0TreeLemur

Mike Busch in "Engines" p. 85 wrote: "I'm convinced that if every piston-powered aircraft was equipped with a modern probe-per-cylinder digital engine monitor that set off alarms anytime any CHT rose above 390F for Continentals or 410F for Lycomings, cylinder head-to-barrel separation fatalities would become largely a thing of the past."

FAQ: REMOVING TANK SEALANT

You are correct, aerodynamics of spins are very messy. But, since we don't spin Mooney's intentionally , I'm not really thinking about the effect of forward-swept rudder on spin recovery. It is much easier to make he case that at high angle of attack (e.g. landing flare) a forward swept rudder will have more effective area per unit deflection and length than an aft-swept rudder because the forward sweep minimizes spanwise flow. That point is easy to make from geometric concerns, right? Any data on that?

The C wing is 174 ft2 for a 172 or 177RG, and yes, a different airfoil. The 172 is fixed gear with struts and fixed pitch, the SP model has the IO360 rated at180 HP. The 177 is retractable with no struts, and constant speed prop. but 200 HP. The C177 has a bit more empty weight, and about 100 lb more useful load than the the M20C. The POH cruise speed of the C177 at 7500 and 70% pwr is listed as 144 kts at 10 GPH. Our '67 M20C at 7500' does 143 kts at 10 GPH on 70% of 180 HP. The C177 with its 100 lb more UL isn't going to make me make another trip, I'm going to leave baggage at home. The 172SP at 124 kts and with fixed legs and struts hanging out isn't a fair fight, even though it has the same amount of aluminum in it. The data comparison in the paragraph above indicates to me that the drag of my M20C at the same airspeed requires 14 fewer horses to move essentially the same load through the air as a C177. That equates to less drag? Some of that reduced drag is airfoil, and some is cross-section? Which C model would you compare against a M20C? What model of C would be most similar head-to-head. ? Note, our M20C does have the lower cowl closure mod but not the 201 windshield.

Making a small cross-section fuselage with a high wing is possible only if the pilot's head protrudes through the upper wing surface into a blister (greenhouse). Data suggest that the interference drag created by the low wing configuration is significantly less than the additional drag of a larger x-section fuse due to pilot visibility requirements (M vs C) with equivalent O360.

FAQ: WHERE CAN I FLY TO LUNCH? Change the airport (KTCL) to your home drome (e.g. KWTF), then change the search radius if you want (200) NM?, and whether or not it must be on the airport (1) or not (0) Search here: http://www.fly2lunch.com/results.php?apt=KTCL&radius=200&onApt=1 Thanks to @flight2000 for the reminder.

Not in Central Florida, but good- Air Prop Specialists in Marianna, FL., which is in the panhandle. They will do the ECI on your plane while you wait. Free lunch at the city-run terminal. I think they charged me $185 last time they did it on our '67C.

Yes, this is an issue. It is why I stopped donating to Wikipedia- their editors can be maddeningly inflexible. If someone else who likes a good fight wants to "tag in" and carry on with this battle, I'd welcome it. Ideally, if I could find a perfect, irrefutable published source confirming that Big Al Mooney was correct, I'd put it in there and dare the troll to show is true colors or shut up. I thought I had done it with the Garrison article. Grrrr.

Yes, I know of that quote. The problem is this: If Al Mooney or I said it, it is opinion. If an independent "expert" confirms it in writing in widely available popular literature, it becomes fact. I kind of get it. I really thought that Garrison's article in Flying sealed it- but the "expert editor" seized on the statement by Garrison that aft sweep is bad. Therefore, forward sweep is good. Eh? Here's what Peter Garrison wrote in Flying in the April edition of 1995: "The loss of stabilizing authority of a swept tail is slightly offset by the increase in tail moment arm -- that is, the tail, by virtue of being swept, is slightly farther away from the center of gravity and so slightly more effective. But the increase in tail moment arm is proportionally very small and its benefit disappears beyond about 15 degrees of sweep. (Lift curve slope can be regained by increase the aspect ratio of the vertical surface, as Cessna did when it swept fins in 1960. Sweeping the tail is also detrimental to spin recovery. In a spin, air flows across the fin and rudder at a steep angle; with a strongly swept fin- the fins of single-engine Cessnas have 40 degrees of leading edge sweep, worthy of a transonic fighter-- the hinge line about which the rudder pivots is more nearly aligned with the flow, and the effectiveness of the rudder drops sharply. In fact, the swept forward fin that is a hallmark of Mooneys was originally intended to enhance the spine-recovery characteristics of Al Mooney's single-place Mite (which was to be an aerobatic airplane) by setting the rudder hinge line at something closer to a right angle to the airflow in a spin. What eventually became a styling feature began as a rather ingenious technical innovation." Who can read this and not confirm the assertion that forward sweep is good for rudder authority at high angle of attack? Anybody else on here ever edit Wikipedia? Anybody else want to insert or cite this quotation into the "Design" section of the M20 Wikipedia page and reassert the point?

In terms of FAQs I think of Qs like these: 0. What constitutes a pre-purchase inspection? 1. I'm considering buying a pre-J model Mooney. What are the gotcha's? 2. I'm considering buying a J or newer Mooney. What should I watch out for? 3. I just bought an pre-J Mooney, what should I consider doing first? 4. My tanks are leaking, what can I do? 5. What maintenance can I do as an owner on my Mooney? 6. Is Mooney transition training important? 7. I'm a new Mooney pilot and I'm having trouble slowing down. How? 8. Is the PC system worth keeping? 9. What is SB208? Why is it important? ...

No, I don't have Larry Ball's "Those Remarkable Mooneys", nor do I have Garrison's 1980 "The Complete Guide to Single Engine Mooneys". Garrison's article is unfortunately not definitive about the Mooney tail, so I suspect that his book isn't either. Do you know if Larry Ball talk about the tail design and the advantage of a swept-forward rudder at high angle of attack?

Thanks for the encouragement. I was inspired by Garrison's article to improve the "Design" aspect of the M20 page. With your help maybe we can get it done. If you can find that advertisement, that would be really cool to see and another bit of evidence. Oh- some interesting quotes, including at least one attributed to Al Mooney here: http://www.mooneyevents.com/quotes.htm

Those would be great topics for a FAQ section!

Sorry to have you waste so many words. My understanding is not the issue. My problem is that I have a troll editor who is resisting my attempts to incorporate this little gem of knowledge regarding the swept forward Mooney rudder into the M20 article on Wikipedia. He insists on a good 3rd party reference. The 1996 article from Flying by Garrison (?) that Skip referenced at the beginning of this thread is insufficient for this troll editor because Garrison wrote both that it matters, and that it maybe doesn't. That is the problem with requiring 3rd party verification from the lay press. What is needed is a good reference report or article saying that a forward swept rudder has more effectiveness at high angle of attack than a normally aft-swept rudder, using itty-bitty words, with no uncertainty. I could write dot products with fancy sketches all day, and that won't matter. Any written independent article that says exactly what we know will be most appreciated, so that I can edit the M20 wikipedia page to say this. I added it, including the reference to the 1996 Flying article, and he deleted it, because he is "experter" than me. Well, I'm not gonna give up that easy. Any help you can provide, ideally written in not too many big words or high level mathematical notation will be appreciated. Someone on the MooneyPilots.org or some such place said that there was an interview of Al Mooney from years ago where Al discussed all this. Anyone have a reference to that? Thanks.

There is a so-called "expert editor" that I'm having a disagreement with right now about the utility of minimizing spanwise flow with a forward swept rudder at high angle of attack. Any data or especially a publication that supports this notion would be helpful. No rush at all, this is a hobby project, but I would love to hear about anything you can find regarding the M20 tail. Thanks, Fred

Yesterday on an IFR practice flight from TCL to ANB, in cruise at 7000 ft, T=1C with a freezing level forecast to be at 8000 ft, I looked up from my scan to see this. I was flying through supercooled raindrops that were freezing even though the air temperature was above freezing. My request for lower was immediately approved, I took this photo in the descent. The wings looked just as bad as the windshield.

It does sound like it might be a treasure of design info. Please share with us all you can.

A select group of known users with editorial authority can identify threads or pieces thereof, edit for clarity, focus, and content, and move them into the FAQ. They should not be controversial, nor should they be editable by normal users. This work should be done offline and just posted when ready. Did you try that? Properly done it will be frictionless and controllable. I publish a lot. If your past experience went sideways it was not correctly designed and/or implemented.

Don't worry, I can fix this. My dad's a TV repairman. He's got an awesome set of tools. -Spicoli, Fast Times at Ridgemont High

I really like having it on the right side. It is not in my primary scan so I don't waste time looking at it too often. It is still easy to read on the right hand side of the radio stack though, and I look at it just the perfect amount. After we put it in, the CFII who gave me Mooney transition training and later my IR said "don't fixate on it". Good advice. It is a heck of a lot more legible & useful than the Garwin cluster it replaced that used to be installed where the Accutrak II now is.

For a couple of years I've been advocating a FAQ section because there is a wealth of information on this site. This wealth is obscured by the odd search engine that places primacy of information on how recently it was posted, not in optimally matching the search string content. Most folks don't know to use outside search engines to search MS. That should be the first article in a MS FAQ: Searching Mooneyspace What I observe is n00bs join MS, get excited about all things Mooney, ask questions that are frequently answered by other n00bs, poorly. That is unless @carusoam gets to it first. The problem lies in the fact that most likely there is a thread that answers their question expertly. Thinking to the future, I still think having a place where threads that contain mostly complete re-hashes of commonly asked questions with a chain of good answers should be collated in a FAQ section. In the absence of a FAQ, would it be possible to nominate threads to that level? Would it be possible to change the thread name somehow to indicate that it is worthy of reading by nOObs? Maybe we could have a "spring clean" where good, informative, threads are nominated, and those deemed by old-timers (not me) to be worthy are put in a FAQ section of MS. Just an idea. I'd be happy to help. I'm sure others would too. After 2-1/2 years of actively monitoring this site, it is tough to see the same questions being asked repeatedly and the quality of the answer depends on who is answering. What folks get now ranges from good, to bad, to potentially dangerous, and occasionally excellent. Well, we have some threads with excellent answers on this site. They have become needles in the MS haystack. I think it is time for a FAQ section. Another benefit: it will free up more time for us to resolve important issues like ROP/LOP operations, cloth vs. leather, two-vs-three blades, the fate of the Mooney factory, and the effectiveness of @Marauder's loading strategy on CG during boarding.

The Brittain T&B is both electric and vacuum driven. They can be had on online auction sites in working condition for several hundred dollars. What you need depends on the year of your a/c. You should spend some time searching these pages. There are many, many folks who in the past asked the same question you asked, including me. Learn from their stories. Cutting and installing a new panel is relatively inexpensive if you have some skills. A primary engine monitor is not prohibitively expensive to install if you can find a certified mechanic who will let you do some of the work.

The MSC that did my annual in January of this year did that when they replaced the shock disks. They bead blasted and painted the gear. They do not recommend powder coating. Powder coat is brittle compared to paint, which has more flexibility. Impacts by granular materials can cause powder coating to chip off more easily than properly applied paint.

My intercom is mono. I'd love to have stereo and a new PS engineering stereo audio panel with virtual surround, but that ain't gonna happen for quite a while.

Thanks. Old 10.20 headset is definitely mono.