Earl

Quote: FlyDave Yikes!!!! Don't you have a gear warning horn? Mine goes off if the gear is not down and I throttle back to under about 15" MP. It scared the cr_p out of my wife when I was trying to slow down enough to drop the gear and get some flaps out last week. Good thing - getting one's attention! Have you ever seen the video "Whats that beeping" ( http://iplaster.net/rugg/Whats_that_beeping.wmv )? Don't be complacent about warning horns!!!

Gotcha and thanks for the details. I guess I had visions of oil all over the cowling having lost that much in a short time. I think with all the other factors it doesn't seem as scary as I originally thought. Glad it worked out and ended with a new powerplant, upgraded and all.

Quote: KLRDMD I had them on my Bravo and haven't had them on any of the other six airplane's I've owned. There were only two instances where I found them helpful: a) When ATC gives you a slam dunk that you weren't expecting and you're in a turbo charged aircraft. On gusty crosswind landings. I've found that ATC rarely give me a slam dunk that I wasn't expecting if I'm paying attention. If you're flying a normally aspirated airplane, I just don't see a huge benefit. Pull the power back to 15" manifold pressure and descend as needed if given a slam dunk. At 15" MP or greater, the engine is still driving the prop so no big deal. Those that believe in the 'old wives tale' of shock cooling may tell you differently but they have no science to back up their beliefs. If you were expecting the slam dunk you have time beforehand to start slowing the airplane down so when you do descend you can do so efficiently. I'm currently fling a turbo Mooney without speed brakes and they would be well down the list of potential upgrades for me. YMMV.

Quote: RJBrown The posts that refer to the plane as just a chunk of aluminum are 100% correct. As a pilot we should always remember this. I had just left KSFF (Spokane WA) heading home to Denver. I was above 12,000' about 80 miles out when I noticed low oil pressure and high oil temp in my M20K N231NH. Nearest airport was Orofino ID (S-68), a 2500" long field at an elevation of 1005'. I arrived over the airport at 9500'. The next airport was Lewiston ID (KLWS) 31 miles west. Being out of glide range of Lewiston I chose to circle and land at Orofino. The airport is in a bend of the river and both ends extend over water. The surrounding hills are between 3500' and 4500'. I figured I had one shot at landing. I decided that if anything went wrong the plane belonged to the insurance company and all I was going to save was my own sorry behind. On approach I had the seat as far back as I could and still reach the pedals. My seat belt was tight and the right seat was empty. I popped the door on final and was resigned to swimming if needed. The landing was uneventful. Insured properly an off airport landing (crash) would only cost me $500, my deductible. Survivability is all that matters. Having already decided that the plane was expendable freed me up mentally. It allowed me to concentrate on the landing nothing else. She had blown 6 quarts of oil overboard in about a half hour. I took 3 hops topping the oil at each to get back to Spokane. Where she was left eventually being converted to a 305 Rocket there.

Can't comment on the mod issue but I have them on my 86 252 and they are very useful indeed. I fly in and out of the Atlanta area and it is not uncommon for ATC to put me on downwind at 3,000' agl because of traffic. Pop the speed brakes, drop the gear and I am at pattern altitude in no time and with no increase in airspeed to speak of. Also helps when I am approaching a waypoint and suddenly ATC wants me 3,000 feet lower when I cross. Finally very nice when you are asked to "keep up your speed" on final to accomodate faster traffic behind and need to dump some airspeed to get on the ground saving you from the Mooney excess airspeed penalty during landing.

Thanks Scott. My hull value would basically pay off my note and leave me $35K in cash to get another plane. In today's market I would probably be able to trade up from my current plane. Not that I want any of this to happen but it does eliminate for me one area of angst over the soft market......

Quote: JimR

When I look at this airplane and the planned work for a total of $180K I can only say wow! I spent that much for an 86 Mooney 252 a number of years ago which was the going price at the time for a low-engine, low-time version of that model. It makes me weep every time I see a comparable 252 today going for much less. Fact is an airplane is worth what someone is willing to pay for it at the time and if you some day find yourself in the same boat as me so be it. You'll have a great airplane that does what you want. Enjoy it!!

IFR and IFR Refresher combined followed by AOPA Pilot

Quote: JimR I have never had to overhaul mine, but the no back clutch spring SB alone was $500 for the kit, plus the installation costs. What are your symptoms that indicate that you need your entire actuator to be overhaled?

Just got a quote from an MSC to overhaul the gear actuator and was wondering whether anyone has had this done. Labor at the MSC at $375 and cost from LASAR of $3,000. Does that sound reasonable? Mine is a 1986 M20K (252).

Quote: scottfromiowa I have had NO issues with running 50 degrees ROP on my '66 M20E. I agree with Bob Kromer's power settings for climb, cruise and decent as written in MAPA. I lean aggressively on the ground and run full throttle in climb and cruise unless down low and I will keep it at 25 squared. As long as my cylinders are running cool I don't get concerned about EGT fluctuations. I don't understand all this 24 squared stuff and have NOT heard a good reason why people are reducing power in climb and cruise...and what is the big prejudice against 3 blade props? I get excellent speed, climb performance and no vibration issues with my McCaulley.

IMO opinion the answer is it depends. How high are you and how quickly do you need to get down. Is it a smooth day or do you expect turbulence on your descent. On a smooth day I usually nose over and try to descend near the yellow arc to recover all that potential energy I created with climb thrust. If there are speed restrictions, turbulence or I am too close to the airport or waypoint with an altitude restriction I will sometimes use my speed brakes which are most handy. What I try to avoid is reducing MP below 20" so the engine doesn't cool too quickly. If 20" and speed brakes don't do the trick them I would bring the prop back to help slow you down. In the APS course they recommended WOT descent and control airspeed with RPM and speed brakes. I generally don't do it that way but that's what they showed in the air work videos with a V35 Bonanza.

Maybe its just too hard to say Quebec Gulf.....doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. :-)

Thats what the guy at the MSC said as well. That's my next step in the process.

Quote: KLRDMD They usually can be made to run LOP well.

Mine is a Mooney 252 (1986 M20K).

Great news Jeff. Did you fly today? I went over the KRMG arouind 10:30am to pick up a radio and spend a few minutes with the MSC on operation of the EDM-730 and returned about 12:30pm. I tried operating LOP but it was not smooth. He looked at my max fuel flow and it is too low. Running at 20.3gph at WOT and full rich. Need to get that dialed up a bit even though it is within book values. My EGT difference was 90 dF. I think I need some engine and injector tuning before I will be able to run LOP.

My understanding from the APS course is that the combination of high ICP and high CHT is harder on pistons, valves and spark plugs and may cause premature failure. CHT and ICP tend to mirror each other so if you are operating at peak CHT you are also operating at peak ICP and it stands to reason that if you can operate the engine within a reasonable range of performance and cooler and at lower pressure inside the cylinder that is a good thing. I think the bigger issue is running at the edge of the box leaves little room for error and any issue like a failed plug or plugged injector can quickly spiral out of control although I would guess otherwise is not a problem. My understanding of top overhauls is similar to yours but you have to ask why the rings are shot or the valves are damaged. In the course they go into a lot of detail about the thermal boundary layer between the metal parts of an engine. When CHT and ICP are high the thermal boundry is reduced and heat flow away from the cylinders is diminished. Left to continue you risk a thermal runaway where the valves and/or pistons will rapidly fail. So operating at the edge of the red box leaves little room for error to correct a situation like that before it goes really bad. Whether in the real world this additional time is of any value I don't know. I think the other thing you risk with high CHT/ICP is spark plug failure which in the right circumstances can lead to pre-igntion of the fuel in the cylinder and catastrophic failure. I know I am not doing this topic justice but that's my recollection from the course.

Thanks Scott. I think my original post had the GoFast/GoFar LOP backwards and I corrected it so there would be no misunderstanding. Part of his challenge is he doesn't have an engine monitor with individual cylinder data. Having said that, if he wants to operate at more than 65% power and his engine runs rough at 50 dF LOP my understanding from the course is he would be safer to operate at more than 100 dF ROP to avoid staying out of the red box. Is that correct?

As I said I am a neophyte so I may have it wrong about GoFast and GoFar when LOP. As best I can recollect from the seminar if you are 65% power or less anything LOP won't harm the engine. And if it is running smoothly at that mixture setting then F:A ratios and horsepower are balanced between the cylinders and assuming CHTs are not above 380 dF and TIT are below around 1,500 dF you should be able to go as long as the fuel and your bladder can stand it. Scott will have to weigh in about why going to 50 dF is desired. I do know that HP drops off rapidly LOP as does internal cylinder pressure (ICP). I also know that horsepower per pound of fuel per hour is highest at 50 dF LOP which is maybe what he is referring to. 25 dF LOP will also result in higher EGT and CHT readings but all are less than the peak at 40 dF ROP. Interestingly, what they said in the course is if your F:A ratios were close enough the engine will run smoothly as you lean it right up until it quits. Seems to me every plane I have ever flown will become rough at some point as you lean it.

Perhaps Scott would be better at answering this question since I am a neophyte but my understanding is that for LOP operations 50 dF LOP is a GoFar setting and 25 dF LOP is a GoFast setting (relatively speaking because all LOP operations are otuside the maximum horsepower). In any event you are right that APS indicates that below 65% power there is no combination of MP, RPM and mixture that should be harmful to the engine....Scott please verify! If you can't operate smoothly at 25dF LOP then you have different Fuel:Air mixtures in different cylinders which makes the horsepower output of each cylinder dissimilar which causes the rough running engine. Am I to understand that it is smooth at 50dF LOP or have you never gotten there because at 25 dF LOP it runs rough? If that's the case you need to really run ROP (maybe 100 dF or more) in high power settings because without engine instruments on each cylinder you could have some running in the dreaded 40 dF ROP where internal pressures are the highest, some running at peak and some running LOP. I think by your question you probably already know this. As I understand what APS is saying, for a turbocharged engine you do all your climbs full throttle, full RMP (unless you need to pull back a little, no more than 200 RPM, for noise abatement) and full mixture. At cruise after you got all your airspeed back they reduce RPM to whatever is smoothest, leave the throttle wide open (WOT) and pull back mixture to anywhere from 25 dF to 50dF LOP of peak depending upon whether they want to get there a little faster or go farther. As Scott points out you don't necessarily need the engine instrument to do this but you would losing a lot of valuable information.

Scott: Thanks for clarifying about the manual and the credit application for the online course. If I have the time I may try to take the live class at some point. I completely agree with you about the engine monitor. It is a critical piece of equipment and like I said, I cringe to think how I have been running the engine without the knowledge from this course and the new EDM-730. I also agree that you don't need the monitor to run LOP although as you know much better than I you won't be able to identify which cylinder has a problem like a leaky valve, bad sparkplug or plugged fuel injector. Tomorrow I am doing my GAMI test and am hopeful my injectors are properly balanced so I can run LOP without more cost.

Quote: csfahey I reside on the east coast and am in the planning stage for a flight to Alaska next summer. Has anyone undertaken a transcontinental flight in their Mooney? I have an M20C so I am relegated to lower altitudes. Any suggestions on routes? Or time of season to accomplish this? How about landing at outback strips? I know the prop clearance is low but can it still be accomplished with good soft field technique?

I really debated whether this would be worth $395 but I am really glad I took this course. I can understand why it would be preferable to do this live in Ada so you can ask questions and see them operate their engine on a stand but that wasn't an option for me anytime soon and as I learned from the course I could not afford to wait another day. I learned a tremendous amount about engine management and am cringing to think I have probably been running my engine too ROP although I wouldn't know because I didn't have an engine monitor installed and I didn't know enough to track TIT, CHT and EGT in any meaningful way other than to avoid redline. I hope its not too late..... I would say IMO if you don't have a JPI engine monitor that allows you to track parameters on a cylinder by cylinder basis this course is probably not worth $395. Simply put, run your engine 100+ degrees ROP or if you have balanced fuel flow vis-a-vis air flow - 50 degrees LOP. I would be interested if others more knowledgable than I on this topic agree or have a different take. Some advice for those that plan to take this course, take detailed notes and print out every slide for future reference. You can only go through each section multiple times until you take the quiz. After the section quiz you can't go back. They offer to send you the slides for $100 which I think is ridiculous after having paid $395 for the course. By the way, on many of the slides there is is drop down so not all the text is displayed at one time so you will need to print several versions of each slide to get all the text (you will probably have to take the course to understand what I am saying). For sure my next step is to perform the GAMI test to see if my fuel:air ratio between cylinders is close enough to run LOP. If it passes I will use LOP for sure. If not, I will be running a lot more ROP than I have been to stay away from the high internal cylinder pressures.