Bob - S50

I'll carry it one further. Here was my thought for ground communications at major airports for participating aircraft: 1. A huge touch screen in the tower with a map of the airport diagram. 2. MOST airliners have GPS and ACARS. When ready to taxi they send an ACARS message to ATC telling them so. The unit gathers the current GPS position and includes it in the message. 3. When the message arrives at the tower, it is decoded and results in a blinking callsign at the correct location on the screen. 4. When he is ready to let the plane taxi, the controller touches the blinking callsign and drags their finger along the desired taxi route. This results in a blinking route line. If they are to stop short, they simply lift their finger off the screen. Once sure it is correct, they press a send button. 5. Their computer encodes it and sends it back to the ACARS. The aircraft decodes it and plots the route on a moving map. 6. The crew knows they are cleared to taxi, along exactly what route, and exactly how far. No radio call, no wrong turns, no need to contact three different ground controllers, no runway incursions. Bob

We had that with our Mooney. It still had a lien from the original purchase that had never been cleared. The bank had changed names. Had to find out the new name and contact them. Asked for a lien release and they sent one but with the wrong names on it. Had them correct that and send another one. Took about a week to get it all straightened out. Bob

Probably referring to the hold back clutch spring. Supposed to be changed every 1000 hours. We were able to find one and have it changed for about $1200 if I remember right. I seem to remember something about Mooney thinking about increasing the number of hours between changes. And it is only a suggestion (SB) not a requirement (AD). Bob

And longer if you use Camguard. Bob

+2 on the Skytec. Less than $500 and saves 8 pounds of useful load. If you buy it from Chief Aircraft in Oregon there won't even be any sales tax. Bob

1. Same thing at multiple airports or just the same airport multiple times? 2. Has it worked fine until recently?

Andy, No, I would not fire them for a simulated engine failure because I still have everything I need to safely control the airplane, he has just turned me into a glider. Even gliders have an ASI. As for the ASI: 1. Since the ASI is on the left side of the ADI, the CFI would have to reach across me to cover the ASI. They would either have to put their arm between me and the control wheel or between the control wheel and the panel. I do not think that would be practical. 2. If at least one of us can see and actually watches the ASI, then I would not have a problem with it. I just don't see how that could be done without the CFI interfering with my access to flight controls. Bob

Flying with an inoperative ASI is an emergency as far as I'm concerned. If I am on a BFR and the CFI insists on covering my ASI, I would tell him the BFR is over, I'd head home, and I'd find another CFI for the BFR. Without an ASI, my only indication other than seat of the pants is the stall warning. I do not intend to flirt with a stall at low altitude just to prove a point. I would probably tend to fly faster than needed to be safe and might also be flirting with overspeeding my flaps. In an emergency I wouldn't care. To prove a point I'm not willing to risk a stall or aircraft damage. I can use my eyes to replace heading, altitude, bank angle, and navigation, but I cannot use them to replace airspeed. Bob

Almost forgot my usual warning. Always ask about useful load. It can vary from under 900 lbs to just over 1000 lbs. It can make a huge difference for the occasional times when you want to carry 4 adults. If you know that you will NEVER want to carry more than 3 then it shouldn't be an issue. Personally, when we looked for ours, we were not interested if the useful load was not at least 950 lbs. Bob

Personally, I don't like the '77 model because it has the fuel selector valve in a place that is difficult for an old man like me to reach (between my feet). In '78 they moved it between the seats. I also prefer the vernier prop and mixture controls vs the airline type levers. Best of luck. Bob

At sea level I'd start with at least a 3000' runway, longer is better, until you find out what you are comfortable with. I used to fly final at 80 knots. A while later I was using 75 knots. Now I fly final at 80 knots slowing to 70 knots as I approach the runway. Don't rush it. Start long and get comfortable, then start trying shorter runways to determine your comfort level. 3500', 3000', 2500', 2200'.... Enjoy, Bob

To answer your questions directly: 1. You can't tell by whether the engine is running smoothly or roughtly whether or not you are LOP. If the fuel distribution is pretty equal to all cylinders you are probably (but not positively) LOP. If the distribution is not so even you may still be ROP. The only way to tell is watch the EGT on all four cylinders as you lean. 2. You are not LOP until the RICHEST cylinder is LOP. Even if you don't learn how to use the "lean find" procedure you can still find LOP. Just watch the EGT's. As you lean, once all EGT's are decreasing you are LOP. You'll find that one or two cylinders are usually the last ones to go LOP. Once you figure out which ones, you can just watch them to see when they go LOP. 3. No. You want the engine to run smoothly. If you can't get LOP before it runs roughly then you might want to invest in GAMI injectors for your engine. If you can get LOP and still run smoothly, the most efficient setting is usually about 20 to 30F LOP. Leaner than that and you start losing power and speed more than you gain in reduced fuel flow. I usually end up setting the richest cylinder about 10F LOP while that leanest cylinder ends up being about 30-40F LOP. Good luck, Bob

For just building time and not trying to go anywhere, try best engine out glide speed. As already mentioned, Carson's speed works if you are actually going somewhere, about 1.3 times best glide. I like a quote from a John Deakin article: "I didn't buy a fast airplane to fly slowly!" Bob

Rookie, As others have stated, a Mooney (particularly the "J" or "201") is the most efficient 4 place production aircraft flying. Also, as others have stated, not just in aviation but in all things, you have to know your objective before you can devise a plan. 1. If your objective is to get the three of you a reasonable distance as efficiently as possible in a reasonable amount of time, I'd recomment the "J". 150 knots cruise, 17 NM/gallon, pretty easy to find one with a useful load of 950 lbs or so which with your weights and 120 pounds of bags will allow you to fly for about 4.5 hours and 650 to 700 NM and still land with over an hour of fuel on board. My wife and I prefer to keep our flights to about 3 hours or less. 2. If you want more speed, have enough money, don't care about being the most efficient, and don't mind sucking oxygen from a hose; consider a "K" aka "252" or one of the newer models. At higher altitudes you will get closer to 200 knot speeds. Also lets you get above a lot of the weather. It would also come in handy in Colorado. 3. If you want the speed, have more money, and don't want to suck oxygen, get something like a Cessna P210. 4. If you have even more money, are willing to get all the training, you could get a Cessna 340A. 5. Even more money, a turboprop or small business jet... 6. Even more money.... Best of luck, Bob

Horsepower is horsepower. It doesn't make any difference if it is turbo or not. If both of them make 285 ponies at SL then performance will be the same. Where turbo makes the difference is above SL. With turbo you will get a better average rate of climb. You can also make more horsepower at altitude and thus higher speeds (but also higher fuel flow). The majority of us here fly non-turbo Mooneys. If I lived in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah... turbo would be nice for better takeoff performance. If you live east of the Mississippi I can't see that you really need the turbo. Personally, I would prefer not to suck on a hose so some of the benefit of a turbo would be lost on me. If I want to fly above 12,500' for more than 30 minutes, I'll find a way to get something that's pressurized. Bob

We have a J and it takes 7 gallons before there is any below the fuel cap. Bob

If you consider a Bonanza then WATCH THE AFT CG. Its easy to go out the aft limit. Personally, I would not consider them to be a six place airplane because it is highly unlikely you can actually put people in those aft seats. Even 4 large people in the front two rows may put you at or near the aft CG. Before I got the Mooney, I considered buying a share of a V35B Bonanza until I did a weight and balance problem with the owner's POH. I would look at a Cessna 210L or 210M. I've been doing research to see if there is a six place plane I could talk my wife into. If operating cost was not a factor I would also look at a Cessna 310P/Q or a Cessna 340A. Unless you need to climb to higher altitudes I would get the normally aspired 210. Both the turbo and the pressurized versions tend to have a lower useful load. It should be pretty easy to find an NA 210L with a useful load of around 1500# for under $180,000. It will go about the same speed as the J, but on about 45% more fuel. A 1500# useful load should let you load up 1200# or people and bags and enough fuel to fly for a bit over 2 hours and 350 NM and still land with an hour of fuel on board. The 210 does not seem to have an issue with aft CG. Granted, you'll want to put the smallest two people in the back row for CG and space reasons, but it appears you could actually load 6 people and bags and still be legal. Good luck, Bob

If you have a KT76A, I would buy and install the Trig TT31. Under $2500, slide in replacement unless you want ADS-B in which case you'll have to run a wire for the position information. No new tray needed. If you don't care about ADS-B right now, installation cost should be almost $0, you end up with a new mode S transponder, and it is 1090ES ADS-B ready when you want to hook it up. Bob

Let me see. One K A nice red E I believe. Another E that is inside a hangar and flys regularly. An F that has never flown as far as I know. Our J. Another J that splits its time between here and Arizona. One more that sits outside and never moves. The owner at least cleaned the mold and mildew off it a couple months ago. That makes 7 that I know of. Bob

How about requiring all drones to have a unique serial number and requiring anyone who sells a drone to register that serial number with the FAA? The name and address of the buyer would have to be verified with picture ID and the information included in the registration. If any drone is involved in an incident such as the one mentioned at the start of this thread, and enough of the serial number can be located to identify the owner, it could be used to bring criminal and civil charges. If the owner sells their drone, they would have to notify the FAA who the new owner was or still be held responsible. Bob

You should also look at the 5 digit number in the upper right corner of the plate. You will most likely see something like 15021 or 14284. 15021 means the chart was updated on the 21st day of 2015. 14284 means it was updated on the 284th day of 2014. As stated earlier, you can't tell if there is a newer one without looking at one from the current cycle. However, it can help you to determine if the approach in your GPS database agrees with the approach. For example, since there are about 30 days in a month, and 30 goes into 284 9 times and change, the revision was some time mid October. If your database is dated prior to that date, it will not agree with the plate and should not be used for that approach. Bob

I have 20 years in the Diesel Nine (DC9) and about 5 in the 757/767. I did not consider the 757 to be glass. That's one of the things I liked about it. It used glass to display steam gauges. The hardest part was learning the FMS. What's it doing now? Is it doing what I asked it to? How do I get it to.... I never flew a GPS approach until we put one in the Mooney and find them no more difficult than any other approach. The main thing is as MooneyBob said, know how to use the box. I spent probably a couple hundred hours playing with the simulator before I ever flew the airplane with it (hey what else am I going to do on a 16 hour layover in a hotel)? I'm still learning tricks for the box. Here's my latest: 1. Have a plan. Know what the winds are, what approaches are likely, and what approach I want to fly; both at my destination and my alternate. If they don't give it to me and they are using the runway I planned, ask for what I want. 2. Load the route of flight. 3. Load the approach but obviously do not activate. 4. Scroll to the bottom of the list after the missed approach procedure. Add the transition fix of the approach I want at my alternate if I have to go missed and plan to divert. Then add my alternate airport. You can do this with the GTN650/750 but don't know if you can do this with the 430/530. 5. To activate the approach, activate a leg of the approach, not by using the 'activate approach' button. This keeps the alternate airport and transition fix in the flight plan. 6. If I have to divert, I already know what I want to do so when they say, "state your intentions" I can tell them I want to go direct to XXXXX for the XXX approach to XXX. When they say cleared direct I can hit D-->, select it from the flight plan, and get going the right direction. I can then select my alternate from the flight plan and load and activate the approach. As we used to say in Training Command, technique only, not procedure. Bob

Technique only, and subject to modification. At Delta we add half the headwind component and all the gust to our approach speed. So 12G20 down the runway we would add 6 for the headwind and 8 more for the gust would be adding 14knots to the approach speed. I can't really see a good reason to add speed for the headwind other than to get to the runway faster so in the Mooney I'll probably just add the gust factor. In this case, I'd probably add 8 knots (in reality I'm not that good so I'd add 10). The idea being that if you are flying with the extra speed, and the gust takes that extra speed away, you still have your normal flying speed. Higher speeds mean longer landing distances. However, with lots of wind, landing distance will be shorter. In reality, your speed over the ground will be the same or lower than normal so your landing distance will probably be about the same. As for landing with no flaps in a crosswind, I still need to practice that. I'm guessing they recommend that because doing so will require a higher speed on final in order to keep the normal 1.3 times stall speed. The higher speed will in turn give the rudder more authority which will allow for a more significant crab in the flare. Bob

LOP does not necessarily mean slower. 65% power LOP results in the same speed as 65% ROP. However, you are correct in that if you are looking for the maximum speed, you will have to operate 50 to 100 ROP. Might make the difference between being able to get 75% power vs 65% power. Then again, maximum speed also means you will be running WOT, full forward on the prop control, and leaned to ideal ROP. As for a mechanical reason to avoid ROP. How about operations at lower altitudes? Cruising at say 3500' you probably don't run firewalled and 50 ROP. I'm guessing you either roll the RPM back, pull the throttle back, or both. Otherwise you are probably running 85+% power (which can be OK as long as the CHT's stay low enough). If you are pulling the power back to keep the output down to 75% or so, why not do it with a slightly higher throttle/RPM combination and LOP to get the same power/speed and save money? Time is precious. I agree there are times when speed is more important than money. There are no absolutes. Life is full of choices. Bob

Quit worrying about the actual EGT's. You don't need fuel flow. If you lean until the last cylinder is LOP and the engine is still running smoothly, you are good to go. If the engine starts to run roughly before the last cylinder goes LOP, either don't run LOP or get GAMI injectors. The most fuel efficient power setting is about 30F LOP. I typically look for 10F LOP on the richest cylinder which gives me about 30F LOP on the leanest. Bob