WardHolbrook

In most cases, operating LOP is not something you just decide one day to do. It takes preparation - both personal (training) and usually some equipment on the airplane. Done properly, there's no risk of hurting anything. Muff it up and things can get pretty expensive. Here's a link to the experts. www.advancedpilot.com/ The cost of the online course is modest but they'll take you buy the hand and explain what's needed, how to competently do it, and most importanly help you to understand exactly what's going on inside your engine. Amortized over the rest of your flying career it seems like a pretty solid investment.

If that doesn't work a respray would be in order. Speaking of color codes, I saw a Gulfstream G200 a while back that was painted in that color changing paint. I wonder what code would be used for that?

People buy their all-weather, FIKI certified travel pods thinking that somehow that's all they need, as if just having the equipment will keep them safe. What they don't realize is that having the equipment available to them is only 20% of the safety equasion. What they fail to understand is that they must also have the other 80% - the skill, judgement, and experience that is necessary. You know, all of the other stuff that you need that money can't buy. To paraphrase the most interesting man in the world, "Stay safe my friends."

Quote: robert7467 "Sounds to me that you (and your instructor) aren't setting the plane up right on final - trim it to speed" We were setting plane up perfectly on final, but for some reason, on this particular plane, flaps dont work for me. I dont know why, but I hate them.. On a Cessna, I love flaps, but Mooney, I hate them..... Also, going 90mph on final, the plane goes down right where I want it, and the landing is smooth and perfect every time... I dont know what it is about flaps on a Mooney, but I hate them. Most of my landing have been with flaps, and thats the reason it took me so long to solo. As soon as I quit using them, my landings have been perfect.

I've got a bit of experience with flight instructing. I've done touch and goes in everything from jets on down. When it comes teaching proper procedures they suck. I'll echo what the other experienced guys have said about them. They may have a place in non-complex airplanes, but the further up the complexity ladder you go the less they reflect real-world operations and the less value they provide. Robert, I suggest you reread what Mike, Parker, PK and all of the other experienced Mooney pilots have written.

Quote: GeorgePerry Touché...IMHO low horsepower, (less than 240 hp) Mooney's should run a 2 blade prop. If the fundamental mission of low horsepower Mooneys is to provide fast, efficient travel then having a 3 blade prop is counter to that mission. Although 3 blade props climb better (+/- 200 ft/min increase M20J) it reduces cruise speed by a fair amout. Some reports put the 3 blade as up to 5 knots slower in cruise. The only exception to this is the MT composite which reportedly only loses a knot or two. Also 3 blade props are alot heavier and shifts the CG fwd, which also hurts top end speed. Higher horsepower (and typically heavier) Mooney's don't seem to suffer the same loss of top end speed and benefit from a 3 bladed prop. An umodded M20S with a three blade is a good example of this.

I used to fly airtours to and from GCN out of LAS and the company that I work for has a couple of ranches in the Bryce Canyon area so I know the area well. Those places are certainly worth visiting. (Back in my GCN flying days the company had a Mooney M20C that we called the Penalty Box. The boss would assign you to it if he got ticked off at you for any reason. I spent my share of time flying it.) My only comments would be to watch your density altitude - GCN is high enough to begin with and gets really interesting when the temperatures climb up into the 80's and 90's. Flying early in the morning and in the evening while things are cool(er) is the order of the day. Flatlanders need to remember that you still fly the same indicated airspeeds for takeoff and landing, but the True Ground Speeds will be disconcertinly higher - around 20% or so. Don't let the optics of it screw you up. Also, be aware of the airpace restrictions around the national parks. Back in the day, we used to fly down below the rim of the canyon, you can't do that any more. Finally, check for hotel reservations - it can be a problem this time of the year. It's pretty much impossible to get a room at Bryce Canyon now. When we go we end up driving to Cedar City Utah and staying there. The scenic route is worth it though - very beautiful country. Have a safe trip.

Yes, but poeple compliment him on the accuracy of his instruments. To quote my Spanish friends... "!Que Bozo mas grande!

Quote: jetdriven Ward, I pull the plane out of the parking spot and when I turn the nose wheel full lock I also visually check the rudder. You can do it in both directions. Everything else can be seen from the cockpit for the control surfaces check.

Just a question... Are you guys checking for full flight control (elevator and aileron) travel as you taxi out as part of your before takeoff checklist, everytime, every flight? It's normally not possible to check the rudder, since it's connected to the nose wheel, but at least you can check that for freedom and ease of movement. If not, you really should.

Just a question... Have you considered taking these guys' LOP training course, either live or online? http://www.advancedpilot.com/ http://www.advancedpilot.com/'>Sure, either option costs some $$$, but nothing like knowledge and understanding to help out with the "it freaked me out" stuff.

Quote: oavalle I have been looking at installing Vortex Generators on my M 20 C. My field is at 5000 feet altitude. I read that while these improve climb and take off performance, they also may have an impact on cruise speed. I was wondering if somebody had had experience with this mod and if it is something worth doing. Thanks Oscar

Quote: Becca Yes. We did this over the summer. Here's a summary: Outbound (to Canada) 1. You must file a flight plan and activate a flight plan for your border crossing. (Note, within Canada you are required to always be flying on an active flight plan for flights longer than something like 25 nmi from origin airport) 2. You must put your flight plan on eAPIS at a minimum of 1 hr before your flight with a passenger manifest. This requires you set up an eAPIS account. Do not expect to do this on a mobile computing device (e.g. iPad or iPhone, though I understand there are now some apps in developmnet) but a real computer. 3. You must call an airport of departure in the US and notify them of the time you will cross the border. 4. You must have a radio station license and an radio operators license. But in all likelihood no one will check. 5. You must notify Canada 2 hrs-48 hrs before your arrival. You must land at a Canadian Airport of Entry. If you have time and the inclination (I think it takes 6 weeks), sign up for CANPASS, it gives you more options of what airports to land at (basically instead of being greeted by Canadian border, you just call them and say "hey, I'm here!"). This will also help you land outside of 9-5 weekday operating hours of some airports. 6. You must also notify the closed US CBP airport to your departure of your plan to leave the country (because technically they can inspect out bound flights). I can't remember where I read this requirement, but we notified Green Bay prior to leaving Oshkosh for Canada. Returning to the US 1. You need to get a Customs sticker for your airplane for the return to the US. Most people don't actually affix these to their airplanes as required, CBP doesn't seem to mind. In fact our sticker almost didnt arrive in time and CBP said it would be ok if we just presented a receipt for purchasing it. Note these are good for one calendar year, no matter when you buy them, they are valid january to december. 2. Schedule your arrival with your airport of entry (you may only land at an authorized airport of entry). Be alert, many smaller airports have restrictive hours. You only have to notify them 2 hrs in advance. However, if you plan on landing at 10 am on Monday and they open at 9 am and are closed weekends, you really have to notify them on Friday. 3. File eAPIS for your return at least 1 hr before departure 4. You must file and be on an active flight plan when you cross the border. (This was a challenge for us leaving Kingston, Ontario as it was just a couple miles from the border and we had to circle for a little while while opening our flight plan) Also, note US VFR sectionals and foreflight cover a little bit over the border not much, after that you have to buy a Canadian subscription to foreflight and/or Canadian paper charts.

Quote: Vref Although these low rpm setting may look like giving a longer range in practice is not. On most flight there is headwind where flying at low speed may actually reduce your range. Jose

Quote: jetdriven Which brings up another question - How many have an acutal "by the scale" empty weight and CG - I know that it's one thing that I'd like to get eventually.

Quote: jetdriven Which brings up another question - How many have an acutal "by the scale" empty weight and CG - I know that it's one thing that I'd like to get eventually.

For the "I want a jet" crowd, they'll buy the Cirrus Vision because, well it's a jet and nothing else will matter, because well it's a jet. For the pragmatic among us, they'll buy something different because they understand that once the novelty wears off, the Cirrus Vision is just an airplane - an airplane that requires a type-rating and all of the mandatory initial and annual training and checkride stuff that goes along with flying a jet. It MIGHT be worth it for 400+ knots, but it will become a royal pain in the keaster for something that only has Cirrus Vision performance. My guess is that that they'll sell some right off the bat, but then after a year or so, that Meridian, TBM or Pilatus will start looking mighty nice to the existing Vision owners. I know those SE turboprops will be much easier to live with.

Quote: co2bruce ...An old pilot mentor once told me " the only time you have too much fuel is when your on fire"...

Quote: co2bruce I make sure I have enough fuel for the flight plus reserves. An old pilot mentor once told me " the only time you have too much fuel is when your on fire". I can't get that out of my head.

If you're looking at things to do that will add to your proficiency I would recommend the following... The commercial is a good thing to have, but before I'd even do that I'd get the tailwheel Endorsement - It will teach you what your feet are for. The cost isn't a biggie - a few hours of dual in a Citabria. Aerobatics - It will teach you how to fly and could come in very handy in the event of severe upset. A little of this goes a very long way. A couple more hours, with a qualified aerobatics instructor, in that Citabria that you used to get your taildragger endorsement will go a very long way to making you a much better pilot. With those two out of the way, then is the time to go for the commercial. Once you've got that taken care of, it would be a good time to go get some glider time. A commercial glider add-on is easy and comparitively inexpensive. It's something that can be knocked out in a long weekend if you're in a big rush. The judgement and skill that you learn flying gliders is something that will transfer into other areas of your flying. Not to mention that it takes some of the sweat out of engine failures in that Mooney. Finally, once you've done all of that and assuming that you've got the minimum experience required for the ATP it's time to take the written out of the way, then go spend a few hours with a CFII to put a shine on your "instrument apple" and get a single engine ATP. It's not a big deal - just another instrument checkride. Properly planned out, you could turn all of this into a nice recurrent training syllabus spread out over over a few years. This would be a lot more productive (and fun) than your typical BFR. If I were king of the world, I'd make it a requirement for every pilot to have some taildragger, glider and aerobatic time. They really do make you a better, more competent pilot.

I guess that I've had my share of experiences over the past 46 years (15,000 hours) that I've held a pilot's license: 1. Engine failures in a Mooney M20C, a Cessna 411, a Cessna 172, and a couple in Gulfstream G100s. The engine failures in the Gulfstream G100s were both due to improper maintenance received at a factory service center. They were the typical "non-events" though, because of the training that we receive. The engine failure in the Mooney was also not a big deal. I was as LAS and the mid-time engine swallowed a valve shortly after liftoff from RW 19 (just a single runway back then). I simply told the tower that we had lost the engine and I made a 90 left turn and landed on RW 7. No harm no foul. The engine failure in the Cessna 411 was a bit more interesting. I flew for a company in Las Vegas that used them to give air tours of the Grand Canyon. The company had just hung a factory remanufactured engine on it, in fact, it had just been returned to service and it was the first revenue flight. I had taken a full load of passengers from LAS to the Grand Canyon and was waiting around for the ground portion of their tour to finish up when our dispatcher called me on the phone to tell me that they wanted me to dead-head back to Las Vegas and pick up another group of passengers. Long story short, just after I had made my crosswind turn that factory reman engine just quit. Period. It was a warm summer day (Read: Very high density altitude.) at GCN and the 411 wasn't known for its single-engine performance or manners. I consider it one of those days when the angels were looking after me - the altitude that I had when the engine quit (400' to 500') was the altitude I had when I turned final. That airplane wasn't able to climb. To this day, I think that it would have been a very different outcome if those passengers that I had left behind would have been on board. There was another interesting side to that experience. When the engine quit, I went through the engine out drill and feathered the engine then I turned back to the airport and entered downwind. I called the tower and had no response. I tried two or three more times, again no response. I was getting a little miffed, when the tower controller called back and asked me to "say again". I told him that I had lost and engine and that I was declaring an emergency and returning to the airport. He told me that I was #3 emergency, following a Nevada Airlines DC-3 with an engine failure and a Scenic Airlines C-402 with an engine fire and to continue. (The Scenic 402 has the Allison turboprop conversion.) He had been on the phone talking with the center when I called. We were all basically converging on the airport at the same time. The Scenic 402 got to the airport first. I told the tower that if he couldn't clear the runway in time, I would offset and land on the parallel taxi-way. (GCN just has the one runway and we occasionally used the taxiway when they did runway maintenance.) The 402 got down and cleared and I was able to land just as he cleared the runway. Just as I cleared the runway, the DC-3 came straight in, opposite direction, and landed. Oh well, fortunately, days like that are hopefully just once in a career events. The engine failure in the 172 was also quite interesting. It was caused by a magneto switch failure – the switch failed internally and killed the engine resulting in an off-field landing on an island. 2. The Learjet precautionary landing that I mentioned in an earlier post on another thread was caused by contaminated fuel freezing a transfer valve closed and preventing us from accessing the fuel in the fuselage tank. The interesting thing about this incident was that the FBO where we purchased fuel was under some “financial stress” and the owner figured out that he could pump a few hundred extra gallons out of his underground fuel tanks if he lowered the standpipe in the tanks a few inches. That he did and we and some poor guy in a Cheyenne were the recipients of that fuel. The Cheyenne flamed out an engine and barely made it to an airport on the one that was running. Luckily for us, most of the fuel we bought from him was in the fuselage tank which had the jammed transfer valve. We ended up landing in Denver and had to wait until everything thawed out. We removed over 8 gallons of water from our fuel system. Like I said, don’t be in a big hurry to depart after fueling your airplane. Wait 20 minutes or so then sump the tanks – unless you’re absolutely positive that the line guys have been doing what they’re supposed to be doing. 3. A jammed elevator in a Stinson 108-3. That one was easy, just did a wheel landing using the elevator trim. 4. Several years ago in an ultra-light (My last UL flight, by the way.) the composite propeller shed a blade and the resulting vibration ripped the engine from the mounts. The UL had amphibious floats. I was going for a corn field and the float braces got tangled up with the corn stalks as I was flaring to land. It rolled the whole thing up in a big ball - the ultra-light, me and a bunch of corn. I wasn't hurt, but like I said it was my last UL flight. It is not my intention to come across as "my stories are scarier than your stories", but rather I want to make some points. So as to leave no doubt about the points that I want to convey, let me make some One of my aviation mentors, a retired Delta captain, told me early on in my career that some of the most dangerous flying you'll ever do is picking up brand-new airplanes from the factory and flying the initial flights as aircraft come out of maintenance. He said that when it came to new airplanes and initial flights after maintenance - it's not a matter of if you're going to have a problem, but rather when. You guys can take this as gospel; this airline captain knew what he was talking about. He was on the airline's new aircraft acceptance team and had the opportunity of making many acceptance flights when the airline took delivery of new aircraft. He also flew many of the post-maintenance test flights. Of my five "total" engine failures (and a couple of other "partial" power loss situations) all but one - the Mooney M20C - involved either new aircraft, initial flights on factory remanufactured engines, or service center maintenance screw-ups. I guess the point that I'm trying to get across here is to not let yourself become complacent. After all, you can't have serious problems with new airplanes, new engines, or with airplanes that are just out of an inspection right? Yeah, right. What have I learned from all of this? Many different things, but one thing that you guys that are flying complex piston engine aircraft need to understand is never be in too big of a hurry to make the initial power reduction after takeoff. Wait until you’re at an altitude where you have some options available to you if (when) the engine quits. My personal rule is to never reduce power until I am at an altitude and position where the loss of an engine would be manageable. Also, in a single-engine airplane, never retract the landing gear as long as you have usable runway ahead of you. I can't tell you how many times I've seen "hot shot" pilots break ground and immediately suck up the gear and make the initial power reduction. Stupid, very stupid. Another lesson that I have learned is the value of proper training – both initial and recurrent. My experience with the vacuum pump failure in hard IFR conditions a big eye opener for me. I firmly believe that it was not only the initial training that I received, but also the recurrent training that I have always taken advantage of that kept me from making the headlines. At the time, I was instructing on a part-time basis. My full-time job was as an air ambulance pilot flying MU-2's, Citations, Cheyennes, and Conquest II's (I held simultaneous 135 letters in all four aircraft.) Our chief pilot was a stickler for training and we had to demonstrate hand-flown ILS approaches to touchdown (impact?) every 6-months. The discipline and skill that he forced us to obtain to fly the hospital aircraft has been put to good use on more than one occasion over the years.

Quote: 201-FLYER What I do with my fuel depends on two things 1)Who's asking and 2)Who's watching ( I live in FL)

Quote: aviatoreb I agree with this 100%. Also, remember that it takes a while for any water in the fuel to migrate to the sumps (about 15 to 20 minutes in most fuel tanks) so don't be in a big rush to blast off after fueling. Fuel, wait at least 20 minutes then sump. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Quote: 201-FLYER That's part of the reason no one fuels my plane without me being there to watch the fuel go into the plane and I'm the only one who touches the fuel caps...both on and off.

Quote: Piloto You are better off with a Stormscope. The Mooney radar never worked well even when new. I could only detects storms that where no more than 20nm ahead and it would show them with very poor resolution. A stormscope is more practical with longer range and 360deg coverage. Best to have is the XM\WX overlayed on your GPS. Gives you WX data that not even the $50K radars can provide. Jose