201er

I regularly fly my M20J with a 20 gallon disbalance no problem. I've probably gone as far as a 35 gallon disbalance and it was definitely leaning one way but still 100% controllable and responsive. Then again you probably only can take 32 gallons. However, I'd be less thrilled about taking off with that much disbalance. When I was clearing a tank out for work, this was done in air. No experience taking off with over 20 gallons difference.

See the image I posted. That seems like an acceptable place to puts ads. One thing I hate on other forums is when the ads force the post text to be lower and you have to see them and scroll past them every time. If you sneak the ads into already existing nooks and crannies, it's fine by me. However, making space specifically for them is unbearably annoying. I really hope to see support from actual mooney vendors rather than generic viagra ads and whatever other garbage plagues the web.

Shoulda shut your engine at the top of the hill and coasted in

When practicing approaches in VMC, I agree. When doing it in actual, there better not be someone "monitoring the unicom frequency who is unfamiliar with the approach."

Be honest, how safety focused are you? Of course most of us like to think that we are, but try to identify areas where you are either taking a known risk, oblivious, or have an invulnerable attitude. I find myself to be careful but occasionally identify lapses of judgement or things I should have done better. My cautiousness as a pilot has been jumping around as I gain experience in certain fields. First the capability goes up, then the boldness follows, then reality strikes, then excessive cautiousness follows, and then experience is actually gained, and the cycle continues. This cycle is on an item by item basis with many different aspects of flying. Usually the worst trouble I've gotten into in any case is realizing afterwards that my safety margin had gone to nill, not that I was already in trouble. Just that if I did have a problem, there would have been no way or close to no way out. In general I find myself in the second tier of safety mindedness. I try to do better but occasionally I forget little things. Before you holler at me to use the checklist, sometimes forgetting little things means forgetting to use the checklist. For example on a recent flight into KPNE there was a skyhawk on final ahead of me and tower did an awful job sequencing me in close behind so I had to do S turns. The skyhawk landed and was taking his sweetass time taxiing down the runway and not pulling off so I went into slow flight to try to buy more time and land long. This was becoming too much so I decided to go around (don't remember the last time I had to go around). The plane started to climb but it wasn't great when I realized I forgot to advance the mixture/prop on final. I was so busy focusing on the plane on the runway and slowing down for it, that I forgot to do GUMPS. I didn't forget to put the gear down though!

BTW, it might be worth changing the term "inadvertent flight into IMC" to "inadvertent flight into AIC." Kennedy Jr crashed in visual meteorological conditions but the trouble he encountered was the inability to maintain control in actual instrument conditions. Although instrument flight in actual instrument conditions in visual meteorological conditions is legal for the non-instrument rated pilot... it is damn stupid. After flying a lot of IFR this last year, I've gotta say that staring into pitch black night VMC between layers is more disconcerting than being in the clouds!

Good points. Also consider the fact that midairs tend to happen near-exclusively in VMC.

The other 50% is the sum of thunderstorms, turbulence, icing, and improper instrument flying technique. An interesting fact based on those statistics is that an IFR pilot has double the chances of surviving an accident resultant on icing than a VFR pilot flying into IMC. Not gonna go try it. Anyway, I posted a bit about this over here: http://mooneyspace.com/topic/8314-forrest-gump-had-it-right/page-4#entry90052

The attitude is scarier than the act... someone who thinks they can get away with one thing will apply that thinking to other things until it is his final. http://mooneyspace.com/topic/8314-forrest-gump-had-it-right Then there was that lancair in texas. Then there was that Cherokee solo student in Florida. Then there was that nutjob that took off into 300 overcast without any instrument training. I keep reading a lot of NTSB reports or magazine articles about these kinds of things. What's your friend's name so I can look out for it?

The classic David Clarks are flat out terrible when compared to BOSE or Halo. But Halo is better than Bose at 1/3 the price. The David Clark headsets are really rugged and good for a renting student pilot or as backup headset for passengers. The Halo is more delicate but for the owner pilot that wants to leave it in the plane, it is simply the best. Anthony made great points about it but forgot the most important one, the voice clarity is second to none.

Displaced threshold only means you can't touch down on it. Nothing says or suggests you can't float a foot above in ground effect and land on the numbers.

We flew today to Williamsport to order machinery from Grizzly Industrial (seeing that show room is an experience in itself... it's like Disney world for shop enthusiasts). Anyway, the lathe we were ordering was on sale but only for in store pickup. 120lb box, ballpark 36x18x10. No problem... put it on the backseat and flew home like it was nothing (still climbing 800fpm through 5000ft and well loaded). Love love love my Mooney!

Top Gun is for old people

Feeling the same way! As for altitude, it doesn't seem to matter much for LOP. That's another phenomena that baffles me is how you get pretty much the same TAS at different altitudes flying LOP. Lower, you have more air so you can run higher MP. Higher you, have faster TAS but less MP for LOP ops so it's a wash. Why? Dunno, I don't have a grasp on it yet!

Well I don't need hard numbers. I was just hoping that someone with rhetorical knowledge could clarify the concepts a little. Which is faster, why, etc?

Ok, sure. But what about flying 2 different RPM settings at equivalent power? 75% power at 2400RPM vs 75% power at 2600RPM? What about the delay that you get in LOP combustion? From a recent flight it seemed that going 10GPH 75% LOP at 2600RPM was substantially faster than 12GPH 100ROP 75% power at 2400RPM. Yet it's still hard to get this to sink in that I could be going faster AND burning less fuel at the same time??? AND running cooler too! What's the catch?

In both of these settings you are running the same MP and RPM. However, fuel flow is different and so is power. The governor keeps the prop spinning the same speed either way but it has to compensate for the decrease in power at the lower fuel flow by changing the blade angle. My question is if the change in blade angle by lowering power makes you fly faster or slower? And is it more or less efficient? And why? Likewise what I want to know is if you increased RPM (like in a J) to achieve the same % power LOP that you originally had ROP at lower RPM, would you be flying faster or slower? Better prop efficiency or worse? Who can answer my questions??

Frankly, if he'd just respected FAR 91.155 and stayed out of clouds, 4 people would still be alive. From the recordings of him speaking, I don't think the phrase "inadvertent flight into IMC" applies. Judging from his lack of desire to take ATC's suggestions for exiting the clouds, it makes me think his continued flight into poor visibility was in fact advertent. Worse yet, I suspect that it was indeed the plane's sophistication and equipment that gave him the confidence to go forth with this. However, his skills and experience with this equipment were obviously insufficient. If he alone survived this crash, I'd hold him guilty of negligent homicide.

There is a pretty big difference here though. He was both inexperienced AND flying in an illegal manner. Taking off below landing minimums for an experienced instrument pilot is not inherently dangerous, but it brings backup safety margins close to nill. Even though the percent of fatalities in IMC is much greater than VMC, the total number of accidence in Day/Night IMC combined is less than the number of daytime VMC fatalities! Plus, I bet you over half those IMC accidents were by VFR pilots committing inadvertent flight into IMC. Or in the case of the subject of this discussion, intentional flight into IMC! Also, I just wanted to point out again that the equipment available was totally irrelevant. ATC was offering multiple options for the guy to be able to land VFR without having to rely on his autopilot, glass panel, or chute and he flat out refused! Nothing short of ATC remote controlling his airplane could have saved him from his attitude!

What kind of role does RPM and blade angle of the constant speed prop play between LOP and ROP operations? For example it is possible to operate at the same RPM while ROP/LOP but the % power delivered to the prop will be different and thus the blade angle will be set differently by the governor. What effect does that have? Which achieves better prop efficiency? What about better speed? Another observation is that you generally need a higher RPM (when already comparing WOT settings) to achieve equivalent power LOP that you would attain ROP at a lower RPM. How does this affect speed/efficiency? In other words what difference would operating 2500RPM ROP vs 2600RPM LOP? Both might achieve 75% power but which is faster? Which is more efficient (not for fuel but for prop)? Does running higher RPM (2600-2700) for the sake of attaining higher power LOP worthwhile? Or does the prop loose too much efficiency at those speeds?

I dug my plane out on Saturday because I had a compassion flight scheduled for Sunday (and I wanted to assess the situation in advance). There was some melting. Sunday there was a pool of ice engulfing all my planes wheels an inch deep!

Eh, I'm afraid of that.

How many inches of snow does it take on the horizontal stabilizer to tip a Mooney?

And insurance is for the rest.

Anthony, I don't think it only comes down to power to weight ratio. These aircraft have differing drag profiles and airfoils. Furthermore, one has a constant speed prop and the other doesn't. According to your numbers, an M20J at standard gross of 2740 is 1/13.7 which is very close to the 14.3 of the cherokee but I can tell you in practice, the 201 far far outclimbs the cherokee 160s I've flown which come in at the same 1/13.7!!!!