Jerry 5TJ

We old Mooney guys remember our C and E models fondly. I flew mine all over the USA and have many great memories. I had 300 TT, all in Cessnas, when I bought my E. For the first few hours I needed about 800’ to take off but 6000’ to land: Good thing my home base runway was 7000’ long. Eventually I learned speed control. My Mooney transition CFII had 7,000 hours of Mooney time and his tutorials were invaluable. I have flown the C and E into South Lake Tahoe and Truckee with density altitudes above 8,000 feet. The planes don’t exhibit much desire to leap off the runway up there but can be safely flown fairly high. Buy a good one and have fun.

Love my KFC225 for its smooth flight. Don’t have the same positive lust for the autopilot‘s servo reliability: I keep a spare overhauled pitch servo on hand. They are good for about 400 hours on average. (Fifth pitch servo was installed at 2100 hours) If it weren’t for Garmin’s efforts to get around the KFC225 interface quirks it would not be possible to fly coupled RNAV GPS approaches: The last King KFC225 firmware release was sixteen years ago. I will get the GFC600 in a year or two. Including new all servos and wiring.

Sounds like a good idea. A G5 is “only” about twice as expensive as a new GI-106 Omni indicator and many times more useful. I was going to replace the copilot side six pack with a single G5 that is 30 pounds (!) lighter & more reliable than those six round instruments (including their associated remote boxes). In the event I’m doing the upgrade using an L3 ESI500 as the G5 isn’t approved for my airframe.

I do have empathy for the late M20C pilot’s situation. I have flown numerous hours in bumpy IMC using a single AI powered by one vacuum pump. My luck was better than his.

An argument in favor of using the red button to disconnect AP: If the autopilot fails you want your trained reaction to be “push and hold” the red disconnect switch. When my KFC225 system trim “ran away” the red button stopped the problem immediately.

I don’t practice the traditional “partial panel” anymore. With multiple AI it doesn’t make sense to spend scarce training time on an unlikely event.

Since flutter is a function of TAS, not IAS, could that be of note? Rocket turbocharged conversions are flying at higher TAS than most other Mooney mid-body airframes.

When you convert to manual gear do get a new gear uplock block, please.

Won’t manual gear run LOP?......

Was a new PA46 ever within reach of “most GA folks?” In 1984 a new Piper Malibu sold for about $330,000. That’s about $800,000 in 2019 bucks.

See image. QED.

I have two GTN750s. Single point of failure is not an option. I don’t have to work very hard to explain how that is better than a couple of teensy-display 650s. Let alone a couple of 430s with their awful push-push-twist-twist user interface. Agree there are cheaper ways to get from A to B. SouthWest Airlines to name one.

Glad to have tablets and smartphones running various apps to aid in flight. Glad that Boeing values the tools highly enough to buy a respected developer. Glad that Boeing has spent decades in fully CAD design of aviation innovations. Glad that I no longer have to mess with paper charts while hand-flying behind a single mechanical gyro powered by a single vacuum pump. Yesterday I filed my flight plan on my iPhone while sitting in the FBO lobby. Then I walked to the plane and used the iPhone to send the full-route plan wirelessly to the panel avionics. My late father used a clock, compass and kneeboard in his F4U to navigate on long submarine patrol flights. He always found the carrier (or I would not be here) but he certainly was impressed with the early handheld GPS I showed him in the 1990s. “Man, I wish I’d had one of those in the Corsair,” he said.

Ignoring freezing rain? Then at a static air temperature of +5C it is unlikely As DanB points out, if you cold soak the wing and fuel to well below freezing point of water then descend into warm rain your wings can collect a fair amount of run-back ice.

In the Ovation climb was limited by CHT. Normally I would cruise climb at 120 KIAS using whatever ROP power setting that would keep cynlider head temperatures reasonable. Slow descents are made at cruise power. Contrast to PT6A where we climb using max permitted torque until the altitude where temperature limit is reached, climb at max TIT temperature thereafter. Once level, power as required to sustain redline indicated airspeed. Since speed is at the limit in cruise power reduction is needed for descent. This topic does surface frequently. I suspect it does so because none of us feels our plane climbs fast enough. Perhaps excepting Hyett when he’s flying his English Electric Lightning using full reheat.