201er

Does anyone have any actual numbers? The POH suggests a gain of as much as 10ktas over a drop of 440 pounds. I'm asking about actual real world figures. Anyone know?

Quote: M20F-1968 Does that mean that you fly the fuel off with the 3rd or 4th passenger over gross weight, or you do so before taking on the 3rd or 4th passenger? I ask that only to get a sense of the 201's performance. John

I have been flying my 201 with monroy tanks for over a year and have managed pretty well without ever defueling. Luckily I typically don't fly with more than one passenger and flights with more people are never on short notice. When I know I will be flying with 3-4 people, I just plan my prior fuel up and flying schedule to arrive at the target fuel weight. If I found out with just a few days notice, I would still opt to just go fly it off than to pour it down the drain.

Supposedly you gain speed on a trip as you burn off fuel or cruise faster light than heavy. How much of a difference in speed does it actually make? Anyone have real world numbers/experience on this?

My 2nd question is in regards to efficient high speed cruise rather than for going slow. How do you choose an RPM for maximum efficiency while LOP? You could do less RPM or more RPM and less on the mixture to achieve equal fuel flow. How do you choose?

Is there any advantage to reducing RPM while LOP (in ROP, the lower the RPM the more efficient)? How does this correlate and apply in LOP?

I'm a bit confused about high MP low RPM LOP cruise. Let's say you want to cruise at 55% power at low altiude and have high MP available. It seems a bit out of line to be 2200RPM and 29" MP? What is all that excess air doing when fuel is being limited to the necesary required lower fuel flow? Do you guys EVER find the need to throttle back while LOP in normally aspirated airplanes? What else do I need to know about making use of available excess MP when LOP?

Compressions came back 72,75,75,76! =)

Quote: wishboneash Once approaching from behind, a C182 and another time a C177 RG, controllers asked me to deviate 10 deg to avoid running into them. That made my day! While the Cirrus SR22 is faster than my 201, they are gas guzzlers (16gph for 185 kts) and need 310 hp to achieve this performance. No comparison. Sriram '78 M20J

Quote: Becca I think Mooney pilots can be pretty annoying about this - we see a new plane and the first thing we ask is "how fast does it go? .. and on how much fuel?" Usually the statement that follows is "I do 150 kts on 9 gph in my Mooney, but gee, your plane sure is nice otherwise." Rarely do I see a Mooney pilot comment first on the other features of the airplane. I think Bo pilots talk about speed as much as we do, but they are just as likely to talk about their panels, the big doors, etc.

Just dropped my 201 off for my first annual since the one I had at prebuy. How do you guys cope with these? What about with the airplane down time? Without my plane I suddenly don't know what to do with myself. I feel like an addict in withdrawl already.

Of the brands (and/or types) of planes out there, who do you think boasts about speed the most? Who presents the most fudged. overly optimistic, in other words BS numbers about their planes? And I'm not talking about manufacturers in this case, talking about a bunch of pilots shooting the wind. On the flipside, who do you think sells their aircraft short? Who gets the numbers right on the money?

This thread is sooo funny!

Archaeopteryx, archae (like are archaic) opter (like helicopter) ix (like felix). Comes from Archaeopteryx lithographica, the first discovered dinosaur-bird transitional fossil. It features asymetric feather imprints like on a modern flying bird yet had the long bony tail and teeth of a dinosaur. I gave a university lecture about the evolution of flight from bird to airplane and mentioned this fossil so check it out if you're interested: http://TrainedParrot.com/Evolution_Of_Flight

Yes, the cabin is definitely quieter. But it doesn't matter cause people are loud anyway. So I always fly with noise attenuating in-ear phones with music playing even if sleeping to block it all out. As for the cabin, honestly it looks/feels about the same as a 747, it's just there is another one of those on top of you. The windows are pretty big and the overhead bins are sizable. I think economy seats are wider too. This was coming back to NY from Seoul.

Quote: Bnicolette Looks like a lot of fun Mike and what a perfect weekend to do it. Glad you had a safe fun flight!

This weekend we flew up to Maine for seafood and camping. Great use of the Mooney, got around New England in no time. Please check out the article I wrote about the trip and video cause there are many cool flying related photos and scenes: http://TrainedParrot.com/Camping Some notable moments included being cleared through NY class B straight over the Empire State Building at 2500ft and then over KLGA. Also got to fly by Boston and right over Logan. Awesome flights and trip.

Quote: Seth Once, when flying VFR but approaching class C airspace, I called to check in, and pretty soon, a 737 was made aware of my proximity and told to watch out for the traffic at 12:00 opposite direction, 8000 feet, it's a Piper. Then when I was warned of the traffic, I said "Traffic in sight, Mooney 1165N" - ATC then asked my type aircraft, I said a Mooney, M20P, and the controller then let the 737 know (even though he obviously heard everything) that the traffic was a Mooney. -Seth

On my recent return flight from Cape Cod to NY, I made it back in record speed with a nice tailwind. I was getting over 160kts over the ground while nicely back on the engine at 140ktas and 9gph. So looking back on flightaware I noticed that ATC put me down as a BE36/U. I'm not sure how I should react to this. Did I just get a sizable upgrade? Or should I be ashamed that I'm down from a Mooney?

I have to say I'm pretty surprised at the results of the poll. First of all, it's awesome that we got such a large sample (72 at this time). Basically 90% said that they open the cap and look to see how much fuel is in the tank. I am surprised by this because too often I'll see people just jump in a plane without checking anything. Perhaps they preflighted it in the morning but were having a burger or they got it handed off by someone else. I guess this just reflects well on Mooney pilots that they are more attentive about fuel matters than others. Seems to be far less stories of Mooneys running out of gas as well. What do you think of that?

And here is the write up along with pictures and video from the May 12 Cape May Mooney Fly In!

Quote: maropers Funny thing about fuel, it costs the same to keep the tanks full as it does empty, just a matter of timing !

We were discussing fuel sumping in another topic so I'm curious in addition to that if folks look into their fuel tanks before they fly. Especially for the folks who don't pour the fuel back in (for one reason or another), do you still make the effort to open each cap and check the fuel level? What about if you just stop for a hamburger, do you check then? When do you not check?

Quote: jetdriven I can sump the fuel for 22 preflights before it equals a gallon. About half the time I pour it back in, but the 18c a side I save per flight is balanced by putting another cycle on those 2,000$ each fuel caps. Checking the fuel visually, leaving the cap off, then sumping the fuel, pouring it back in, and then securing the fuel cap saves the extra cycle, but thats a lot of steps.

Peter, when we had our fly in at your airport that you didn't show up to, all the guys were making comments and beating up on you regarding what you said about pushing planes by the propeller (which was the hot topic on mooneyspace at the time). Yet Patrick was the only guy on your side. He said, "Anyone who buys our group lunch is a friend of mine." And that was that. He was a genuinely nice guy and he did not dislike anyone. We're still in shock about all of this. It's a terrible shame you didn't get to meet him. I think you'd be friends on the spot.