aviatoreb

Quote: allsmiles 1. $60-$70K is way underpriced precisely because it doesn't exist new, and 2. you are lucky to have a $350K airplane for only 60-70K! Combining these two views you win! Keep the airplane in top shape and enjoy it !!

Quote: Parker_Woodruff True... The sad part is an M20F is one of the least expensive "complex" airplanes to keep running...I'd take one over a Piper Arrow from the same model year any day...

Some scattered thoughts: The only fatal accident in this area for as long as memory can serve was someone near and dear to many of us, actually. The senior aviator really as he was a 14,000hr pilot, CFI to many of us, and the DPE who signed off on my private and my IFR ticket. He was also just a great great guy. He had every possible rating including unusual airplanes such as the DC3. Anyway, he died in the mountains in what seems to be a "common" VFR into IMC event in a Cherokee 140 seemingly trying to get home from a long drawn flight exam to his hockey league. The strange thing is he always told us to go around the mountains as it only takes maybe 5 min out of your day to do so. My point here is that yes, flying is a serious business and it can happen to anyone. I had an interesting discussion with a fellow faculty member at my University where I teach. I fly and he does ice climbing. I think he is crazy and he thinks I am crazy. I also bicycle race btw. Really, I bet statistically we are both way better off than many many of our peers who live unhealthy lifestyles of smoking, drinking and over eating and sitting on the couch a lot. And we enjoy our lives with gusto. I approach my flying with a great deal of seriousness and I enjoy the process tremendously. It engages me completely. As to the bingo warning - the difference between the dangers of dying while playing bingo and dying while flying, or ice climbing, or bike racing - a death while playing bingo is just a matter mostly of a person will die eventually and it happened to come while playing bingo. Whereas when doing an activity, the activity can bring to pass a premature passing if not careful. I am a firm believer that the media are whores for covering certain kind of stories, such as plane crashes, in a manner that is entirely unrelated to where it fits in the broader mosaic of news. Otherwise we would see the news filled with daily car carnage.

Quote: HopePilot A Rolls Royce takes 450 hours to build by hand. How many hours did a Mooney 201 (or other model) take?

Quote: Mitch How many times have I said this to myself for the past 25 years? Well, I can look in my log book and find out exactly I suppose. I can't think of one time I've ever thought................oh well, I guess I'll go for a flight today. Point is, I get excited each time a flight is near for me in the Mooney. So, off I go today for another great flying experience! Aren't we all fortunate to be able to do this? You bet we are!! Have a great day everyone.

Quote: donshapansky The turbo has 2 turbine wheels, one is driven by exhaust the other is the compressor for engine intake air supply. The exhaust driven wheel is the the area of the housing that the TIT (turbine inlet temp) measurement is tanken, if this turbine wheel expands too much it can hit the inside of the turbo housing. The first step you need to complete is to download the chart at the GAMI website and follow the instructions on a long flight where you can complete the form in .2 gph increments to see what the GAMI spread looks like on your Rocket. This data is faxed to GAMI and they will determine how many if any injectors need to be modified.

Quote: donshapansky The TAS is of course related to altitude, last week at 10,500 with 15.2 gph 32.5 " MP @2450 rpm the EDM 930 showed 70% power with 194 KTAS the TIT was 1565 F or 95 F below recommended max. GAMI says that the temp is not the concern but the exhaust side of the turbine can expand and strike the turbo housing, this is from the engineers at the turbo end of the business.

Quote: donshapansky My Rocket has 100% power to FL240, otherwise known as critical altitude. Still climbs at 1000'/min at FL250. I have 800 hrs now in the left seat in 36 months, been everywhere in summer and winter, what a great combo of power plant and airframe. Finally got it fly LOP 15.5 gph and 70% power, all cylinders below 370F even in Texas on a summer day. The deal with LOP difficulty was excessive blowby even though the leak downs were all in the 70's/80, the TIT would blow through 1650 - 1700 during the leaning process. We found 2 stuck rings on 2 cylinders, after overhaul max TIT is 1625 F during the leaning process with 1550 F being the norm with all cylinders at least 50 F LOP. Range is incredible, recently non stop Granbury, TX to St Cloud, MN (828NM) 4:35 hrs with 30 gals remaining. Return 2 days later from Fond du Lac, WI nonstop to Granbury, TX in 4:45 hrs with 18 gals remaining due to greater climb time and more climbing due to weather enroute. But it looks like the mission is changing with greater payload needs and deice more needed going into IN in the winter and fall so I'm probably going to the 'dark side' as Don Maxwell puts with an Aerostar 700. So the Rocket will be for sale in a couple of weeks or less.

Quote: Barry Is there an STC to put dual batteries in "lesser" Mooney's ?? I had a failure in IMC on my trip to Boulder, Co the other week. A 2nd battery would be worth the weight in any aircraft. If so, who would hold the STC ??

Quote: Piloto BTW the dual battery configuration found on the Rocket and the long body Mooney is not that much for backup but for ballast. The addition of the heavier Continental 520 and Lyc 540 required the added ballast to keep the CG within range. Instead of adding dead weight Mooney and Rocket decided on some useful ballast. José

Quote: Mazerbase You aren't filthy rich? I have to get a new crowd to run in!

Quote: Piloto With two batteries I wouldn't bother putting a second alternator unless you want redundancy for dispatchability. I had an alternator failure over the North Atlantic and after I shut down non-essential equipment the battery had plenty of juice to lower the gear after 7 hours of flying with no alternator. The benefit of the second alternator is being able to dispatch with a failed alternator. Alternators are highly reliable and is rare when they fail. They have proven themself in millions of cars. José

A very nicely written essay.

Quote: Mazerbase Interesting you should ask. I recently had what I thought was an alternator failure on my Rocket immediately after takeoff on a short 40 min flight. It turned out that it was an annunciator problem that kept popping the circuit breaker. However, I can tell you that the load, all lights and radios on since it was such a short flight and I wanted to see how fast things would deteriorate in severe VFR if it might ever happen in IMC, never dropped the voltage a single volt. I discussed adding a backup alternator and, at the end of the discussion, all felt the battery capacity was sufficient and there wasn't any room for a standby alternator anyway.

Quote: 74657 After 2.5 hours of flying this past week in my Missile with the field breaker pulled the voltage readout was 24.6 volts. We were running VFR in the daytime. All avionics were on. I don't think you'll have any issues........

Hi Folks, I am interested to hear what the Mooney brain trust has to say. I have a new to me M20K Rocket - a 1981 former 231. So it has one alternator. My normal reaction is to think about getting a backup alternator for dual alternator reliability. But rocket has dual 35amp batteries which is a lot of backup juice right there if there were an alternator failure. So now I am leaning to just go with that battery situation as enough backup right there by Darwin's design. BTW, how long do you folks think those batteries would last in a pinch - obviously the exact load and load shed - but go ahead and guess. Thanks!

Quote: fantom For those of you that don't have one: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11644888&cm_mmc=BCEmail_653-_-FOCUS-_-18-_-MarketingItemName I'm sure you can get the same price elsewhere, and they are interesting, even at lower altitudes.

Quote: Mazerbase

Quote: danb35 Not to criticize, but why are you flying an Acclaim so low? It seems you aren't going to see any real benefit to the turbos unless you fly higher than that.

Quote: Mazerbase With respect to cabin width, Plane & Pilot magazine shows a 1988 M20K has a cabin width of 43.5 in and height of 44.5 while an A36 Bonanza, year not specified, has a cabin width of 42 in and height of 50. Goes to show what conventional wisdom is worth.

Quote: bd32322 aviatorweb - i looked up the ntsb database again - for a 10 year and 40 year period back from now - I see 7 lancair IV-P accidents and 1 Lancair IV accident - 3 of them were non-fatal. There are none for the Lanciar ES - which is now the certified cessna 400 and former columbia 300/350 and has a much lower stall speed than the IV-P. You can check the data here: http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/index.aspx So really the only reasons I did not go with Lancair is: 1) money 2) too lazy to build a plane for 5-7 years 3) I am wary of buying a homebuilt that is built by another person - you dont know who has used what technique in building it.

Quote: KLRDMD

Quote: KLRDMD Miles Flown: A36 48,000 NM Baron 45,000 NM Block to block fuel burn: A36 20 GPH Baron 22.4 GPH Block to block average groundspeed: A36 162Kts Baron 167 Kts Cruise airspeed: A36 200 KTAS Baron 175 KTAS

Quote: Mazerbase The Lancair is fast and sexy. That's for sure. The problem is they seem to be particularly dangerous. It is a small sample since there are so few of them but I looked into the IVP. The fatality rate was ridiculous. It may be just the usual under-prepared pilot in over his head but there were so many diverse causes I had to just write it off.

Quote: GTWreck The RV-10 has 4 seats and will do around 165-170 kts. And they're typically far less expensive for a similar vintage production aircraft of the same performance. The RV-10 is a real world 4 adult plus full fuel and bags kind of plane.