Austintatious

From that AC "" Further, to mitigate the risk of a midair collision at a non-towered airport in other than instrument conditions, the FAA does not recommend that the pilot execute a straight-in approach for landing, when there are other aircraft in the traffic pattern. The straight-in approach may cause a conflict with aircraft in the traffic pattern and on base to final and increase the risk of a mid air collision" I have never understood how a straight in approach to land somehow poses more of a mid air risk than a 45 degree entry to the downwind. In either case you have traffic converging to the same position. I can make an argument for the 45 degree entry being less risk, a few actually, but I can also make as many arguments for the long straight in being less risky. from this source https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/81821/Hansman_Mid-air collision.pdf There is a pie chart of the Track intersect angles for all the mid air collisions studied... The most common at 54 percent is a faster aircraft running into the back of a slower aircraft. The 45 degree converging is 12 and the 90 degree is slightly higher at 15. [3. Detailed Analysis of Mid-Air Collisions Reported in the Airport Pattern Out of the 112 reported cases, 50 occurred in the airport pattern. This section analyzes those 50 accidents in more detail. As can be seen in Figure 3, over 80% of the mid-air collisions in the airport pattern happened on final, short final or on the runway. As a result, the track intersection angle most often observed is that of two aircraft going in the same direction. The narratives of these reports paint a similar picture for most of these accidents: two aircraft on approach to the same runway settling into each other as they get closer to the runway. This type of encounter is characterized by a rather small relative velocity which often results in the two aircraft only “bumping” each other. As a result, 31 of the 50 accidents in the airport pattern were non-fatal. Out of the 50 accidents, 9 (18%) involved at least one aircraft that didn’t have a radio. According to the 2007 FAA Avionics Survey5, only 2% of the GA fleet did not have a radio installed.] Now, it is true that Final approach is where most of the collisions happen... however they draw no conclusion that these were due to "improper" or "not recommended" traffic patter execution by either aircraft. A conflict on final could very well occur when both planes fly the recommended pattern, especially when one is faster and they are unaware of one another. I fly a fast aircraft and to me, a long straight in final seems to be less of a hazard than going on an excursion to position myself to enter a 45 to the downwind. This puts me making several maneuvers in an area where If other people are trying to enter 45 to the downwind, they will be more difficult to see and I could come into conflict with them... However If I proceed straight in, I have 10+ miles to listen and observe and detect non ADSB and no-radio traffic. And I know where my possible conflicts will be... They will either be approaching from base or perhaps I am overtaking a slower aircraft already on final... IOW, I know more precisely where to look for conflicting traffic... Also, to be fair, I am often still in communications with approach who is advising me on any traffic they see on radar for the airport. This all being said, I am not convinced these statistics are the only relevant facts on which to decide best practices... I think that there are probably other factors not considered in the above that can be very relevant to how one might choose to enter and fly a pattern safely. For instance, High wing vs Low wing aircraft have different blind spots. What may give you great visibility in a high wing, you may have a huge blind spot in a low wing and visa versa. I have seen pictures of a low wing aircraft stuck to the top of a high wing aircraft... they collided and stuck together on final, each unable to see the other. (they landed stuck together) If however the low wing had been the lower aircraft, perhaps they could have seen and avoided that collision.

Well, I should have read the first post before voting, I misunderstood the question and thus my votes are a bit inaccurate. In short, my answer is that I fly in a manner as to minimize the possibility of conflict with other traffic. Sometimes this does not comport with recommendations. A general rule I abide in aircraft and boats is to keep as much space as possible between myself and other vessels and assume everyone else believes they have the right of way.

I mean, obviously there are cars that are slower, there are also cars MUUUUCH faster that are commonplace on the road... That being said, did you account for wind? Your car is measuring groundspeed, your plane is looking at airspeed... If you are typically taking off with some headwind, that would account for the difference making those two specific vehicles the same.

If you are having vibrations, you might want to look at that... In my rocket, I do not find the 305 HP to be excessive at all.. that being said, I fly jets for a living. But I dont see how anyone could find the acceleration intolerable, it really isn't that quick, the average automobile accelerates faster. However, reducing runway required and having great climb capability greatly adds to safety IMHO... I will take an overpowered aircraft every day over an underpowered one.

I agree with the fuel part... Even the added tanks don't add enough fuel to make a turbine make any sense... You will have no range. Just look at the Meridian, terrible range with the turbine, because it was a piston aircraft they adapted to turbine. That is nearly always the case. I don't agree about the speed concerns or weight concerns.... That is to say that there would be nothing about a turbine that would result in operating at speeds in excess of what the airframe is safely capable of. The Rocket has 305 HP and it can be flown at full power.... Any turbine that would fit into the mooney nose will likely be less than 305 HP. Furthermore, even if you could somehow add enough fuel to make it make sense, I doubt that fuel would be more weight that the weight savings from switching from a heavy piston motor to a turbine. The weight savings would be substantial.

If you are running a surefly mag you need to be sure that the pressure sensing tube is curved to point rearward or has some filter or blocking apparatus to prevent rain/moisture from entering the tube. My partner was flying our Rocket for an extended period in the rain. Moisture got into the tube and caused an e-mag failure and a precautionary landing. Had to get a replacement shipped out and installed to continue the trip.

Thank you!

OK, I am on a mission... The reason is of little consequence, but lets just say that I want every bit of speed and efficiency the airplanes can get and AFAIK, you cant just go removing parts off an airplane without a CDL... So I want the parts that are supposed to be on my airplane to be on my airplane. Both our M20K rockets at one point, FOR SURE had the plastic fairings behind the main gear wells. I know this two ways... On one of them, I WATCHED as the mechanic removed the broken and shattered ones AND the rivet holes are still there . On the other, The holes for the rivets are present in the shape of the fairing flange. Now, As I understand it, there would be no reason for these fairings to be installed if there were no smaller inner gear doors installed, as it is the small inner gear doors that actually fair up against the aft fairing. So, that brings me to those inner gear doors. I can find NO reference to an M20K of the 231 variety having those smaller inner gear doors. The ones that attach just outboard of the tire... I cannot find part numbers for these doors. I cannot find diagrams for the MOUNTING hardware for these doors. So, Before I go bugging people that are trying to work for a living and pay their bills, can anyone send me in the right direction to get my hands on these doors AND the mounting hardware for them? This is for an M20K (NOT J) a 231.... the 252 is completely different.

Haha... I Could write a book.... My company G650 has been in the shop at Gulf stream undergoing yearly maintenance. I go to pick it up and like a good little pilot, I do a thorough pre-flight. First catch is that whoever reinstalled the Radar altimeter decided to put blobs of fairing compound or whatever they put over the fasteners but never shaved them flush like they are supposed to be before painting over the blobs.... Other antennas (all were removed as part of the work) had big globs of painted pookey all around them as well. No attention to detail. Then as I do the interior portion of the preflight, I find the brakes are acting up... turns out, despite opening up the brake system, they never bothered to bleed the brakes and the system was quite full of air... The only clue was when I charged the accumulator, the pressure stopped rising and even fell a few hundred PSI... It is only because I was paying really close attention to everything that it was even discovered. THEN on top of that... literally a few days later, the line workers backed a Falcons Elevator into our winglet!!! This is insane, but somehow, all they did was scuff the paint on the TE of our winglet. The falcon looked worse off, but still possibly just a paint ding, They had not examined it yet when I was told. ( I was no where near that event!) I have been thinking a lot about this stuff lately, probably because of my annual and me revisiting this thread... I know there are good mechanics/shops out there... In fact, I believe most of them are probably actually very good. I think the issue has got to be that they just don't really care to give the attention to detail. The focus is on buttoning up the job and going on to the next one to make the money. And I get that. Paying attention to detail takes time... which means you have to charge the customer more... And most of the time slapping it altogether quickly probably works out... if only 1 out of 10 times you have to double back to work on something again because it got done improperly then you are ahead of the game. And for that to happen, the mistake has to be bad enough to be blatantly obvious, OR the pilot/owner has to be paying really close attention if it isn't. I am still left wondering... Is this chain of issues my fault for not being involved enough? Is it just a string of bad luck? Or is it that these sort of mistakes happen often but simply go unnoticed by most people? Or is it some combination of all of the above?

Yes... bingo... It would be better if the shop was near me.

They do them on 5th Saturdays... not sure when the next one is. https://www.cleburne.net/Calendar.aspx?EID=11106

Yes, I used the same shop... We had not intended to do so, but circumstances pushed us towards doing it there. The convenience outweighed the other considerations. This is not a fly by night shop.... I think most of the issues are in fact due to them having high demand. And Believe me, I agree with you... I was not at all happy with my partner not seeing the missing panel. It in fact plays part in my frustration with feeling like if I don't have my sleeves rolled up and do it all myself, stuff goes wrong. It is HIS airplane too FFS. As far as the squawks go None of my squawks were airworthiness items. The fuel indicating system is working, its just that I dont trust it given I saw what appeared to be a stuck float or some other anomaly, because it appears to function about as good at you can expect those older systems to 99% Of the time... I just had that one time and started thinking maybe there is something that could be looked at with scheduled downtime. The AP has also been temperamental ( it works, just have to finesse it on occasion)and wanted to get a look at it too. And a few of the instrument panel lights are dim... So, after weeks of downtime, sure, my partner could have not accepted the aircraft and us been without it for who knows how long... Obviously the shop didn't care to do any of that work... Why would I keep it with them even longer after they demonstrate this... after they clearly misled me that they would make time. IDK if that is what you are missing and things make more sense to you now... Obviously I cannot type out all of the details here... Seems like you are trying to suggest this is really the fault of myself... and I cannot disagree with that. It is my fault I used the shop again. It is my fault that I dont go stay 2 weeks in timbucktoo to oversee all the work... It is my fault I have decided to remain in the certified world even though the maintenance situation for me has been untenable. You are completely correct.... And for me, the only solution I see is to get away from the certified world.... And believe me, I am working on it.

Plane is at KFTW... I fly professionally out of KDAL. I looked up SWTA.... they may be a real option for me! I go to Rockport regularly and they are on the way. Not really much more logistically sensible than Maxwell though... I will keep them in mind, thank you. Do you ever go to the Cleburne breakfast fly ins?

DFW We have decided to just take our aircraft to Maxwell in Longview from now on.

Uhh, yes, quite sure.... There DEFINITELY was a loss of power coupled with a stuttering and the highest I saw the fuel flow was over 40 GPH. That was in the winter in very cold temps. In summer the flow would go to about 36 GPH when it was supposed to be 32. Backing off full power to 35" reduced the flow to normal and all was fine, still plenty of climb power at 35"