Lood

Quote: fantom Thanks, Scott. Me too! I'm almost sputtering lean on the ground, and rarely get the opportunity to lean on TO. It probably not ALL good that I've been flying the same plane for 16 years and know just where "the knobs should be" without checking exactly what the readings are. Fly safe out there!

I've been into a 1800 x 27 runway at sea level. The 1800 was not necesarily my F's limit, but certainly my personal limit. I had to do two go-arounds before I got everything exactly right to make an uneventfull landing. Getting out was no problem at all. Your touchdown point is critical when landing on a short runway - as is your approach speed. More so in a Mooney. As long as there's no obstacles on the sides, runway width is much of a problem.

My strip here at my house is at 4000', so I use the same procedure as described. Only difference is that I do my run up at 1700 rpm. Together with the EGT, I also check the fuel flow to be in the region of 14 - 15 gal/hour. Nothing wrong with your procedure.

My '67F weighed 1700 lbs which returned a usefull load of 1040lbs. In the mean time, I've replaced the old 175B Kings with lighter radio's and I've removed obsolete things like the ADF and DME as well as all unneeded wiring left in the airplane over the years. I've also replaced the starter with a Skytec. My airplane has just come out of it's anual and I haven't received the new empty weight. Should be lighter than 1040lbs now, though. Payload could be creeping towards the 700lbs mark if I'm lucky.

I ended up only doing the Lasar lower cowl closure mod. Nothing changed except for the engine running cooler. Certainly no noticeable speed increase in my situation. Next annual, I'm going to skip all the minor mods and do the 201 windshield. No use spending money to score some extra speed without it actually happening.

Thanks for all the replies. It seems that it certainly has to do with making the rudder more effective. Here's another quote from Avcom: "Any trailing control surface is already beyond laminar flow . The thickened boundary layer will make the middle (centre) range of control ineffective . By thickening the trailing edge by any means will increase the effective angle of attack of a control surface in both directions resulting in more immediate control response." Sorry, I don't really know how to post the picture and my GPRS internet's speed make adding pictures a very time consuming task.

The cowl closure didn't result in any speed increase on my F. In my personal opinion, the best speed mods are tha 201 style cowling and windshield mods.

Ooops - sorry about that. Quoted from Avcom: "Riveted onto the trailing edge of my Mooney's rudder is this little tubular thing. Does anyone have an idea what its function is? Nope. It's not a trim tab. There's one of those near the bottom of the rudder. This thing is a little tube about 8mm in diameter running along the trailing edge. It seems to be intended to disturb the airflow leaving the rudder for some reason." From what I can gather from the picture he posted, it's a tubular tab, about 1" wide and about a feet long. It's installed halfway down and on the back of the rudder.It looks just like the normal trim tab on a Cessna, for instance, except that this one is not flat and it is longer. I won't mind posting my login details here for anybody to be able to take a look at the picture, but unfortunately, I can't remember my password. Login is free though.

Can anyone please help with the following question posted on the popular South African aviation site, Avcom? The airplane is a M20C with just about all the available 201 modifications installed: http://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=71246

Now, mark my words and see used Mooneys pop up for sale all over the place. I'm sure there's a few bargains coming up so be ready. If Comaches are still flying along very happily today, we've still got way to go on the Mooneys.

That's what I've also heard. The general feeling is that take off and climb performance improves a little, but apparently, you loose a couple of knots in the cruise. Some also complain that the three blader cuts into the usefull load as it's heavier than the two blader and probably a bit more expensive to maintain as well. Most agree that the three blader is quieter though.

The twist in the wing is minimal, so I doubt whether a loss in speed would be noticable - if any at all. I agree on being coordinated when doing stalls, although I think that like with the many different cruising speeds on similar models, stall behaviour will differ. My Mooney drops the right wing during stalls but it's much more a case of the wing slowly falling away rather than "dropping".My F cruises at 142kt while a friends', that is also a '67 F, cruises at 146kts? He also only has the cowl closure mod, so his is probably better rigged or whatever, but it's a bit faster. LASAR makes a 201 style wingtip for the F, but it's not worth the price, in my opinion, as it is purely cosmetic.

I have the Hendricks Mfg center post mount and it is absolutely amazing. It's very well made, fits 100% and solid as a rock. The GPS is out of the way but still very much within reach and view. It is not obstructing anything and best of all, there's no wires or cables hanging all over the place. For me, it's either this or a panel mount.

Quote: DaV8or How do you know this? Do you have them? I was told explicitly by a MSC that twisted wings don't get the wing tips. In addition, it makes sense when you look at them, because the end of the wing does curve differently than the standard Mooney wing. On the other hand, I haven't asked LASAR.

AFAIK, '67 & '68 models have the same wing - be it a G of F. I've seen many '67 F's with 201 style wingtips, so SWTA's statement is quite interresting. LASAR don't have any restriction or excluding of any models regarding the wingtips though.

Quote: Capt_CrashN_Burn So does anyone know why you can't add wingtips to the 68 G model??

Once again, you'll get close, but you won't get there all the way. I've read about modified F's (201 windshield & cowling) that actually does cruise at 150kts - give or take a little, but I'm not sure if they really reach the 160kt mark where many 201's cruise at. If I had to modify, I would choose to do it on a F rather than a G and I agree that the windshield and cowling would return the most in terms of speed increase, compared to all the other mods available.

Quote: Capt_CrashN_Burn Are the short bodies more aerodynamic than the medium bodies??

Quote: danb35 Maybe it's just me, but that sounds too cool--you want the oil temp to be at least 180 deg to boil out moisture that collects there. Maybe your probe is in a cooler part of the oil path...