David Mazer

My variable costs for my Rocket are about $45/hr (reserve for OH, reserve for prop, oil, etc) + fuel. Fuel is running $5.00/gal and my typical cruise is 17.2 gph. That comes to $131/hr. Adding a bit for fudge, say $140/hr total variable expense. Now the tricky part, ground speed, or TAS and assuming zero wind, at what altitude? I usually cruise at 185 - 190 kts below 10,000 and about 200 - 205 in the mid-teens. On the conservative side that would be 140/187.5 = $0.75/nm or $0.65/sm. A 231 will be less for each variable (reserve, fuel, and speed) but I don't know the proportionality. Fixed cost is difficult to add to the equation as the number of hours/year so affects the cost per hour or mile that I just don't include it in the calculation and I just know it is a lot.

Remaining useful load after 4 tablespoons of 100LL: 3#, 8 oz. Actually, I think it is an FAA rule that emergency equipment and supplies have no weight and don't effect the CG of any airplane! In fact, when you get to a certain weight, the FAA starts increasing the useful load (negative weight). So pile it on. The FAA will.

A flashlight or two. A microfiber towel. Some Plexus window cleaner. A quart or two of oil and a funnel. A first aid kit. Definitely a camera. I took all kinds of pictures as I flew home and reminice often.

Well, it feels like a 1,000#.

It depends on the Mooney. An F is 1,000# less than a Rocket. It makes a big difference.

Cangratulations and have lots of fun!

One can definitely damage the nose gear with a tug. Someone did it to mine and it needed to be replaced. If you are just going into a T hangar you can use a winch. I bolted a winch to the floor in the back of the hangar, hoocked it to the tail tiedown, and it basically pulls it right into place. I could always pull the plane out but had trouble pushing it in. I had to switch to a tug I bought second hand because I need to jockey the plane in at an angle now and the winch didn't do that well. The winch was about $350 new if I remember correctly and it came with a 100 ft cord for the controller. It worked great for the right circumstances. Mine is available but it is heavy and shipping probably isn't worth it.

Getting above it all in Florida isn't limited by the turbocharger, it is limited by ATC. They will never give me higher than 9,000 ft when I am flying from one location to another in Florida. I'm not sure where your flying around TN but you might find the turbo doesn't solve your weather problems the way you think it will.

I'll race you George. Let's start at 16,000 feet!

Dang. And I was just in Park City a week ago and would have loved to see your new to you Mooney. I took a quick mountain flying refresher in Heber with OK3Air and was treated great. I agree with fantom, where are the pics?

So, do we know the validity of which he speaks? I think his comments, as uneducated as I believe them to be, are unfavorable for us poor flying saps being bludgened by the public and media for being such an unsafe activity that it needs to be regulated out of existance. Maybe some group like the AOPA can take this up with the reporter and educate Mr. Bessolo and the public.

Many Rockets have a GW increase to 3200#. Some don't. I am not sure why some do and some don't and I'm not sure it applies to a 231. Not the most help, sorry.

I hope everyone is okay also. Any idea who David Bessolo is? I'm not sure why his opinion matters.

"Jane, you ignorant slut," to which she replied, "Dan, you pompous ass." Worked great on SNL but hasn't worked quite as well here. When I see it happening, I try to just go back to the original thread and ignore it. Sometimes the thread gets back on track, sometimes not. I, for one, appreciate the various opinions and try to form my own from there. If the other participants didn't have any opinion, they would be useless to me. Keep expressing them in a positive way, please.

I have a Rocket, and it is a great airplane, but I don't think it is the best for training. It is more expensive to operate, especially when you aren't going anywhere (like during training), it is more complicated to manage than a non-turbo, and its higher speeds require faster responses. Not the combination one is looking for in training. Keep the C until you are done and then get the Rocket to go somewhere. A couple years ago I did a comparison of the variable cost of a Rocket vs an F and found that the actual cost/sm was identical. That may be different now that gas is more expensive but for travel, the variable cost of the Rocket is pretty good compared to an F and probably your C. Fixed costs are still going to be higher though and you need to be prepared for that too.

Glad to be of service and, if one is still needed, happy to be so again.

I was lucky. I had a couple hundred hours of complex/high performance before I purchased mine. No requirements from the insurance company but I found a local instructor with an M20J and flew with him for about 5 hours and then another few hours in my plane with an instructor when I picked it up. You could strat your transition training even before you find/purchase you plane if you wanted to.

I climb with an IAS 130 - 140 kts in my Rocket. Depending on the temperature (here in FL at 100 degrees) and load, I usually climb at 900 to 1,200 fpm. I usually slow down for a couple min at 16,000 ft to keep everything cool before I continue up. I don't find climbing faster (slower airspeed) worthwhile because I just can't see over the nose and see where I'm going.

Finally have a working cowl flap. Finally. The first cable was replaced with a heavier cable that is lockable at various positions allowing infinite adjustments like the motor was supposed to do. Sorry that one of the pictures is blurred.

There are many good points made above. I have a Mooney Rocket and I fly an M20F. When I did the numbers, the variable cost per mile after fuel, engine/prop reserve, and oil came out the same. I'm not sure if the numbers quoteded above take the same fators into account. No question aquisition and overhaul costs are higher though. Also, I can cruise at about the same speed as a J with the same fuel burn but it doesn't make sense to do so since the engine time comes into play. I ended up chosing the Rocket as my mission was long and the K does that a little better IMO. I manage my useful load with fuel. 80 gal of fuel adds about 180 pounds of useful load and still gives me about a 600 nm range with reserve. They are both great airplanes. You probably won't go wrong with either.

I agree the airframe is the single, uncorrectable component. The rest is just price related. An airplane with a low time engine costs more than a high time engine and one with new avionics cost more than old avionics. Usually, the cost to install new avionics is more than the cost to buy an airplane with it already installed (about twice as much) but that is negotiable. The cost of delay, being enjoyment or financial, is also real but if you aren't using it for business or if you are replacing a plane rather than a first plane, the cost may be very small. Of course, I enjoy the shopping so there may be some gain in that too.

The side loads of landing are something we strive to avoid. The probability that we won't completely succeed is why the gear is designed to tolerate some but why inflict any that we can avoid with a simple tap of the brakes? I don't know how significant it is for us. I'm certain takeoff speed and the mass of the tire are the relevant factors but, also, the faster the takeoff and greater the mass the stronger the gear. It may never be relevant. However, even if it only prevents slinging slush/mud into the gear housing that may cause gear extension problems, it is probably worth it.

I calculated adjusted risk as speed of plane/ speed of mode of transportation * risk per hour to show what the risk is if you are in that mode of transport for the time it takes to cover the same miles. Since my average speed in my car was only 30 mph per my GPS (and I'm not considered a slow driver by any stretch of the imagination), I had to assume some total mph for a bike that includes the time spent stopped, turning, etc. It was only a swag in relation to my car's average. Maybe bike mph isn't the same as a car's mph because they are used so differently but if you are commuting on a bike, I would guess there is a lot of stopped/slow time involved. Like I said, just a guess.

Jolie, however you did it, I'm glad you are all right.

Quote: aviatoreb Fatalities per million hours Skydiving = 128.71 General aviation = 15.58 On-road motorcycling = 8.80 Passenger cars = 0.47 Bicycling = 0.26 Flying (domestic airlines) = 0.15 Home living (active) = 0.027 Compiled by Failure Analysis Associates, Inc. (Design News, 10/4/93)