exM20K

Ovations… approx s/n 333 x 519, plus a couple after 2008. Call it 175 flying in North America Acclaim approx s/n 1 - 129 plus up to 137 in 2015-16. Call it 110 in North America. Bravo s/n 353 and up. Dunno how many that is -dan

Good grief. What an appeal to reason you present. It is a tragedy whenever there is a fatality. But it is grotesque the way these exaggerated “saves” are used to promote a product and tut-tut those who choose otherwise. Here’s why: you assume that all chute pull incidents would have meant certain death without the life-saving chute. This is absolute nonsense. 18% of non commercial fixed wing accidents included fatalities, according to the 2020 Nall report. 100 ish CAPS deployments in what the company reported in 2020 as 11 million flight hours on the fleet. That’s pretty good odds to me…. And this tiny number of fatal accidents prevented , < 1 per 100,000 hours, or .2 per 100,000 hours if scaled by the fatal:non-fatal rate across the GA fleet) should be viewed in the context of 3-4 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours in the cirrus. It’s fan boy and marketing nonsense. your snark is un persuasive. Have a nice day, and fly safely, whatever it is you fly. -Dan

If the grass is well maintained and the surface smooth, it shouldn’t be a problem. If you ding a gear door, you’re not on a good (or ru way) surface :-) The biggest threat to under-control operations is chunks of snow and ice left behind after snow removal. Those can really foul up a gear door. I had my 231 in and out of FL90 (north captivate island, fl) a handful of times without stress. interestingly, the POHfor my Acclaim Type S has no grass takeoff or landing info. It’s blank pages watermarked as “pending Data.” That’s no big deal to me. Grass surfaces vary so much in quality, length and type of grass as to make “Official, Approved” grass data the midpoint of a huge distribution…. Or a wild a.. guess. -dan

All true. Also, having room inside the wing to hide the gear often requires a thicker wing. Diamond ran into this with the DA50 retract design and ultimately had big blisters on the bottom of the wing to accommodate the wheels. Thicker wing =more drag, and the drag associated with well-faired gear is very, very small. -dan

Many also wildly overestimate the likelihood of a pure mechanical failure (not fuel starvation) leading to a forced landing.

Meh. I could have bought a S22T when I got my Acclaim S. While Mr. Market clearly prefers the S22T, I don’t. Quite a bit less range, 20kts slower, much poorer climb rate, and greater useful load. They are both good aircraft, but each does stuff better at the expense of what it does worse. With a dozen years of M20K ownership, Mooney is the “devil I know.” So for this eccentric, the M20TN is better than anything this side of a a TBM or King Air. -dan

Margins on fleet deals for trainer aircraft suck. The M10 did little or nothing better / cheaper than a DA20, with its huge installed base. It's a good thing they quit that project. -dan

This is not correct, at least in the Diamond instance. The DA42 tapers rapidly. The DA62 does not. After the DA62 proved to be surprisingly fast in the initial flight tests, someone taped yarn bits to the back of the DA42 fuselage. That rapid taper was causing turbulent airflow and drag to a much greater extent than the plumper DA62. I may still have the pictures around but will have to dig for them. -dan

Mike, you bring a lot to the table as a CFI with hundreds (thousands?) of hours owning and operating a Rocket. There are not many instructions out there with your ownership and flying experience.

@hubcap great choice to get through type-specific training in your newish-to-you plane. The PPP is a solid two day immersion in systems and flying. were there any Acclaims there, and if so, did they have course materials for the M20TN? -dan

In other tire applications I’m familiar with (motorcycles and RV’S,) tire age is often the determinant of replacement. While these are typically tubeless installations, I can’t believe a retread of unknown age will have the same life in it as a new tire. -dan

Congratulations, Mike. CFI & CFII are licenses I’ve never even contemplated earning for fear of learning what a lousy pilot I am. I’ll hit you up for sure when BFR comes around. -dan

For the TN, the STC comes from Bob Minnis, Minnis aviation. Highly recommended for t/o and climb performance. -Dan

Flew in and used Flightline in early March 2020, right before the world went kray-kray. Was outstanding then. -dan

Why yes, yes i do... Wife took this and many others.

Yah, best bet is to come for as many days as possible to maximize the likelihood of seeing the balloons fly. The show boss has some tough calls to make often. We left Saturday mid day as it was obvious that Sunday would be good for kite flying only.

That's a pretty reliable block fuel flow for the TN running LOP after a climb to mid-high teens.

Just back from the 49th Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. Great time and an amazing display of grass roots aviation. The precision with which the competition pilots fly these aircraft is astounding. Being among tens of thousands of smiling people during a mass assentation of 500 balloons is memorable to say the least. Mooney content: Interesting comparison of travel modes / efficiency. Chicago -> ABQ -> Chicago is approx 180 gallons and 10 hours. We drove a 40' motorhome instead, and the round trip stats for comparison: 260 gallons and 43.5 hours. Fuel cost is approximately the same, and the Mooney does the trip in 1/4 the time with maybe a little less useful load. Apples and oranges, of course, but interesting that it takes a similar dollar amount of fuel to move a 3200# aircraft that distance as a 35,000# RV at a quarter the speed. -dan

Great work, @toomany a Mooney year will eat up a ton of runway at 115 KIAS. Turning away from a runway when dead stick is not a great idea. Mid and long body planes are not great to slip if slow and full flaps. The tail is working very hard to keep the nose up with that porky six cylinder engine out there, and blanking the tail with both full flaps and the fuselage cal start a buffet, which if allowed to progress into a tail stall will turn you into a lawn dart. S turns or pitching to a slower than best glide speed will consume excess energy. I highly recommend Nate Jaros’s engine out book. https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Out-Survival-Tactics-Emergencies-ebook/ I created this Smart Card for my plane after reading his book, and I re read it from time to time. Last PPP I did, I flew all these engine out procedures with Parvez Darva, and it was really cool to see them work. -Dan

That’s great news. Last one I attended in Davenport was really thin on Acclaim materials. Any improvement there? -Dan

Yeah, but especially with the gear up, I think a mooney would do ok in a bean field. never had the “pleasure” of operating a Rotax 2 stroke but was very fond of the 912 and 914 in the Diamond motorglider

I think it was last year…l a frequent poster over on beechtalk (where I don’t hang out anymore) put his v tail into a corn field with not great results. Plane probably destroyed, serious injuries, etc. in my youth, I may have run a Jeep CJ5 through a cornfield without putting the windshield down. Oops. not just the stalks, but the ears will whack the crap out of everything. You don’t always have a choice, but I’d pt a corn field pretty far down the list of suitable landing spots this time of year. Glad this one worked out and hope plane is economically repairable. -dan

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/267788 201 out of OZW. Much better outcome landing in a bean field than a corn field this time of year! -dan

The Kelley system is much better in many respects. it doesn’t add work for the fragile starter adapter it gets the weight aft, which is big for the acclaim it can be run from an apu it can operate during takeoff, though I’d carefully monitor CO levels that said, I’d be really surprised if a motor repair shop couldn’t fix it. i hade the same issue with a Carrier A/C unit on my motorhome. Carrier got out of that market and ceased supporting the low profile units. very frustrating, but if you’re going to keep the plane for a while, consider the Kelley unit. -dan

That's really cool and an indication of how big this "niche" market really is. Thanks for posting -dan