inktomi

That looks great!! I bet it's nice climbing into the seat behind that new panel and enjoying all the upgrades after flying on the old one for a while!

(late to the party but) I love the paint scheme on your bird! Looks really great, and I would have never guessed that it's 20 years old!

Looks like great fun! I wish I could have made it this year, was planning on it early on in the year - but plans change =\

What's the asking price? I could use a cheap multi-engine time builder!

If only I had $60,000! Your plane really does have just about everything you can get in a M20C..

That makes sense. It was my first experience with engine trouble in my few years of flying. I understand why the instructor felt it was OK to turn back - we were able to maintain altitude - no indication of fire - etc.. While I hope I never have to use the skills and knowledge I've gotten there and from talking with you all here, with piston aircraft it seems like given enough time it's likely I'll have some issue at some point. I feel much more prepared now than I would have, even with my private pilot and IFR tickets under my belt. There's a difference between simulated engine trouble and real engine trouble, if only in the stress factor.. Now.. to find a Mooney in Las Vegas to get back into with someone and finish my training!

If I was alone I would have landed on the streets that were to our left. Nearly certain that I would have made it no problem. There's also another road further upwind to use if I was a bit further upwind (I've actually seen an aircraft on that road..). I've always read that it's a bad idea to turn back to the airport, the only reason the CFI was confident doing it was that we had enough power to maintain altitude and there was very little wind that morning to make the downwind landing difficult. There wasn't an engine monitor in the aircraft to the best of my memory. In fact, this aircraft crashed in Sedona a couple months ago so I haven't been back in a Mooney since this happened =\ I talked with maintenance and the only thing they told me was that they found fouled mags, though I'm not sure how that would have been the "only" issue. If the mags were fouled wouldn't it have ran rough constantly? It got significantly rougher if we tried to get more power from the engine. Given the standard ops at the flight school & club I'm certain it was ran full rich on the ground most of the time. I understand the comments about touch and goes. I'm all for less risk, so I'll be doing full stop landings and taxing back when I'm back in a complex aircraft. Sorry I didn't get back earlier. Somehow missed the "thread updated" email. Apologies!

I reviewed the Target EGT method after work today. That makes sense! Thanks for providing the powerpoint link. Now.. to find a sea level airport to know what the EGT shortly after takeoff is.. unless there's a better way they don't mention to know what value to use for target EGT should be. It certainly makes sense that I wouldn't want to be overly rich on takeoff and rob myself of power. On the other hand, a chief CFI scolded me a year or so ago for leaning before takeoff recounting a story of someone at her old field who did that and ended up crashing off the runway (though for the life of me I can't remember the why in that story). I will discuss this with my CFI on my next trip.

Jeev, yes - I'm at Monarch and this was in N5760Y. I agree that there's a big difference between knowing what works and knowing why it works. I'll read more!

Very good points. I'll talk with my CFI about doing full stop landings rather than touch and goes. I think I'm doing well, so as you said full stops won't add much time since I don't think I need a lot more practice. It seems like if I have airspeed where it needs to be, no faster or slower, the landings are non events. Off in either direction was noticeably worse, and my rule now is go around if speed is off at all. In the POH I read the part about leaning if at high altitude for takeoff/etc, and in other POHs I've read the same thing.. but no one really has ever told me what "high altitude" really means. Around here we're normally around 10,000 to 12,000' for terrain, so "high altitude" for us is around there. 6000+ DA is common every day during the summer here. I've been advised against leaning for takeoff, but I also understand the "lean for best performance" that I think you're talking about. What DA would you start leaning for ground ops / take off? I'd like to help the aircraft owners keep their planes in good working order, so certainly excess buildup in the engine is something I'd like to safely avoid if possible. I really appreciate the discussion. I'm learning quite a bit

I'd certainly think that was the case, except that we had been full rich for two touch and gos. If that was the case, shouldn't we have had engine roughness when I first went full rich? The engine behaved exactly like it would if you over leaned it - stalling, rough running. It only full quit once, but it had several other hickups while we were in the air. It ran better at low RPM on the ground taxing to our maintenance hangar.

I don't think that I'd be doing them by myself, but with a CFI to split the work with a bit it doesn't seem so bad. Keep in mind I have less than 5 hours in Mooneys, so I'm still on the learning the sight picture etc phase of getting comfortable with the aircraft. I see the points about T&Gs though, and they certainly are valid. We are also working with runways where the shortest option is 5000' so there's no rush to get things done quickly. I'll certainly keep in mind the nose high triim though, that's a very good point. Sorry if I read as stalls being violent. Spirited is more like it. Of course in Southern Nevada during the summer you don't get glassy smooth air to work with, so there are thermals nudging you around the whole time. OAT yesterday morning was around 90 degrees, for a density altitude of around 6000 feet. KHND field elevation is 2492', and we had our failure around 3100'.

What is the reasoning against touch and goes? We're doing them as part of the aircraft checkout, rather than as complex training per-say. Getting used to landing the Mooney.. it seems quite a bit different than the Diamonds that I'm used to.

Yes, my renters insurance would have covered me. We had been flipping tanks throughout the flight, so we didn't want to risk it since it was still "running". We were really barely off the end of the runway when trouble began, so we didn't have a long debugging period to work with once we decided that we'd make the runway rather than one of the city streets in front of us. By pulled the mixture, what I meant was we pulled it from full rich to about where we had it - more or less - when I leaned for our return trip from 10000'. I was thinking maybe something with the mixture lever connections could be faulty - the engine recovered immediately when we "leaned" it. It had been full rich for the touch and goes I was doing. I'll post when I hear what's up.

Hello - I wanted to relate my story of today's 1.4 PIC time in my club's "new to us" M20J. I recently passed my IFR check ride, in G1000 DA40 aircraft - but I've always loved the look of Mooney's and so to congratulate myself on passing the IFR ride I thought I'd have some lessons in the Mooney and get my complex endorsement as well. The complex endorsement part of this training seems like really common sense stuff.. but let me talk to you about my flight today. #2. We were going to do stalls, slow flight, steep turns and some touch and gos. Cool. For anyone reading this who, like me, is here because they like the look of Mooney aircraft and hasn't flown one yet - just wait till you get to do stalls. We went up to 10,000' over near Primm, Nevada to do them. What people say is right! This particular aircraft doesn't have a working stall horn, and it's quite a ride when it does break. 10 degrees nose up to 30/40 degrees nose down and about the same to the left or right in the blink of an eye. Quite the experience, and one that I'm very glad I had. The first stall on my own I made the mistake of giving the slightest bit of aileron input which turned the stall into a half developed spin. Fixed that, and all the rest were much better. OK, so slow flight.. normal checkout stuff. You're wondering why I'm here typing this boring story.. After our second touch and go, gear up, climbing out around 700' over the ground.. no more engine. My CFI was able to get it restarted by pulling out the mixture, but it ran very rough and certainly not like it was running the rest of the 1.4 hours. Full throttle caused it to run very rough, full mixture caused it to die. Since we were developing some (limited) power we turned back and made a downwind landing after declaring an emergency. We were trying to figure out what could have caused this failure. All the indications were fine, temp, fuel, fuel flow, nothing out of the normal. Other than the engine sputtering, everything else seemed normal. Very strange, and I'm interested to see what the shop finds. So, all in all, quite the exciting second ride in our club's M20J. My first emergency, and no harm to us or the plane. All in all, not bad.

You can order things printed in metals from Shapeways.com - I wonder just how far you could really go 3d printing parts..

Thank you for all the replies. I think I feel good enough about this chart now to include it in my weather packet for my test today. It seems like no matter how much I think that I know, as soon as I go to look up the details of something that I'm unsure of there's a whole bunch of stuff that I never even knew I didn't know. I guess I'll do the best I can today, and then resolve to never stop learning about this sort of stuff!

Thanks! Truth be told I've always liked the look of Mooneys.. which brought me here. I've enjoyed lurking and reading what people have to offer. I learn so much about aircraft just reading the issues that other people have had with them. My flight school just got a rental 1987 M20J which I'm very excited to try out after my IFR rating is complete. Hopefully soon! I thought that the numbers near the circles may mean temperature because 21 Celsius matches up with the temperature in Reno, but the numbers in the white boxes being the altitude at which 700 mb pressure actually existed was basically a guess. I couldn't find a legend online.. Attached is the matching freezing level chart. Visually the gradients seem to match up, but I'm not sure if that's just a coincidence. I see that around Las Vegas the freezing level is about 11-15 thousand feet. I do know that to have icing you need visible moisture, something that Las Vegas doesn't have right now... which is why I was curious about the Moderate Icing Potential. Then I looked up DPD and really couldn't find anything relevant at all. Sooo much stuff that I'm trying to review, and then I run into little things that I just haven't seen before.. like a new way to display a constant pressure chart!

Hello - I was looking at DUATs weather today preparing for my IFR test tomorrow, and ran across a new chart (a colorful one at that!) which I hadn't seen before. This is what CSC DUATs is calling a Constant Pressure chart, and I see the areas of constant pressure. What I'm curious about is DPD and the numbers at the various stations. What do they mean? I'm in Las Vegas, and I'm quite certain that we don't have a moderate icing potential.. does it mean that if I were flying in clouds there would be a moderate icing potential? Looking north of Las Vegas, the "21" at the Reno station is the temperature, correct? Looking at the white tags, 10400, 10300, 10200.. that's the altitude where the pressure is 700 mb, correct? Sorry for this being the first post of mine.. long time lurker, first time poster.