FloridaMan

Thinking about canceling my order with JPI due to customer service issues. Would I be shooting myself in the foot by switching to EI for a monitor?

I think I got the high drag model.

Sweet, we have matching rockets.

Nevermind. Reading is fundamental.

I had a similar issue. Turns out a wire had fallen off the slickstart. Check the fuse and breakers before digging further.

Google is your friend.

When I meet a primary student who's having trouble with their landings, I tell them to go to a shopping mall and ride the down escalator and note how when you step on, you're looking down, but then as you reach the bottom, you start to look forward. My technique is slightly different, I just hold the airplane 1/4 inch off the runway and then ease it down.

What if both are true?

Contact Aero Engines of Winchester.

If you have an engine failure at altitude, whether you’re landing on a real runway or an imagined one, aim for the center of it and not the numbers. You can always slow down and drop on final, but you can’t get it back.

http://www.airplanebroker.com/MARV.HTM

That is something that took me a while to realize as an adult. "Well, we won't make any money if..." "Then don't do the deal" If you want to see me get visibly agitated and ruthless in my words, try to use an appeal to emotion to get me to take a bad deal. On another note, both of my airplanes were purchased with patience. My beautiful M20F was about to be listed. A PPI that I had scheduled with Wilmar fell through; I called Wilmar to cancel it on their calendar, and out of disappointment, asked if they knew of any others about to go on the market. I ended up buying my M20F for well over what I'd budgeted and have had no regrets. My Rocket was similar. I crossed the country to go look at a different Rocket. The Rocket I bought was listed as a 231 and had a deposit already placed on it. The buyer backed out, I realized it was a rocket and not a 231, and I bought it. In the case of both airplanes, it might look like I got lucky, but it was really just patience. I started opening myself to purchase either of them two years before actually going through with the purchase and it seems like it took two years for a suitable plane at the right price to cross paths with me. I suspect my LoPresti M20F will be an excellent aircraft for whoever buys it when I decide to sell it.

How about a spring? Also, take a look at the offerings for e-bike conversions on eBay if you're still doing motor selection. There has been an absolute explosion in the market of inexpensive 12-24VDC motors out there in all sizes for use in electric scooters, skateboards, bicycles, et cetera. I'm working on a new tug design at the moment because I think those on the market cost 3x what they should.

When I had my engine failure at 200ft, I was already above 120mph. It was a hot day, gusting crosswinds and I was close to max gross. I had kept her in ground effect until Vy. The exact control input sequence I used was as follows (I wrote everything down immediately post incident to make sure I remembered it all). Engine gets quiet, I start descending. Tower asks, "N..... is everything ok?" "I've lost my engine" I immediately realized I had to do something. There was maybe 2000ft of runway ahead of me of the 10,000ft runway that I had used. I knew I couldn't make the runway, but there was a field at the end. I pulled the throttle because I didn't want the engine to come back to life. I stood on the rudder, threw the gear and flaps down and loaded the wing. I pulled back; when I got below 100, I descended as aggressively as possible. The speed kept wanting to come back. Control input was full rudder, full flaps, gear down and back elevator. I look down while over the field and see my speed is still well above 80. Fuck it. I forced the mains into the grass. I thought it would help get rid of energy. I believe an unintended positive was the tall grass helped to spoil airflow over the wing. The next trick up my sleeve was to dig in a wingtip if I had to and ground loop the airplane. I remembered thinking, "shit; is this it?" realizing that I could be in the last seconds of my life. I see the end of the field and the neighborhood and trees approaching and applied the brakes. The plane came to a stop 30 yards short of the tree line. No bent metal. No injuries. Cause was FOD through the #4 cylinder of unknown origin. Mechanic who had just done the work recovered the airplane and refused to give me access to any of the parts that he removed before I came back the next morning.

If you absolutely have to drop altitude in a Mooney without speedbrakes, slow down below best glide first and then descend.

I tried to pull the audio, but Key West isn't on LiveATC. I flew the rocket into Key West the other day. There was a King Air 200 that I was going to be sequenced behind; he got relegated to #2. "King Air N12345, fly directly to the VOR, you're #2; Mooney, go directly to the numbers" King Air: Come again? Do you need a speed out of me? Approach: Negative, he's doing 180 [knots] over the ground, you're fine. Pulled power to 55%, popped the speed brakes, dropped gear at 130, reduced power on final and landed with the brakes deployed. When I got my M20F, it was cool the first time I got to hear a controller tell me I was gaining on a Bonanza. Now I get a bit flattered when I'm given instructions like "reduce speed to 180"

I've had my M20F up to 17,000 a couple of times. It takes a while to get up there. The controls feel lighter like you're in slow flight and if your mags have some time on them you might get an occasional misfire. The controls on the Rocket feels a lot better at FL240 than the M20F does at 17,000. I suspect wing loading and the corrugated surface on the elevator aids in yaw stability of the rocket. The M20F has always felt a bit slippery in flight, sortof like you're flying a surfboard.

Polycarbonate is easier to work with than acrylic, except you don't want to cut it with a laser or burn it at all. It releases toxic chemicals. Lexan is the brand name for Polycarbonate. You should play with some of your scrap as it has some interesting properties. Beat it with a hammer; where acrylic (plexiglass) will split or crack, polycarbonate will just get impressions and dents. If you bend it to the point of failure, it yields gracefully like soft metal as opposed to splitting. The downsides are that UV can yellow it over time and it scratches easily (mcmaster.com sells some that's supposed to be scratch and UV resistant).

I hate to interrupt your little Less than you'd think. Perhaps @cujet can elaborate on this a bit.

*always* check trim, flaps, fuel selector when taking the runway.

I have splits on my lens as well. It's interesting that GLAP specifies theirs as Polycarbonate, which will not split like acrylic and because of that, carries a bit more value.

That brings up another question that might have a counter-intuitive answer. If speed brakes are more effective at higher speeds, do you descend faster at higher speeds with the brakes deployed -- at a higher rate and/or over distance covered? Controller gives you an instruction to cross a fix at a much lower altitude. Do you pop the brakes and pull the power, or are your chances better keeping your speed up to increase brake effectiveness?

That's exactly how I think about my instrument rating. One other thing to watch out for: temperature and dewpoint spread, especially around a large area. If it's close, you can have an entire region that's clear skies, unlimited visibility turn to fog in a short period of time.

Just as a note, I owned my M20F since 2012 and put over 1000 hours on it. I have only had to shoot one approach down to minimums and that when I took off from the east coast of Florida I could see my destination on the west coast, and watched the fog roll in at night. I kept my minimums conservative; while it was completely legal for me to fly ILS approaches to minimums and do my planning for destination plus alternate with conditions forecast to minimums, if the forecast was less than 1000ft ceilings, I would wait or use a different method. "When asked by the controller if he was experiencing any equipment problems, the pilot stated, "It's literally a washing machine as soon as we go through the cloud deck, the cloud deck's at 1,200 ft, before that everything's very easy, but once we get to 1,200 ft it's a washing machine." The controller then asked the pilot if it would be easier to attempt the RNAV approach, to which the pilot replied, "no localizer's way better."" https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20150304X81814&ntsbno=ERA15FA144&akey=1