RJBrown

I only had my Rocket for about 1000 hour so I never had any engine issues. Another Rocket distributor, Irv Fehr, got over 2000 hour out of his without cylinder work. Here is an excerpt from the for sale ad on N305PF:Equipment Specifications Year 1980 Manufacturer MOONEY Model M20K 305 ROCKET Price US $175,000 Location Melba, Idaho Condition USED Serial Number 25-0486 Registration Number N305PF Total Time 7000 Hours Overhaul 30 SMOH Flight Rules IFR Number Of Seats 4 General Information The first rocket, my personal aircraft, well taken care of garmin530 Detailed Description 305PF has won the air race from Denver to Oshkosh Airframe: Has one piece belly with special runners. Has three wheels up landings, on the special runners, with no damage to the interior of the fuselage.Engine Specs: A Continental TSIO 520 NB. Rebuilt at 2000 hours after the conversion with no tops in between.40 hrs or so since rebuldProp(s): The Rocket uses the complete power package as certified in the Cessna 340. That is where the full feathering prop came from. One very large turbo, large enough to meet certification requirements for single engine cockpit pressurization at service ceiling. Way over kill for our needs. They outlast the engine, unlike the little one on the 231 or the 2 little ones on the Acclaim . A Rocket has a motor mount that attaches to the fuselage at 8 points instead of 4 like the Bravo. The cowl flap setup is one reason the engines last, they never run hot unless you screw up bad. Full power climb from 6000 to 26000 never a temp issue. Rockets usually have about 1000# useful load. The gross weight is limited by the landing gear not the climb rate. 400# over gross will perform about the same as a Bravo. Hot? High? Humid? who cares! At gross from Leadville in the summer climbs better than my current J 600# under at sea level. The Rocket is still the ultimate Mooney. They all share the same wing this one has the most HP. The others just weigh more.

Had an 80 Rocket. If yours is the same it will be a preflight item. The stop bends and makes it so it goes overcenter and wont close. Never close at speed the extra force will bend things. Close the flap just Before you level off. DIY item for sure, figure out how it works to keep it working well.

The best protection from ice is avoidance. To take off into known ice is unwise in ANY Mooney. From an operational point of view both systems are identical. Climb rate is the other protection for ice both getting out of it and avoiding it. I have seen 1500 FPM @ 26000 in a Rocket. No Bravo at any altitude can get that. Rockets regularly exceed TBO without any engine work. 200 knots @ 12,000 and faster higher. I would flight plan 200knots for every flight. If I got there sooner it was a bonus. A Rocket can carry more, higher, faster and further than a Bravo. For "factory" support Rocket has it Mooney does not. The ONLY advantage Bravos have is interior space, not load carrying, just space. Every other apples to apples comparison the Bravo looses. It is no wonder Mooney followed Rocket with the decision to use Continentals. They just had to catch up.

Brownsville to Cozumel: KBRO-TAM-NAU-MTT-CME-MMCZ. Is 995NM so it will cost an extra stop plus a few extra miles.

Do not go full rich. My J never sees full rich take off or landing on my home field (APA) 5880' Full rich can cause loss of power and fouled plugs.

Triple8s I owned a TLS for nine years. The wet head is one of the best things that Lycoming ever thought up. Much better altitude engine than the Continental. [] I beg to disagree. Loved my Rocket with a Continental TSIO520NB. Outperform any TLS at any altitude. There is a good reason Mooney followed Rocket to the Continental. My next plane will be a Rocket. 1990 J 1850 tt 0 SMOH for sale.

Research and development at customers expense. All TLS should have already been converted to Bravo spec. If not don't buy or deduct the cost.

mod works was crooked as hell. they charged my insurance company for the replacement of wing panels that had been hail damaged but only repaired them with bondo. After we discovered the problems I contacted Coy Jacobs at Mooney Mart. When I did The same individual I was ripped off by at Mod Works answered the phone at Mooney Mart. I feel than the two companies were cut from the same cloth. Any association with either company is enough reason for Me to avoid any one. Too many rotton apples too close for it to be coincidence.

Most fireworks are WAY below if you are at 1000' AGL. Before 911 we circled the baseball stadium during the show. Not real impressive. But any excuse to fly, right!

What aluminum alloy does Mooney use on the wing skins and how thick is it? Are the formed aluminum pieces such as gear doors etc a different alloy?

Sounds like snake oil.

Quote: N601RX Very few engines make it to TBO without some cylinder work or a fresh top end. Judging from the logbooks I looked through when we purchased this seemed to be a pretty common occurance at around 1100-1200 hrs.

Quote: mrjones30 Can you please elaborate on the "Pilot attitude" comment? What exactly did you mean by that.

Longest trip from home was Denver to Ft Meyers, KAPA-KLIT-CTY-KRSW. 1426 NM in 7.7 hours tach time plus a fuel stop in Little Rock. Without leaving the USA I have been NW to Seattle, SW to San Diego. SE to Fort Meyers Fla and NE to Lancaster Pa.

Quote: KSMooniac Lead is most certainly not a lubricant...it is only a component to increase octane in our fuel. The APS crew has a good bit of data dispelling this myth in their course.

The safest airplane is the one with the safest pilot. That is why you hear of so many Cirrus crashes. They tout their "saftey" features to an certain demographic who buy them and promptly exceed their own abilities as a pilot hoping the Cirrus will save them. Beech Bonanzas used to be called "Doctor Killers" for similar pilot related issues. To answer you title question. Yes they are. When flown properly by a conservative, current and well trained pilot. The biggest variable is pilot attitude.

Quote: allsmiles In fact, TEL (Tetraethyl Lead) is added to avgas in order to increase the fuel's margins or resistance to detonation. Thereby enabling the advantageous use of high octane fuel which is required for high piston engine performance at altitude.

http://www.mooneymart.com/modifications/114MM.php Mod works put one in the right side of my Rocket. Make sure they can get the "factory parts" before you commit. These come with regular PAR bulbs. It adds 2 lights per side. I now have both sides with wing lights on my 1990MSE J. Great to have all the light and this way bulbs last forever. In the stock K I used to replace the cowl mounted bulbs often. This would be 2 STCs to get HIDs in the wing. One to add wing lights one to then add HID.

All well and fine with a Baron but a Rocket will walk away from them on half the fuel and 1/4 the total cost per hour. Barons and twins in general are cheap BECAUSE they are so d@** expensive to operate.

I put an EI in 2years ago. Love it.

http://www.vansaircraft.com/public/rv-6per.htm Built right it should easily out run a 201.

I wish there was a way to tag certain planes so they don't get passed around one sucker to the next. In the Mississippi River Flood of 1993 N1171J was underwater over the cabin. In the next 10-12 years it changed hands 5+ times. I tried to talk to each owner to warn them. Each had experianced strange electrical problems and were glad to know the truth. The current owner has changed the N number to N30EV. He got pissed off and cussed me out for being a "busybody" BEWARE of Submarine activity!!! The person that bought the salvage from Avemco dummied the log books to hide the truth. This plane shows NOTHING on http://report.myairplane.com/ If there is no paper trail there is really no place to find the truth on this 82 231.

Quote: DaV8or Just voted. Kinda goofy. Pairing up totally dissimilar aircraft and saying pick one. I couldn't vote for the Mooney because I'm in the Southwest region.

On another subject. Any one who believes ANY business pays tax is naive. All taxes paid by any business get passed on to the consumer. Not only passed on but marked up and passed on. The government knows they can fool the public by saying they will raise taxes on businesses. It hides the tax the public pays from them. The fools get the Illusion of something for nothing. They still pay it they just pay MORE of it through a middleman. Every thing I said was "discussed" but this. The only entity that pays taxes is the final consumer. Every one else in the food chain just passes it on. To hear some whine about "the corporations" cracks me up. Is ANY one really stupid enough to think any company ever paid a tax they didn't send on to the consumer. Taxing ANYONE but the consumer is just a smoke screen to get more for the government FROM the consumer. The argument to "Tax the Corporations" sounds good if you don't bother to think about it. Problem is there are way to many out there that simply don't think.

The Rocket burns more fuel and goes faster. In the long run operating expenses are a bit closer than they initially look. The engine cost are about the same and you go further per hour in the Rocket. The useful in my old Rocket was over 1100. The Rocket setup gets 100% power clear up to 24000'. I have seen 1500FPM at 26K. It is impossible to load out of CG. The airframe changes are an 8 point attachment for the engine mount instead of the stock 4 and the addition of a battery shelf in the tail cone. Initially the Rocket had a gross weight increase to 3040#. Later Rocket got approval for the 3200# gross take off weight. The landing weight remains at 3040# for all Rockets. The weight increase was just under 200# with the conversion. The conversion added just over 100# to the conversions useful. Unless additional equipment was added the useful could be as high as 1132#. Most non TKS Rockets have over 1000# gross. The change from 3040 to 3200 gross weight is a re-labeled ASI and paperwork, similar to the J gross weight increase. A stock 231 with stock tanks filled has 32# more useful than a Rocket with Monroy tanks filled (101gal). 1000 Nautical range is easily achieved in the Rocket. The weight limit on a Rocket is based on what it can land with not what it can take off with. The theoretical 400# overgross Rocket ,tanked for Hawaii for example, would still outclimb the 231. Mooney changed the gear to allow the later models gross weight increase to 3368#. Same wing, same tail, less horsepower.