Hank

I wore a set in Sportys showroom, but never flew with them. A year later I bought myself a set of Halos from Quiet Technologies, and love them. The difference is the speakers. Clarity's speakers go in your ear like ear buds, which are uncomfortable for me. The Halo speakers are on the metal band behind your head, the sound travels through a thin tube through the earplug. I use one of the silicone sets, others prefer the foamies. Stereo sound and everything, just no more calling for Departure clearance from the wife while taxiing out by shoving the cell phone under an ear cup; now it takes a hand to hold the phone up to my ear. No more clamp-pressure headaches after a couple of hours. Be careful, though--you WILL try to get out of the plane with them still on your head. :-). No damage . . .

They're little and should be easy to paint. Mine are black anyway. Going to white, you will need a coat or two of primer first. Check your local auto body shop, they should have small spray cans at reasonable prices. I've been meaning to make this change myself, let me know if it's still available.

Ty, we can give more appropriate help if you said what Model & Year your plane is . . . Things changed from time to time. My dimmer is high on the panel, my latch is below my left knee, there is a (small) switch on top of my left main gear leg. Others have dimmers low on the panel, below the throttle or even in the overhead. We don't know where yours is.

Mine works like a charm. His price is cheaper than others I've read about, and requires no work, just plug it in. There are now iPhone & droid apps to control it too.

I'm not home now, but the plane is. I'll see what I can do. I started with what's in the book, then rearranged to suit equipment and my own preferences. Pretty straightforward, but no fancy tabs or anything.

There are Takeoff and Landing checklists on my panel, backlighted and everything. If it's possible to attach a Word doc, I have mine formatted as a pamphlet, laminated, folded in half and stapled. It's just the right size to fit my kneeboard, and is easily customized.

I still maintain that a careful new pilot can handle a Mooney. My mistake that night was not related to the plane, but to me being glad to be home and I stopped flying in the flare. Could have happened in any aircraft, even a rental Cessna. But my Mooney had the ability to pull my porpoising self back into the air and over the trees. The second time I gave it the full attention I should have the first time. All new pilots learn something on every flight, if they leave the pattern for somewhere other than the Practice Area. I've had the plane for over 5 years now, picked up IA, flown from WV to both WY and FL, and I'm still learning things. Just three weeks ago, I learned to pull the Standby Vacuum knob when the AI shows a 30°climb with >45° left bank but eyes out the windshield said Straight and Level. So did HSI, compass and 430-CDI page.

My worst landing was just a couple of months after I finished my dual, and had just over 100 hours. We had been visiting the inlaws for Thanksgiving, and came home late. Flight time was ~3 hours, sunset about midway home. Tuned in ATIS, oops, a TFR for a Sunday night college game. ATC vectored me around it and brought me over the center of our non-towered field and I circled back for a downwind entry. Nice, smooth pattern, don't remember any weather issues, flared, bonk, bounce, bonk, bounce higher, oh my God where are the trees? Full power, no third bounce, cleared the trees. All I could think was 'never mind what happened, figure it out later. Fly a regular pattern, land the plane, figure it out later. Fly a regular pattern, land the plane, figure it out later. Fly a regular pattern . . . ' Landed uneventfully, pushed her in the hangar, unloaded a week's luggage and drove home. Figured out I had been porpoising because it felt so good to get home that I quit flying the plane in the flare. Did I say that was my longest XC at the time, 338 nm? PPL in May, bought Mooney in June, annual in July, finished dual September, MAPA PPP October, took long trip at Thanksgiving. No serious issues since, other than some wind issues on final. Gusts coming through the gap on short final have stood me almost on the left wingtip, just go around and try again.

My C can't touch your speeds here (when I hit 180 knots a while back headed south to Charlotte, I had to take pictures). My groundspeed envelope in level cruise so far runs 68-183 knots, all while indicating 130-140 MPH. Maybe we should have 3: turbo, 200 hp, 180 hp. I'll lose that, too, to Riq, but I've seen near 200 knots in descent.

someone flew from So. Cal. to Savannah, GA last year in an E, about 17-18 hours. The wonders of LOP operation.

When I visit grass, I try a little harder to be slow on short final. Most of my landings are with the stall horn squeaking. Do try to hold the nose up after touchdown, but grass decelerates the plane quicker so don't expect a long time. I generally taxi with Full Up on the elevator, and keep the speed slow. Takes more power and higher RPM, but usually not much more than a fast walk. Expect to play with the throttle to keep moving. Our beach trips are all to a grass strip, 3500' with a displaced threshhold, coming in over pine trees that hide power lines to a substation beside the runway. Slow is good, low is bad . . .

Gary-- Do not reduce throttle on initial climb! Our carbs have an automatic fuel enrichment that happens at Full Throttle to help keep temperatures down. Backing off on the throttle will make it hotter . . . If you want, use the Target EGT method, but don't use someone else's EGT number. Takeoff on a day as close to ISA standard as possible [59ºF, 29.92", near sea level], all knobs full forward. Rotate, gear up, establish your climb and look at your EGT. That is your target. The Target EGT method uses Full Throttle, Full RPM, and lean to your identified EGT value. As you climb, continue to pull the mixture back to keep that temperature. Reducing throttle will significantly reduce fuel metering by the carb, and leaning the mixture will simply make it worse. Yes, my Owner's Manual says 'cruise climb at 26"/2600' but you aren't "cruise climbing" on initial departure. Full Throttle, Full RPM, and Full Rich or leaned to Target EGT, all the way to cruise altitude. But then again, Texas is pretty flat, a 400 fpm climb may work for you, it's just really s . . l . . . o . . . . .w . . . if you are climbing to 8000' msl.

Scott, that's part of the difference between E- and C-models! I don't have an analylzer, just factory single point, but a friend's F almost matches your climb rate/temp, which is much better than a C can achieve. We just don't have the power for that. I'm happy to see 1000+ FPM at takeoff, but that's at 100 MPH not 120. My limiting factor is usually Oil Temp getting to the top of the green line. Hot summer days can take a long time to reach altitude, climbing at <500 fpm for several thousand feet. So far, I've not had any CHT issues. Full Throttle, Full Prop, Mixture Full Rich until at least 5000 msl, then I sometimes remember to lean for my Target EGT. Outside of hot summer days, I can go from turning the key to level cruise, trimmed, power set and leaned, at 7500-9000 msl in ~15 minutes, which is good enough. "Cruise climb" is used when I have to climb from one cruising altitude to another, not for when I'm leaving an airport and climbing to altitude. In the winter, I follow (100 mph - Altitude in thousands) for airspeed in the climb; in the summer, I increase airspeed/reduce climb rate to keep Oil/CHT in the green. Our 180-hp, carburetor-equipped Cs cannot match a 200-hp, fuel injected E/F in the climb. . . . .

Rob-- I've been flying a friend's F model a little bit lately, and it handles much differently than our C's do. Landings with full flaps are wonderful, where I normally use Takeoff flaps and tweak them as necessary on final; must remember to reduce power on descent, instead of leaving the throttle at my cruise setting [WOT for the F, pulled back out of auto-enrichment for my C]; more speed than I am used to at my normal power settings; the gear horn squalls passing through 15" instead of 12"; etc. Gear and flap speeds are the same, but J's get much higher gear speed so they have the option to drop gear as speed brakes above flap speed. My C and the F both have 125 mph for flaps, 120 mph for gear, so I use approach flaps to set myself up for approach and drop the gear to come down the glideslope. With low ceilings, I don't think I would try to change flap setting after breakout, since that drops the nose and makes changes in descent rate, yoke pressure and trim setting. Most ILS approaches go into long runways, so land a few knots faster [stall speed difference between Takeoff and Landing flaps is only 2 or 3 mph] and use a few hundred extra feet of pavement. Even if you're at 90 knots, you can still set it down between the 500' and 1500' stripes and stop easily in the next 1500 feet. Practice this a few times in good weather, hold 90 knots to 200-300' agl with approach flaps, retard the throttle and see how she settles down. A little long, but not a problem for most ILS runways.

My Owners Manual does not list a a 'demonstrated crosswind component,' maybe because it wasn't fashionable in 1970. Always wondered if I needed to worry about it. Anything much over 10 knots cross component makes me more careful.

Nosewheel steering works well. My Owner's Manual says to keep her on the ground a little longer and lift off abruptly, because the plane will weathervane significantly in a strong crosswind. Seems like it starts as the nose is coming up, so the sooner all three tires are off the ground, the better. Then it can weathervane all it wants; just wing low into the wind and track the runway heading out the side window while clawing for altitude [and avoiding the parallel ridgeline at home]. I've never paid attention to how much right rudder travel I use, just that I use enough to get where I want to go. Something to pay attention to. Now I'll have to test full rudder deflection just so I know how much it is; based on taxi turns, it's an awful lot, much more than I recall having ever used in the air.

I love General Aviation! A quick check of my logbook shows Skyhawk time roundtrip to Asheville, NC = 5.0; two weeks later I bought the Mooney. Mooney flight time to Asheville is typically 1:15; actual logged roundtrip time ranges from 3.5 to 3.9 depending on wind, approaches and vectors. Rental on the Skyhawk to stay one night was more than a monthly Mooney payment . . . I love my MOONEY! To say nothing of leaving the beach [10 hour drive] in the morning, stopping to unload beach stuff, eat lunch, reload wedding stuff and be at the wedding in Columbus, OH [another 3-hour drive] that same afternoon. The whole thing took 4.4 hours, leaving a field with no fuel, gassing up, coming home, refueling us and the plane and scooting between airliners into Class C. [for the curious, N21 --> ACZ --> HTW --> CMH] Your injected models will be faster . . . We weren't even tired when we got to the wedding after checking into the hotel and changing clothes.

I found a very capable lady at a local craft show, emailed her a photo of the vintage Mooney "eagle" logo [or is it a thunderbird?]. She has put it on towels and blankets for me, but no shirts yet. Her prices are very reasonable. www.cathyscustomdesigns.bravehost.com Cathy knows my name, and it is the "Bird" logo. I don't have anything for the modern Mooney oval thing with a big "M" across it.

Ain't no need to go and mess up a perfectly good throttle quadrant! 'Clicks'!

Sounds like it was the extra load.

Maybe THAT's what he wants!

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I would think we have enough engineers on this board to not need a physicist. My engineering perspective is that part of the higher temp is related to changes in DA, OAT, air pressure/altitude, etc.; some of it is related to the significant increase in aircraft weight [second flight was at Gross; loading on the first isn't mentioned]. The first things I would check on the engine is the baffling [is it in good shape, properly installed, etc.], and maybe the vernatherm on the oil cooler. The oil cooler by default sends oil through the bypass; as oil temperature increases, the bypass slowly closes, forcing more oil through the cooler. Two things would make this not happen as intended--vernatherm not operating properly, or partially-clogged/improperly plumbed oil cooler.

I like my throttle quadrant . . . Besides, how accurately do I really need to lean my O-360 anyway? You injected guys flying LOP mostly just use the FF number anyway, right? How accurate does that need to be?

"HIDILL RDTBANE"?? I give up, or you made a typo . . .