Joe Zuffoletto

A Cirrus pilot on one of the other pilot forums posted a photo of a Cirrus making a normal landing in response to this story, showing that it can be done. I don't care what you think about chutes, that's pretty funny right there.

I'm very proud to be a patron of the Wings Over the Rockies Air Museum and count some of their leaders and members among my best friends in aviation. Truly a fine organization.

George, thanks for sharing. I think you handled the situation perfectly. That is some serious SLD runback that would have given my TKS a run for its money.

Are you being sarcastic? That wasn't bad at all considering the conditions you describe. I wish I could have recorded my first three landings in my RV-8 (taildragger). Now those were horrible landings!

Done! Thanks, Craig!

One thing missing from Roberto's data is the weight of his aircraft. His climb rates lead me to believe he had full tanks. I've seen 2,000fpm climbing out of Leadville with half tanks. The difference between 50 and 100 gallons is significant! Anthony, get your butt out here! Plane tickets are cheap! BTW, I don't plan to climb to FL250. Probably just FL180 or maybe FL200.

Roberto Tohme did this in his Acclaim a few years ago, comparing time to climb from his 3,920' field elevation (KELP) to FL250 before and after adding the 310hp STC. His spreadsheet is attached. This was the data that made me decide to go for the STC on my Acclaim as well. I was going to play hooky today and to this myself, but we have lots of wind and turbulence right now. Some other day.... Acclaim climb performance.xls

Damn, I sure miss flying out there!

I am so thankful that I don't live over there.

I've never made an epic trip like that, but it's definitely on my bucket list. Congratulations!

At my ROP setting at those altitudes I get 220KTAS. LOP is about 205KTAS. I'll have to check my POH to see what % those power settings are. I think they're about 75 and 65, respectively. I know that when I'm running LOP all but one CHT is below 400 degrees.

I'm not an engine guy, but the breather tube came out of the factory poorly designed and that's what was cooking the cylinders. There is a known fix. My Acclaim had about 220 hours on it when I purchased it, the cylinders were all fine, and I had Arapahoe Aero apply the fix immediately. Now, at around 450 hours or so, my engine still purrs like a tiger and the cylinders are still in great shape. To Don Muncy's comment: Shortly after purchasing my Acclaim I went on an extended test flight with Bruce Jaeger up in Willmar, MN. Our goal was to establish healthy regimes for ROP and LOP operations based on the nuances of my specific copy of the engine. Bruce knows a lot about these engines and how to keep them healthy. After extensive experimentation, we arrived at simple-to-remember setups for ROP and LOP cruise; I just pick the one I want based on my mission that particular day. I made a point to do all this because I never did it in the 11 years I had my Encore; nor did I have much of an engine monitor in that plane, and my cylinders paid the price (had to get it topped at about 1,000 hours, as I recall). I learned my lesson the hard way.

I researched the Cirrus G1000 setup and can say that the autopilot in the Acclaim does not have these features. Would be nice if it did.

I don't think it would be difficult to determine the managers/members of an LLC. It gets convoluted if the LLC is owned by another LLC, corporation, etc.

I used to fly in steady rain from time to time when I lived in CA. It didn't ruin my paint, although I had TKS panels to protect my leading edges. As long as it was coming from smooth, non-convective, non-turbulent clouds and I could control the icing it never bothered me. My only preference was that ceilings would be well above minimums at my destination so I wouldn't find myself trapped in the clouds with nowhere to land.

I just put my Mooney into a Colorado LLC because I've started renting it to a couple friends of mine and I want a bit more of a liability shield in case one of them crashes the plane. My attorney is my registered agent. Colorado is cheap too: $100 to form, $10 per year. Because I'm concerned about liability protection, I'm taking other steps to strengthen my LLC veil. For example, I created a bank account in the LLC's name and all the income and expenses for the plane now go through that... my buddies write their rent checks to the LLC, and the LLC pays for all the maintenance, GPS database upgrades, hangar, insurance, etc.

It's not a meter - it's an adjustment to the tachometer on the engine page to raise the redline from 2,500rpm to 2,700rpm.

Today I went to the hangar and compared the engine time on the ENGINE page of the G1000 to the Hobbs meter in the back. The G1000 said 435 hours and the Hobbs meter said 431.5 hours. I wasn't aware of any engine data on the AUX pages... I'll check those next time. Robert C.: What is TIS time and where is it displayed? Thanks, everyone.

The G1000 manual says it shows "engine time," which would be hobbs time. Next time I go to my hangar I'll compare what it says to the one in the baggage compartment. Which brings up another question: Why is the hobbs meter in the baggage compartment?

I know there's a hobbs meter in my M20TN, but what about a tach time indicator? Is there one?

Thanks, Andy. Would be great to meet you at Perfect Landings some time! We definitely get some interesting weather out here, and it changes rapidly. I remember one time about 5 years ago I was flying with my CFII one summer afternoon, working on my BFR and IPC, when a dark cloud positioned itself over the field and started dropping virga. A Citation ahead of us on short final executed a go-around due to a sudden, 25 knot wind shear; obviously a microburst was developing. We aborted our approach from 7 miles out. The tower closed the field for 15-20 minutes and we held about 15 miles to the east until everything cleared up.

Paul: I received my training from Chris Lange at Western Sun Aviation. They were a Piper dealer and had a great fleet of relatively new Warriors and Archers. It was a very active club; I think there were about 10 of us working on our PPL's that summer. I was Chris's first student; he's now flying 777s for United. I think Western Sun went belly up in the early 90's and was acquired by Gibbs Flying Service. I went to visit the old place a couple weeks ago and in spite of the ownership changes, the building where I had my ground school and took my written has barely changed. But yes, there are now fences everywhere. Too bad. Yep, that was a Seiko LaSalle! They were pretty popular back then. Good catch!

War stories? Not many, but there were some. 1988: Lost all electrical at night on a flight from Boca Raton, FL., to Key West, in a rented Trinidad. Turned back to Boca and ATC helped me get back without incident. 2001: Didn't quite beat a thunderstorm and microburst when landing at Farmington, NM. Was in my M20K and landed vertical on the numbers, like a helicopter. Had to accelerate on the ground to the first runway exit. It was hailing like hell. Came out of nowhere. 2002: Alternator shook loose in my M20K and all the oil went overboard. Dead sticked into Palm Springs. Wasn't a big deal. Again, ATC was very helpful. 2009: Flew into the teeth of the jetstream over the Rockies in Colorado. Clear air turbulence. Major rotors and bumps. My wife and I experienced +3 and -2 G's that flight. Our luggage was everywhere. We turned around and went home. It sucked. Most terrifying flight of my life. Other than that it's all been good.

The chick was my dad's girlfriend at the time (go, Dad!). They broke up a couple years later. As for the hair, well, ....

90 hours as an M20J renter; 11 years/800 hours as an M20K owner; 4 years/200 hours as a TN owner. I'm definitely a Mooney guy. My first plane was an Archer II but I didn't even have it a year before I upgraded to the K.