Houman

Hi Bill,

 

Just a few thoughts from a very happy Rocket owner.

1. going over hours on the TBO doesn't concern me. Your engine won't magically disintegrate between 1600 and 2000 hours.  I'd be far more concerned with going 21 years without a peek inside the case. How much do you trust every pilot / mechanic / line guy who touched the plane in the past two decades?
2. If you are comfortable flying up high, the turbo bolted on the TSIO-520 is your best piece of deice gear. You can almost always find an ice-free altitude. I've yet to meet a Turbo Mooney owner who uses their TKS more than once or twice a year. I'm sure they are out there but I haven't met them. 
3. If you don't want to routinely fly above 10,000, the Rocket isn't the right airplane for you. She is much happier / faster above 15,000.  
4. You really can pull the power back and see 252ish numbers (speed v. fuel burn)
5. or you can burn some dead dinosaurs and do 225 KTAS at FL210
6. VA to Florida is an easy trip. 1000NM is safe in zero wind or tailwind. Plane endurance > most human bladders. Getting up and over the Rockies is a non-event in this plane. 
7. The Rocket has a fully feathering prop because the engine used to live on a twin. That means you have a ridiculous 17:1 glide ratio. At FL 180, you can cross 100 miles over water and still glide to land. That makes me a lot more comfortable flying to the islands or over the mountains. 
8. I don't think the maintenance costs are much different from a 252. Might be lower because the -520 isn't working very hard in this configuration if you treat it right. But it's an airplane so it will get in your pocket. See my last post. I don't think the overhaul cost is much different. 
9. Rocket support is first class. 
10. I can't imagine flying this airplane without an instrument rating. Contrary to popular lore, it's pretty easy to slow the plane down and go downhill. You just have to plan ahead. A few minutes before you want to descend, start reducing power. I shoot for 15-20 degrees per minute cooldown rate. I can get 1,000 to 1,500 FPM downhill within a couple of minutes. During the descent I continue to reduce power (watching the cooldown rate). By the time I'm at pattern altitude, I'm below gear speed. I'm smiling if I can hit my approach speed without using speedbrakes, never exceeding 15 degrees per minute cooldown, and never increasing power after I start reducing power from my cruising altitude. Takes planning (and a little ATC help) but it usually works. That approach will hopefully let the engine live a long happy life.
11. Be prepared to burn some gas. On short trips, you spend a large % of the time with the throttle up & full rich. That is 28GPH territory. 
12. The Rocket is a perfect fit for my mission: 1-2 people, frequent long trips where the extra 20-40 knots really adds up.  That speed makes the difference between getting home and spending an extra night in a hotel. In order to get a meaningful speed increase, I'll have to buy something that burns Jet-A.
13. The Rocket would not be a good choice for fun flying / staying current IMO. There are many cheaper options. The Rocket makes sense for someone trying to minimize travel time, not total cost of ownership.
14. Find a good Mooney shop. Don Maxwell did my prebuy. It wasn't cheap but I knew exactly what I was getting. 
15. I like high time airplanes and don't mind damage history if the right shop did the repairs. My plane had an off-airport landing 13 years ago. So instead of a 30 year old airplane, I have some 30 year old components that were disassembled, inspected, and reassembled 13 years ago. I like that better than having an airframe that hasn't been down to its bones in 3 decades. And the price is right! High-time is relative in our airplanes. Most GA airplanes rot, not wear out. I'd rather have a plane that flew 150 hours per year over 30 years. 

Good luck with your search. This forum has a wealth of knowledge. Be patient and find the right bird for your mission!

Kevin, this is a very good write-up, I have to admit that at the beginnig, with my Rocket, I was either descending too late, too fast or got to my patern altitude too fast and had to use my speed brakes alot..... this amazing plane takes much more planning than less efficient ones to slow down. I'm not IFR yet, but doing it and hopefully will be within 2 or 3 months max.

I now calculate my descent rate while in cruise and determine how many NM before destination I need to start my descent, then work backwords to start reducing power from the normal 31 MP that I cruise in to 25, I do that at the rate of 1 MP per 2 minutes, just to be easier on the engine for the temp changes, even though Rocket says 1 MP per minute, if you plan in advance, why not be baby the engine...

It seems work well, my descent are easier now going to 25 MP over 22 RPM and my speed stays within the green arc, near yellow but still within the green...

Bill, the Rocket is alot of plane, so make sure to get good transition training depending on your level of experience and as you said, MooneySpace is amazing source to seek good advice on everything...

As a Rocket owner, I say it is an amazing plane performance wise, but it is very costly.

If you were still interested in that plane, as I understand it is no longer the case, you would have to do a good pre-purchase view before you do even an inspection in it. The TBO for rocket is 1600, but you have to consider that 1h in a rocket equals maybe 1h20m in a J... It is faster so takes you shorter time to get there so less engine used.

Also consider that in a Turbo engine, it is more complexe and Turbo overhaul can run you 2 to 4 AMU and needs to be done at every 800h according to my information, anyway, I bought a Rocket last year and I do not regret it one second, my accountant has another view of it, but hell, he dos'nt fly it or work to earn it...

After 25 years of mishap-free flying, I finally had to file an insurance claim.

Fortunately, no one was hurt.

And I wasn't anywhere near the aircraft when it happened...

Our (i.e. my mechanic & the prop shop owner who's been at it for 30 years) best guess is that a tug ran into the prop while it was parked somewhere.

Scary thing is I just flew 100+ miles over water to Grand Cayman. 

I'm a fanatic pre-flighter but I never noticed anything until I had the cowl off for an oil change. Something caught our eye so we pulled the spinner. Not a single mark on the blades. No vibration in flight. Obvious hub damage. More details to follow (and pictures!)

 

We are following the letter of the law: prop damage means prop overhaul. Prop overhaul means engine tear-down. My TSIO-520 happens to have ECi cylinders, and the fine print in the AD requires me to throw the jugs in the garbage if they are removed from the engine. Alas, I've decided to go ahead and overhaul the motor. 

 

So I've been taking the bus to visit customers all month. I'm probably preaching to the choir but nothing beats a Mooney for cost-effective, fast transportation. Just to help me justify the rather large check I'm going to be writing, I've been keeping careful notes on the travel times on various 757's, 737's and A-320's. Would you believe that my Rocket can get me from Ocala to DENVER (my driveway to customer office) faster than a non-stop commercial flight out of Orlando? GA is a game-changing business tool. 

 

A big reason I'm posting this is to tell the Mooney world about the fantastic support I'm getting from Rocket Engineering. Even though they haven't done a piston conversion in 20 years, they still support the product like it was their #1 line of business. They have the original jigs for the engine mount & exhaust and they quoted a very reasonable price to bring those items back to like-new condition. What's even more impressive is the tech support they've offered gratis. When the prop shop asked for engineering drawings for the prop setup, Tim Moore spent an hour digging up exactly what we needed, scanned everything, and emailed it over to me. When the insurance company balked at the estimate for removing and reinstalling the motor, Rocket researched their records to figure out how long it used to take them to do the job. If anyone out there is considering buying a Rocket, rest assured the factory support is outstanding. And they turned a great airplane into the best damned airplane I've ever flown. Yes, these numbers are real: http://www.rocketengineering.com/content/rocket-performance

 

Can't wait to see what she will do at 24,000' with Gamis, Tempest fine-wires, and Millennium cylinders! 

 

 

I agree, altough I don`t have else experience than the 100 hours I have done on my Rocket, it is an amazing plane for it's price.

 

I also had to deal with Rocket, the support was great, but it took them along time to do my exhaust overhall after my mecanic found a small crack in my transition turbo pipe. Their price was resonnable, my mechanic was not, so it ended costing me alot.

 

I have talked to the Rocket guys couple of times and everytime I was pleased with how they are eager to help a Rocket owner, even if the don`t do this STC installations anymore...

 

Which I could get one of their newer STC'ed planes...

I use Phillips 66 X/C 20W-50 Multi-Viscosity oil as it was recommended to me by Bruce Jaeger who used to have an MSC for a long time and did an amazing job with my interiror redo.

After doing some reading arround, I have found that most would say that Single viscosity is fine if you are not going very high, but if you are going up to flight levels, general opinion or somewhat conscensus is that multi-viscosity behaves better.

It was my first Oshkosh - I've been flying for 8 years but first time I actually went - I went with my son who is 17 and a budding aero major so it seemed like a really fun thing to do.

 

But I missed the Bose deal.  To tell you the truth - I am pretty annoyed that the Bose does not do what I wanted it to do in the first place and I presumed it would - when I got this bluetooth headset, I presumed it would talk to my ipad and so I could receive those aural warnings from my garmin pilot app through the blue tooth.  Now they want to sell me at full price a new unit to do what the old unit should have done in the first place.

 

Now I am thinking of switching brands if I am spending full price anyway - has anyone tried the clark pro x?  Does it offer sufficient quiet in a piston cockpit?  I love the size and form and foldability.  I have worn one at the vendors stand, but never in the airplane.  And dos it allow blue tooth streaming?

 

https://www.davidclark.com/store/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=1005

Erik, I have tried all 4 brands ( bose, Lightspeed, David Clark and halo ) for several flights each and I would have to say that LightSpeed is my favorite, the fact how it covers your ear and quality of the product, specially in our Rockets that are quite loud with that bigbore engine in front. I used the Halo for alomst a year in C172 and Sundowner, they are great for non ANR, but they are a pain in winter...

I kind of regret that I got 1 Bose A20 in exchange at Osh, I should have gotten 2 Lightspeed Zullu PFX, they are top quality...I now use the PFX as my primary and Zulu 2 as my secondary, the bose A20 for passengers....

yeah, I have not done that since my mechanic is always very eager to open it up and see what is in it....

And your panel is indeed a beautiful system, Don. If 20x the cost (or more) of the OH is in the budget, why not? My only point was to say at 6000, King ki300 might not be the best bang for the buck. Yes its on the "cheap" compared to your panel, but not for what its deliverables are compared to what else is available for slightly more. The Aspen fills this gap very nicely, with a deliverable list that exceeds anything for the same cost. No, its not as  big of a display as the g500, but very adequate, leaving panel space to put the many AMU's you will save with an aspen system.

Personally, if cost were no object, I would do something very similar to what you have done with the G500, recognizing my ongoing subscription costs will be higher also. But we digress, this isn't a panel weenie wag, it is a discussion of the best options

 

Sink 2500 into a ki256 repair and get ready to do it again in 5 to 7 years of normal flying, less if flown a lot.

Sink 6000 into an unknown ki600 and ground the plane until it becomes available and take the chance it will have any kind of reliability being an early adapter

Sink 12K into an aspen and convert your plane from steam guage plane to a glass panel plane

Sink 28K into a G500 and convert your plane from a steam guage plane to a glass panel plane

Sink 100K+ and get a plane with this all done in it

Sink 800K and get a new Acclaim

I will take the last option, with a nice paint job please !!!

I'm married, I'm never getting out soon...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Have we seen your lovely bride's picture posted here before ???

Well I don't see much need to run the cooler much longer after liftoff, I mean usually I get very decent cooling by the vents, so it is mostly for pre-flight, taxi and after landing...

So I think the 90 min battery that comes with the Icebox kit should be good enough, or if I can run a wire and plug it into the cigarette lighter, that would be ok, as long as there is no permanent wiring.

I had 2 Bose A10 that came with the plane, they were old and one had a nasty hissing in one ear. Aircraft Spruce online would only give me about 200$ for each of them for an upgrade to a new headset, since I'm an inspiring CB member, I tought that was too much to spend and get 2 new ones.

I brought both to Osh and at my great surprise, Aircraft Spruce at OSH gave me 450$ for each on the purchase of new headset, they did'nt mind the one hissing. I bought a LightSpeed Zulu PFX and a Bose A20.

I already have a Zulu as my primary headset and think they are great, I am now even more amazed by the Zulu PFX, the Bose A20 are ok, but not the same fit as the Zulu's... Still paying half price for 2 new headsets is not too bad.

I'm about to buy an Icebox portable AC for my plane and was wondering if the electrical installation to the plane's batteries are really required or easy.

I personally rather not connect anything not needed to the plane's electric system, and speciallly in the Rocket, the batteries are at the very back of the plane just before the rudder. It was part of the Rocket mod to balance the Aircraft because of heavier engine.

So wondering what have people done with their IceBox and is it even worth the price for a kit... It runs into more than 1/2 Amu for the kit.

Thanks for sharing any real experience with the Icebox, I have read trough some posts about it here, but nothing that much on the actual electrical connection.

I saw the huge explosion from the Mooney tent instantly as it happened, obviously we were too far and too many planes in the field of view to see what really happend. Not wanting to second guess the pilot, but I think the tone and directives of the controllers on FISC arrivals make it more difficult and intimidating for a pilot to declare unable and go around.

From reading the report, he was given a much closer landing point after seeing the twin on the runway, so he had too much energy and not enough room to loose it... The only great thing about this story was that there were no fatalities.

Just wondering, I tried on my last flight to use Garmin Pilot while my ForeFlight was connected to the Stratus 2s Wifi network, Garmin Pilot was telling me that it could'nt find my location or something like that about no gps position.

As I understand it, if I have my iPad's wifi network connected to my Stratus, then it will receive GPS positions from the Stratus and disables the internal 3g ipad GPS, but can the same iPad have a bluetooth connection trough FlightStream to my GTN at the same time ? since Garmin Pilot can't talk to my Stratus.

I'm looking into having a Garmin FlightStream added to my Rocket so that I can exchange flight plans trough my iPad, worst case scenario I already have 2 Ipad and will use one with Garmin Pilot only until ForeFlight comes out with 2 way transfers between it and my GTN.

Just wondering before I go and spend the 2 AMU's for the FlightStream purchase and installation.

Thanks !

well, I will call them on Monday to inquire, they are in Texas and according to their site, here is their contact info :

Century Flight Systems, Inc. | Municipal Airport | P.O. Box 610 | Mineral Wells, Texas, USA 76068

Hi, does anyone have an extra Century rocker switch shaft part number : 47A297 ?

I had the UP/DN rocker switch from my Century 41 autopilot fall into my hand during a flight, it seems that the shaft holding it in place broke or came off. I belive it is a very small round metal shaft with springs at one or both end. The autopilot UP/DN works fine if I put my finger trough the hole and push the proper switch in the back.

The rocker switch is fine and not broken, but the shaft is no where to be found even after extensive search in the plane.

Calling Century, they told me that it is 20$, but that I have to buy up to 50$ for them to ship it to me and not sure how long it takes for Canada !

I'm sure it is a .50c shaft, but kind of important...

Thanks !!!

I hear you, I have a K and love it as well, although my K is rocket converted, goes faster and drinks much more of gas aka my credit card, We had a flight of less than 5h coming back from Oshkosh to Montreal without going over any water...

My Oshkosh co-pilot that owns an amazing RV6 was equally amazed at the 220 kts GS ( about 190 ktas ) at 12.5 K, and burning 18g/h...

Houman where do you live?

in Montreal/Canada...

I looked back in my logs, and the previous owner spent $49k modifying the plane with 201 parts in 1998. He could have spent less by selling his plane and buying a J. Personally I wouldn't have done it but it just boils down to what you want to do. My plane fits my mission well and I have no plans to sell it. In the meantime, I don't mind adding stuff I want. Neither viewpoint is wrong, it's just eye of the beholder.

I agree, unless I win the lottery and get a LearJet, there is no reason for me to go to something bigger than the Rocket, at least not for the next 10 to 15 years, so I don't mind spending a bit on upgrades. We did put a GTN 650 and then redid the interior, so it is pretty nice now...

Clarence:

 

I drove the car.  Isn't that enough?  I will even let you take the picture, but PLEASE!!!  No more cylinders!!  

 

I am having enough trouble looking after these four.  

C'mon Ned, I personally like the bang out of my 2 extra cylinders !!!

I got offer for $150. I counter offer $200. I think is reasonable. It's like brand new.

Responded via pm...

I sent you an offer by PM, let me know if it is good for you !!!

I know Stratus is also coming out with one later this year, since I just but a Stratus 2S for the ADSB-In option, I might go with their mode S transponder for the S option, don't remember the price anymore.

If only I could get all the traffic and weather I see on my Ipad Foreflight to and have that show on my GTN 650, then that would be golden, maybe it will be in future implementations with Garmin FlightStream 210 and Foreflight integration.

I don't think I've seen her before.  You add some more ladies to your harem?  

 

As to the OP's question, what options are available for his AP?  I got the STEC GPSS which obviously won't work for his setup.  I bought one used from ebay and had it installed.  Considering how much the other avionics cost, the GPSS was relatively inexpensive in comparison.  I'm thinking <$2k installed.  The icarus unit was another option available to me at the time, but it was a good bit more expensive, and I was fine with a simple GPSS.

And that is what I'm looking for, cheap GPSS, without the Aspen PFD or something like that.

I guess the GPSS will be able to work with my mechanical HSI and receive it's directives from the GTN in HDG mode, right ?,

The NAV mode is already coupled with the GTN, but I have to turn it to the DTK when GTN tells me to.

This is what air traffic looks like near Oshkosh.

Hi Erik, I think we missed each other by couple of minutes, I was talking to your prop guy and they said you were there about 5 to 10 minutes before... Did you came by the Mooney Caravan tent ?

wow, this thread kind of went off the reservation, I was just asking simple questions, not sure why the fat lady is relevant, I guess where Marauder is posting, it is not long before the fat ladies make their apparence.