Hank

Please reread my post, I was editing while you were replying. 44 pulls doesn't tell me much by itself. Read the penultimate paragraph with a request for statistics. How many lives were saved during those 44 pulls? [No, you can't count the imaginary hospital that the explosive Cirrus full of fuel might have hit.] How many lives were lost during those 44 pulls? How many of those 44 pulls resulted in on-board fatalities? How many of those 44 pulls were already beyond saving [too fast, too low]? How many other Cirrus accidents might have been prevented if the chute had been pulled? Get it done up per 100,000 flight hours or some other accepted standard. "44 BRS pulls in Cirrus aircraft" by itself is not data. Were they all last week? Was it one really unlucky pilot? Did it occur over five years, ten years, 20,000 total hours, 100 total hours? Please turn your one raw number into manageable data, and we can have a discussion.

This is how I can say that a chute sometimes won't save you: There's nothing arrogant in that at all. The 2010 Nall Report [the latest I could find] shows approx. 40% of pilot-caused fatal accidents are related to fuel, weather or "other." A pilot who pays attention and demonstrates good ADM won't be involved in one of these. Of the remainder, another 44% of pilot-caused fatal accidents happen during Maneuvering, Descent/Approach and Landing. Most of this largest portion of pilot-caused fatal accidents will not be helped by BRS [see altitude limiations above; some will have exceeded speed limitations while maneuvering/showboating/out-of-control]. Good ADM tells you to stay out of bad weather/low clouds/low visibility without an IFR rating and flight plan; good ADM tells Instrument pilots to be current prior to making a flight; good ADM tells all pilots to verify fuel load against required fuel, verify tank selector position and monitor use [instrumentation or even just a clock]. Good ADM has kept me on the ground instead of flying into thunderstorms or icing aloft. The ever-feared pilot-related fatal Departure accidents are only 17½% of the fatal accidents. But even then, if they occur below 400 agl/600 agl plus a buffer to recognize, decide and pull, the BRS won't help them, either. This category includes Runway Loss of Control, botched go arounds and everything else that could happen, like the ones who hit poles or fences due to being overweight, out of CG limits or heavy with high DA [bRS won't help them, either], and one memorable VFR pilot who climbed sharply and banked steeply to avoid the fog bank at the far end of the runway and stalled into a building with his family aboard. Interestingly enough, there were apparently no pilot-related fatal accidents during cruise, day/night, over swamps, over water, through the mountains, IMC/VMC, etc. Mechanical events of any sort caused a mere 10% of fatal accidents. Even as an initial student, I had to practice [and demonstrate on my checkride] a forced landing with simulated engine out. I asked the DPE when I could put power back in when the bean field was uncomfortably close and he said he would tell me; it didn't happen until after I put the Skyhawk's flaps to 20º. We also had a discussion during the checkride about watching for and keeping track of potential forced landing sites. This was in Charleston, WV, which has a lot of terrain in all directions for a long ways. That's how training will help if you lose your engine over rough terrain. If it happens at night, even here there is a surprising amount of light except for new moons and when the moon is below the horizon; turn on your landing light, if you don't like what you see, turn it off again! I have no data to show that this scenario happens very often [even 1%?]. You also will still have a radio, ATC can often vector you towards a nice highway or sometimes even an airport. Flying high gives additional gliding time, you do know your Best Glide airspeed and descent rates, right? Oh, yeah, that's more training! How do you call us "arrogant" to not $pend the $ignificant fund$ to acquire, install and maintain a BR$ $y$tem with significant useful load limitations, when it may help prevent less than 10% of fatalities? Not flying in IMC, over water, over "terrain" or at night does not appear to offer even this limited benefit. If I didn't fly over "terrain," I couldn't fly at all here in WV; the pattern for Runway 8 is over terrain, with a nice long ridgeline between downwind and the runway, and I cross it at the Walmart gap every time the wind blows out of the east. All of those nasty unforgiving hills fade away in about 20 Mooney minutes to the north and west, but my family all lives to the south and east . . . Do you have any accepted statistics to prove the real benefit of BRS? Or is it only the 44 pulls so far, some of which ended in fatalities anyway and one of which ended in no parachute but a frightened, alive-despite-the-BRS, pilot? How many flight hours? How many accidents without pulls? How many no-pulls should have pulled? How many were too fast or too low for the pull they made to be effective? How many pulls, like the no-chute man, were questionable and should have been recoverable without the chute had the pilot been proficient? My mind is open to facts, otherwise it's just a discussion of opinions. My father told me growing up what opinions are like, and that everybody has one [and an opinion, too].

My home drome is 567' msl. Typical pattern altitudes are 1600 msl downwind, 1300 msl to turn base, 1100 msl to turn final; hold 700 feet until clear of the trees. 1100 msl is 533 agl, with typical descent of ~300 fpm, which puts you <400 agl rolling wings level, to say nothing of recognition, decision, reaction and "pull" time while descending even faster. So even a G1 Cirrus with the lower altitude available for chute deployment will crash and burn on the driving range if he has a problem after deciding to turn final . . . Not good for much stall/spin prevention there, "the most dangerous turn in aviation." A good chunk of the repack expen$e i$ making repair$ to the airframe where they have to dig out the $hroud$. The$e are nicely covered, gla$$ed in and $moothed over, and that mu$t be redone. It's le$$ to do on the newer model$, but i$ $till not cheap. At least they don't need much paint, because color will overheat the composite and cause a whole NEW set of problems. The best "safety device" is a well trained and proficient PIC, which seat the PIC occupies is irrelevant.

Thanks for the advice, Goose!

Probably the same reason that people with performance cars sometimes drive well in excess of the speed limit, i.e., because they can. I never gave safety much thought when pressing my foot down, just wondered if it was a good time to not get caught. Age, experience and wisdom tame that urge, but aircraft are not as forgiving. The aeronautical equivalent of sliding through the gravel at 100+ is most likely an NTSB report, hopefully (but not likely) non-fatal.

1981 is more special to me, that's when I got out of high school and ventured off to colledge (sic). I have wondered why you are not "Won't Leave!" like me . . . . Guess you are just special. Enjoy the short bus!

Search for George Perry's excellent thread about buying a Vintage Mooney; it's probably from 2009 or '10. Excellent advice. I bought my '70 C with a fresh PPL. It's a good plane, but it ain't no Cessna! Get a good instructor, join MAPA, go to a PPP soon. Learn the plane, learn your power settings, and fly the pattern at the correct speeds. Cessna's are very forgiving if you are 5-10 too fast, but your Mooney will bite you at that speed. Be precise on airspeed and altitude, she'll land as gentle as a pussy cat. Get ready to have fun!

I rotate the prop forward when needed to attach the tow bar. Push on tow bar and corner of the cowl; when available, someone will push on a wing root. There's no need to put the prop horizontal if putting the plane in a hangar, is there? I have to put my 3-blade vertical up to tow, and leave her vertical down when parking outside overnight if the FBO isn't going to move her.

I hope and pray that our Oklahoma-based members are safe this evening. Seems like NWS predicted this storm pretty well. Won't know for hours if any twisters hit homes or populated areas. Even OKC police won't confirm touchdown, but the NWS just confirmed two.

When changing oil, the dipstick will read less than the amount you put in, because some fills up and stays inside the filter. One quart is typical. I refill with 7 quarts, which reads right at 6, and the engine is happy. Same with the car, except the little Honda & Toyota filters hold a little less.

MAPA does have a European branch for Bill in Belgium. EMPOA or something like that. Check out www.mooneypilots.com and see if you can find a reference or link. The Pilot Proficiency Program is very thorough, 16-20 hours in the classroom and 4 hours flying your own Mooney with an experienced CFII, doing everything that has been discussed. It's a great transition program for new Mooney pilots.

I'd rather meet the model for it! Wonder what the bill would be for that fly-in lunch? Hey, Mike, what do you consider a short field? so far, I've not needed to do either a max-performance, short field take off or a bona-fide short field approach since my PPL checkride. But I'm careful about loading and weight when I go anywhere very much under 3000', like the lovely 33A, 2770' x 40'; but again, he doesn't sell fuel so I'll never leave there too heavy.

My home field, where I did my initial training and staged from for Instrument training, is 3000' long with tall trees at both ends. Last night I visited a nearby 2000' grass strip, landing on 2 through a slot in the trees, rolled out and departed on 20 through the same slot. I was solo and very light on fuel, so I flew 80 mph final, pulled the throttle above the treetops and came over the hurricane fencing barely past the end of the runway at 70 mph. Had no trouble floating or touching down gently, and required power to reach the "far" end to turn around. [At home, I fly 85 mph on final and cross the road at 75 mph, because 3000' of runway is not short.] So maybe your fears about the correct speed and accidental stalls are overblown? Of my 610 hours, 524 are in my Mooney, and my primary CFI took me to the grass strip before my initial checkride, so I'm familiar with short and obstructed. AOA would be beneficial to me during high DA, but I've really only experienced that on one multi-day trip, landing at KRAP when ATIS was broadcasting DA of 6600' once, continuing to KCOD the next day landing before noon. Who knows when my next trip will be, that one was back in 2008 with almost 200 hours in my logbook. My Stormscope, on the other hand, comes in handy every time I am in IMC.

Me, too. Must be a C-model thing. The Stormscope provides real-time information not otherwise available, and helps avoid embedded T-cells when flying along enroute IMC. It also gives advance notice that I may want to change course or land short; unlike XM, it is real-time without the variable 5-20 minute delay. Your use of statistics is very unmathematical: Because according to 2009 stats thunderstorms accounted for 6 fatal accidents, stalls accounted for 110 fatal accidents. That leads me to believe that an AOA is 18 times a better investment than a stormscope? Thunderstorms account for few fatalities because we have many ways to find out if they are in the area. I've avoided many by staying below the deck and aiming behind them. Some I've been vectored away from by ATC. Some show up on the stormscope. When the forecast is really ugly, I don't fly. Thus thunderstorm exposure is minimal, but there is no way to count how often it occurs without causing fatalities. It seems that many of the stall accidents are due to pilot inattention. Adding another instrument won't make the pilot look at it. Sometimes pilots are looking at other things--like a Mooney pilot who took off VFR and cut [too] sharply to avoid a fog bank at the far end of the runway, ending up inside a building, on fire. Distraction, [poor] judgement and [bad] decision making were the causes of the accident, which led directly to the stall, and AOA won't prevent things like this. Part of the resistance to AOA is the instrumentation itself. No, I don't much fancy having 16 LEDs added to my panel. No, there's no room in my panel to put anything, but I'm going to have to add ADSB capability somewhere, somehow. Oh, how qaccurately the AOA works is very dependent upon: 1) tricks of installation that are model AND airframe specific; 2) tricks of instrument calibration that are model AND airframe specific. Iron out these details and the level of resistance will decrease. Some people just don't like change, whether it's for the better or not--facts of human nature. Don't even mention cutting holes in my wing and adding probes, wires, tubes, etc! How far out on the wing does it need to be to avoid propwash? Will location be affected by changing propellers, as when people upgrade to Top Props, 3-blades, Scimitars, etc.? Or do they get to patch the previous AOA proble hole, cut new holes, run new wires & tubing and re-calibrate? etc., etc.

John-- Shouldn't you side-step to the right so you can keep an eye on the runway and watch the other traffic? I've been cleared to depart after someone else has been cleared to land. That's when a look up final approach is priceless. GA on 2-mile final is plenty, but more distance is required if it's a Boeing/Airbus coming in. But I go infrequently to controlled fields . . .

Not sure about the thread, but I recommend Wash-Wax-All. Works great, can do it in the hangar without a hose or floor drain, and it makes bug removal fast and easy. Visit www.washwaxall.com, I think. Blue is for everything, Red works well if the belly gets nasty.

I would love a smaller set of plans, sized around a .40-.48 engine. The seven-foot wing on this one is just too large for easy transport.

When closing the door, hold it hard but don't slam it. Push the handle forward and down, mine will hesitate then move the last half-inch home with an audible click. Otherwise it will pop open.

The first quart at about 20 hours, gradually more often, the last usually around 40 then change at 50. Now around 650 hours on Signature overhaul in 2003. Gotta love the O-360!

That's probably a good start, though. Are there any good ways around the calibration issues that Bennett discussed? does it vary by aircraft model or airframe, or does it depend on the actual installation? The last thing I would want is an inaccurate readout backing up the approximation I already get from the ASI.

Flying at MCA with the horn squalling was required when working on my PPL, and has also been required when attending the MAPA PPP. She flies well that way, I just don't appreciate the control feel. On the other hand, if the stall horn goes off as you are in the base-to-final turn, you may be toast. Thus the perceived need for AOA. Good procedure, however, will prevent that from happening. My max weight variation [gross - (empty + me + 10 gals)] is about 25% of gross, giving a non-quantified change in Vso. [back in 1970, there was no "POH," and data on many things included in more modern POH's is scarce.] So I don't bank steeply in the pattern, I don't cross-control except when intentionally slipping in straight flight, and I don't worry about cutting turns tight because that requires steep banks and/or crossed controls. Combining threads here, I rarely use the PC-disconnect thumb button in the pattern, the additional heaviness is a good reminder to make shallow banks. Reading Bennett's post above, AOA may not be ready for wide implementation in the GA fleet,either.

Huh. My initial CFI taught me to not bank steeply in the pattern, to not bank steeper if I overshoot on base, and to just maintain my bank angle and fly the plane back to the correct final. On my rare visits to places with parallel runways, I've never been that far off-center--there's no room at home, I'd be inside the ridgeline. If I'm too wide to fly back, throttle in and go around. AOA removes the doubt about just what a good speed is on final to a short field. The only short field I frequent is 2000' grass, and I never go there heavy; they don't sell fuel, so I don't worry about trying to leave heavy. Two people and 30-40 gals is my personal limit. Just how slow can I get? 75 mph - 5 mph per 300 lbs under gross is what? Oh, yeah, there's a twitchy crosswind that will go away as I enter the slot carved through the trees. Quick, Mr. No-Physics-Dentist, how fast should I be? Half flaps, gear down, stall at gross is 57 mph per the book. I'm 15 gal [90 lbs] below full, and am alone. 1.3 Vso = 74 mph at gross. I can't overshoot the base-to-final turn, there's a ridgeline ~200 yards away, parallel to the runway which sits behind a row of trees along the riverbank. If I land short, I'm either on the soccer fields or the parking lot for the soccer moms; if I land long, there's a gravel pile for the cement plant. What's the correct airspeed for me to fly? THAT's what an Angle of Attack readout will give you. It tells you if you have a margin of safety between your speed right now and stall. Just like your ASI needle, the AOA needle moves, so if it is moving downward too close to the stall mark, lower the nose. If lowering the nose puts you below the desired glide path, add power just like always. If you're high and have a good cushion, slow down some. At least, that's my interpretation of it all. An AOA can be beneficial, but I've never flown a plane that had one. Fly right, don't get in a tight spot, and for sure never try to steepen a turn or cross-control to make final, and you really won't need one. The place where an AOA gage is needed is in aircraft whose landing weight varies significantly, like when the fuel load at departure is more than the empty weight of the airframe, or in military aircraft that will be expelling ordinance and burning tons of fuel per hour. Can AOA help GA? Sure. Is AOA necessary for GA? No. Can AOA help you out of a tight spot? Sure. So can a go around for a second try. I'm not too proud to go around, I did one on my initial solo in front of family and friends; I've gone around visiting new airports, too. Going around is not shameful, and is not a mark of poor piloting but rather bood ADM [i.e., this approach isn't good, lets go make one that will be easy to land]. In the meantime, Chuck has clearly nailed the options. Thanks, Chuck!

Congratulations, Bobby! You'll really enjoy the plane. It's a great traveling machine, a steady IFR platform, and according to my DPE, "the perfect plane to work on your Commercial cert" which I haven't done. I encourage you to check out the Mooney Aircraft Pilot's Assocation [www.mooneypilots.com ]; their website isn't the best, but there are some good articles there about how to configure your Mooney--look for M20C, as they have several different model reports. They also offer training [PPP = Pilot Proficiency Program] in various locations around the country every year. My first PPP was a month after I finished transition training and insurance dual instruction, and I found it very valuable. Fly safe!

The Cessna 310 here can't be had for $348/hour . . . but then again, it has upgraded engines, 300 hp each. Kind of took my desire for MEL away when fuel went up and took rental prices with it.

You and me both! Durn digital tapes are too distracting, and then it comes up between numbers and tries to put both of them inside the little highlighted box. Color me "not interested," although the data record would be nice to have for review sometimes, it's just not something I want to look at and deal with every day. Also, I don't often adjust my friction lock, I just keep it tight enough for things to not move on their own, but loose enough that I can make them move. Worked well for over five years . . . Now I just check it periodically and adjust as needed.