cnoe

Pardon my ignorance but what do you mean by "down range"? Gliding distance? I did not measure that; 30 miles was just an estimate. I ran 16"-18" and 2,200 rpm most of the way down. With some tailwind I was showing over 235 kts. at one point in the descent while still well in the green arc IAS. I should also mention that my older S-Tec altitude hold was having a hard time maintaining a fixed level in the thin air. I'd never considered that before. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Nothing gets by you guys! Good eye. Here's the answer: #4 is typically my first to peak, and it's also my hottest EGT at a (usual) peak of ~1,495-1,500. Cylinder 4's EGT in the pic reads 1,396 if you zoom in. I see on my scribbles from the flight that I leaned to 100 ROP @ 17,500' so my statement (200 ROP to altitude) was slightly erroneous. To be accurate I'll admit that maintaining the EGTs at 200 ROP was the lowest of my priorities and several times they were richer than that; I don't think I leaned at all until I was pretty high (which might explain why my 6K-7K leg was slow). The other thing that I should mention is that I only went to 17,900' pressure altitude (note the altimeter set at 29.92") as my transponder/ADS-B was broadcasting pressure altitudes about 50' higher than my altimeter reading and I didn't want to get a call for busting Class Alpha. To compensate for the 100' shortage I added 20 seconds to the final leg's time to reflect a full 1,000' climb from 17,000' to 18,000'. The moment that picture was taken I was 10 seconds from leveling off at 17,900'. It really didn't look much different at 17,900 AGL than at 12,000, but it was pretty cool knowing I could glide close to 30 miles with no engine. Also, I ran 2 lpm in my nasal canula in the upper altitudes and my O2 saturation was 97-98% throughout.

Okay, I just got back from completing my "TIME TO CLIMB" and here's the results. A couple of notes and thoughts will follow. 1978 M20J Field elevation: 25 MSL Temp: 23 C Alt: 29.86” DA: 1,020’ (initial) Weight (est.): 2,070# (incl. 24 g. fuel) IAS: 102-97 MPH Alt. Time Leg FPM 25 0:00 1000 1:10 1:10* 836* 2000 1:58 0:48 1250 3000 2:48 0:50 1200 4000 3:34 0:46 1304 5000 4:35 1:01 984 6000 5:34 0:59 1017 7000 6:41 1:07 896 8000 7:43 1:02 968 9000 9:02 1:19 760 10000 10:20 1:18 769 11000 11:52 1:32 652 12000 13:34 1:42 588 13000 15:29 1:55 522 14000 17:27 1:58 509 15000 19:39 2:12 455 16000 22:22 2:43 368 17000 25:23 3:01 332 18000 28:40 3:17 305 *Includes take-off roll NOTES: DA @ 18,000’ = 19,768 (calculated). Obviously I was fairly light @ 670# below gross, but I often fly light. My climb rate varied a bit at the lower levels with varying airspeed due to light turbulence, but I generally held IAS @ 100 MPH. Settings were WOT, ~2,700 RPM, & ~200 ROP throughout climb. At Vy I had to open cowl flaps to trail position @ 9,000' due to high oil temp (225 F.) and I left them there to 18,000'. At 17,900' my MP was ~15 (14.6 on JPI-830) and %HP (on JPI) was 52% (photo attached). I was very pleased with the performance to 15,000' but then it starts to fall off quickly. Still it's nice to know that if I HAVE to get to 18K+ I CAN. FYI, according to my JPI the fuel burned to reach 18K was ~6.8 gallons. Fun stuff indeed. Who's next? Cnoe

+1 for Jiffy. Sorry Hank but 40 years ago, before the advent of 7-11, my parents owned a small convenience store called Jiffy Mart. I got all the free Icees I could drink, so I'm biased. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Great idea; while in the neighborhood I might as well shoot for my stated service ceiling of 17,999'. I've got oxygen. It might be a good idea to set the altimeter to 29.92" and stop a little shy of 18K. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to keep an eye on the transponder to keep pressure altitude at 17,900' or less as well. ATC likely doesn't see too many Class Alpha busts but I sure don't need to be calling any TRACONS. I once took a Remos GX to 14,500' with the doors off. Pressure altitude was well over 15K. I had to descend due to the cold temps as I started to uncontrollably shiver. At least in the Mooney I'll have doors and a heater. Fun stuff.

Oh, the results are going to be "all over the place" alright. That's what makes it fun. I feel for the poor soul who's forever ridiculed for his slow numbers. And why would anybody climb at anything less than WOT and 2,700 RPM (unless you're redline is lower of course)? Let's see, I weigh about 135#, and this shouldn't take more than 15 minutes at most, so that's about 4.5 gallons of fuel, then add in another 4 gallons for the 30 minute reserve during descent. Let's make it even safer by rounding up to 10 gallons total. But wait; I need 8 gallons minimum in each tank for the climb angle to prevent starvation, so let's go large and put 16 gallons total. That's 231# pilot and fuel plus an empty weight of 1740# for a takeoff weight of 1,971#. Woo hoo! Now, Vy in my plane is supposed to be 101-94 mph depending on altitude. I assume that's at gross and might go up a little at significantly lighter weights. But I have no expertise in these computations, so maybe someone could help me out. In any case I imagine the (indicated) airspeed to 10K will be controlled more by cooling needs than by Vy. Then again, if I left the cowl flaps in "trail" I bet I could easily make 10K with oil-T/CHTs in the green. Hmmmmmmm. It would sure be fun to see everybody's results.

Ouch! I hope this isn't a picture of YOU. On second thought maybe I'll use Schrodinger's cat after all.

It's a lot more complicated with a Mooney (or any brand AC other than Cirrus). As I understand it (in a non-Cirrus), if you lose an engine and glide safely to an airport the insurance pays nothing. If you lose an engine and glide safely back to the airport but forget to put the gear down the insurance pays for a tear-down/inspection. If you lose an engine and land successfully off-field then insurance is going to pay for removal and/or repairs depending on the quality of your landing. The only way you'll get a big fat insurance check in a Mooney is to CRASH it, which NOBODY wants to do. In a Cirrus there's no incentive to do anything OTHER than pull the red handle. Red handle = free plane and an extremely high probability of survival. I do agree with 201er and Ross that they should at least glide somewhere safe before pulling it though.

That's an OUTSTANDING idea, except Schrodinger died in 1961 and I'm guessing his cat is not only "dead", but is likely "dead" as well. But I do appreciate your sense of humor.

What nobody is mentioning here is... ... and I am NOT making any proposal or suggestions here... but... As a Cirrus owner would you rather have: A) An intact airframe sitting on the runway in need of a $60,000 engine replacement or B) A $200K-$700K insurance check in your hand Pulling the red handle is an automatic "Total Loss" payout. And Cirrus training says "Pull Early / Pull Often". Think about it. I'm GLAD my J doesn't have the chute for the simple fact that the insurance rates on these planes is going to go out-of-sight as more and more planes are totaled out due to "low oil pressure".

Update: AOPA Insurance did seek a quote from Starr (which seems to be a popular underwriter) and for my situation it was higher than others. Because of this it appears that there's no real need to seek input from another broker. I will likely go with the less expensive quote as the terms were essentially identical to other underwriters. I'm very pleased that my recent instrument rating, active flying (184 hours in past 12 months), and increasing total hours amounted to a 29% reduction in my premiums from last year! And from what I hear, underwriter competition is high right now too. At least SOMETHING is going down in cost for pilots.

More thanks for the info. Both Falcon and AOPA seem to be good competitive brokers from my past experience. And as Mike mentioned I understand it's counterproductive to pit brokers against each other. My quote from Global (through AOPA) was very good and it sounds like Starr is a fan favorite as well. I'm awaiting word back from the broker to see if they shopped it to Starr as I didn't see them listed on my quote sheet. If AOPA doesn't do business with Starr I might contact Falcon to ask them about that one underwriter. Interesting note about Old Republic previously being Phoenix. Is that good/bad? They were very competitive but still ~$150 more than Global. I was disappointed to see AIG's price go up from last year; I expected it to go down (particularly with my recent IFR cert).

Does the cat REALLY need to be DEAD? If PETA sees this thread we're ALL gonna be in trouble. I'm going to try it with a live cat and report back with the results.

Thanks for the input guys; anybody else? From what I read Avemco is the only direct underwriter and all other brokers have the same pool to gather quotes from. I've been using AOPA's Insurance service and I have no complaints about the cost. For reference, with 400+ hours time in type and a recent IFR rating my new quote is just over $1,000 for $90K hull/$1M liability. I just don't want to find out later that the underwriter is difficult to deal with if by some unfortunate circumstance I have to file a claim.

... and feel free to PM me if you'd rather not speak publicly about your carrier.

It's renewal time and I've got quotes from 4 different companies. I've had AIG for the past 2 years but now they're among the 2 highest quotes (I'm told that their premiums increased recently). Avemco was really high (about DOUBLE my lowest quote). I have good quotes from both Global Aerospace and Old Republic Aerospace and was curious if anybody had anything good or bad to say about either. The best quote was 35% below the one from AIG so I'll likely go with it if I don't hear anything bad. Coverages are essentially identical and from what I've heard all the major underwriters pay out on similar terms. Any thoughts guys and gals? Cnoe

Glad you made it down safely. And sorry about your passengers' experience. I wonder if a peek at the exhaust valves might have detected this beforehand. I try to get a look at mine occasionally with my handy-dandy USB Dental Camera from Ebay (lots of discussion about these on MS). Here's what my #1 looked like last time I had the plugs out. Symmetrical burned pizza appearance = good.

Thanks for all the input guys. It seems like the most likely source of an engine fire in our Mooneys would be due to a compromised hose or a broken injector line. After talking with Byron I removed every single thing that had been previously attached to my injector lines over time (such as ignition leads that were cable-tied for support). And I look thoroughly at those lines every time the cowl is off. I do have the typical blue stains near each injector that occur after shutdown in the summer (damn GAMIs) but that shouldn't be an in-flight risk. I don't think of engine oil to be much of a fire risk either. I like Byron's idea of using the roof vent for fresh air along with the proposed 4,000 fpm descent. Like Hank I may want to throw out a bunch of drag and see what sort of descent I can muster in a practice scenario (Note to self: don't do this with my wife on-board). And Lacee's mention of smoke hoods intrigues me. I've never contemplated that option. They might be even more useful for an electrical problem than an engine fire. Hmmmmmm. Yetti's comment about pushing the flames to the side in a spiral might have some merit. It would suck to have the flames spread underneath the fuselage with a major leak. Obviously the best plan is prevention through diligent maintenance and inspection. I like the teflon hoses with integral firesleeves. I'm still undecided about the use of cowl flaps though. If the fuel source was post-servo (i.e. broken injector line) I'd think that closing the throttle and pulling the mixture would go a long way towards extinguishing the flames, but if there was a hose rupture between the diaphragm pump and the servo there might possibly be a bit more fuel loss. In that case closing the fuel selector would be the only resolution; I'm sure that's why "Fuel Selector - OFF" is number one on the checklist. There is so much turbulent flow inside the lower cowling that I doubt anyone can be certain whether opening cowl flaps would be detrimental.

I'm updating some stuff on my iPad including my primary checklists. In case you care I'm using Aeropad to display checklists. Anyway... when adding the "Emergency Procedures" there were two things that I'd like opinions on. 1) My POH ('78 J) states (paraphrased): ENGINE FIRE - IN FLIGHT Fuel Selector - OFF Throttle - Closed Mixture - Idle Cutoff Ventilation/Heating - OFF/CLOSED Landing Gear - Down (or as required) Flaps - Down as required If fire is not extinguished, attempt to increase airflow over the engine by increasing glide speed. My thinking would be that in addition to increasing airspeed to help snuff out an engine fire it might be appropriate to open up the cowl flaps as well (when diving to increase airspeed). What do y'all think about that idea? 2) For an off-field landing there is no mention of "unlatching the cabin door" in the POH. In many checklists this is SOP. Should that step be added to the Mooney's checklist? I do have an emergency release inside on my baggage door but I would think that having the passenger door unlatched would be appropriate in most conditions. Thoughts? Comments? Thanks

I was enroute to Houston and DFW Approach amended my clearance to the VORs to keep me away from all the traffic. The best part was that as another plane (2001 Baron 58 according to n-number) closed on my tail by 15-20 kts at the same altitude ATC offered them to either slow down, climb 2,000', or descend 2,000'. He chose to descend and still didn't pass me before Houston Approach started vectoring us around the big airport (IAH). I was burning 9.1 gph LOP and he was probably gulping 22+. Gotta love Mooney efficiency! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Or how 'bout DFW Class Bravo on a Monday mid-morning?

Form-a-funnel, size large. Haven't spilled a drop of oil since I started using one. I learned about these a couple years ago on MS. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

A ballpark quote from a well-respected MSC for my 830 installation was ~35 hours recently. I ended up doing it myself (under supervision of an A&P) in approximately 40 hours. It takes longer than you'd expect. Hope that helps. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

My previous mount was a great little "E", but I just couldn't take it anymore and had to move into the "J" because of the fuel selector location. It was the best $45,000 upgrade I ever made.[emoji6] [emoji4] Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I can't speak for the 1977 M20-J, but the '78 models (and newer?) have the selector in the center of the cockpit which is indeed much easier to reach than the older M20 models. The "gascolator" pull-drain is sorta where the selector was in previous models, but I try very hard not to pull on that while in flight.