jetdriven

Search the forums and spend a few days reading about things to look for. Most if not all have been covered. Yes, complete logs, AD's, spar, fuselage tube, longeron corrosion, engine. Engine condition depends greatly on its usage pattern. Do not just look at hours since major overhaul. If it is flown infrequently the camshafts and cylinders get corrosion, especially in a coastal or humid environment. Do not just buy a plane because it has low hours, advertised as "NDH", nor shy away from one with 5000 hours. Aircraft flown regularly are less problems. Fuel tanks last between 40 years and one day. Multiple patch jobs indicate problems. Do not buy any plane you cannot fill to the tippy top and let sit overnight. Thats when many leaks become apparent, and they are not cheap to fix. Bladders solve the problem, at the expense of 30 lbs useful load. Also gogle search. MAPA has an excellent article about pre-buy inspections as do others. Regardless, budget 5K for discovered items after you take posession.

Statistically speaking, the fatal accident rate in twins is the same as in singles. And in many twins the single engine service ceiling is around 5,000' or so. Some are less than seal level. Even a 414 at full gross on a hot day has a climb rate of 50 feet per mile. PER MILE. So, when you have your twice as often chance of engine failure in your plane that can't maintain terrain clearance, you are much more likely to die in the twin because of the hgher landing speed, and no big heavy engine out in front to take the brunt of the crash. loss of control yes on takoff is one of the major causes of accidents. So lis losing control in the landing pattern after losing an engine in cruise. Also, missed approaches claim a lot of lives. Complicaed airplanes are a handful to go around in. Quote: aviatoreb Yes a twin is roughly twice as likely to have an engine failure than a single. But you are MUCH MUCH more likely to still have one engine running. That is the important part. Back of the envelope calculation says you square the (small number near zero) probability of failure to consider a double failure, assuming independence of events, which of course is a rough assumption since there can be correlated failures. Twins have full feathering props. If you use that correctly, there is no windmilling issue, right? Problem is then the pilot and the higher probability of a single engine failure upon take off. Which is roughly twice as likely as a single engine failure on a single engine airplane. I will work out the rough estimates for anyone that wishes. And a single engine failure is very dangerous in the hands of an unprepared not current-enough twin pilot - with quick hands and reactions to feather the bad engines prop. Without that the asymetric prop causes the airplane to roll over on its back - and in the runway environment - very bad thing. So as far as I understand it, the majority of the extra danger of a twin is concentrated all on the take off events. And furthermore concentrated on twin pilots who are not current enough on that single engine emergency procedure. In enroute phase, over hostile terrain, I would take a twin any day. At annual time, I will take a single. And for the fact that I am not sure I would be that current enough in twin procedures, I think in my hands a single engine mooney is safer for the bulk of my operations. Plus, I mitigate my over water risk by not flying over water, and I hardly fly at night - though I wish I had a twin for that.

+3 thats what I do too. For those of you who leave 5 gallons in each tank, thats an hour to 45 minutes of fuel in each tank. Leaving it all in one tank gives you the 1 hour to 1:30 in that tank. Or, if 7 gallons, which is up to an hour of cruise flight, in one tank you still have a safe reserve. A totalizer obviously makes this easier. Some aircraft have as many as 6 tanks, and leaving 45 minutes in each of them would sound absurd. Quote: 201er That's why I switch based on gallons used (fuel totalizer) and not time. I make the first switch after 10 gallons used but subsequent switches are every 20 gallons. It's kind of a big deal to keep track of this with 100 gallons. When I'm at a point where running on a certain tank will leave anything less than 10 gallons, I prefer to run it dry in flight and then work on a single tank for landing and go around if need be. I much rather have 20 gallons left in one tank than to have 10 in each not knowing when exactly it will cut out. The low fuel indicator light is nice but I can usually run a good 30-60 minutes before the engine quits so I almost forget about it and by the time it does quit I'm a little surprised at first. All it takes is switching the tanks though to keep it going. If not, first instinct would be to throw the fuel pump on.

except the FAA lost 1B in tax revenues all over a pissing match about 125 million in EAS funding. Like quitting your job to save the gas money to commute. Of course FAA inspectors worked for free, becuase they have a safety critical job. Just imagine what would have happend if they rammed a couple 767s together becuase of short staffed controllers. It can happen. http://news.yahoo.com/faa-partial-shutdown-results-staggering-losses-confusion-173400224.html Quote: Parker_Woodruff The FAA shut down and planes didn't fall out of the sky. Life went on. If shutdowns could happen to a lot of the rest of our government, I'd be pretty happy. We can't afford more debt, and that applies if you're a conservative, moderate, or liberal.

here it is. These guys make exhausts, none of this "my mechanic says that he knows someone who ran his engine too lean and burned up the exhaust" heresay. Aerospace welding says the muffler only lasts 2000 hours anyways. from: http://www.powerflowsystems.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52 We have not seen any evidence that LOP operations cause damage to PFS exhaust systems, and I haven’t seen that be the case with stock exhausts, either. Excessive vibration is a far greater concern – so get a dynamic balance and check that periodically. As to burn-through; we haven’t seen anything to support or contradict that thought. Ceramic coating acts to protect the base material, but brings with it other issues to be concerned about (above.) In the end, my advice would be to get the ceramic coated tailpipe option to avoid the look of a brown pipe. Darren Tilman General Manager

You won't buy a new powerflow or cylinders until TBO if you run it LOP smoothly, below 75% power (lycoming authorizes peak at 75% power anyways), and keep your CHT below 380-400.

Powerflow says there is no quantifiable damage done to exhaust as a result of LOP. Also, all Mooney exhaust is 321 stainless steel. All of them. Aerospace welding at OSH says that heat over 1500 degrees (I believe it was that number they gave) leaches out the nickel and causes the exhaust to change properties then burn through the flame tubes. His advice, dont lean over 1400 degrees, which in a J is like 150 ROP, and 13 GPH. Save the 1200$ muffler, ruin a set of cylinders and spend 15K extra on fuel in 1000 hours. Aside from old wives tales and heresay, there is no evidence that LOP oerations damage exhaust. The Malibu Mirage and the Cirrus SR22 only allow LOP operations. Pilots not familiar with that do burn up cylinders, as they cannot run cool enough ROP at high power settings. Quote: DaV8or This was discribed to me also as a down side of LOP. Excess oxygen causes increased oxidization of components and could be the reason that some have experienced exhaust system failures running LOP. It may not be so much an issue of heat "burning out" the system as it is just excellerated rusting. Stainless exhaust should help.

we developed this for our ailerons. It cost us $2.89 The elevator is spring loaded with some serious force and the rudder is also pretty held stiff by the nosewheel, so we did without on those.

I forgot to mention the -4 (or the size it is) is stamped faintly on the fastener, so find out what number your fasteners are, then ordeer replacements in stainless (-S) and phillips or slotted. The nomenclature is in the part number. Quote: aerobat95 I didnt realize there were so many different options......this is a bit more complex than I was expecting.

9. I subscribe online and have the Jepp mobile TC app for the ipad. I did confirm they are still in the online directory, so there is some technical snafu likely.

Acccording to some pilots on here, that plane is now "worthless" because "you can just never know" all the damage thats been done to it.. ...... Quote: fantom We know the primary one:

The cowl fasteners wear into the fiberglass cowl on a J, requiring hours of repair with epoxy. LASAR can bill up to 3K on a J cowl for this. Im not sure of the F. The fasteners are easy to change. Are yours captive or do they remove when you unfasten them? There is a thin split washer that goes behind them to trap them in the cowl on some.

1) Spare cowl camloc fasteners. This is for a J, I think your firewall fasteners are same as cowl parting line. Check M20F parts catalog. a. Firewall – - 40S5-5 (-5S is stainless) i. Retaining washer 4002-SW ii. Grommet is 4002-G (flush not plus-flush) b. Rear cowling fastener - 27S3-7 (phillips) 2700-7 (slot) (retainer washer 2600-SW-2) c. Cowl parting line, except rearmost - 27S3-4 (phil) (2700-4) slot (no retainers on shorter than -5) d. Battery access hole “southco 100” i. – screw 82-11-100-20 ii. Wear washer is 82-46-101-39

My first landing in our Mooney after we got it was on grass. To be fair it was 3000 x 200. Keep the yoke back and weight off the nose.

I think anything over 10-20 seconds of cranking you are taking some life out of the starter, at least on the old style factory starter. IO-360 hot start takes at least that long, so I suppose the only solution is a good fresh battery and Skytec starter.

Garmin aera has that as well.

Mike, just so hapens there is a world class taildragger instructor there at AXH, Joy Bowden.

\ Quote: Hank I'll have to play with the Garmin vnav function. So far, it's been very easy to count thousands of feet from TPA to cruise, double that number, add 2 or three, and start down that many minutes out. If you've got a GPS that will give ETE, "distance out" is not needed, you've got time left and a descent rate in feet per minute--converting minutes to miles is not easy to do in your head, and it varies tremendously with wind direction/strength. If you want less than 500 feet per minute, triple the thousands of feet number. The key is to hold your descent rate pretty close to target, let the speed build [i walk the throttle and mixture during descent to maintain cruise MP/EGT all the way down]. From 10,000 cruise to 1600' pattern is 8½ thousand feet, or 17 minutes, so I'll start down around 20 minutes out, which is generally 50+ miles. If you're up in turbo territory, this may not work as well, but it works pretty good for me. When IFR, you can ask for descent, but it's pretty controlled in my limited experience.

I think your speed is a little low for Mooney speeds, perhaps closer to 3 miles per minute. Quote: N4352H And Hank multiplied. Your math is fuzzy. It should be: 5000-1000(arrive at TPA). To loose 4000 feet going two miles a minute, choose your decent rate or distance out. 1000 feet per minute 4 mins/8 miles out, 500fpm 8 min/16 miles out. Faster/slower..interpolate. As mentioned earlier in the thread, if you have a G430, the V-nav function kicks butt. I put it in first Nav window of my 430.

If you can't land pretty comfortably in a 20 knot crosswind you should seek out a CFI, and practice until its a non-event.

Are the brakes approved by Mooney to use during landing? Prohibited? I think aerodynamically speaking they have to raise thr stall speed somewhat, you are effectivey reducing the area of your wing by a feq sqft with them up.

Wouldnt a sufficiently LOP setting also have lower TITs as well? May have to run a little leaner than 10 LOP, but shoud be doable, right?

bag door blow open on takeoff?

I am a lefty. Going to the CFi side of the cockpit made it easier to write but my crutch is this. When on the ground to copy a clearance, stop, and write with left hand on a notepad. In the air, frequencies, altitudes, and headings are done with the right hand. I am not a fan of devices mounted to the yoke. Think of what will happen in a 20 G runway excursion with that device and yoke mount right in front of your noggin.

Yeah I forgot. I cant get on the step when its turbulent, too much swirly local flow interferes with the laminar flow, and plus the tail drops and hangs down too much. I should get VG's to solve that. Plus its safer it drops my stall speed one knot. This causes drag too so I cant break through to the step. Of course, I run the engine too lean, so it can't make enough power with the burned valves and the prop RPM is 2500 in cruise, which is too high to get a good "bite" on the air. But hey, I also run rich of peak, book value plus 1.5 GPH on the 30 year old fuel flow meter, after all I want to be safe and make TBO. EGT's too high burn cylinders. Wait, its turning 12 years this month anyways, so I better pull it off and send it in to Lycoming. Its "mandatory" I do so. Everyone knows factory overhauls are better anyways. I want my insurance coverage not to cancel me. So I have to do it. I might get myself an IO-390 STC. Its only 70 grand and increases cruise speed 3 knots, while adding another GPH to the fuel flow. Sweet deal, that 3 blade spinner is shiny. And the IO-390 decal. Of course I screwed up and got 54 gallon bladders, stupid me, so I only have 3 hours range now. But I better call it two, to be safe. Dont want to run out of fuel. Only one stop between Houston and Kerrville for the homecoming. Leave at 8, arrive at noon. My wife and I part ways that morning, she is waiting on me in Kerrville at noon. We save on a rental that way. I love Mooneys. Flame suit on now.