RJBrown

Rocket 1050 legal useful at 3200# gross still climbs over 1000fpm at 3600# 101 gal fuel 74% 200kts 20gph 1000 still air range. For flight planning at 12000' By the book 74% 20ghp 24000' 225kts gives 1100 range climbing from Denver. Backed off to 55%to extend range max range At 24000' 208kts 15 gph 1385 range. Fuel flow and altitude both affect range greatly. East bound up high with a tailwind you could travel over 2000 kts. While westbound down low into the wind you might not make 800. J like everyone else 1000 usefull 64 gal 900 range. Gross 2900# climbs like crap. Takes 30+ min to get from 5880' to cross Corona pass at 12500' Every flight in the J was such a dissapointment that I sold it at a loss. I will be planeless untill the house and hanger on Pegasus Airpark are completed. The speed, climb, range, payload and flexibility of a Rocket are amazing. When the hanger is finished I will put another Rocket in it.

The auto pilot in N1079V exhibited a porpoising action when I first bought it. Seem the previous owner never used the auto pilot. Two shops could not duplicate nor repair. All their cleaning, lubing and adjusting had no affect. Problem went away with further use.

FAA rules didn't change. NO THC It is still considered an illegal drug on your FAA medical. Any use will either cause you to fail a medical or lie on the application. This is just stupid people doing stupid things. Only now Colorado gets to charge tax on it.

5280!! Baby!! Great pic Joe Could you believe the weather on Sunday? 60s and sunshine at gametime. Will it snow in Jersy?

Hunters gloves. Got to keep that trigger finger precise. I wear my hunting clothes then flying in sub zero conditions. Take a gun with me in the plane to. Dressed properly the cold is a no factor. Now is the best time to buy hunting gear. Christmas is over and they need to get rid of all the cold weather stuff. Preheat engine and cabin! Airplanes love the cold, the performance is amazing. Air is much more stable. No ice concerns when its 0 on the ground. No convective weather. Vizibility is usually better. Except in Salt Lake with their near constant inversion.

Bitter Billy Babbles as he sucks on sour grapes. Go Broncos!

I book SW every time I can. $36 to $41 each way DEN to PHX with 100# of checked baggage. If I book more than 2 weeks out. It would be tough to missplace either of those airports.

If cowl flaps are open you can lose heat. You may need to check and see how closed they are.

Why would you automatically disassemble a cap you changed o rings on last year and it is obvious the outer ring looks brand new? Busy work just to pad the bill. On any airplane these o rings last a lot longer than 1 year but some mechanic knowing they were replaced at the last annual will take apart the same cap he took apart before just because a service bullitin gives him carte blanche. This is why an inspection should be done and a list of corrective actions be made and then presented to the owner. Nothing beyond the inspection should be done without further authorization. Too many mechanics take it upon them selves to make repairs without authorization. Some like you even think they are doing someone a service by "over repairing" anything they can get their mits on. Replacing them when apart is not the problem. Unnecessarily disassembling them is. If you honestly believe that you MUST take it apart every year you have deluded yourself. Use a little common sense. How many have you replaced? How many were truly bad? In fact if you change them every year you have probably never seen a bad one.

Paintless dent repair requires acces to the inside of the dent. They "massage" out the dents. I don't know about aluminum but they took a big hailstone dent out of my Sequioa's hood when it was brand new. I just called my body shop he said yes it can be done but it requires tool made specificly for aluminum and it it more difficult to get good results because of how aluminum "work hardens"

I understood that a forward slip IS what we were talking about. A forward slip is used to dissapate too much energy in the form of altitude and speed. I dont believe that will cause the issue that concerned you. Yes long bodies have issues slipping that I have heard of, never flown one. A skidding (uncoordinated) turn flown too slow IS what spins are made of. Yes to whatPTK wrote above

One of the reasons I am glad Mod Works is gone is over hail damage fixed by bondo. The insurance company authorized some wing skin replacement but Mod Jerks only used bondo. Pretty big dents, big enough to convince the insurance to buy new. Well they scammed me and the insurance company. Up side was the bondo never came loose on me. I would not worry about bondo on the slight damage you describe. Imron is great paint. Poison to those working with it though. It is only safe to apply if using air fed respirators. If you can smell the paint you have exceeded safe exposure levels. Glossy and hard and tough. So hard that paint can crack with a dent instead of flexing like other paints. Once it looses its gloss it cannot be polished back. My plane was painted with Sherwin Williams Jet Glo.

The control surfaces are removed for a paint job. Reinstalling and readjusting them is a bigger variable than paint. Being out of rig can slow a plane more than poor paint. Maybe the reason one person is faster after a paint job is that the plane was rigged better after than before. Maybe the plane that did not speed up is now a bit more out of rig after than before. Too many variables to pin it down without careful testing after each change.

Best way to learn the answer to your question is to go find out what YOUR plane does. Get up high enough to be safe and find the edge of the envelope. I speculate that the need to use the slip to lose altitude will be over before you get any where near the edge you are worried about. The slip is to come down without going too fast. As soon as you are on glide slope and landing speed you get out of the slip. In this manuver you are above your final approach speed the whole time.

I was taught to wait until the oil temp reaches the green before going over 1000RPM. I always preheat when below freezing. With proper pre heat It is usually warm by the time I reach the runway.

I think the "Idea" of a new J is wonderful! Many look back dewy eyed and sigh. The reality of a J is ZERO. Nostalgia wont sell planes. Unless we can get a time machine to bring 1980 airfames onto today's production line for avionics there is no way to build one for less than those here seem willing to pay. I am not rich enough to ever consider a new airplane. The most I could ever invest in a plane is about $200,000. No one will ever build a new plane I can afford. BUT...... I will NEVER settle for the mediocre climb and speed of a J again. I will buy a Rocket and perform like the guy with the Acclaim. Even with my buget I wont fly low and slow again. Does anyone here think someone dropping close to a MILLION bucks on a toy cares about the Economy of a J? He wants the fastest thing out there. He wants to fly fast AND high. Piper Matrix starts just under million, carries a bit more but goes slower. A Malibu is $1,200,000. Cirrus $600-760,000. I believe a Mooney builds the best plane out there. I shudder when I think of fixing anything more than hanger rash on a Cirrus or consider the recurring parachute costs. The market abandoned the J, not Mooney.

This thread started about the GB engine. A GB powered 231 is not much better than a 201. IF.. If you want the engine to last. Flown "by the book" it is a 1200 hour, at best, engine. There are a lot of answers in this thread about 231 engines. http://mooneyspace.com/topic/10954-231-no-intercooler-or-wastegate/ The GB was thrown in untested and ask to do more than it could. In 84 the LB came out and was somewhat better though still inadequate. With the introduction of the 252 they finally got it where it should have started. These engines NEED to be uprated to an LB AND have both the wastegate and intercooler added. Any airplane without these additions has either been abused or not flown to its potential. You cannot get the "turbo advantage" out of a stock 231 without "abusing" the engine. A 231 with a wastegate and an intercooler on a LB engine could make TBO IF the pilot was very careful. Most are not. When looking for my last plane I researched over 50 231s that came up for sale over about 18 months. Checking data/logs of all planes for sale during that period the average plane did not get 1200 hour out of the engine and the only ones that made TBO had been topped.

I would only consider them in a turbo charged airplane or planes with a big block engine. Very nice addition to a K. Absolute necessity for a Rocket, a TLS or an Acclaim. Useful for an Ovation/Eagle/Missile. I never saw the need for speed brakes on the J I owned after flying over 500 hours with them on a Rocket. Nice toy but not something I would pay extra for. A lot of my flying was between SLC and Denver. I often flew in mountainous areas. IMHO M20As through Js just don't need them. The manual, vacuum and first generation electric have all been discontinued. The current electric version has a distinctly different shape than those that proceeded it. Putting them on a E is just gilding the lilly. No real downside besides price/resell. If it is the plane you will keep forever and you want and can afford them go for it. On an E I would call them a fun toy. On a Rocket I would call them a necessary tool. Nothing wrong with an over improved airframe utill you try to sell it.

Vans is trying to limit legal exposure from the "Rocket" versions of their kits by expressly distancing themselves from higher powered versions. Harmon Rocket & Team Rocket sell modified versions of Vans kits that house much larger engines. 540 CI and 300+ HP vs.. 360 CI and 180HP as recommended. Though impressive planes they go against all that Vans stands for. Rocket Engineering had completed the flight tests to increase the certified ceiling of the 305Rocket conversions to 30,000' but failed to jump through all the FAA's hoops because of high costs and low return of value. They believed the plane met those requirements but did not spend the money to get the FAA to certify it. Our planes ARE that well built. Until someone chose to fly into a thunderstorm and come screaming out the bottom in a Rocket there had never been an airframe failure/flutter incident on any metal spar Mooney in history. Our planes, even with 300+ HP engines, have proven to be the strongest, safest plane in their category. Unlike the fairly common tail failures of Beech and Piper products. Because of the safety record Mooney is the only product I would consider. Bonanza Malibu and Saratoga have all shown a propensity to shed tails.

Great info. A 252 is about 11 MPH faster not the 21 Mooney inferred. Sounds about right. My 231 experience is a bone stock 1980 for about 100 hours then about 750 in the same plane as a Rocket.

262 was not a Mooney product. Mod Works, thank God they are gone, was the developer of that STC. They put a TSIO360MB in a 231. Not a full transformation but close. The choice of names was I am sure one ups man ship with absolutly no speed to back it up. Just a name someone thought sounded good.

The reason for the 24,000' service ceiling was to benefit the marketing dept. They wanted 200+knots/231 MPH and could only get it by abusing the heck out of it at 24k. 201 is 1 mph over 200 mph while 231 is 1 mph over 200 knots both were marketing goals not results of solid engineering. The 252 with a proper induction system got a 28,000' service ceiling the increased altitude is where the additional knots were gained. In reality the 252 is not really 21 MPH faster than a 231. It was just properly configured to run up high. Mooney RD got lazy on the early 231 using essentially what Piper had used to power the turbo arrow. In the arrow that engine package was given a certified ceiling of only 20,000' Even limited to 20,000 in the Piper it still resulted in poor reliability. To achieve the speed and altitude the factory sold us both the wastegate and the intercooler need to be added. Or it needs to be flown like a 201. Flatland pilots who are impressed with 15,000' cruising altitudes and poor climb rates up high and treat the plane carefully can reach TBO. It is one or the other. Performance or longevity a stock 231 will not deliver both. With both additions AND a thoughtful pilot the 231 can be flown as meant to be and have a reasonable shot at TBO. ANY used 231 engine with unknown history should be considered a 1200 hour motor.

A Merlyn equipped 231has a critical altitude of 19,500, not a small difference. A Rocket's critical altitude is 24,000. I have had a 231 to 22,000 and a Rocket to 26,000. A stock 231 flown to TBO was never ask to perform up to book levels. A 231 with waste gate and inter cooler flown carefully can both perform and last.

The critical altitude is limited on a stock 231 by the fixed wastegate. On a 231 the wastegate is "partially open" at low altitudes giving too much boost. This make throttle position critical to prevent overboost. At higher altitudes the waste gate being "partially open" looses too much boost and reduces critical altitude. An automatic wastegate opens fully at sea level to eliminate boost. As a airplane climbs the automatic wastegate closes and provides more and more boost as the airplane climbs. Once the waste is fully closed and the turbo is getting all it can you are at critical altitude. A fixed, or partially open, wastegate never allows the turbo to receive the full amount of exhaust pressure. This is what limits critical altitude. Zane from Missouri and Don from Texas are examples of a flatlanders that finds a 231 and it's limitations OK. It is not just the height that a plane can reach that is important but the climb rate at altitude that also makes a difference. The intercooler plays a very small role in the critical altitude equation. Because it cools the intake charge it does allow for a fractionally more power at the same vacuum setting. There are many pilots that do not understand how their turbo system works and why. A lot of them have posted here.

Early 231 engines were considered to have 1000-1200 hour lifespans because of the No intercooler, No automatic wastegate configuration. People quickly found that they could NOT operate them as advertised and make TBO. To get the performance promised they HAD to be "abused" Those that treat a 231 with "kid gloves" and get it to last might as well fly a 201. A 231 without BOTH is incomplete and price should deduct for missing parts. These are parts that should have been there from the start. Once Mooney learned what they were doing with turbos they built the 252. All turbo Mooneys built since have had both. ANY 231 flown without should be considered run out at 1200 hours. I bought a 12 year old 231 with about 1100 hours expecting 1800 TBO. It became a Rocket at 1200 hours. The Rocket is set up properly and will easily go beyond TBO. I sold the Rocket in 2003. I planned on buying a turbo when I bought the MSE 4 years ago. In my research I looked at every 231 listed for over a year and tried to determine how long the engines had lasted. Pretty easy on first runs. Planes listed with 600 hour motors and 1800 TT were easy to see 1200 hour original engines. I looked at and compared over 30 aircraft and determined that as of 2009 231 were STILL averaging about 1200 hours per engine and the ones that went further ALWAYS had been topped. I live in Denver. The reason to buy a turbo is just west of where I sit. 16,600' MEAs lie 10 miles from here. To operate between 15,000' and 20,000' you need both the wastegate and the intercooler. A pilot can rationalize anything he wants to, hell I rationalized a J. If you operate a 231 the way Mooney recommended it has to have both to survive. Even with both it is still the most "fragile" turbo configuration Mooney ever had. You will find that anyone who defends the 231 without both is based at or near sea level. The longevity issues of the 231 went into my poor decision to buy a MSE (J). My next plane will be a Rocket. Rocket engines cost no more at OH than do 231/252 engines. They perform better and, contrary to their 1600 hr TBO, last longer than the TSIO-360s. With the higher fuel consumption cost as the only downside to a Rocket vs. a stock K it is just too hard for me to trust a 360 after flying a 520. Besides POWER CORRUPTS! and in this area I have surely been corrupted. It was sad to own the MSE where every flight was a disappointment knowing what a Mooney airframe can do when powered by 305Turbo HP.