderboard

None here, but if you're looking at their remote control option you should also consider this new one out I saw at AOPA Summit last week: http://www.acairtechnology.com/ No idea how expensive the lindbergh model is but you'll see the price the AC Air Technology's tug. Pretty high tech - Its got to be the new cat's meow for a high end tug!

Order Don Kaye's video on landing a Mooney...best $20 bucks I ever spent. Went from near disasters to greaser landings the very first outing after spending a couple hours watching the video. It's not very long, so in two hours you can watch it a lot!

The best tip here, besides the speed, is that TRIM is the #1 factor for a good landing. I actually put in SO MUCH up trim, that I then have to 'force' the airplane down to maintain an 80mph airspeed. This is CRUCIAL in the flare because the mooney likes to go nose heavy over the runway and if you don't have any up trim will make it really hard to flare. The other problem you're having, is you don't have your sight picture. Get in the cockpit the same way, everytime. Basically, make sure your seat is in the same notch, every time. Even having the seat go back bout one notch makes my sight picture go ballistic and I goof another landing. If you need to, go out to the airplane for an hour and just sit in it on a taxiway or something. That way you can 'learn' what the airplane looks like from the cockpit from the ground. LAST tip. Keep 80mph until about 50 feet from the runway. At that point, cut all power and let the nose drop a little so you can maintain speed, after that just pull up and flare and let it glide horiztonally above the earth, and then have a great touchdown.

You can get the ground temp. and elevation at a particular location, then go to the infrared (visible) chart. There is a color scale for temperature on the chart. The chart is showing you temp. of the highest clouds (or the ground if no clouds). So determine the temp of the highest clouds from the temp scale (its in degrees C), subtract the ground temp in C, and divide the difference by 2 (the lapse rate is generally 2 degrees for each thousand feet). Then if you want MSL, add in the field elevation. The infrared chart can be found at aviationweather.gov, under Satellite>United States on the left side. Click the infrared button at the top to get the infrared chart, it defaults to just plain visible clouds. Skew T is also very good. It charts temp. in red and dewpoint in blue at a specific point. Wherever the two lines meet and stay together for awhile (temp.=dewpoint) there will be condensation (clouds). The infrared method I mentioned earlier can be "fooled" by a strong inversion but the skew T "actual" soundings are not. You will see inversions on the skew T. The red temp line will be moving to the left (falling with altitude) then it suddenly reverses course and goes hard right. That is a rise in temp., and I have seen inversions above a cloud deck of as much as 10 dC. The skew T "actual" is from actual weather balloon soundings at a specific location at a specific time. There are also skew T models that essentially model what the skew T would be expected to look like at a point between soundings, or a time in the future.