RobertoTohme

Quote: rnation Roberto, Wondering if you noticed any changes in CHT's and TIT's

His airplane is serial #31-100, and Type S #1

Quote: mooniac58

Craig, I'm in the same boat as you with my Eagle... Those things are around 190K these days, but mine, aquisition cost plus upgrades made to date, is hovering around 330K and it's still sporting it's original paint and interior (not bad, but starts to look tired). P & I is next for me; Who did your interiors? They're gorgeous!

Quote: Mcstealth Roberto. What has happened to your GPH? Good, bad, or otherwise? Mcstealth

Well, the dreaded report... 3 kts. gain solid, 4 at times; plane flies just like before. I was expecting to get the 7 kts. difference betwen the advertised speeds std vs. type s, but apparently fell right in the middle. In fairness to the plane, the winds aloft during my first flight were 40-50 kts mostly crosswind, slight tailwind component (8 kts), and my experience with that kind of x-winds is that the final TAS diminishes a little. It'll take a few more flights to truly assess the average knot gain. Now, about the 310 hp upgrade, it's worth every penny I paid for it.... It brings the performance I wanted to climb out of the nasty stuff quicker, get sooner to the FL's, and hence reduce my total enroute times.

Have you guys seen Bangle's latest, called "GINA"? As a design concept, very nice; Feasible? mmmm.... I need to smoke AND drink the same thing those guys did while designing it.

Hey! That punishment sounds like back on the days when I was doing my private... plus that 152 had a tendency to pop my door open at very inappropiate times, so I struck off my list the "door opened in flight" very early in my training; it's nothing more than the wind draft and paper flying all over the place; annoying, yes; emergency? not at all. I'll do my best to have those results posted later today for all of you interested on them. Cheers.

Well, looks like there's consensus about the BMW paint design and the new 5 series... I don't question the mechanical end of the new 5, just the looks... the E39 generation is a classic BMW look, sober and understated. I'm lazy today to write about my findings of the type S conversion, so will do that tomorrow...

Scott, I took delivery of my Acclaim on january 2, 2008, and immediately proceeded to SAT for the initial with FTI; at that time, I trained with Bob Cabe and we did explore the full envelope of the aircraft, including high altitude and LOP operations. Now I'm due for recurrent, and I imagine we'll go briefly over the entire envelope again, although I'll use this recurrent as an IPC. My Acclaim takes back about 7 kts when LOP but runs smooth, however, my Eagle is not happy at all when LOP, vibrating and shaking really bad, so no option but to run 70 degrees ROP. I think that this condition can be cured with GAMI's but right now I don't want to put money into that, and rather get a new paint job mimicking the Acclaim to make them "Evil Twins"... But your point is, yes, FTI has been teaching the LOP technique since early last year, as far as I'm concerned.

I was suspecting that after looking at the picture here at the start of the thread... Thanks for the clarification! Learned something new about Mooneys with this, and that's the purpose of this forum.

Well, tomorrow my plane is being ferried back to ELP from the Type S conversion... On wednesday I'll do another pull from 3,920 ft to FL250 to see if there's an improvement in climb time, and of course, check the actual cruise speed increase vs. the standard Acclaim. Will report back on thursday about it for those interested...

Funny thing, though... both my Eagle and Acclaim fly cocked the exact opposite way the picture looks like, although it may have to do with the tendency of my planes to be near the forward limit of the CG. I've asked the factory about this "cocked " condition in flight and was told it's the way it should be; Maybe the reversion of the pic published here has to do with the long body vs. the short one?

Quote: rbharvey Thanks Roberto, I assume the Mooney pubilished speed gains are accomplished at 2700RPM, but cruising is not recommended there as per STC Bob

Bob, I run my Eagle at 2,600 rpm, and I have charts for 2700, 2600 and 2550 rpm settings to determine MP at different altitudes and the corresponding fuel flow at ISA conditions; those charts were obtained from Midwest Mooney's website.

Quote: Mcstealth Roberto, I will see if I can get an answer for you though my contact is not in the engineering/mechanical side. He is still working though. McStealth

I just spoke to Trey Hughes, and the website down is a technical issue with the service provider.. it'll be back sometime today. The insurance problem is for real, though; all of the board of directors but one have resigned to prevent personal liability issues. Robert Gowens resigned on friday, btw... I have been told that there's still parts mfg. going on, and that the service center is still up and running albeit with reduced staff. It'll be greatly appreciated if one of our members in Kerrville can provide first hand information about wtf is going on there as my plane is sitting there for the type S conversion but haven't been able to get the service center guys on the phone.

Quote: mooniac227 I'm going to do the 310 conversion on my Acclaim. Will let you know how it goes...

I love my E39 M5... Classy shape, excellent performer, and no i-drive! I have a lot of respect for Porsche as well, although I've never owned one; for sports cars, I camp on the Italian side!

And who the hell knows how much Mooney paid BMW Designwoks in California to do it... They "Bangle-ized" Mooney too as they did with the cars; what a shame.

On a second note, I don't like the new BMW designed paint scheme of the very latest production....

Yes, it was sold as a Type S, but at the time of delivery Mooney hadn't got the FAA certification for the S yet so it was built and delivered as standard, pending FAA certification for retrofit. Mine is serial #0069, and the first certified type S delivered was number 100.

Yes, Randy; the speed bits of the S are to be installed, as well as a new prop. I do expect an improvement in performance, but it'll be probably be in the order of 6-7 kts in cruise and still better climb. My plane was the 2nd. type S sold, but at the time of delivery it wasn't certified yet and hence had to wait for the retrofit until now... I'll post what improvements I notice after it's done.

Well fellows, I did the 310 hp STC to my Acclaim... So far, I've just flown it once, and recorded the climb performance to compare pre and post Type S conversion; as a standard Acclaim, I was able to reduce my climb time from 3920 ft. elevation at KELP to FL250 by about 3 minutes, running the prop at 2,700 rpm until 8,000 ft and then backing to 2,600 rpm, with whatever MP I could get with WOT but always below 33.5", and a constant 115 IAS (Thanks, GFC700!). It wasn't as agressive as the record run recorded by Midwest Mooney, but it sure is an improvement over the std 280 hp I previously had; not that it was a slouch before, but it helps in clipping climb times if you constantly do the flight levels as I do, and hence total flight times. Necessary? absolutely not; Nice to have? Hell yeah!! Kudos to Midwest Mooney for getting this STC available for the Acclaim, to Justin at MM for his valuable information, honest answers and help to El Paso Aero for the installation. I will report results after Type S conversion when it's finished by the end of this month...

My 2 cents in the issue: For domestic flights, hands down fltplan over AOPA (much greater accuracy in winds / time en-route); however, I do a lot of flying into northern Mexico, and the RTFP had been an excellent tool at that since fltplan doesn't do international. As to the new internet version of AOPA, let's put it that we haven't made friends (yet) but it's the inevitable future, for what it seems..