kortopates

Before really trying to fly LOP, you should really verify the engine is currently meeting the pre-req's to be able to do. A good gami spread is not the only requirement. You also need to have a healthy ignition system that is misfire free upto at least 50F LOP. You've mentioned above that your Gami spread is quite tight, that needs to done very slowly. I can demonstrate 0.0 spread by turning/adjusting the mixture too quickly. So I suggest you follow our Savvy Test profile located here on Savvy https://www.savvyaviation.com/home/resources/flight-test-profile/ You may well learn a lot by just absorbing its details and following it. As the instructions state, do the test WOT, it has to be done this way to get the best data, and not above 65% power. Additionally, 50F LOP is way too lean for 65% power setting . That's the correct for 75% power, but I don't suggest trying to run at 75% LOP till you fully master the techniques. Since at 75% power its not safe to use the Lean Find method with your JPI. But at 65% power 15F LOP is all you need. For more info on these concepts, see the thread from last week that someone posed the same questions about leaning below. Although the question was for a turbo engine, the theory and concepts and guidance on where to leave the mixture are no different. The main difference is that your preferred way to set up for LOP cruise at higher power levels (if you ever go there) will be with the big pull. But its fine to use your engine monitor to lean to LOP as long as you stick to power levels no higher than 65%. For now though, fly the Savvy Test profile to evaluate your mixture and ignition. It takes both to be able to run LOP. Most understand the need for good gami sweeps but many miss the importance in ignition. A lot of questions about maintenance, engine setup, HP etc which really don't have any relevance till you've flown the equivalent of the Savvy Test profile and actually know what you have for mixture and healthy ignition. One more critical point I can't emphasize enough, make sure you set your engine monitor EDM to its fastest data sampling rate, which for the 700 series will be 1-2 sec depending. The default 6 rate is much to coarse to get reliable repeatable results. Instructions for how to do this are in the the Savvy Test profile. After you have flown the profile, you can upload the data into a free Savvy account to look at and measure the spreads etc.

Beautiful! Looks like one of the nicest C’s I’ve seen. I am sure it won’t last long. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Actually, logging into Flightware you should be able to see the flight history dating back to August of last year. All of the flights are VFR and none shows any evidence of practice approaches or IFR currency work. As a private pilot, its unlikely that the pilot maintained IFR currency in an aircraft other than his personal aircraft used for his cross country flights. Perhaps he maintained IFR legal currency in a sim. But if not, the pilot wouldn't have been legal to fly IFR due to lack of currency beyond 6 months. Perhaps one reason that makes Beechtalk a more comfortable environment for pilots to discuss recent accidents as they occur is that they eliminate public viewing of the Crashtalk forum by requiring a login to access it. That must help curtail the public googling about a loved one and stumbling upon a thread discussing their crash. A good policy in my mind.

Couldn't agree more with both your posts above. I respect there are different views on this but Mooneyspace is not the obituaries section. Many of us here learn a lot by examining the information we have to look at and contemplate what it suggest to us as pilots. Sharing our thoughts that are based on the facts we have to work with helps out all of us that read these threads with an interest in what we can learn as a result of these tragedies. I know I often enjoy sharing my thoughts if I've had the time to delve into it and I really enjoy reading others thoughts based on the data; especially when they bring up possibilities that are very logical based on facts that I didn't see or missed to consider. That's what I consider learning. The detraction's are post that attempt to remind us that we really don't know what happened - duh, whomever thought we were trying to write the NTSB report really doesn't get it. We're not trying to play NTSB investigators for a day, but to learn how we can improve our own operations and mindset to reduce the chances of having a similar incident. Sometimes its not so easy to make the right decision; it may not be perfectly black or white call. Although that's never going to change, I personally believe that reviewing accidents the last few decades has aided immeasurably in adding to the tools I have at my disposal to help with my decision making. Its certainly helped me to see hazards I hadn't recognized the importance of. But so many accidents are constant repeats such as failure to go missed and failure to follow the published missed. I am no longer surprised by these, merely that sometimes it took 3 approaches gone bad in such a fashion before it did become a fatal. Yet these they still reinforce to me the need to take certain rules very seriously. Here is an example I'll share. Years ago, like many CFI's, due to lack of a formal definition of the word "Established" I used to use the common practices of going by as soon as the needle had moved off full scale or 7/8 deflection. But I've since changed. After reading about so many full scale deflections leading to fatal accidents from the pilot trying to fix it rather than go missed , I concluded that waiting till full scale defection was too long, that we needed to be primed to go missed earlier so we weren't still trying to save it full at full scale since once we're at full scale we really don't know where we are and no longer have obstacle/terrain protection. So what made the most sense to me is the ACS requirement to maintain within 3/4 scale all the way. This has changed my mentality such that if we get to 3/4 scale I am now at least thinking I may need to go miss, and priming myself ready to go missed before I get to full scale, with no doubt I am going missed if I can't turn it around. That's my intention anyway. But for me, using my old definition of off full scale or even 7/8 was setting me up for not being primed to go missed till it could be too late at full scale to start thinking of it. There are many others, refinements so to speak that I have learned about or refined my techniques and teaching philosophy through the accident record. But of course it doesn't always take accidents, many come from commercial practices (such as the Derived Decision Altitude or DDA's for MDA's (per OPSPEC C073) ) Really the only speculation I am not fond of us is suggestions of things that there is zero evidence yet to support. Not because I take offense but because I simply don't know how to process them. I don't understand their intent. Its like it can't be a simple explanation that we may have screwed up, its got to an equipment failure or a medical event or hypoxia or CO or .... These come up on every accident as if we couldn't screw up - yet we do it all the time. It may not be intended, but often seems like denial to me. Yet we're all human, we all make mistakes. So why not work on trying to help ourselves recognize mistakes as they are happening so we become better at taking action before they progress to point we scrape metal or cause injury? To do this I really don't need to necessarily wait for the final report. Of course I'll be interested to read it. But the final reports never tells us why the pilot did what they did or what they were thinking. Certainly not why the pilot didn't catch the chain and break it before it was too late. They do present all the available facts which led to that pilot's predicament. But the bottom line is always simply the obvious in that pilot failed to get established, failed to go missed, failed to follow the published miss etc. They rarely tell us why, but they often provide additional casual factors that contributed to the pilots challenge such as an equipment issue. The other issue I have with the sentiment we should wait is that now is when it's real, 1-2 years from now nobody will care. But their is nothing like the emotional impacts of a recent accident to get your soul searching about what we might do as individuals to avoid getting ourselves into a similar fate. The key thing is that the final reported cause doesn't matter for learning to take place, not when we have enough information to consider our own exposure to similar risk and to consider if we are doing everything we can to minimize our own exposure. At the moment, since I am not addressing this accident directly, but the criticism about discussing it. I can't help but wonder why those that disapprove simply ignore the thread. That what I try to do, yet I am no better about it either. But I'll add I am also thankful for those that have posted their position against speculation have done it in very respectful manner which had me liking and agreeing with the majority of their post, just not all. I appreciate the positive tone of that because so often such counter views come off sounding like attacks which I know we all want to avoid. As soon as that happens everybody loses.

Thanks for posting, I enjoyed reading it. Well written and articulated - but analysis paralysis can't be a solution. I've also read they believe flattening the curve really did help in Wuhan.

It doesn't even need to be in icing conditions for use of speed brakes to become taboo. Flying high in turbo land you may have descended through some moisture or even be in it. If wet or any moisture, operating the speed brakes may lead to them sticking. Long ago I adopted the the procedure to never use them in freezing conditions on a whim, I'll wait or go without till I descend into warmer air. If I feel I really want them in below freeing conditions, my rule is only if the airport of intended landing is above freezing, since I don't want to risk asymmetric deployment on landing. My older vacuum brakes may be more susceptible than current electric ones.

^ Great advice!

I wouldn’t say the Bonanza is slow but I know the mirrors won’t work on my Mooney because of Doppler shift of flying at Mooney speeds. But the Bonanza doesn’t have the same physical gear position indicator we have with the floor board indicator. We don’t need mirrors to see what our floor board indicator already shows. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I couldn't agree more with @Marauder assessment above. The pilots multiple attempts at read backs from the beginning indicate he was stressed and over worked. Although one can't rule out an equipment problem, most would say so on a non-busy frequency when being told to correct course or heading. The sad truth is tackling an IMC approach in challenging conditions, including turbulence, is easily beyond the capability of pilot's that aren't proficient - without any equipment failures. Instrument flying skills are the fastest to perish. Sometimes the preliminary will tell us if an equipment failure is even a consideration or not but otherwise its going to be over a year before the final report is out. Not that we'll know for along time about what happened here, but my take away in these accidents is that one can never be too proficient flying in weather. Two people lost - So very sad!

Yep - Absolutely amazing prior pilots hadn't done an actual weight and balance in all those years! Hope it was only flown solo all that time! Be sure to work with your mechanic to get a revised official W&B into your aircraft records so you're legal once again as noted by a few above. Unfortunately that happens all too often. But coming up with an empty weight that is out of limits and then isn't noticed for a couple decades has got to set the bar for bonehead errors! At least it was easily resolved. Congrats and hope you don't find anymore issues with your new E!

Keep in mind that the EDM will never fail to report a peak - but that doesn't mean its accurate. Mixture has to manipulated slowly to get accurate data. Although I highly recommend using the engine monitor's LF method to learn all about peak, your engines mixture distribution as in your leanest and richest and how your TIT peaks relative to your leanest and richest cylinder peaks. You should understand all this for your engine before moving onto advanced methods of leaning a turbo charged engine. But doing it slowly at higher power settings is not good for the engine and we really have it easy with a TC engine. We can simply add AIR! For TC aircraft, rather than the big pull which is my favorite for NA engines, instead I prefer the the big push for TC. 1) At the top of my full power climb, I'll reduce MAP to get a reasonable ROP power setting leaned close to the GPH I need for my target % power setting LOP. So for example we'll use 68.5% power with 10.5 GPH. I'll reduce MAP and prop to a ROP setting at my target 10.5 GPH for 68.5% LOP. 2) Next, I'll just add air via MAP. As I do add MAP it will change my mixture (even much more so on the 231) so I'll adjust mixture to maintain my target as I add more add more. We'll see TIT and EGTs go up to peak and then back down onto the lean side. With a bit of practice I'll have a target MAP value that will be close very quickly, then I'll fine tune for an expected TIT I know should be real close. With enough practice I am done. 3) But Verify. Occasionally I'll want to verify; not always but especially if I am trying a different power setting. But to verify with the least risk to the engine, i'll enrich watching for what I already know is my richest cylinder to peak and then without hanging out here, add mixture back in till my richest EGT is at the target # degrees LOP based on my percent power and the Gami chart I referenced from their AFMS. So per that chart, I need to be 15F LOP when 65-69% power, so I'll set my richest EGT accordingly. Then verify this is my target TIT which I monitor in flight for any changes (its common for it to creep a bit in flight and to keep it always at least 15F LOP, I'll make it a bit leaner (an extra 10F) to give me some buffer). The more recent practice and knowledge I have of my engine numbers the quicker I can set up and have less need to verify regularly. Its by no means the only or best way but I find it very easy and when in doubt verify.

You're not using a EI TIT probe connected to your JPI analyser are you? If so, these are not compatible. I think they both use K type thermocouples but EI used ungrounded probes and JPI uses grounded probes making them incompatible. Hopefully you are referring to a separate EI indicator for the EI TIT probe. Anthony explained why TIT is hotter than your EGTs (except at idle power). Its also very common with these engines to see TIT a full 100F higher than your warmest EGT. But it varies and can only be as little as 20F higher at lower LOP power settings but it seems higher power settings result in the biggest difference.

Ah, but it was your superior airmanship and situational awareness (for lack of better description) that enabled you to see had a big problem BEFORE your engine gave up on you so that you were able to get it back on the ground before you totally lost engine power. Way to many of these failures are partially the fault of us pilots for missing the signs that we have a true emergency and taking necessary action before its too late. Of course we're not always fortunate enough to get warnings, but often we are. Good job!

Yes I do, (third set probably). Although possible, I'd expect the lower EGTs to be more from slightly advanced timing, don't have any actual data though. Or perhaps you had some elevated EGTs from high resistance plugs in need of replacement.

True, I should have mentioned there have been several reported issues of the tempest fine wire electrodes breaking off. Tempest hasn't been exactly forthcoming about the issue and whether its been resolved or still an issue. I've heard they claimed the problem was due to a vendor and they have since moved that production operation in house; and I recall that was last summer. But we're still seeing failures in the field very recently and can't be sure if the problem is till unresolved or its plugs that were produced before they went in house - since Tempest isn't owning the issue. We saw significant problems in Champion plugs to with their resistor design causing excessive internal resistance prematurely. They too didn't own up to the issue but then with no announcement changed their design to be similar to the integrated design used by Tempest. Since then the Champions have been reliable good product. Yet more expensive. Its probably safer to go with the Champion fine wires for now till we know for sure the issue has been resolved.

If you start with a 60-65% ROP power setting, or just under, you should be fine since as you start leaning your power will drop. The reason for the running your target MAP at the same altitude that it equals ambient atmospheric pressure it to essentially eliminate any induction leak(s) from ruining your gami spread data. Once we have good baseline data its not so critical, but induction leaks are so common with our new clients that doing it this way really helps us get better data consistently. We have other ways to look at/for induction leaks. With the 231 without a automatic controller, to get good data, its critical to use your AP and preferably with 2 people on board, so you can use both hands to manipulate the controls. You want to continuously change mixture as slowly as you can, and in both directions. But while doing so, you'll also see MAP changing and you'll need to make small adjustments to keep MAP as constant as possible as you go from the rich side to the lean side and vice versa. This will take some practice and frankly this is the hardest engine to collect good data because of the lack of an automatic controller to keep MAP stable for you. But if you do nothing, you'll see your MAP change over a couple inches and that really interferes with getting good data. The whole point of the test is to see only mixture change since we're measuring differences in cylinders peaking in GPH.

@Mikosch at 13 GPH LOP you are nearly at 85% power. A couple thoughts, its really hard to believe your TIT is that low, I wonder if your TIT probe is indicating properly. (The TIT and EGT probes do eventually fail from tip erosion.) Secondly the manufacture, Continental, certifies and test their engines to a maximum% cruise power. Max cruise power isn't quite what you think but refers to that maximum power where the engine can be leaned - ROP or LOP. Your engines max cruise power is 78.6%, above this Continental is advising to keep it full rich to ensure sufficient detonation margin. Running it LOP reduces ICP which certainly helps with the detonation margin but your somewhat in untested waters. I can tell you that when I operate the engine above 70% power LOP I can no longer keep TIT from exceeding my max TIT limit of 1580-1600F. Therefore i don't operate above that LOP. Consequently I would be curious to see your data to get a better idea of what's going on since your numbers are well out of the ordinary. Create a free account on SavvyAnalysis.com where we can see your data (I looked and don't see any data there yet). Suggest also flying the SavvyTest profile under help.

Tempest fine wires. They last over 2x as long and much more resilient than massive plugs. Especially helpful if you fly high and/or LOP.

Hadn't even thought of that at the time - good to know! Thanks Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nothing at all to do with Encores or any of the TSIO-360's! Purely pilot issue. We see this all the time. Mooney's are vulnerable since pilots buy Mooney's to fly fast. But new Turbo pilots with only NA engine experience often learn the hard way how not to lean their engines. Take a pilot that want to fly fast using the max cruise power setting from their POH and if they also follow the marketing department inspired POH performance tables that suggest operating at peak TIT at high power settings you have a recipe for very short cylinder life. Once there are a couple of cylinders involved, many shops will talk the owner into a complete new top even though unnecessary. There is actually no better example of this than your Bravo because the POH actually promotes cruise power settings as high as 93% power (34" 2400 rpm = 250 HP) with recommendation to run at 1650F TIT or peak TIT! That might give you great performance but its a recipe for an OH every 500 hrs too. But make sure there wasn't also a new or prop overhaul also done at the same time since if so, good chance it was actually a prop strike triggered OH Purely for entertainment value, I'll add its possible to do it in 90 seconds. From the Stupid Pilot tricks department, one such example is a pilot that took off with the cowl plugs still in place. Recently checked out so was too busy flying the plane to notice CHTs going over 500F. Luckily it was a short 20 min flight and the plane was on the ground before cylinders actually melted off - but all were toast.

That makes sense then why you don't need electric cowl flaps. I do suspect the new design that Skip has will give you more cooling with less drag - but I have no direct data. But the NA birds are a world apart from the turbo's when it comes to cooling requirements and thus cowl flap requirements. The NA engines are generating less power as altitude increases and therefore less heat above some point (8-12K, depending on how operated) while turbo's are generating the same power all the way up to the flight levels but with the thinning atmosphere our cooling air demands are increasing with altitude as @gsxrpilot commented above.

Dave (sorry I used Dan earlier) the max TIT you read and am using was in the context of LOP ops not ROP as you are operating above. The discussion wasn't meant to be focused on a max TIT, but on needing to stay out of the Red Box; especially as you are learning to lean and experimenting. The size of the red box grows with the % power and is much larger on the ROP side than the LOP. On the ROP side where you are above, we need to be much richer to be out of it. Using Gami's recommended mixture settings for power settings above 65% to 75% we want to be 100 to 150F ROP from your leanest cylinder and on the LOP side we need only be 15 to 50F LOP on the richest cylinder. Operating at 29" 2400 rpm, which equates to 81% power per Lycoming Operators Guide, you want to be even a bit more richer and you'd find your TIT will be about 100F lower to be as rich as suggested to do so. Its only on the LOP side, where we are much closer to peak, that we get anywhere near the limits of TIT. At Savvy we recommend a max of 1600F, I personally use 1580F knowing my TIT will creep up periodically closer to 1600F, so 1580 gives me buffer. Whom ever suggested 1600 to a max of 1625F is just operating more aggressively than I do and what we recommend at Savvy but of course your engine won't self destruct at 1601F TIT any more than it will at 1626F - its all about how conservatively or aggressive you want to run it. For a more thorough explanation on the Red Box there is a ton of literature by Mike Busch and Deakin on Avweb including a great series. But this article by Mike B https://www.savvyaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/articles_eaa/EAA_2012-12_red-box-red-fin.pdf explains the concept really well and really makes the point that using your lean Find mode is not the right way to lean your engine at high power settings like that because you need to go through peak slowly to find it. But you definitely want to learn all about peak and using your engine monitor is very instructive - just don't do it above 65% power since its not good for the engine. Keep in mind when Mike B says he doesn't necessarily keep track of always care how LOP or ROP his EGTs are its because his cruise is typically no higher than 65% power. He really babies his engines to go 2-3x past TBO. But again his point there is not to rely on using your monitor to slowly find peak and set mixture. Additionally, you'll want to learn the specifics of your engine with respect to mixture distribution and probably the health of your ignition system. To do this, I recommend our Savvy Test profile, at http://content.savvyanalysis.com/static/pdf/SavvyAnalysisFlightTestProfiles.pdf By going through that, you'll not only learn you gami spread but also your leanest and richest cylinders and ranking in between. You want to know your leanest for setting up or verifying ROP mixtures and your richest for LOP ops since you really don't want to have to always use your engine monitor Lean find and go through peak slowly. There is a great red box simulator app on the APS site that shows how it size grows with power here https://www.advancedpilot.com/redbox.html Lastly here is the mixture guidance from GAMI/APS on where to place your mixture for both LOP and ROP that was referenced before: https://gami.com/gamijectors/AFMS - GAMIjectors Rev IR.pdf It doesn't matter whether you have gami's installed or not, its great conservative guidance. BTW, hope you're not relying on the % power displayed on your EDM since its indicating 77% power with a power setting rated at ~81% per Lycoming. If that's of value to you, see the calibration procedure in the EDM Pilot Guide. Again, since my first post wasn't understood, let me summarize: None of this discussion is about how to set mixture or how EDM LF works etc. Its to say that i) using your EDM to set mixture at high power settings is not good for your engine and that ii)at 80% power ROP you want to be much richer because of the red box. But to learn all about these concepts dealing with the Red box, LOP & ROP, using your Engine monitor is excellent way to do it! Just do it at lower safer power settings as you learn - such as the 65% max recommended in our Savvy Test profile. Move up to higher power settings after you learn more about your engine specifics and advanced leaning techniques which get you there faster. Going slowly through peak at what most of us consider the max recommended cruise power setting is not good for the long term health of your engine. Rather than shoot video's, open a free account on SavvyAnalysis.com, upload your data there and you can share with us on MS by clicking on the share options bottom right (one flight at a time or even all flights).

Dan Strongly suggest you learn all about leaning at greatly reduced power settings where there is no red box to stay out. You're using ~80% power with 29" 2400 rpm. That TIT of over 1617F is way too high if you want your exhaust components to last. You should be about 100F lower for a ROP power and under 1600F for a LOP power setting. But you want to start at less than 65% power so that you can't hurt the engine no matter where you leave the mixture and allow you to get to know how to use your EDM 900 to lean slowly as you go through peak. You still have a lot to learn and want to do it in safe sandbox without concern for damaging your engine as you do so. That means a lower power setting. AT least use one of the lower 2 power settings out of your POH, but I'd recommend starting with the lowest of 24" 2200 rpm which 57% power. When you have the basic dialed in, then go up to 27" 2200 rpm which is 67% and learn how to set mixture relatively quickly without spending much time at peak. Power is still relatively low enough that the red box is very small. But wouldn't recommend going any higher till you fully understand the process and feel real comfortable. See Gami's AFMS for great recommendations on how far LOP and ROP you need to be based on % Power - its good safe conservative advice and FAA approved as well. After you learn the basic at lower power settings, then you'll know enough to graduate to doing the big pull and using TIT as a proxy for leaning. But frankly you'll find the big pull doesn't work out so well in the Bravo and most Bravo's will do at most about 65-70% power LOP smoothly (if LOP is even of interest to you). Take your time and really learning with baby steps and you'll do great!

Your comments raised my curiosity as to why. Are you able to operate with them closed on cruise with that design? I don't doubt that may be over designed in functionality on a J, afterall the big IO-550s in the R/S don't even have cowl flaps. Just the turbos. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No doubt since TCM has essentially pulled support on this engine. But they have dropped a vast many Kits simply because the demand is not there on older engines, the individual part numbers are generally always available. TCM will supply the part no list on any kit they no longer sell (in my experience). That's not to say there may well be some parts unique to the GB that may be hard to source - I don't have any direct experience with the GB. But with ability to fall back to older part numbers and PMA'd Superior parts I would assume a field major overhaul is still very possible. But I would expect an engine shop would insist on doing the LB conversion just as TCM would. But in my opinion the only "overhaul" that counts is a "Major Overhaul" since this is the only overhaul recognized by the FAA legally. Anything else is a repair. It totally depends on the specific circumstances and context of when its done relative to other work and how the parts are sourced. Suffice to say since it requires some pretty significant updates including a new induction system that its probably only economical when done by a large engine rebuilder that won't have to source all new parts. We've seen a few quotes on the complete overhaul done that way here in MS and they weren't that bad at all. One in the last year I recall. So as far as "above a normal overhaul price" probably just a few K but no one to my knowledge posted a delta quote since the shops doing it won't quote a MOH without the conversion. (how's that for a wishy washy answer!)