Z W

Update: The plane is now under contract.

On mine, for a very cold start such as 26 dF, I will do 5 pumps, then crank. The engine will catch, spin for a few revolutions, then die. Next time, I do 7 pumps, and it will fire and keep running. I developed this because if I ever manage to get it flooded, I cannot get the thing to start. The flooded start procedure has never worked for me on this plane, and I've successfully used it on other models. Go figure. If you go straight to 7 or 8 pumps, sometimes that's too much (e.g. it's 26 dF but you are parked facing the sun and your engine isn't that cold) and it floods it. Working your way up to 7 or 8 pumps avoids the flooded situation. It actually reminds me of starting a weedeater, where you do a couple pulls at full choke for a false start to flood the engine. This is the opposite, since it's actually firing while too lean, but for whatever reason it works on my 68 C model. And sometimes, it turns out 5 pumps was the right number, despite the cold, and it just fires up and goes. I've always done this with the fuel pump on, even while pumping and cranking. My POH doesn't say anything about turning it off after fuel pressure comes up. Never noticed gas dumping out the bottom of the engine with this procedure and it works even when the engine is very cold. I do try pretty hard to use the pre-heater when temps get below 40 dF.

A good locksmith can probably make you a single key that works on both the doors and the ignition. A small thing but very handy.

Edit: The plane has sold.

140-145 KTAS with all the speed mods @ 10 GPH. I plan 140. YMMV. If you're shopping, lots of good examples on the market with speed mods. I'd put them high on the priority list, in particular the 1-piece windshield and front cowl closure which also helps cooling.

Well, from a 262 (231 with a 252 engine bolted on the front): I run it at 28" MP, 2500 RPM, leaned to peak TIT. I open the cowl flaps as necessary to keep CHTs below 380. In cold air they are often closed, and all cylinders are always in the 350-380 range. At those settings, I get the following, which varies based on OAT and the like: 10,000 ft - 170KTAS 12,000 to 15,000 ft - 170 -175 KTAS 15,000 to 18,000 ft - 180-185 KTAS All of that is on 11.5 - 12.0 GPH. I don't like the mask, so I don't fly higher than 18k. I've seen Parker post better numbers, but he has the Encore conversion with 10 more HP, and I think runs his LOP. It will go faster if you put more fuel through it, but I don't. This is about 75% power. You can also pull the power back to 25" 2500 RPM and get 10 GPH at the cost of about 10-15 kts. These numbers also come from multiple trips checking a TAS calculator and winds. I have not done the 4-square GPS thing. Also, I suspect you will very rarely find yourself wanting to cruise at 14,000 - 15,000 ft. You're on oxygen, but below the really good tailwinds. Most of my time in the 262 is spent at 9-10k with a headwind or 17-18k with a tailwind. Very rarely am I cruising around in between. I've been meaning to try LOP, but my engine starts to rough right around peak TIT, so I have not put much effort into that.

I can attest to the impressive sink rates you can encounter in a Mooney with power at idle and airspeed below 80 MPH. My worst landing recently involved a plane near gross weight, a slightly high approach (dumped by ATC), and low airspeed. I normally descend first and then bleed speed, but for some reason I found myself high and slow this time. Unfamiliar airport and terrain may have been a factor. I cut the power over the fence and the plane dropped out from under me. I was probably doing 75 MPH. At this point, you are "behind the power curve" and pulling back on the yoke only increases your rate of descent, as you lose speed. The only way out is power, as somebody described above. I added a lot, bounced hard, and then landed uneventfully. It's easy to do, and can be a surprise. I didn't realize what was happening in time to avoid the bounce. Nothing wrong with 75 MPH on short final, just be careful about pulling the power to idle at that speed. You might accidentally lose 2-3 MPH and find yourself sinking more than you planned. I prefer 80 MPH for anything other than a short field landing. It just gives you more cushion, although you will float more than necessary. The real job as a pilot is picking the right speed for the runway, wind, and weight of your current flight.

Hank: What you describe does not match the reality that I see on a daily basis. Plaintiff's lawyers who try to practice that way quickly go broke, as you would expect if you really think that through. Insurance companies keep multiple lawyers on salary. They can defend truly frivolous claims without paying anything (and they do). You have however just repeated the "frivolous lawsuit" message that insurance companies spend so much money promoting as the reason we need loser pays laws, damage caps, and to get rid of jury trials. I would encourage you to check into the issue more. You might find we are not all bad and your blood pressure can improve.

I'm sure a lot of lawyers have done a lot of bad things to earn some bashing, but I do get tired of it sometimes. The anti-trial-lawyer sentiment that blames the high cost of everything on them, though, is really misinformed. The fact that insurance companies and big corporations can get everyday Americans to start pushing loser-pays and restricting jury trials scares me. We have to fight those bills every session in our state legislature, and all the money is on the other side of the fight. FYI, it usually starts now with the introduction of a one-sided "loser pays" bill. If the Plaintiff loses, he must pay the Defendant's attorneys fees. If the Defendant loses, each party bears their own fees. That really shows you who is funding these efforts.

I have the same issue. It seems to be an ISP issue, not a device issue. I can always access the site through my ATT wireless connection, but get the apache error intermittently on my Verizon connection. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Be careful what you wish for in "loser pays.". It encourages defense lawyers, large corporations, and insurance companies to run up huge legal fees and use that as leverage in settlement. They have unlimited funds, for all practical purposes, for fees. Unless you are one of them, you may walk into some dirty, reprehensible money-grubbing trial lawyer's office one day (maybe mine). After you have been fired for being the black guy, lost your job because you were injured, or had your insurance company refuse to pay for a surgery you already had, I'm going to tell you your trial is going to cost you $50,000.00 for my fees, and that you better have a reserve of another $75,000.00 to pay their fees if we lose. I will also tell you I can't take the case on contingency any more, because we can't count on getting a big enough recovery after damage cap legislation and because we got rid of jury trials for this and the insurance companies contributed thousands to the judge's re-election fund last year. So you are going to need to bring me most of that up front to get started. You do have plenty of savings and no money issues that brought you in to see me, right? In all seriousness, the insurance companies and big corporations have spent millions on PR campaigns and election contributions to get you all to think this way. Do some research of your own. Read the 7th amendment, and think about whether our founders knew what they were doing when they wrote it. If it wasn't in our bill of rights we would have lost our jury rights already in a lot of places. Im all for making GA more affordable but this is not the way to do it. This stuff, if passed, will financially ruin a lot of people who didnt have a lot to begin with. Loser pays means bankruptcy after a loss for most people. And if that does not concern you, you have not seen our judicial system in action. Edit: By the way, in a true loser pays system, lawyers like me would actually make more money, since I would get fees added to my successful cases, and pass the costs of losing on to my clients. My concern is solely for my clients, and my position is against my own best financial interests. End of rant. Happy new year, clear skies, and tailwinds to my fellow pilots.

I think I understand Dave's point. Less regulation and limited liability will result in more products hitting the market faster, and when we're talking about safety equipment, that might save lives. That is possibly true, and there is a lot of evidence that the FAA has gone way too far in its certification and regulation process for GA aircraft. I think the experimental market is living, breathing proof of that. However, you may notice that experimental avionics seem very reasonably priced, and I am not aware of any special limited liability statute for them. The only difference is the FAA's red tape. You may also notice I said all of that without insulting an entire profession of people in a generalized way. Your argument against safety devices is not new. The free market approach really breaks down when used in this context. Cars would be cheaper without seatbelts and airbags. Highways would be cheaper to build without rail guards and reflective paint. However, in the grand scheme of things, cutting corners on these safety devices results in a net loss, because we as a society end up paying more for the injuries that result. Simply put, a small amount of preventative cost can save us all a whole lot more in the long run. Now, whether than means the device Dave was talking about should cost $20k is an entirely different question.

There are lawyers who frequent this board. Some of us even represent individuals injured by dangerous products put into the stream of commerce by companies who profit by skipping economically reasonable safety features (ever wonder if it's cheaper to make a chainsaw without a kick guard?). I don't mean to hijack this and turn it into a thread about tort reform, but disrespectful comments like this are repeated frequently and do a disservice to a lot of lawyers that have helped make your life safer. I've resisted the urge to make several comments that are probably not tasteful. My larger point is, let's keep the discourse civil and focused on airplanes, so the board can continue to be the great resource that it has been. To the OP, the old-timers used to just follow roads and railroad tracks so they would always have a place to put it down at night. That approach may work for you. You can set most GPS units to show even small roads and highways, although they are hidden by default. Most highways run between airports too, so you get the added bonus of staying close to a forced landing spot. Not as fast as GPS direct, but for some, it may be worth the peace of mind.

Closest thing may have been the M20T Predator with a Lycoming AEIO-540. Supposedly one heck of a 2-place cross-country cruiser, but it had the larger tail from the M22 Mustang, a stick for controls, and a sliding canopy, so not really your standard "short body" Mooney.

I've been told that marketing departments based MGTOW numbers on the length of runway they wanted the planes to be able to use. The later models generally use a lot more runway at gross than the earlier models at gross, so perhaps there's something to it. Or maybe it's an old wive's tale. The logic goes something like this: We want our plane to be able to clear a 50' obstacle at the end of a 2000 ft runway on a hot day, so that people based at 2000 ft runways will buy it. For a C model to do that, we know from flight testing it needs to weigh XX pounds. Therefore, we certify it to XX pounds. As time went on, runways got longer, and marketing departments quit caring so much if a plane couldn't be sold to people based at 2000 ft runways as a true 4-place (or 3-place, or 2-place) plane. If anybody has a better explanation I'd like to hear it, though. I'm not by any means convinced this is correct.

In my M20C, I feel the engine rough first in my feet, resting against the rudder pedals or firewall / center console area. Enrichen until that thump goes away. One more caveat, is I will enrichen a little more if my CHT gauge on any cylinder is over 400. Sometimes on a hot day or in thin air it requires quite a bit of extra fuel. Your experience may vary. Cooler is better for your engine. Ideally you want to be under 380 but my engine just won't do that sometimes at any reasonable fuel flow. I don't believe any carb'd M20C will run LOP. Mine certainly won't.

The Sunday at the end of Sun n Fun last year, I was flying from Florida back to Missouri, IFR at 8000 ft. I had about a 15 knot headwind, but it was worse higher up, and a nice smooth ride at 8000 at about 150 kts ground speed. The skies were full of bugsmasher-type planes, the weather had been bad and kept the VFR guys I think stuck on the ground at Lakeland. They were popping up everywhere and ATC was extremely busy. I had a Cirrus (can't remember if it was a 20 or 22) and a 182 following right along behind me as I passed over Talahassee, both down at 6500 or 4500. They were complaining about turbulence to ATC and asking how the winds were at 8000. ATC asked, I told them about 15 knots, and the Cirrus, grumbling, said he would just stay down low. I left them both way behind. We should be careful telling these kinds of stories, though. There's some guy on another forum somewhere laughing about how he blew by a Mooney in his TBM 850 the other day, although I wouldn't want to trade him fuel and maintenance bills for the year.

+1 vote for a vertical card upgrade. After you've used one it's hard to go back. If you're ever using it for real (electrical failure, possibly in IMC), you will be under stress and remembering that your compass is "backwards" and trying to read it bouncing around is one more thing for your brain to do.

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

Stick a 496 on the yoke, some seat covers on the seats, and cruise around the country VFR at 140 KTS burning 9 GPH with one or two of your closests friends, for 20k. You've even got a sufficient, minimalist IFR panel with a glideslope if something goes wrong. Really, with that panel, I wouldn't have a second thought about flying IFR to bust cloud layers and land at airports with vectors to an ILS. Sure, you want to have more, particularly a certified backup nav radio, but it's fully sufficient, especially with a 496 and an Ipad with geo-referenced plates as a backup. Why not? When the first big repair bill comes, you can then decide if you want to scrap it for parts, sell it at salvage value (which is probably about 20k) or pay the repair tab. Turn the pre-buy into an annual and find out for sure.

Vfr flight plans are still commonly used in the mountains where radar and radio coverage are not available below 16k or even 18k feet. If you are headed through a pass in a non-turbo plane, you should use a vfr flight plan. Ifr does not work well either as the minimum enroute altitudes can be 16k or higher, for radio and navigation signal reasons. If you crash 1 mile short of the runway at Leadville, CO, for example, and are not on an active flight plan, nobody is going to know or come looking for a long time. Anywhere else in the country I just go ifr or flight following. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

There are many long threads about turbo vs. non-turbo, but I can give some area-specific advice for you. I fly in about the same areas as you (I did countless practice approaches at Springfield for my IFR), and always appreciate the turbo. Going north to Milwaukee, you will want to climb over ice or stratus layers that are common in the fall/winter. Going southwest to Texas, you will want to climb over turbulence that always seems to be there in the summer up to about 10k feet. Going southeast to Florida, you will want to be at 15k feet so you can visually dodge the thunderstorm cells that are usually between here and there at any given time. I've done the flights in a non-turbo'd Mooney enough times to really appreciate the turbo. I thought my wife was going to jump out of the plane one day when at 12k feet over Oklahoma and Texas I could not get us over the moderate turbulence in the naturally-aspirated plane. With a turbo, an oxygen bottle, and an instrument rating, you will be able to get where you need to go most days in comfort, icing conditions and squall line thunderstorms excepted. If you're spending 120k you can afford all of those things, and I'd tell you to get them in a nice K-model 231, Rocket, or 252. You will need some transition training, but that's true of any Mooney. Just always stay ahead of the plane, and if you get behind, go around.

I have one from a 68 C Ranger I can send if you need that also, just PM your email.

I just looked, and my Vfe is also 125 MPH. I guess it changed between 65 and 68. Also, my book clean stall speed is 67 MPH, or 58 KTS. At 105 MPH I'd say you have plenty of margin, and my plane even handles nicely at 100 MPH. But, whatever works for you is what matters.

I did all of my instrument training in a 1968 C model. I've also got a bunch of time in a K model, which for instrument procedures, does not behave like the C. Take some of the advice above with a large grain of salt - it's good for later models, but not directly applicable to you. The guys with Js and Ks are operating a much larger, heavier, more powerful aircraft. My preference in the C is to slow to 100 MPH at the IAF in a clean configuration. Sometimes that is not possible, I.E. if you are descending into the IAF or have a speed restriction, but it's my goal. Set up trim stabilized at 100 MPH clean, and you have a nicely responsive aircraft. This is usually 18-20 inches of MP. I drop the gear at the FAF, slow to 90 MPH, and add take-off flaps (2 pumps). At around 18 inches of MP, that will give you a nice 500 FPM descent. Adjust throttle as necessary to stay on glideslope. Leave the plane trimmed for 90 MPH. When you "break out" (either of clouds or of your foggles), adding full flaps will slow you to 80 MPH without any trim changes, and you're ready to land. If you don't break out and do a go-around, you only have 2 notches of flaps in, and the plane is already in a take-off climb configuration. Adding full power will put you into a Vy climb. A few other nice tricks my CFI and I figured out: If you're high coming into the IAF, put your gear down early. About 22" MP will level you off with gear down at 100 MPH, once you reach your target altitude. The white arc can in fact be a limiting factor for you, as you've noticed. If you're high and fast, leave the flaps up, but put the gear down and pitch down for 115-120 MPH. You can get 1000 FPM descents that way very easy. You may notice all of my advice is on how to get slowed down and descended. The plane is fast, and it's easy to get behind, especially while you're learning. Try to slow down and descend as early as possible. The speeds I've listed here are as slow as you can go without your controls getting mushy, and will help you learn, I hope. Running approaches at 120 MPH or more before the FAF will make your life much harder than it needs to be while you're learning. Disclaimer: My C has a lot of speed mods. Yours may have slightly different MP settings. Only you can find the numbers for your plane. I also do all this at 2500 RPM, which still gives a good climb if you forget to push the prop in before short final (not that I've ever done that ). Good luck, and keep with it. The rating is worth it, and made me a much better pilot.