LANCECASPER

LOL . . How is that keeping your opinion to yourself? By the way, i come to Mooneyspace for people’s opinions.

The only problem is that composite is heavier than aluminum, and a pressure vessel is definitely heavier, so it would have to be a drone.

Back in 1989 when the TLS (later called Bravo) came out, the TLS and 252 competed for sales, so in 1990 the 252 was discontinued. They revived the K in 1997 and had the Encore correctly priced between the Ovation and the Bravo. It probably was taking away some sales of the Bravo, but they were selling 100 plus airplanes a year at the time and IMHO had the best line-up of airplanes in Mooney's history - the Allegro, Ovation, Encore and Bravo. They had a good marketing department. They had salespeople that wanted to sell something at every airplane event, However, in 1997 the Dopp family had just purchased Mooney and the son Chris came in and made changes without even having a clue. Soon into it they scrapped the J and K because the airframes themselves didn't cost much less to build than the long body. Duh! Of course, but they needed different models to appeal to different people. With the line-up they had, they appealed to a wide spectrum of people and if they would have just kept a steady hand things would have been a lot better. There was still a demand for both the J and K when they were scrapped.

Yes electroair.net

Mine did not have that limitation anywhere in the logs (I still have a digital copy). It was a 2000 Ovation 2, which was upgraded to 310hp while I owned it.

Who said it couldn't be used during taxi and climb? On the Ovation I had I left it off for take-off.

It may not be good to change everything until you identify what's wrong. You can't trace your steps backwards if you get done and it still doesn't work. I have an "if it's not broke don't fix it" policy since sometimes when I thought I was doing a good thing I got a new part out of the box that was defective and it took a lot of work to figure that out.

When Piper was working with Micro VG on the gross weight increase for the Meridian In 2001, Piper engineers found that even at cruise the air is so well directed with the VGs that the increased efficiency of the airflow mostly negated the parasitic drag of the VGs. I flew the Meridian before and after the VG installation and the slow speed handling was noticeably better - well worth it even if there was a couple knots lost in cruise. If I get to my destination a couple minutes later I’m still alive. Usually if I stall/spin the airplane I’m dead.

My main motivation was if I lose my engine on take-off out where I live. Being able to put it down a few knots slower without stalling might be the critical difference.

Tell them you were planning on buying them at Oshkosh and see if they'll give you the show special.

After the Bravo conversion.

I was told before I installed them that it wouldn't affect cruise, but didn't really believe them. I was expecting a 2 knot loss and willing to live with that, but I haven't experienced a loss. On a light wind day I feel comfortable coming over the fence at 65 knots now, so for me it was well worth it. More info from the developer:

How things change in 5 years. I moved to an airpark to live with a higher elevation and shorter runway. I did a lot of research and talked to pilot's who have installed the micro vg's and I have to eat crow and say i was wrong. They do make a difference. I've had them on my Bravo over a year and they allow me to come in at a slower speed and still have full authority. I still am not thrilled with the looks on the laminar flow wing but I like what they do.

I would listen to your POH first and then fellow Mooney pilots.

Hopefully you ended up with great peace of mind and not just a little piece of mind.