Jeff_S

Hey all, Flying my Mooney through my first blistering hot summer with it, and have some questions about how people maintain the best balance between power and CHT/EGTs. Since I got the plane in January, I've been flying it 2500 RPM and LOP at the GAMI-recommended levels based on altitude (generally 20-50 LOP or thereabouts). However, with the hot temps even at altitude lately, I've noticed it hard to keep CHTs below 380° without really giving up a lot of power and speed...down to about 145 KTAS at respectable temps. And yesterday in Jerry Manthey's Maintenance Class, he came down firmly on the ROP side of the camp so I started playing around with that. Seems like I can run at 100 ROP and get about 157 KTAS but the temps go up pretty quickly, unless I put the cowl flaps in trail and that keeps the temps down about 380 and speed at 154 or so. But that was at about 12 GPH. So for those folks who routinely operate a J or other normally-aspirated airplane in very high heat, I'd like to know what your secrets are for balancing power with heat mitigation. I'm sure there's no one right answer and every plane is probably a little different but this will help me experiment. Thanks.

I saw a demonstration at Sun n' Fun from the folks at Flitz. They showed how it can shine up a polished spinner, which was amazing. Then they took it to some cloudy plexiglass and the result was nothing short of miraculous. I immediately bought some and have used it on my spinner to great effect. I also used it on the only cloudy plexi on my plane, which is the wing sight fuel gauge. Did a good job there too. So for $5-$10 it's worth a try.

Dan and Mooney27239, I just sent you both PMs. Not sure where you are at this point. I came up from Atlanta earlier today to tryto beat the heat and avoid t-storms, although it looks at this point like they're not developing. Anyway, I've got a car and am staying at the Holiday Inn Express, so the PM has my cellphone number and feel free to call if you need to share a ride or something. FYI, the A/C in the FBO is on the fritz so they're making due with portables but it's hot! I'm told the class is in a different building which should not have this problem.

Quote: philipneeper i just wanna give a shout out to all the mooniacs to have a wonderful july 4th.... wish you and your families the best... see yall stateside.. keep the blue side up !

My understanding with wing root fairings is that they help primarily with low-speed handling rather than increased speed at cruise. I had them on my Warrior but they were installed prior to my purchase so I couldn't give a pre-post evaluation of handling.

So, that would be an interesting article to read but it appears to be password protected. What's the secret to get in?

Shouldn't this thread go in the "Bug Reports" forum? Here I was all set to read something about the fuel injection system! ;-)

Y'all talking about LASAR, or something else? I Googled "Laser Mooney" and that was the only thing I could come up with, and I didn't see the mods you're talking about. I'm not that worried about it, actually...my plane lives in a tie-down so I'm going to just leave them on and make sure they're snug from time to time. But now you've got my curiosity up... Edit: Never mind, I found them under the Wheel Cap listing, which strangely doesn't show the wheel cap at all but only these jack/tie-down devices. Now that I've seen them, I recognize them from fellow-Mooneyspacer Mac201's plane which we flew last week. I wondered why his were different than mine.

Just do a Google search and you may come up with something. I found several different sets of checklists for the J series that provided all that info when I was looking for my Mooney. It's a place to start, anyway.

Here's an interesting one. For no real reason, I was perusing some Service Instructions from the Mooney web site and came across one for jacking up the airplane. Since I'm having new tires put on this is relevant, so I thought I'd just see the proper way to do that (although I leave the actual work to my A/P). That document describes replacing the tie-down rings with the jack points, which makes sense. But in two separate places, it also says "Do Not Leave Tie-down Rings In Place During Flight." That's a new one on me. Has anyone heard this before? Does anyone actually follow it? My transition CFI, who used to own a J and has over 800 hours in them, never mentioned it. I guess the idea is they can come loose and fall off...and now that I say that, I do remember that after having the plane tied down in Destin a few weeks ago, when I got home to Atlanta I noticed that one of them was loose, probably due to some twisting action that occurred in that tie-down configuration. One more thing to preflight...

Gary, I appreciate the sentiment but I simply won't have time with my work schedule if I have to drive it. But I suppose if I do miss the NC event I can try to get to the Wichita one. The actual flight time isn't that different, and Wichita is my home town so it would be cool to fly in and visit some old haunts. I've already got the deal with the MAPA gal (sorry I can't remember her name). I just need to let her know by this Friday if I'll be able to make it so she's waiting for my confirmation.

Many thanks all...just the input I needed. I'm planning to attend and have already given my registration. The only holdup would be if I don't get my plane out of annual in time. The MAPA gal I talked to said "you know, you don't need your airplane to attend" to which I said "well, true, but I do need my airplanen to GET there! I'm certainly not driving to Kinston NC from Atlanta!" That was good for a laugh. Oh, and by the way, thanks also for not making fun of the fact that I can't spell "ratchet." Truly, I am not Tim the Tool Man Taylor!

Since I'm new to the Mooney clan, and I have learned that Jerry is retiring after this year, I thought it would be good to take his one-day maintenance course to learn more about my J. The last course near me is in NC at the end of next week. My question is this: I'm not a wratchet-head and frankly don't expect to do a lot of my own work on the airplane, but thought it would be good to take this class just to better learn the systems so I can guide my A/P and diagnose when things might need some attention. Is this a valid thought? If anyone has taken this course, is that what I'll get out of it, or will it be much more of a technical, here's how to change a tire/oil/blah blah blah? It's a decent investment in time/$$ to attend so any reviews would be helpful. Thanks! Jeff

At the risk of being cautionary, putting all that information in one, publicly-available source could be pretty risky. Once an N# goes out, the general whereabouts of a plane can be easily determined. On the Piper forums last year one of the members had his panel stolen out of a LOCKED hangar. People who hang around airports are also likely to lurk around forums. Just something to consider.

Sounds like fun. But if it's that informal how will we even know who's part of the group? Name tags all weekend? ;-)

Quote: ehscott Jeff: Do you get coverage consistently at that altitude around Atlanta? I spend so little time here and am usually outside the area before they let me up to any decent altitude but I forgot my ipad on my last flight so I could not test it. It's my view that the 3g will be of limited value in flight for most of us most of the time. Will probably only work in departure and approach so for those of us that fly cross country we still need to rely on weather info from our 496/696. I do plan to use the approach plates and drop that subscription to Garmin. That savings alone will almost pay for my 3g service. If ipad figures out how to get xm weather then I really believe Garmin is in trouble.

Quote: carusoam Roughly speaking..... Ovation 1: Assume... 16gph in level flight at 170 knots (11,500 feet) 89 gallons usable. 5 hours of flight if needed... 600 nm trip = 3.5hrs (60 gallons) 360 lbs of fuel 1050 useful (from Parker, noted above). Leaving 690# usable for people and stuff. Consider Ovations M20R and Eagles M20S may give similar results. For two people, there is alot of extra capacity for additional fuel, or bringing alot of stuff...... Of course, this is rough, quick, back of the hand calculation intended to help illustrate a possible solution. Please check the math yourself. Don't forget to add your reserves and actual fuel flow for climb, etc.... I think rockets and TLS/Bravos would do this run a bit quicker at higher altitudes, bring your oxygen... Best regards, -a-

Someone a page or two ago asked at what altitude I was still able to get 3G coverage. As has been noted, it's not something to rely on, and it will depend on the area in which you're flying. But I've heard that annoying beeping static in my headset as high as 5-6000' around Atlanta, which is one of the most heavily-covered wireless data areas in the country. To Sky Captain's question about what ForeFlight does. What does it do compared to Fltplan or AOPA Flight Manager? From a flight planning capacity, in some respects not as much. It's not as easy to experiment with fuel and winds at different altitudes, for example. But the beauty of it is that it WILL do everything you need it to do, and it does so with a very slick and graphical user interface that's easy to learn and shows you all the data you want. And of course, the beauty is it will do all this wherever you have a wireless data connection. So it makes all this info much more accessible. Then, of course, the newest versions are taking advantage of the built in GPS on iPhone and iPad 3G to provide true moving map coverage while in-flight, so as has also been noted above, this can replace paper charts in the cockpit which for Part 91 flight is within the regs. Not sure how this applies to commercial flyers.

And to Roger's points, I don't think I would say that Apple is being anti-competitive in the classic sense. They aren't trying to keep other vendors down to their own profit. What they ARE doing is trying to control the user experience recognizing that the vast majority of folks don't want to have to wade through DLLs and Services and all the other crapola that I see our IT guys having to wade through. Apple made a business decision to go a different direction. You can like it, or not, but it's not evil or anticompetitive.

I flew all the way from Atlanta to Destin with the iPad on and following my route in ForeFlight. The 3.5 version of software has the new nav tracking so you can actually see altitude, ground speed, ground track and GPS error. It worked like a charm. And of course at 8000' I was NOT in 3G coverage area so the GPS was working fine all by itself. No, this is not the "Jesus EFB" that AvWeb poked some fun at in their video, and of course without 3G coverage at altitude it won't replace XM WX. But as a secondary info source, and a way to see your plane and track on both IFR and Sectional maps, it is the best thing I've seen.

Quote: The-sky-captain Jeff- Does it show the planes location on on approach plates yet or just the maps?

I just downloaded the latest update to ForeFlight, v3.5, and it has much improved routing features including a quasi-moving map capability with route overlay. This is the software that appeared in their video demo from a week or two ago. Against any of the maps, it will display GPS altitude, track, and GPS signal error as well as groundspeed, and it shows an airplane pointing in the correct direction of flight. I picked it up AFTER an evening excursion flight last night, so I had to go test it out by walking around the neighborhood. I discovered that when going at a brisk pace, I can make between 2 and 3 knots!

And let's not even START talking about vacuum pumps!

Man, doesn't anybody in this forum have a sense of humor? Am I the only one who sees that a faulty erection is certainly an Indicator of a bad Attitude? ;-)

Well, I would say that for a 45 year old airplane that appears to be tied-up outside, your inner spars and ribs look very clean!