Hank

I took a Piper pilot and his two young sons to ride once, as he was shopping and thinking about a Mooney. I fly a C model, 180 hp, short body. On takeoff, I'm mostly ~1000 fpm while climbing at 100 mph. Naturally, climb rate decreases as I go up. Leaving my uncontrolled field at 567 msl, I could easily be established in cruise at 7500 msl, power set, leaned out, trimmed hands-off in less than 15 minutes from engine start. Anyway, the Piper pilot looked at me really hard as we were coming back to land. We were on short final, maybe 100-150 agl over the trees, and I had the field made so I pulled the throttle to idle, glided over the trees and set down a little past the displaced threshold (because of the trees). He told me if he'd done that in the Cherokee, he'd of been in the trees. "But in your plane, nothing happened" with wide eyes . . . Useful load in my plane is 969 lbs, of which 312 is fuel. I ballpark it at 300 for fuel with 1/2" expansion space in each tank. That puts me and my favorite 370 lbs of people and stuff in the plane. Traveling with my wife, we generally run out of space before weight. Sometimes with 4 people I leave fuel behind, like on a flight along the Outer Banks past Nags Head to Kitty Hawk with three of my wife's cousins. I carefully filled each tank to 17 gallons, 34 total, good enough for almost 4 hours' flight, or 3 hours plus reserves. We went 1-1/2 each way, and topped back up to 34 gals for the return trip because I'm cautious. Yes, I did the full W&B to make sure we were good, in addition to staying under gross weight. Oh, yeah--speed. The plane is supposed to be between 161 and 164 mph at 10,000 msl (~140 knots). But I have a 3-blade prop with a reputation for drag on the nose. Here's a panel shot enroute to my wife's family reunion. 144 mph indicated at 9500 msl = 172 mph true. That ain't no Cherokee I ever saw . . . on 9 gal/hour block time. Call it 20"/2500, about 70% power leaned 50° ROP. Yell if you have questions, but I'm a long ways from Texas . . .

I don't use carb heat when I descend to land because I don't reduce speed or throttle. Coming down from 9-10K, I'll hold 20" and my cruise EGT until it's time to slow for pattern entry.

This is all over my poor mechanical head, but I do like Avare. Hopefully they can do for ADS-B what they are also doing for EFBs.

I fly a C, and can walk away from most 182s. Sounds like I could run away from your old one! Most Fs, even flown LOP, will walk or run away from me. They're generally good for 150-155 knots and have much more usable back seats than I do. Bigger, heavier AND faster, there should be a law against that. At least they don't do it on less fuel.

Have fun! The turbo should come in handy where you are. I'd recommend an experienced Mooney instructor to teach you the ins and outs of the F. There's a list at the back of The Mooney Flyer (www.themooneyflyer.com), as well as some here. Check out MAPA (www.mooneypilots.org) and see if there will be a Pilot Proficiency Program reasonably near you anytime soon. The MAPA website has a review posted of a non-turbo F, written by a former Mooney test pilot who rose to VP of Engineering for Mooney. The F should run ~20 knots faster than your 182, on about 2/3 of the fuel. It's not as much of an SUV, but should still haul a decent load. Full fuel will be a lesser percentage of useful load, too. Before you buy, have a mechanic you trust review the logbooks. Visit and fly the plane. Then get a Pre-Purchase Inspection from an A&P with lots of Mooney experience. There will be many suggestions here, depending in where the plane is currently located. Enjoy the search, and let us know how it goes!

Here's the link to Don's site: http://www.donmaxwell.com/publications/MAPA_TEXT/Carb%20Heat%20Maintenance/CARB_HEAT_CARE.HTM. Make sure yours is in good shape; much of mine was rebuilt last year. It's easy to test. Sometime in cruise, look at the Carb Temp gage and pull some carb heat. Watch the temp rise. Pull some more, the temp should rise more. Pull it all the way out carb temp should rise more. Push it back in and carb temp should fall back to what it was before. Note, though, that as you add carb heat, the mixture will get richer, and as you push it back in the mixture will get leaner, simply due to the temperature of the air going into the carb.

Yes, there is interest here! Also check with MAPA in San Antonio, www.mooneypilots.org as well as the factory.

My fuel pressure is also on the round MP gauge. I run the pump until it stabilizes, right at the top of the green, then shut if off. It doesn't move unti I touch the throttle. While I could certainly believe the gage is old and tired,mid be surprised if both the fuel pressure and oil pressure gages developed the same issue at the same time.

I thought the SoS was the vibrator part of the ignition, not the retarded cranking points that fire around TDC.

Plane had Slicks when I bought it. Don't know what it left the factory with, when/if they were swapped out. But Slicks are what I've got.

Big iron's landing gear can often swivel 20-30° so they can land in a crab. It's more comfortable for the people in back than a slip, especially when they can't see out front and tell how non-aligned the plane is with the runway.

I posted this on POA, and got a response already. An authoritative one, no less! ************************* Re: Accident Data Quote: Originally Posted by Hank S An ongoing discussion about carb heat and proper usage brought up a question. One poster mentioned a 20-year-old copy of an AOPA Air Safety Foundation Safety Report that showed but one accident attributed to carb ice in the thirty year period reviewed. Is more recent data available, without having to dig through the Nall Report looking for it? Any analysis available on carb ice accidents? I know of one, the plane I trained in about three years after I finished up. Wondered how many others there are, frequency, severity, etc. I don't have any overall GA numbers, but I have analyzed some aircraft types for accident causes. From January 1998 through December 2010, I show about 1600 Cessna 172 accidents. Twenty-four were either directly attributed to carb ice, or occurred in conditions conducive to icing with no other engine failure cause found. From January 2000 to December 2010, there were about 600 accidents involving the PA-28-140, -161-, -180, and -181 models. Twelve involved carburetor icing. From January 1998 to December 2014, there were about 3500 accidents involving Experimental Amateur-Built aircraft. 68 involved carburetor icing. You can download the complete NTSB aircraft accident database at: http://app.ntsb.gov/avdata/Access/avall.zip Be advised it's about 250 MB. Ron Wanttaja ******************************* So for brand C and P, it appears to be 1-1/2 to 2% of accidents are carb-ice-related. For us, that would be limited to A, B, C, D and G models, maybe 4000 in the fleet? Don't know the overall accident rate, but 1-2% of the total accidents would be pretty small number for us.

Mine occasionally varies in flight but stays in the green. Although at a fraction of your injected pressure! Do you run your electric pump prior to engine start? Does it achieve max pressure then? Mine does, a whopping 6 psi. Second question: after achieving peak pressure (of whatever value), does the pressure hold steady before you move the throttle and turn the key?

I've heard of being locked OUT of an airport and having difficulty accessing the plane. Never heard of being locked INTO an airport, unable to leave! That's a huge safety concern.

It hit me this summer, too. Mag check was 200-300 drop on the left. So I missed a weekend out of town . . . Coulda been worse, could have happened there, a 6-hour drive home. Ran the mag through the Kelly Aerospace factory at Montgomery for ~$450. Put it back on, retimed, no problems. FWIW, I have Slick mags, not Bendix. Funny thing was, it cranked up just fine with the bad mag . . . Just ran like dog sh!t. A couple of years ago it wouldn't crank. A&P said he couldn't smell gas, couldn't flood the engine and make it drip, so we OHed the carb. Cranked fine for a while, then got bad again. IRANed left mag, cranked fine for a while then got bad again. Swapped plugs, same deal. Went through the Shower of Sparks, checked points and gaps, cranked and flew great with no problems until this summer, call it 3-1/2 years from the final fix before (we fought it for 6-8 months). Good luck with yours!

Looks like ya'll had fun! This was a good weekend for flying. Wish I'd'a had somewhere to go . . .

Rob, could you find that in the Nall Report? It comes out every year, should be on AOPAs site somewhere, maybe the ASI now run by fellow Mooney owner George Perry.

I've only been flying since '07, but the Skyhawk I got my license in was destroyed a few years later, just a couple hundred hours after OH and new interior, due to the licensed pilot's improper response to carb ice. He pulled throttle and tried to make a downwind landing just a couple of minutes after takeoff, was too fast for the 3000' field, and tried a late go around. Stalled and went down in the trees. He and his wife in the right seat survived with only minor injuries. If you do get carb ice (unexplained loss of power or MP), pull Carb Heat all the way out and leave it there. If ice is melting, it will get rougher before it gets better. Any time you add (or remove) carb heat, you will need to relean the engine as the addition of warm air will make it richer (or lowering the air temperature going into the carb will lean it out). Once it clears up, reduce heat using the Carb Temp gage to a value you're comfortable with (higher than before if already using it). Me, I'll keep it above the orange stripe, I think 10-15°C should be plenty. But then again, I've never had carb ice. No Carb Temp gage? I dunno, ask a CFI, I bought my Mooney five weeks after my PPL checkride, I don't remember what to do without one. Correction to a previous post: don't know what's in the DC-3, but our carb heat just sucks in warm air from inside the cowl instead of outside air. There is no "heater" per se like is in the pitot.

That would be a tricky bit of programming. As you fly along on an XC, weather changes, temps go up,and down, humidity changes especially flying to the coast. When you set partial carb heat, it's just so many amps through the circuit, you're not setting a temperature to hold. If you pull carb heat to 10°C once, and leave it there, who's to say that two hours later it may not be 25°C if flying to Florida, or 0°C if flying to Maine? I've seen OAT change more than that in fifteen minutes, and pulled some carb heat because of it.

Dude, my Carb Temp gage maxes out at 50°C. There's a huge amount of energy required to reach 40°C = 104°F. Besides, in the DC-3, was the carb attached to the oil sump? As long as I don't get any ice, I'm happy, and I'm pretty sure at 5-10°C, I won't. As far as I can tell, I've never had any carb ice--no loss of power, no loss of MP. i don't even reach 40°C running WOT for takeoff on sunny summer days.

"Crab" is when your passengers look out the side window to see where you're going. I've had up to 40° crab in cruise before, making a burger run. Just point the nose wherever it needs to go (into the wind some) so that you move in the direction you want to go. I generally try to fly a 1/2 mile pattern, and about halfway from wings level on final to the runway I transition into a slip. There are two kinds of slip: losing excess altitude or speed, and crosswind landings. To lose excess altitude or speed, just bank one way and push the other rudder. You'll steer out the side window like when crabbing, but your descent rate will increase and your airspeed will get slower. This is a "side slip." When landing in a crosswind, you don't want to land in a crab, it will side load the gear. So use the rudder to point the nose down the runway. Now the wind is blowing you off the side, so use aileron and bank into the wind and steer yourself into alignment with the runway. Ailerons will hold you over the pavement, rudder will keep you pointed straight down it. This is a "forward slip." Unless, of course, I have the two slip names backwards. I never could get the names straight, although functionally they have never been a problem. Too high, slip or go around; too fast, reduce power and slip, land long if possible or go around; good crosswind blowing, slip to land. The big point of contention about crab and slip in a crosswind landing is when to change over. Some of us do it soon enough to be in good control early, some like to wait and "kick in" the slip at the last minutes,hoping to get it right, not side load the gear or dart towards the edge if the runway. Its fun practicing side slips at altitude. I used to do it for 1000' to each side, just to get comfortable with it. Climb high, aim towards something distinct and distant, kick full rudder one way and steer towards it with aileron. Watch the VSI & ASI, vary the I outs and see what changes. After dropping 1000' switch directions. Oh, don't have anything laying around loose when you do this . . .

Most recent jobs I've seen have been in the $12-15K range. If you can scuff and shoot instead of stripping, though, you may get a significant markdown from these prices. if you update your avatar to at least show what state you're in, you will probably get recommendations on good shops. I've heard of one in Oregon and another one or two in Texas, but would probably not travel that far myself.

My Carb Temp Gage isn't digital, and it has an orange stripe to indicate the possible icing zone. The cooling comes as air moves through the venturi; as it expands, velocity and temperature both decrease. If it's moist out, you can have ice. Our Mooneys, though, have the carb right beside the oil sump, greatly reducing the risk if icing. Talk to someone who flies a 150/152 with a Continental engine, they are ice machines! I have experimented using partial carb heat in cruise, trying to reach LOP. It never worked for me. Then last year, we did additional doghouse repairs and rebuilt the carb heat box (which reached the point that it stayed wide open, killing power and climb!) and now I'm not only 10-15 mph faster but I can go almost 25°LOP without carb heat or roughness, just the typical (significant) loss of speed. No fuel flow, though, so I'm unsure of the benefits. I always hit Pitot Heat before entering clouds, and if the Carb Heat is in the orange zone, I'll pull enough to move it out. Took my IR ride in April '10, and may have done this three (3) times. Because I descend power on, I don't use carb heat then, I just push the yoke for 500 fpm and let the speed build to make up for the slow climb; it generally stabilizes around 170 mph. As I come down, I periodically back the throttle off and enrichen the mixture to maintain whatever my cruise setting were for MP and EGT. Perhaps I'm lazy, or was transitioned poorly, but I also almost never use carb heat in the pattern, either. I do like to be down to at least flap speed before entering downwind, and prefer to fly at 90 mph and roll wings level on final at 85 mph. Gear goes down abeam the point of intended landing. Then I slow to 75 - 3 mph per 300 lbs below gross at that point and set her down. I do religiously check carb heat operation at engine start, though. This may not help you with your digital Carb Heat gage, though. It's just another benefit of analog . . . See it just left of the yoke? It's the only thing I have not in English units. My OAT reads in °F, this crazy thing is in °C. I'm not running carb heat in this photo, but if I was in a cloud, especially near freezing, I'd pull enough to get the temps up to about here (once that I recall, over GSP at Thanksgiving, OAT had fallen from 52° to 32° in about fifteen minutes, and I was grazing the bottom of the overcast at night, headed north into the NC mountains). You'll figure it out over time.

Can't prevent the forces that act on the control surfaces unless you park indoors, and many places that I visit, this is not possible. So because I can't control the weather, I mitigate its effect on my Mooney. I've watched planes parked on the ramps with no control locks, ailerons moving back and forth from stop to stop as the wind blew. No thank you!

As long as I don't have to pay for the first two or three . . . It would make me feel better about buying this plane, though.