johncuyle

Semantic distinction. If I feed a heading into the G500, and the heading syncs to the G5, and the G5 directs the autopilot to change heading to match the heading it has, which it received from the G500, then the G500 has driven the autopilot through the G5.

Yeah, that makes sense. Having looked pretty hard at the Aspens as a possible replacement for my gyros a couple times I decided I didn't really like the Aspen at all and would much prefer some sort of dual large screen and, because I'm paranoid, a couple of other backups don't seem so bad. I do kinda agree that the G500TXi/GFC500 setup where the G500 drives the AP through the G5 kinda sucks. Maybe I'd prefer something like a lifesaver with extra battery backup since it's not prone to some sort of weird software issue rendering it useless (or whatever)? I do understand the desire for failover to be as little a change in operations as possible, though. If your G500 goes blank, flying on a G5 is a pretty big step down in available information (hope your engine monitor wasn't integrated into it either, if it was you now have big stress flying with no engine instruments and just a G5 with a different information display.) If you've got a two or three screen Aspen setup and one of them goes out, not that big a change.

Apparently not. I'm not sure how two 7" portrait screens qualify as clutter. The G500TXi can be configured consists of a pair (or trio) of portrait screens and that doesn't seem like clutter either. An additional G5 or GI 275 doesn't seem so bad. I don't think there's another solution that doesn't require some sort of backup. The Dynon requires a D10, doesn't it?

Dual or triple 7" G3X? Two on the left, one on the right? They added the ability to configure a screen as a copilot display, so assuming it all fits you could have attitude plus SV on one G3X, a moving map on the other, and the third one on the right configured as a copilot display, with two failovers. If I had unlimited money, this is probably what I'd want. Sadly...

Interesting product. The round form factor must have been a difficult choice. It seems like a better fit for legacy panels but a worse choice for forward looking upgrades. My 231 panel is pretty much original except for CGR-30s. I'm not sure that the Garmin EIS for the GI 275 is actually sufficient for a 231(I don't think the EIS setup for the G3X could show enough of the necessary information to actually be primary replacement for all the original gauges) but the CGR-30s can, and are cheaper, so I sort of always figured if I got my ideal panel I'd have a pair of round displays for engine data anyway. The Garmin's backup battery makes it attractive for EIS since you have an extra hour to get it on the ground before you can no longer differentiate between not enough power to climb, climb power, and blow up the engine power, but the price is not really competitive with the CGRs. (ATTN: EI, if you design a standalone backup battery that works with a CGR pair, doesn't weigh too much, is vaguely reasonably priced, and can be retrofit into existing installs, I'll buy it next time my panel is apart.) I had figured that my dream panel would look something like a 10" G3X with a 7" G3X co-pilot display (now an option!) with a pair of G5 backups, and my CGRs. Now it looks like a pair of these instead of the G5s. The symmetry advocate in me likes the idea of a pair of round gauges on either side of the central display, though the practical pilot figures it would be better to have the G3X on the left, the CGR pair to its right, and the backup GI 275s to the right of those (to minimize the scan area if I lose the G3X and also to allow easier manipulation of the GI 275s with my right hand, and also to put them closer to the right seat in case we lose both G3X screens.) Seems like round fits better in my current panel but square would be preferable for a future panel. Wonder if I can just cram a pair of 7" G3Xs into the area of eight of the ten round holes. (Pretty sure the tape measure says no, I'm hopeful that I'm just incompetent at measuring, though.)

Looks like it from the Garmin website.

My AP is inop so... all my flying.

I'm not sure why people equate heavy controls to handling like a truck. I own a truck (1987 GMC Sierra) and two cars (1994 Chevrolet Corvette and a 1995 Mazda Miata). Of them, the truck has the lightest clutch, lightest springs on the gear lever (but is harder to put into gear, the synchros were probably shot 100k miles ago) lightest springs on the throttle, softest brakes, and lowest effort steering. It handles like a truck. The Miata has the heaviest steering since it was a power setup that I converted to a manual. It handles like a sports car. The Corvette has the heaviest everything except steering. It handles like a sports car. Trucks have light controls, vague controls. Sports cars have heavy controls with tons of feedback and respond to them instantly. The Mooney flies like a sports car, not a truck.

I haven't had my 231 into the flight levels, but at 16,5 it runs smooth enough LOP that I can turn the fuel all the way down to where the engine quits without it getting rough. It has decent baffling and the GBcLB holy trinity of TurboPlus, Merlyn, and GAMIs. Last flight I wanted to see what it'd really do on a short cross (200 miles out and back) so I buzzed up to 15,5 and ran 31" 2500 and 10.6 GPH (~70%). I don't really plan to cruise faster than 65% but, you know, I wanted to see what it would do. It did about 165kt. I was giddy. Not due to hypoxia either; I checked the pulse-ox every two minutes and it never read below 94%.

The thing is, the TSIO-550-G weighs 554 pounds. The TSIO-360-SB weighs 328 pounds. The max gross on the Acclaim is 3368 and the max gross on the Encore is 3130. So your 226 pound heavier engine gets you a 238 pound increase in gross, for a net UL gain of... 8 pounds. Until you compare the weight of the Acclaim's aluminum three blade with a two blade or composite three blade and suddenly the bigger powerplant actually LOSES you useful load. If you had a choice, which would you buy for $700k, the current Acclaim Ultra with its 975 pound UL, a new Encore (Ultra, with the long body and extra door) with a G500TXi/GTN750/GFC500/GTX345R based panel and a 1075 pound useful load, knowing that you also wouldn't need to carry as much gas due to the lower fuel burns, or an SR22? The Acclaim is a hard sell. It just doesn't carry enough. That Encore, though, that's a pretty compelling option. Edit: I'm not in a financial position to buy any of them, but if Mooney made an Encore Ultra, that's the one I'd actually want.

I'm running the CGR combo setup, in a panel similar to yours. I yanked the ADF and had the second CDI moved to the ADF slot and have the C where your backup AI is and the P where your CDI is. Occasionally wish I went with the MVP-50 sometimes, but there just doesn't seem to be a good place to fit it. Same problem with the 930, which I like. I don't like the 900 and I'm not sure it can be primary for all the instruments you need to yank all the legacy ones. CGR is a good setup and works well for the plane. Added on the CO detector, though I'm not sure it works, and also don't have a GPS feed for some reason. Also did not do the fuel senders at the same time. That'll be a future upgrade. There were some minor teething issues with the install that got wrapped up and it's been working great since. I think the dual round gauge form factor is a good fit for a 231 panel layout. At some point I'll probably go G3X or G500, but I think when the panel is "done" I'll end up with a GTN 750 and a GTN 650 (overkill, but I want the 750 and have a 650. If I had the 750 I would probably go with the GNC355. At least I get a backup VOR and ILS out of it) with the 10" screen in place of the six pack, a pair of G5's vertically stacked to the right of that as my backups, and the CGR's vertically stacked to the right of those, with a GFC 500 with the AP display up where the old strip gauges were, making room above where your backup CDI is. Ipad mount on the right, in front of the passenger. Anyway, I definitely like the CGR. I like the way it works, I like the displays, I like the flexibility the form factor gives me, I like the warning ranges I have set on it (mine's intercooled, I had them configure it to go yellow between 36" and 40" MP) I like that I have an integrated CO meter, I like that I have all my primary instruments right there on two displays, I like that when my panel is done my "cruise configuration" scan will be able to include the CGRs and the G5's right in that tight space unlike if I had a 50 on the other side of the panel, and so on.

Definitely true for the future of GA. We write off old airframes faster than new ones are being produced. The only way to solve that is more new planes, and that requires lower prices. Mooney would probably still be doing fine there was demand for five thousand planes a year. That’s a less solvable problem than how to sell a hundred $800k planes into a market that does, in fact, buy three hundred $800k planes a year. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

And presumably be even lighter, but one thing the K model is not known for (at least not in a good way) is takeoff performance at gross. Aluminum three blades are just too heavy for the K model (and forward CG is a problem for them, though the long body should be fine given how much heavier the big bores are) but the composite is light and with only 220hp and a relatively high gross, you’re probably going to want the three blade. Outright speed is no longer the sales pitch. Making the plane as generally useful for as many pilots as possible is. Dropping a knot or two in order to be able to more comfortably operate from more airports is a good trade off in the new, “useful planes first, speed second” Mooney. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

This article is from 1998, and that's the old MT prop. The current model (STC'd 2002) has a new blade design which, apparently, doesn't give up cruise speed and offers better takeoff and climb performance. It's also very quiet, which is probably desirable for a product selling into a premium market. Mostly, though, it's very light. We're trying to offer a product which is competitive with an SR22T here, and we need the UL.

It probably needed it. K models tend to be very nose heavy. I'm at full aft trim almost every landing. Since we're playing fantasy Mooney here, I guess that my fantasy Mooney restart model lineup would look something like this: Analyze the cost of building the airframe. One suspects that the major component of cost (other than maybe liability insurance) isn't materials or parts, but construction time since Mooney has routinely said it takes about three times as many hours to build a Mooney as a Cirrus. I'm not sure where the time actually is. Maybe it is in the fuselage, maybe it is in the wings, maybe the empennage. Figure out to what extent it is practical to (economically, for low volume, ~30-50 per year production) take time out of the build. This is probably going to mean more composite, not more automation. Maybe it isn't and the M20 has just reached the end of its economic viability. If that's the case, I guess become a parts business and consider a clean-sheet design of some sort as a future possibility. If there are places to optimize the build, though, (composite wings and empennage?) then proceed towards getting that certified with the expectation of having two or three models on the market, all (probably) long bodies (though the mid looks a lot sportier and is "long enough" for passengers, you'd want the second door, which means Ultra fuselages to avoid spending the money that retooling the mid fuselage for a second door might require.) The G1000 attached to the type certificate has been problematic for Mooney. It is probably worth seriously considering whether G500 TXi and GFC 600 might not be a better option. While the G1000 is currently considered the gold standard, and it may make the Mooney a little harder of a sell, a dual screen G500 TXi, GTN 750, G5 backups, and GFC 500 is plenty of capability for this sort of aircraft. Plus, to the worrisome potential buyer who might have heard about some people not being able to load approaches to their home airfield due to certification headaches with the G1000, the G500 would not require future factory support and if Garmin ever drops support at least you can replace everything with something else, which I don't think is true of G1000 equipped aircraft. The top tier would be, essentially, a long body two door Encore Ultra. TSIO-360-SB, 220hp, 100 gallons of fuel, O2, MT prop, optional TKS, maybe optional A/C. This plane should roll out the door with a FIKI-equipped useful load of around 1100 pounds. M20-KU (M20K, Ultra). Priced against the SR-22T, $700k. Second tier (or for East Coast folks who never see mountains) Same plane except with either the Lycoming IO-390-C3B6 (or possibly the Continental IO-370-CL), O2 perhaps optional instead of standard (depends on construction efficiency. It may be that running the plumbing even for unequipped planes makes sense). This plane would likely have a higher UL than the KU due to the engine being considerably lighter. M20-JU (M20J, Ultra). Priced against the SR-22 base model, $600k. Third tier would be worth considering, in this case revisiting the D concept. I wonder if it would be feasible to design a modern fixed gear system, castering nosewheel, aerodynamic legs, similar to the Diamond or Cirrus design, that could be fitted to the M20 and would be more economical than the retractable gear. This plane, essentially a fixed gear JU, with the G3 based avionics package that the Piper Pilot 100i has, if it could be sold down below the $450,000 price point that an SR-20 sells for, might make an attractive high-end IFR trainer to the SR-20. The SR-20 seems to be showing up with increasing frequency at local flight schools, and a model which targets that market could help with volume. Again, this would be very dependent on whether you could make money at a price that would be competitive with the SR-20.