Tim Jodice

I tried to find the post I have been referring to and I forget what model airplane he had but he reported no gain in speed. At the end of the day it is hard to go wrong with a brand new no AD propeller. On top of that short of hitting something you will get at least one smooth sailing no blade replacement overhaul. I bring that up because I don't think everyone thinks about the value of hedging future maintenance when buying a brand new prop as opposed to hoping that you can overhaul a 20-30 year SMOH propeller.

@Stephen Slate I think this is a good starting point. have them do a check on how thick your blades are. If there isn't enough meat left for them to file off to make the profile then I would agree with @0TreeLemur that a new propeller regardless of which make/model you go with is the best bet.

Depleted Uranium

It doesn't. It is documented on Hartzells website the it sacrifices take off performance. Someone on here bought one. If I remember correctly he didn't hate it but was disappointed that it didn't preform any better than the stock propeller.

What are you looking to gain if anything? If you are simply looking to get rid of the AD and have healthy propeller take your propeller Overhaul it with a B hub. That is by far the best value.

what model airplane do you have?

What can I say? It arouses me.

What model 550?

By failure I mean it was/is rarely used in any airplane OEM or STC. Looking at high power applications with my non engineering education level I would think it would have been a great engine. These are a few examples that come to mind.. Why is pulling 375HP out of only 520 cubes then add the complexity of gearing it good for a 421? A 720 would seem great, slow it down a little to get 375 and use just a little boost to pressurize the cabin and hold power at altitude. Why was it better to spin a 541 in a beech Duke at ear piercing 2900RPM boosted to (I think) 42"MP to get 380HP. Again slow a 720 down add a touch of boost for cabin and altitude performance. There are posts on Beechtalk about getting rid of unsupported ancient lycoming and Adding 720s to Twin Bonanzas. with the exception of the opinion of many that think the old engines sound better the 720 is better in every way. Those both assume that you don't want all the power that they are rated for. which makes sense for longevity. There is a STC for piper malibus to remove the factory 310HP 520 and install a 310HP 550. The main if not only reason it exists is because of the poor service life of a high climbing heavily boosted engine. They traded the boost for more cubes that resulted in a cooler running longer life engine. Speaking of heat, making power makes a certain amount of heat. In a water cooled engine you would size the radiator accordingly. you can add only so many fins to a cylinder and that is all you have. Adding a 4th row of cylinders just increased your cooling capacity 25%. More power? Cooler running? Or a little of both. Any constant load application it seems a bigger engine asked for less of it max power has a better, longer life and sometimes is even more efficient. Weight? Price? Parts? Looking at one it would seem the only unique parts are the crank, cam and cases. What your thoughts? @M20Doc I figured this is right up your alley.

I use Celsius. This is the only thing I care about 98% of the time I look at it is ice. It is rare I am looking for a max performance take off so I really don't care how it performs in the heat.

I have had a good experience as well. I have had a few problems along the way but they always made good on it. I have been buying from them since 2012.

Getting back to the original question. @FoxMike (who did a nice write up on his MT here) myself and a somewhat lurker member I forget he user name but his real name is Scott S. have MT propellers. There are many others but I have not met or spoken to them so I won't speak for them. I was interested in the MT for noise and vibration reduction. Most would agree that a 4 cylinder Lycoming is not the smoothest engine. Before dropping $14,000 on a propeller I wanted real opinions. One of my pet peeves is "I heard from a friend " so I wanted to speak to people who actually owned one. Scott and I have 201s Fox Mike has a Bravo. 201s go from two to three blade and Bravos go from three to four blade. The three of us have the same opinion and that is that they are smoother, quieter, beter takeoff and climb performance. The climb performance is most noticeable when at VX/VY speeds, the faster you go the less the gain. I personally was expecting to loose speed because it does make sense that swinging another blade through the air takes energy and historically on a low 200HP airplane a 3 blade does cost a few knots. Cruise speed is unchanged. I did a 4 way GPS before and after. The MT came out a few (2) knots faster but it was a little cooler so I gave the credit of the few knots to the engine make a little more power. On the 201 it is 3 inches shorter and with Mooneys having a small amount of ground clearance I consider having a shorter propeller a plus. Anyone who would like to see and hear side by side on the ground inside, outside and flying a 201 with a MT and a M20F with the stock Hartzell 7666 2 blade is welcome to call me and stop by. 6 zero 3 five seven 1 seven 1 one one. A little technical stuff. I was told bt the MT propeller shop in Deland, FL that MT propellers are designed to be flexible some models more than others. The propeller that goes on a 201 on one of the most flexible and because of that it likely will never have a nickel leading edge because nickel doesn't flex like steel.

Thanks.

Seriously I don't know know what happened in 1984 in avation.

I was 4 at the time. What happened in 1984?

It was at SNF. It looks awesome in person.

More power would be great. a DA50 is a bigger much more expensive airplane. Keep the DA40 airplane and add a 260HP IO-540 like piper did starting with the O-360 powered Archer and turning it into the O-540 powered Dakota using the same airframe.

I can see the pros but what are the cons of that design? Aiplanes that I have flown all (especially Bonanzas) seem to want to roll over if you put them in a 45 and let go. For those of you un familiar with a DA40 there are no springs whatsoever. The rudder/aileron are not interconnected. Polar opposite of Cirrus. I think it is impressive that they are as stable are they are naturally. I could see the problem with a center stick for passengers. It's to bad you can't remove the right side stick.

Of course I leave out the most important thing! Yes it did. they were squashed so much that it required removing one set of washers on the bottom mounts. The bottoms were bad the the top were okay, I replaced all 4.

I agree. I wonder if brand new airplanes without a G1000 would be desirable.

I would replace them. I just replaced mine for a vibration issue. Like landing gear bungees they are square on the sides when new. I have no experience with Barry but so far so good with Lord.

This is my opinion having never flown a DA40 before. I think it is a awesome flying airplane. Center stick connected with push rods is incredibly tight, better than my J. Maybe because it is new and had like 150TT? I have never flown a brand new Mooney but I would think any push rod system would have absolutely no play by design. It has great control harmony. I used to think Bonanzas were the best. Obviously that is very subjective. Trimmed properly it holds a 45 degree bank with no input. It is hard to stall, you can hold the stick all the way back stall horn blaring airframe shaking and you still have aileron control. We didn't do spins but he said if you put it in one then simply let go of the controls it will come out of the spin on it own. I can see why they have the best safety stats of piston singles. Landed is very predictable and the engine makes alot of drag at idle. Visibility is amazing, greenhouse effect is not. It is extremely quiet at any point in flight, so quiet that the vents are noticeable when opened. I found the seat comfortable however I was only in the air for about 30 min. Avionics are the industry standard G1000. I didn't spend much time playing with it. I was all about learning the airplane stick (literally) and rudder flying and the engine. Now the engine. It is as they say, super quiet and smooth. Almost turboprop smooth and smoother than any continental/lycoming I have flown. It was 94 degrees and humid on the ground so as expected takeoff and climb performance didn't feel all that impressive however we didn't do a max performance take off or hold VY in the climb.. Cruise was better than book 148-150 TAS according to the G1000 burning 7.2 GPH. Starting at $520K it is one of the least expensive piston singles available. I know there are a few members on here that used to own a DA40 I would love to hear your opinion of how the airplane flys.

+1 for @GEE-BEE I bought a set for my plane and the fit and finish is awesome, no trimming required. I also saw a improvement. I didn't take any pictures before but this is how it looks after. notice no wrinkles.

That was my experience yesterday. let's see what happens today.

Anyone up for getting together at sun n fun? It would be great to meet people behind MooneySpace.