Bob - S50

Another option is to sign up for (free) and use the savvyanalysis.com website. Put the data on your stick, upload to the website, look at the graphics. Easy to use and free. Bob

As someone mentioned, only the 'out' portion is required. As far as I know, there is no portable out solution, it has to be a panel mount. The best plan I've read is to get the cheapest 'out' solution possible and use a portable 'in'. The portable in will be much cheaper than the panel mount in and will make it less expensive to upgrade as better equipment becomes available. Either way, you probably know you will need a WAAS GPS for the out portion. Since we currently have a KT76A, my plan (if my partners agree with me) is to wait until it dies or we get close to 2020. Unless something better comes along I would buy the Trig TT31 for $2900. If we want ADS-B in, we can buy a portable receiver and wirelessly connect it to our tablets. Bob

I'm only writing based on what I've watched/read on the internet, mostly Mike Busch and John Deakins. EGT is a measure of how much energy is left in the gases as they exit the cylinder. CHT is more a measure of the peak pressure being generated inside the cylinder. If you start at peak EGT you can go either LOP or ROP. Going LOP 50 degrees for example will change the mixture to make it burn slower and will reduce the peak pressure. This will reduce CHT. Going 50 ROP will theoretically create the ideal mixture for the quickest burn and the peak pressure (all other things being equal). That will increase the CHT. In both cases you have the same EGT but two different CHT's. As for RPM during descent, I've read you want low RPM in the descent to reduce ring float (not sure that is the correct term). At high RPM and low MP, the pressure in the cylinder may not be high enough and will allow the rings to float in the grooves. The prop is driving the engine rather than the other way around. This supposedly can lead to ring and or landing failures. Using low RPM and higher MP instead reduces the likelihood of that. During descents I try to use long shallow descents at relatively high power settings and periodically try to check the mixture and try to keep it near peak EGT. Just my opinion. Bob

First, my POH ('78 J) says the normal range for CHT it 300 to 450 but I will not allow it to go over 400. Second, Mike Busch has a very good webinar on cylinders. He does not mention a minimum temperature or anything about a 'choke' in the cylinder. He does show that at room temperature there is a pretty big gap between the piston and cylinder. He also states that since the cylinder is made of steel and the piston is made of aluminum, the piston expands twice as much (coefficient of expansion that is) as the cylinder as it comes up to temperature. At operating temperature he says the gap is very small. In another webinar about engine condition he talks about compression checks and mentions that several factors influence the reading including position of the ring gap and direction of travel of the piston. Since the fit is loose at room temperature, the piston will rock back and forth in the cylinder a little as it moves up and down because of the angle between the wrist pin and the connecting rod. Depending on the gap location and whether the piston is going up or down, the gap will change size. That could be the reason you see the gap change. Bob

Thanks for the input. And when I think about it, we really only need to worry (even if just a little) about detonation and pre-ignition at high power settings. Supposedly once you get down to 75% power the chances of that happening are about nil. By the time we get to 7500' there is only enough air to generate 75% power at full throttle. Since Boulder is at 5288', I'm almost that high. If I happen to get the mixture just a bit too lean, it probably isn't going to hurt anything. As a matter of fact, it will probably put me closer to max power. Even if I look at John Deakin's red box, it disappears at 7500' At 5000' in looks like it runs from a few degrees LOP to about 100 ROP.

I agree with DS1980. Since I don't go around very often I will have a hard time establishing the habit of mixture, prop, throttle for a go around. I want to avoid the 2% as much as possible. Here's what I've been doing: 1. Leave it LOP all the way to the pattern, using 2200 RPM and 17" to be at about 100k on downwind. 2. Some time after turning base I'll need to come back almost to idle to keep my airspeed and glidepath where I want them. When that happens, I go full rich, full forward on the prop, and boost pump on with no resultant change in power. 3. I then use just the throttle through touchdown. 4. As soon as I clear the runway I lean the engine again. I'm only full rich for less than 2 minutes. When I finally fly to Colorado to visit my brother, I'll have to figure out some other setting for the mixture. Since I lean during the climb to 1250 -1300 EGT, I'll probably take a look at the mixture position when I'm passing 5000' and try to get some type of feel for what that looks like. Bob

Lot of good comments here. It's all about what you make of it. I'm new to the Mooney and am finally comfortable in the plane (about 30 hours). Like many here, I still work and schedule my Mooney flying around my work days. If all I ever planned to do with it was to drive around the pattern a couple times a month I would sell my share. However, I have other plans that will be much easier once I retire (37.9 million seconds from now). I currently hope to fly at least twice each month. Once I retire, I plan to fly more like once each week. Here are my plans, maybe they'll give you some ideas (no particular order): 1. $100 hamburgers with my wife (or is that now $200 hamburgers). 2. Under the hood ride to get a couple approaches/low approaches and maintain proficiency. 3. Visit relatives who live more than 100 miles away. 4. Fly to away football games (we have home season tickets). 5. Angel Flight West flying. Angel Flight has wings all around the country. Get to fly, donate your time and airplane, do some good for people, have fun, and even get a small tax break. Good luck, Bob

Thanks. Knock yourself out. Have fun changing the code. I didn't finish all the comments but hopefully there are enough there that you can figure it out. Bob

I wrote an HTML file for our airplane ('78 J). Hard coded info: max gross, empty weight, empty pitching moment, $/hour for hourly rate, adjustment factors for speed and burn. Data entered on the form: airport, PA, Temp, HW, $/gallon, front seat weight, back seat weight, baggage weight, hat shelf weight, gallons at start up (it subtracts 9 pounds for STTO), climb speed (estimated performance for 100, 110, 120k), cruise altitude, power setting (75, 65, 55). Output: CG graph, takeoff roll, time to altitude, distance to altitude, fuel burn to altitude, power settings (from the POH), $/mile at cruise. If you know how to modify and save an HTML file you can change the hard coding to match your plane. Most of the values are near the top of the file but the cost/hour is near the bottom in a line that contains this: 25 * RPM/2700. Since we use $25/hour based on tach time not hobbs, I adjust the cost for lower RPM. I've attached the latest version if you want to play with it. N201CB Takeoff Calculator v3.5.html

Thanks for trying. I usually have no luck doing searches either. Bob

Thanks. We'll do that. I usually have better luck with trial and error anyway. Bob

Just a question for all you experienced Mooney drivers out there. We have a '78 J and we suspect that the landing light is aimed incorrectly because it essentially does us no good for approach and landing. I've looked in our MX manual and it appears that there is not any type of adjustment built into landing lights that are mounted in the nose (there are procedures for those in the wings though). I have not physically looked at it yet, but if we feel the need to adjust the aim of the light, is there a relatively easy way to adjust it? Can it be done with spacers of some kind (washers)? Or is it necessary/possible to bend the bracket? Something else? Thanks in advance. Bob

Marauder, That's always the safest thing to do. During the last cycle there were numerous changes to airports in our area so we will most likely do an update soon too. Bob

PLEASE READ THIS !!! Actually I got it a little bit wrong. When I look at the approach plate, this first place to look is the upper right corner of the plate just above the approach title. You will most likely (but not always) see a 5 digit number such as 13290. That number stands for the 290th day of 2013. That would be about Oct 16, 2013. That is the date the plate was last changed. If there is no number there, THEN look at the bottom left corner and you'll probably see 'Orig-' and some letter telling you it is the original. It will then be followed by either a date like 14Nov13 or another 5 digit number like 13290. If I am going to fly with an out of date database then these numbers have to indicate a date prior to the expiration of my database. The last cycle I have is for approaches modified on or before 13234. Be careful out there!

Don't bother making a chart. Just use a piece of wood for the dipstick (so it will float if you drop it). After each time you dip it, mark it with a pen at the level of the fuel. After the tank is full and you have the top mark (for which you know the number of gallons) work backwards labeling each mark. After that you won't need a chart, just dip the stick and get the reading directly off the stick. Bob

True about the pain in the butt, but I DO fit the mold of the proverbial cheap pilot !!! As for missing something, if the date on the plate is older than the database then there is nothing to miss. As you mentioned though, it does take a little planning to look at other airports as alternates or along the way (if weather is bad) to make sure there are approaches you'll be able to fly. Bob

I agree with most of what you said but I'll stick my neck out and go one step further. If you look in the AIM at table 1-1-6 on page 1-1-23, the table is titled, "GPS Approval Required/Authorized Use". The 6th column is labeled IFR Approach and it lists note number 3 as a reference. Below the table, note 3 says, "Requires current database or verification that the procedure has not been amended since the expiration of the database." Note the word 'OR'. To me that means I can fly the approach as long as I verify that the approach has not changed since my database expired. To do that, I know our database expired on 9/19/2013. If I look at an approach plate and the date says 'original' or the date is prior to 9/19, then it has not changed and my database should work. I think I can legally fly that approach. However, if the date says 9/19/2013 or later, I cannot fly the approach. Similarly, for SID's and STAR's, I look at the sequence number. Each time they make a change, they increase the sequence number by one. If I see the Chins 7 for example and my database says Chins 7, I can use it. If however, the STAR were the Glacier 4 and I only have the Glacier 3, then I could not use it. Whether your plates have dates probably depends on where you get them. If I look on AirNav.com and download a plate, it does not list the date on the plate. If, however, I look at the plates I get from Naviator on my Android tablet, the plates do list a date on the bottom of the page. Anybody read that differently? That being my interpretation, we will probably wait until there are enough approaches we might want to use that we cannot legally fly. We'll then pay for just the navdata update for a year and start over when the last update expires. The reason we'll probably go for the full year is that a single update costs about half the cost of the full year. For the small difference in price, might as well get the whole year. Bob

It comes down to how you use the plane. You have several factors to consider: 1. How often would you need them? Do you get slam dunk approaches very often? If only occasionally maybe you could: slow to 90 in anticipation of dumping the nose to trade altitude for airspeed, lower the gear, ask for vectors (just say unable - we did that a lot in the DC9), plan your route differenctly to avoid the slam dunks. Are any of those possible/acceptable? 2. How much will they cost? Is it worth thousands of $ to need them twice a year? Once/month? Every flight? Don't get them to recover from mistakes, learn to plan better. Only get them if you'll NEED them enough to make the cost worth while. 3. How much do they weigh? Every pound of mods you put on a plane is a pound less useful load you have for fuel, pax, and bags. If you routinely operate with a takeoff at max gross, and the brakes weigh 11.64 pounds (don't know what they weigh), that's 2 fewer gallons of fuel you can carry. You can do a lot of vectoring on 2 gallons of fuel and buy a lot of gas for the price of installing and maintaining speedbrakes. Good luck with your decision, Bob

DTC DUAT let's you do the same thing. On DUAT you use an average flow rate for climb, cruise, and descent. You select your altitude and it retrieves and uses the winds for you. However, I didn't write the file for planning a specific flight, I wrote it more to get a feel for what works best for my plane. If I start with no wind I can see that at 100 nm, I use the least fuel by staying as low as possible. At about 170 or 180 miles they all kind of become equal. Beyond that I start saving fuel by going higer. However, the difference between best and worst is less than 2 gallons of gas unless I'm going over 400 nm and the difference between 8000 and 12000 is less than a gallon all the way to 600 nm which is about the limit of my posertior endurance. If I put in HW that increases by 3k/2000' from 0k at 2000' to 15k (value of -15) at 12000' it makes no difference what altitude I fly at, they are all the same. That tells me that an increase of as little as 1.5k of HW for each 1000' of climb will negate any savings. In other words, since wind (HW in this case) usually increases with altitude, ride and terrain permitting, I might as well stay low. If the wind increases more than 1.5k/1000 I definitely want to stay low. Just something to play with. Bob

OK, I'm crazy. I had some spare time on my hands so I wrote an HTML file that will allow you to enter your own aircraft performance data and compare total fuel used at various cruise altitudes. It should work for any model of aircraft including brand b, c, and p. It also allows you to enter different HW or TW values at different altitudes to see if it is worth climbing or not. For example, I saved one version set up for 2200 RPM/WOT on our '78 J and another set up for 2400 RPM (my normal). Using it I found that at 2200 RPM, it only took an increase of 1.5 knots of HW for each 1000' climbed to competely negate any fuel savings normally gained by climbing. Using my 2400 RPM data it took about 2 knots/1000'. The default values in the file are for my '78 J using WOT and 2200 RPM. There are instructions at the bottom of the file that tell you how to modify the default values. If you want pages for different settings (like I did), simply make the changes then save the file using a new name. For example I saved one as "Best Altitude Calulator 2400.html" with my 2400 RPM settings. Hope you find it interesting and maybe even useful. Bob Best Altitude Calculator.html Altitude Burn Difference Calculator.html

If I'm not mistaken the 650 and 750 both have a 'monitor' function. On the 650 touch the standby window to call up the freq pad. If not already set, select your standby freq. Touch the 'MON' button to turn on the green light. Go back to your normal display. You set the primary up, then in the standby window you set the frequency you want to monitor and select 'monitor'. You are then listening to the standby freq. If something comes across the primary it cuts out the standby freq and you then hear the primary instead. Personally, I can't listen to two conversations at once anyway. Bob

After some thinking I came up with a way to estimate fuel saved during a descent. Bottom line, I decided if I left the power set, used a descent of about 500 FPM, and assumed the speed increased by 30 - 40 K, it would save about 0.1 gallons for each 1000' of descent. Based on that I modifed my spreadsheet which is attached. Now I would have to say that: Up to 300 miles it doesn't really matter. It should make a difference of less than a gallon. Beyond 300 miles, go high, around 10,000 or 12,000. Personally I'll probably still fly between 6500 and 9500 just for better breathing air and a nicer view. N201CB Total Burn.pdf

One other thing to consider. If you are planning on using a remote audio panel and remote transponder being controlled by a 750 to make room for the 750, you then have the potential for a single failure (the 750) to take out your GPS, one comm, your audio panel, and your transponder. While the 750 is nice, I do not like the idea of controlling multiple remote boxes through one input. Add the extra cost of the 750 over the 650 and we went with the 650. If money was no object and I had room to keep the separate audio and xponder, I would have favored the 750.

Did a little calculating for our '78 J. Best glide at max gross is 91KIAS. That makes Carson's speed about 120 KIAS. At 2200 RPM this happened around 10,000' If you watched the webinar including the Q & A, someone pointed out that the fuel saved at high altitude would be offset by fuel wasted getting that high. He wondered how far you had to fly to make up for the extra climb fuel. I made a spreadsheet to try and figure this out for our plane. Bottom line first for the impatient, then the assumptions for those who care to scrutinize. I think I've attached a PDF file that shows the data, but just in case it doesn't attach, here is what I found: 200 nm or less stay as low as terrain and ride permit. 300 - 500 nm, it doesn't really matter, they are all about the same 600 nm or further, go high. If you want a rule of thumb based on my assumptions and calculations, weather, ride, and terrain permitting; use an altitude that is the distance times 20. That is, if you are going to fly 150 nm, fly at 3000'. If you are going to fly 450 miles, cruise at 9000'. Here's what I did: * Since my POH did not give settings for 2000 RPM to a high enough altitude I used 2200 RPM. * I assumed the highest power setting at that RPM for each altitude was WOT (but may not be for lower altitudes). * Used best rate speed for climb so I could use the time/dist/burn to level off graph. I never climb this slowly. * Used the econ cruise leaning data even though it is still richer than I fly (Mooney uses 25 ROP). * Subtracted distance covered in the climb for each distance to determine cruise distance * Divided that by cruise speed to get cruise time * Multiplied that by burn rate to get cruise burn * Added climb burn to get total burn. In reality, being higher would allow you to save some fuel during a longer descent at reduced power but I had no way to calculate that with my POH. N201CB Total Burn.pdf

Mike Busch's latest free webinar titled "Flying Efficiently in a World of $7 Avgas" is now available on line: https://www.savvymx.com/index.php/webinar The presentation is fairly short but there are a few interesting questions in the long Q & A afterwards. On the other hand I read a quote somewhere that went, "I didn't buy a fast airplane to fly slowly!" Bob