carusoam

Caution: Seed planting ahead..... "500 people, who met on an Internet Bulletin Board, joined with 100+ employees, offered to purchase a non-profit airplane company" 600 new owners keeping Al's legacy in the air...... There is an example of something similar in airport ownership in NJ. Sky Manor (N40). 100 users of the airport purchased the whole thing. (land, runway, buildings, businesses etc...) "The current owner and operator of the airport is Sky Manor Airport Partners,LLC which acquired the property in November of 2008." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Manor_Airport_(New_Jersey) The "deal" was put together by a core group of people that based there including a lawyer. (it takes all types.....) Seed planting complete: You are free to roam about the country, stop by Kerville on your way by...... -a-

Ken, He says.... [Worth every bit of the "Buy It Now" price.] This was the last line of the ad. But, I did not see the "Buy It Now" button..... -a-

Went flying today. Tested the theory of whether I am using full up trim on final. We had a rare no wind day and I was really able to hold 70kts on short final. I was pretty close to full up trim, but not all of the way. I continued to add more up trim as I slowed into the flare. Flare goes something like this in my mind.....hold it.....hooooold it..... hoooooooooooold it........Softest touch down of the year, held the nose off for another 50ft. Heavy braking made the second turn-off (rwy 29) to the MSC at Robbinsville, NJ. Used about 1,500 ft according to the technique I am experimenting with. http://bit.ly/c1VUWR (you may have to pan out to make it work properly) http://www.trails.com/googlemap.aspx (try it for yourself) -a-

David, First: Glad it worked out well. Thank you for sharing. You did well to help keep the focus on flying the plane. Excursions in bank and airspeed come quickly in IMC. Have you set your personal minimums and were you able to compare personal minimums with your flying partner? What were his thoughts after the flight? My personal minimum: I have difficulty trusting any nav and A/P equipment until I have used it in VMC first. I had a bad bendix king experience that allowed me to think I was following a VOR radial, the A/P was just flying unguided but wings level. It takes much concentration and sometimes knowledge to get all the settings, switches, radials, and frequencies dialed in CORRECTLY. Too many ways to make a simple fatal mistake. Acceptable Risk: Your pilot friend being rusty, but current, may have been able to do the IMSAFE checklist. He probably did and passed. His plane is in working IFR condition. Overall, it would be difficult for you to have made a better or different decision. The problem seems to be rooted in mental overload during an emergency in IMC conditions. Would that have changed if you were both current and well practiced? If the Rocket is like the Missile, the govenor, that Rocket Engineering, chose fails in fully feathered mode. (opposite to your 201 that goes to fine pitch). If the engine was either running out of oil or oil pressure. The prop would be trying to go to max pitch. Its a nice trick to extend glide distance by minimizing prop drag under loss of power. Your basic airmanship skills get an "A" for best supporting aviator. Things we don't talk about much: Low ceiling emergency. Break out and land. From 600 feet you have one minute to find a field and put it down. With a dead engine, you may want to carry more speed to the bottom of the cloud than best glide ratio. What else can you do? The only help you may get before breaking out is from ATC pointing you towards an airport nearby. I am looking forward to hearing about what happened to the hardware. I am glad you are making a list of training to be completed also. Thanks again, -a-

As a member, you can look up other members for means of contact, or search "piloto" you will find some of his writing on aircraft preferences. Fortunately, he is never far from mooneyspace. -a-

Rick, Mitch has covered it well. I launched a thread a while ago on touch and goes in mooneys. Search for it, if you can't find I'll look it up. TNG might be the key word. http://www.mooneyspace.com/index.cfm?mainaction=posts&forumid=1&threadid=1100 Be very aware that when you add power with the flaps down, it will push hard to go nose up. Hold the nose where you want it when you feed in power. You will probably be pushing the yoke as the trim takes time and the power is full in. My M20C was not much different. (except there was no eletric trim....) I usually hold the nose down, and electric trim with the left hand, while feeding in power with the right, flaps up, gear up follow again with the right hand. Not alot of power is required to arrest the sink rate. The whole 280 or 300 hp does not need to come on at once. I suspect, not maintaining control of the nose up condition will cause you heartache...... It can bounce up a bit as an initial surprise, but you WILL bring it back down to maintain flying speed. Now you know to expect it, I don't think you will be surprised by it. I recommend practicing the go around, not so much the TNG, unless your runway is really long.... TNGs: - a little float, big configuration change, 70kts and end of the runway is coming up quick........ Then remembering gear up and gear down in the right order at the right time....... -a-

Darren, Check with Piloto (Jose) I believe he is cruising the carribean in an M20J. -a-

Rick, With only two people up front and fuel in the tanks, the CG is very forward. You may have difficulty holding your approach speed (70 kts - well under gross) without using full up trim. I was M20R trained with the following: Maintain the sight picture in the windscreen and adjust speed with throttle. Adjust trim as necessary to hold the sight picture. ____________________________________________________________________ While adjsuting trim as necessary, I found that with only one or two people up front (no rear CG help) that the trim pretty much is at its up limit. 70kts feels slow and control is starting to be mushy, but the float down the runway is minimized. I don't think I have nailed a power setting just yet. But it looks like 13.5" of manifold pressure will fly the pattern to landing. So many other variables going on, it is hard to just "set it and forget it". Either way, I found the power setting to be much lower than I had expected from my M20c experience. (could be that the gauges just work better) Best regards, -a-

In 10 years of owning an M20C, I never took the ceiling down to get at that pesky part....(always open) So much air blew through the M20C it did not really matter. It would be nice to chase down all of the air leaks though... especially before winter. Probably not as important in TX as much in the more northern areas.... I am sure it can be done. -a-

"The seller always feels he didn't get enough and the buyer always feels he paid too much." Lood, I think you defined the "fair deal" - everybody is equally unhappy about the price, the seller is happy that the plane is sold, the buyer is happy about acquiring the plane. Sounds fair to me. -a-

Search the threads on the differences between the two mods. The actual installations are different. One maintains external access to the instrument panel and the other may not. -a-

Note: The "analog" indicator and the digital readout are from the same source. If the digital readout is weird, the needle will point to the same weird number. The needle is attached to a digital driver. Essentially they are two presentations of the same number. The Ovation has a digital RPM gauge with "analog" display. The needle moves in clicks of about 20 rpm. -a-

Advantage for alcohol at Indy: Water douses the flames of an accidental spill / fire. Disadvantage for alcohol at Indy: Alcohol fires are nearly invisible in daylight. The advantage, probably does not translate well to GA. As Dave pointed out..."Having and energy dense fuel isn't much good if you can't actually utilize all of the potential." This is where electronic ignition, O2 sensors, and OBDII computers usually comes into the conversation. Unfortunately, this probably won't be a low cost improvement by STC to our existing engines either. -a-

PK, My thoughts. Portable Garmin is designed to be as reliable as possible for the aviation environment. Apple or windows based portable is great for graphical situational awareness. I am leaning towards keeping both alive in the cockpit. One has much greater reliability than the other. The other provides greater data updates and graphics. They both provide situational awareness / back-up to my installed equipment. I have two yokes, I envision two portable devices. The one mounted furthest away, will probably be used less and less.... Best regards, -a-

Quote: Lood Our local Mooney agent has a '67 M20F that they sort of converted into what they call either a a "Poor man's Ovation". Oh, and they kept the original manual landing gear and flaps.

Narcos are not the same quality as Garmin, nor are they Honeywell/Bendix-King. The panel list indicates separate coms and navs. Interesting choice, but not common. -a-

32.8% less energy/gallon (according to data from 1964-M20E) According to the chart below, Ethanol is even a lower source of chemical energy. Fuel oils are indicated as slightly higher source of chemical energy. Hooray for diesel guys..... Go towards diesel, and away from alcohol for most compact source of energy. Propane anyone? Fuel & Energy Conversion & Equivalence Chart Electricity: 1 KW = 3,413 Btu/hr Natural gas: 1 Cubic Foot of Natural Gas = 1030 Btu's 1 CCF = 100 Cu Ft = 1 Therm = 103,000 Btu's 1 MCF = 1,000 Cu Ft = 10 Therms = 1,034,000 Btu's = 1.034 MMBtu's Propane: 1 Gal Propane = 91,600 Btu's 1 Cu Ft Propane = 2,500 Btu's Gasoline: 1 Gal Gasoline (mid grade) = 125,000 Btu's Ethanol: 1 Gal Ethanol = 76,000 Btu's Fuel Oil: 1 Gal of #2 Fuel Oil = 139,000 Btu's 1 Gal of #4 Fuel Oil = 145,000 Btu's 1 Gal of #6 Fuel Oil = 150,000 Btu's 1 Barrel of Oil = 42 Gallons

Quote: drpep JPI pointed out that the placement on the front of the engine of the JPI will read higher. He suggested up to 10 degrees but not as many as 30 degrees

Brandon, Things to consider... It is easy enough to add fluid to the system. If the reservoir is near empty, expect a leak. Reservoir is behind your aspen, it can be easily reached from the outside. Square blue nut on top is the fill hole. Be neat, excess drops right on the rug inside... To check for a leak, remove the belly pan, The juice "dries" up with dust and is difficult to clean. Plus it is red and hard to miss. Be careful, the same fluid that supplies the flaps also supplies the brakes. Flaps run out of juice first, then brakes if the level is allowed to drop. My leak came from the supply hose between the pump and the reservoir. 40 year old hoses tend to age and crack after several decades. If the pump (when full) is holding pressure, it is probably not an o-ring problem. O-rings are easy to replace, so purchase the proper sizes (check parts manual) and be ready. While you are in there it is a good idea to replace. I did this type of work concurrently with my annual. Otherwise expect a few hours of taking off panels and pump parts with your A&P. Best regards, -a-

Headsets for kids? a nice set of sound reducing muffs from Craftsman (for lawn mowing) protects their ears and mine at the same time..... The light weight of passive sound reduction helps them stay in place. (adding ear plugs to the mix would probably help). Like George pointed out, they say nothing for the entire trip, until descent to the traffic pattern..... Pencils and paper in the back can keep budding artists occupied for hours. -a-

Ken, I am interested in your comparison of M20M vs M20F annuals... Why such a great difference in annual price between the two? Best regards, -a-

Great project for an A&P. Things to consider.... By the backward curl of the prop, the engine was not making power when it hit. This lowers the risk of major damage. But tear down is still required. The engine/prop had less than 100hrs SMOH. For a person who is not an A&P, This project has great risk and no matching great reward. Instrument panel does not have much to get excited about. So if vintage mooneys are valued by: 1/3 engine, 1/3 instruments and 1/3 airframe. The engine is suspect, the airframe clearly needs work and the instruments are relegated to the ancient and some not working category...... Even as a gift, paying retail /by the hour, having someone fix this one could cost as much as purchasing one in airworthy condition. Is there a good way to determine the condition of the engine without purchasing it? Since an OH can cost $25K+, if it is not required, this gamble could pay off. Just my thoughts, -a-

Ned, In the meantime you may consider changing out the circuit breaker for a new one. Apparently, as they age, they fail at lower loads than their rated for? It would be great to know the actual load of each item as they are turned on. -a-

See Bryan Painter for all things grass and non pave surfaces. Taxiing on grass makes me nervous. Bouncing down an uneven surfaces is probably not good for fuel tank integrity. -a-

Search on this board for "rocket" Look for RJBrown and JasonWojo. Both have significant rocket experience. One might even have one for sale......