aviatoreb

Hopefully its just a relocation. As far as I understand however, we could survive without them. The two major components that are particular to the rocket are the exhaust stack and the engine mount (cage) and both of those could be overhauled by third parties. I know this since my engine is currently being remounted after overhaul and I did shop various solutions for overhauling the exhaust and mount and there are third party aircraft welders who do such work. I did however go with rocket for this job and I had it done just a few months ago. In fact, when I called rocket none other than Mr Darwin Conrad himself answered the phone and I had a nice conversation with him just about 6 months ago.

I am 6'4'' and unusually long legs even for my height. I had an extra hold added to the pilot position rails added so my seat goes back a bit further even then regulation. No one over the age of 6 would want to sit behind me. Which is just fine since that works nicely with the weight and balance.

Oh - and the lighter prop did help the weight but I hardly have the weight to lift 4 passengers and bags. I can’t remember lift 4 tiny people (not me) - a tiny bit of fuel - and toothbrushes for all . last time I flew with 4 was when my youngest was in elementary school and my middle son in middle school. Well my youngest is starting grad school in England in the fall. i can and occasionally do flights with 3.

No - it’s still forward of a j and it is still a generally forward cg plane but it did move back a good bit so it’s no longer extremely forward. I can’t remember the numbers but I think it’s just a tiny bit behind an original k.

The Charlie weight bay in the tail is full as it comes from the rocket conversion. Yes I could have removed several to keep balance as it was - nose heavy but within allowable envelope. I removed none since I preferred the more balanced centered envelope of a lighter Mooney. Better road feel.

It can be improved. The 4 blade my on my rocket has 2” of prop clearance recovered and removes 35lb from the nose which greatly improves the balance.

This video is really bad - in such interesting ways. If you are interested in the mathematics of AI like I am. It remarkable that AI can put together something, anything at all. This video has such interesting errors in the visuals - wrong airplane - details of the airplane keep changing - and even the prop is all off - with random number of blades sticking out at random angles. And of course the information is all wrong. Notably the idea that the airplane is still in production and development in 2025. Or we get the G3000, and on and on.

I just looked it up - apparently NASCAR the organization started much earlier than I realized - but it grew out of classic boot leggers from the prohibition era 1920's running illegal adult beverages from the police in souped up street cars on streets (dirt roads!). But surely in 1948 none of the modern car safety stuff was in place. Just stock cars with souped up engines. I read that roll cages became a NASCAR procedure in 1972 : 1948 DECEMBER 14, 1947 – Bill France Sr. organizes a meeting at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida, to discuss the future of stock car racing. NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, is conceived. FEBRUARY 15, 1948 – NASCAR runs its first race in Daytona Beach at the beach road course.

It was dispelled by Al Mooney himself - he wrote an autobiography that I read. He designed the M20 himself on his kitchen table. The first M20 prototype flew in 1953.

Did they say "our roll cage - which was designed by Nascar..."?!!

My RAAM overhaul of my TSIO520NB took about 3 months once it got to their shop. I dont know if they do anything but big bore.

RAAM. R&R at Weber.

...I miss my plane! They are promising early August. Is it bad if I wish July away? :-O Well it should be a kick ass new engine for my old bird.

How long is it taking yours?

Hi LevelWing, I went through something comparable about 10 years ago on my M20K Rocket. I sent my airplane to Wilmar for a tank reseal (preemptive since the tanks were 30 years old original seals and it was a precursor step to new paint and I just didnt want to deal with tanks giving away on a new paint job). Well once one tank was stripped of the sealant it was found that there was corrosion on a wing spar under the sealant. You couldnt find that without stripping the sealant in the fuel tank under the fuel under the sealant, so it wasnt any APs fault who signed it off for annual. Well that was very depressing. I had it repaired by Dave at airmods in NJ, https://www.airmodsflightcenter.com. he is a magician. He was able to do the operation without entirely removing the wing but separating the wing and lifting the wing and plane apart but still in place. It took about 9 months and about 20k+. 10 years on I am glad I did it that way. I had also considered replacing the wing but that was also very expensive - more expensive when it came to finding a tip top wing and shipping it before the replacement phase of labor. I was going to paint anyway but you would want to paint as well. So it can be done, but is this plane either worth it financially, or sufficiently dear to you that you are willing to bite the bullet if it is not financially sensible? Remember if everything else is customized as you wish and you are all caught up on all the other maintenance things, there is some financial value there since buying another airplane always starts with inheriting someone else's headache to bring it up to your own standards.

Aviatoreb here reporting for duty!

They used to have a reasonably nice app that I think ran at least through internet browser for flight planning - but that seems to have gone away years ago.

Beautiful!

Exactly - we shouldnt fly without it - but no - no difference in normal opps but be aware it is there to shape the stall characteristics and that is unbalanced.

Oh what a pain. I lost one in flight a decade ago - I was without one for like 6 months since there were none in the supply chain at any price and I forgot how much it was but it was very very expensive. I kept browsing eBay for like 2 years after I had replaced it and managed to get an extra at an excellent price from a salvage plane which was not necessarily selling that part. But I made an offer and they sent it.

I’m glad I did the major overhaul - my crank turned out to be in sufficiently poor shape they replaced it and my engine case needed some work so a top would not be enough.

OMG! Me too! What's wrong with us?!!

Exactly. Very unwise! I do it out of love for it - and addiction... :-O

Well I tell you what - I just got my invoice - and it's eye watering. I wonder if my eye would have fallen out if that had been hit with another 90% on some of the items.

I have an overhaul almost done at RAM late this month. I wonder if engine overhauls will become a lot more expensive - where are overhaul parts produced?