Brian Stuart

Brisbane, Australia to Norfolk Island

I am intending a 5 hour over water flight in my Mooney M20R. I would be interested in any advice or experience specifically relating to ditching a Mooney or any general info. Also, does anyone have any experience with aircraft egress once the airbags have deployed? I can see these airbags being a major hinderance when trying to escape a rapidly sinking aircraft. Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Our 2005 Ovation GX2 has 102 US gallon tanks. When the fuel caps are removed there is a small metal dropper protruding into the tank vertically about 1 and 1/2 inches. Someone told me that when filling the measurement to "full", 102 US gallons is taken from the bottom of this metal dropper. Filing past this point is over-filing and above the 102 gallons. Is this correct?

Thanks N231BN for your thoughtful reply. The plane is a 2005 Ovation GX2. It has done 950 hours and lives at Caboolture, Queensland, Australia. I will update my avatar. Cheers, Brian

Thanks for all your replies. We have done some test flying (after doing 97-3G) and found that the engine wanted to quit again at the end of the landing roll once hot. The RPM dropped to 300 before applying the low boost pump. The engine immediately returned to the correct idle speed and ran with the pump running, albeit a little bit lumpy. We did some more circuits and turned the low boost pump on during short final and all went well with the engine not wanting to quit. I wonder why this engine in a Mooney does not require any fuel pumps on during takeoff and landing but the same engine in a Cirrus or Bonanza does require you to use fuel pump. Some of the replies earlier in this thread mention that they use the low boost pump during landing. I would appreciate any comments to the above issues. At this stage I will use low boost pump on final through to end of taxi. Can anyone see anything wrong with this procedure given that it is outside the Mooney POH? Brian

Many thanks to all for your replies. It appears that the problem lies in the 3 idle adjustments. I have had the fuel system reset to TCM 97-3G and it was no better. At idle it stalled immediately upon leaning which to me showed it as too lean at idle. My LAME (AP?) then richened up the idle to show a 50 RPM rise on idle leaning. I then flew for 1.5 hours and upon landing the engine failed to response to small power increases. I kept introducing power until FF and then it lagged for 1-2 seconds before responding. I then returned home and landed and it did the same thing. No response to small (vernier) power increases and only responding to FF which resulted in 2 landings in 1. This has rendered the aircraft unserviceable and I am getting frustrated. My AP is not keen on doing anything outside 97-3G but I still have the same problem so there has to be some contributing factor/s. I will take your replies back to my AP and see how he responds to the above information. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks Brian.

I have a 2005 Ovation GX2 with 900 hours. I have had trouble with the engine shutting down after landing after a 1 hour flight or longer. Just quits and has done it during the landing roll and whilst taxiing. It only happens when the engine is fully hot and never when cold when it idles perfectly. It can be restarted with a hot start procedure but am worried that it may shut down at low power settings on final and then having a glider to get me over the fence. I believe that there is a very sensitive idle fuel pressure adjustment?? Unfortunately my G1000 is 1st generation and does not allow data logging. It would be so much easier if it did. Can anyone help or has encountered this problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Brian Stuart (Australia)

I live in Australia and this is my first post. I am looking at buying a 1998 Ovation and have a hypothetical loading question. If I have a load of 396 lbs in row 1, 363 lbs in row 2 and 33 lbs of baggage. Will I be remain in balance at start and at ZFW? I know I need the arm for this aircraft but just as an average loading question for an average Ovation without oxygen. Any advice will be appreciated.