AcclaimML

Possibly. Maybe not. Starting to have some doubt here too, but my limited experience has been at high speed cruise an auto pilot will bank you into a cross wind to compensate for the sideways drift due to the lateral push of the crosswind on the entire airframe. I fact there is a lot more vertical cross sectional surface area of the cabin than the vertical stabilizer. This then results in an upward wing low, downward wing high, nose to the wind and a tail pointing down wind and an increased frontal area presented to the line of flight by the down wind side of the fuselage. Now you can fly like that if you want but it's not very efficient and definitely slower, plus not a big fan of going through the air sideways- or at least to the extent a high crosswind would impart. Rudder into the wind levels out the wings and minimizes this setup. Course you can see by the instrumentation that I was pointed into the crosswind. I just assumed the amount of rudder needed is a function of the true crosswind component and true airspeed. Which was 27 knots and 201 knots respectively. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I'm always looking to learn something new.

Seriously? Did you not notice the 35 knot wind coming from my left? Spend a lot of time flying uncoordinated do ya?

Actually that's straight and level. I had a 20 knot cross wind component from the left. Check out fight aware on the overall flight if ya like. N730ML

Had A successful 30 minute test flight last week. Just got back from 800+ mile round trip flight today. No oil consumption, cool temps, and serious speed-- without massive fuel consumption. The last 410 miles did in 1:39! Wow!

Amen, Brother. Personal responsibility--pass it on.

+1

Congratulations Tim on your PPL. Welcome to the site, I am new to this site as well and I can tell you there is a great wealth of info here, and folks are very congenial. How many hours do you have? Reason that I ask is Mooneys do take a bit more flying skill than other craft I've flown. (Diamond DA40, Piper Saratoga) I just broke the 350 hour mark so I am not that far from where you are now. So please take the advice as precautionary and not to turn you away from Mooney, but as a new pilot its easy to get behind the plane---especially a swift one like all Mooneys. Adding to your work load only can make this easier to happen. Operating Turbo'ed engines does increase your work load a bit in that if you want to run them right and have them last you kinda need to plane ahead in managing the heat and power of the engine over a NA one. This is true for any aircraft. Starting out in the diamond with a IO 360 Normally aspirated allowed me to concentrate more on flying and less on engine management. The 360 Lycs are pretty much bullet proof and are great for a new pilot and in a Mooney give you good speed and lower fuel burn. So you may want to look at a 201 and gain some experience before going up to the turbo. Look at insurance for the planes your interested for you--based on your hours. That can be a deal breaker in itself for a low time pilot. As for major overhaul--I think it can be done more than once--but I wouldn't. as for the 252, my hanger neighbor has one and loves it. Good luck in your search, try to fly as many different planes as you can to get a feel for what suits you--and try to avoid the temptation of biting off more than you can chew. Mike

Im with you. you cant wear your headsets and a helmet at the same time. Might be okay for the passengers to slap on a helmet if they have the time. Course all your talking about if protecting the face and skull---nothing else. Still need to protect the neck and all the other soft parts. Besides a helmet aint gonna help much if your bounce around inside the cockpit--sorta like a motorcylicist flys around after a moving accident. skull is fine but the rest of the body is mush. Seriously, I would never get in a plane or car with out putting on a seat belt. A strong roll cage is useless with out holding the occupants inplace inside it. A 3 point belt is cheap in comparison to the "other " losses. Especially if a belt bag isn't available or to expensive. Personally I insist seat belts on before start up and don't come off until after shut down---no exceptions. Never know when youll get that clear air bump or whatever.

Thanks Stealth, Andy. I plan on heading to Louisiana in a few days. round trip should be at least 4 hours--should be perfect to finish the break in. The cht actually aleardy dropped about 15-20 degrees just with the 30 minute test flight. Was pretty cool. And no she doesn't have any cowl flaps---just gotta use gas to keep her cool. Continental sent specific instructions with the cylinders to break in with 75% power or better ROP until oil consumption stabolizes. As for the pain of the $. $12k was plopped down by the previous owner at the time of sale. So far, I've put in about $8k more for the additional parts. The only thing lacking now is the labor price tag. Though I have a real good relationship with my AP and he gives me a break on that being I help with the labor. Plus it didn't hurt I gave him a brand new borescope a few months back. "There are 2 people in this world you must absolutely keep happy, your wife and your AP. Failure to do so can result in an off field landing"

Acclaim has airbags. the slow mo pics of them in action makes me a believer. Folks dont complain about them.

well folks, got my baby back today and the test flight was awesome. max spread on cht's was 20 over the 6 cylinders! Much better than before the overhaul! was pretty impressed. was doing 185kts at 3k feet at 27.5 inches doing circles around the airport. She ran nice and smooth! super excited--even greased the landing to finish off the flight. Can't even begin to say how tickled I am, and the comfort of knowing she's good as new, and knowing it was all done right. Glad I had it done.

anybody know which is lighter the robotow or the sidewinder? I know the sidewinder is suposed to be about 20lbs but the website doesn't mention weight.

Well the TOH is complete. a few hiccups (off course) added a few parts and the wait for them to arrive. We also opted to change the massives over to the tempest fine wire. It was amazing how bad the massive spark plugs looked at just 250 hours. We added a new valve guide on # 2 exhaust valve--it was nicked a bit. Not sure how that got there. Replace the (and excuse my ignorance) orange red flap air routing thinging inside the right intake opening. The original was pretty badly degraded and was "flapping" in the breaze- pun intended. Actually could hear it at cruise. Surely that wasn't helping with forcing the cooling air where its supposed to go on that right side. At any rate, the ground run is tomorrow, and if all goes well, i'll be taking her up for the test flight Friday afternoon. After flying a Saratoga the last 4-6 weeks while my Acclaim is down, I sure do miss 730ML. Put in the updated SD cards for the G1000 in her tonight and even just the smell of the leather in the cockpit got me excited. Cant wait! Course, I'm sure the final bill for all this will bring me back to earth...

Not even! 250 hours since new for the TOH. But in all fairness to the engine, it was run hot and allowed to sit for long enough for the tappet pins to become bone dry-(see my thread on overhaul). Yes you hear a lot of Conti's that eat cylinders, but then there are folks that insist on running LOP at high engine power (over 80%). For the record my POH says not to operate past 60% power (but then it shows power charts for LOP well past that!) Mike

yeah, thats what it looks like. Hot , hot , hot. and dry , dry, dry. Dont let your baby sit. Mike

late to this thread, but Seth I think you did the best thing (the safest thing). Going through the top overhaul myself. Like the research you did, I cam to the same conclusion that start off new rather than an overhauled part that you have no way of knowing how old it is 1000 or 3000 hours on it. Good luck and hope the breakin goes well.

Well maybe one of the longer body Mooneys could be your ticket. I mean if your gonna consider the tri-lithium crystal super expensive A36, save yourself some money and get what you really want in an Ovation or even an Acclaim. My Hanger neighbor has a 252 and he gets four adults and luggage fairly easily. We compared our planes and the only real difference that we could tell was the aft cargo area in the Acclaim is significantly larger like at least twice as big was the consensus. I believe the Ovation fuselage is identical. (and you don't have to look at your feet if you dont want too ). I have a 12 and 14 yo that accompany my wife and I. We use duffle bags for luggage and with even all our stuff--my daughter in the back seat can fully recline back and is usually out cold within 15 minutes. The only way your gonna get anywhere close to the luggage space in the A36 is to take out the mid row seats. ( and careful with that aft cg after underway-seriously) no cg problem with the long body Mooneys. Sounds like its time for you to get a ride in a long body with you and your family-soon - for the real treat.

well looks like i have run out of space to post pics on this thread. will try to unload some of the previous pics to this thread. in the meantime posted some fairly impressive pics of the tappets and tappet pins on my gallery.

well got a good chance to work on the top end today. Unfortunately, my AP is worried about cracks in the wrist pin (that holds the rod to the piston). Very strong evidence that the engine was cooked. the carbon on the end of the wrist pins was so thick they had to make a tool to press the pins out. Its impressive. Ill be adding pics as soon as they get downloaded over photo stream from my iPhone. The other discovery is one place it was definitely making metal the pins inside the rocker arms were heavily worn all the way down to the brass---on every one. I have a pic of the worst pin and rocker or tapet if you will. excuse me if Im not putting the correct terms down. Clearly it wasn't getting lubrication---excessive sit time? And some scoring on the number two Cylinder that was pulled today. The guys want to take it slow, get new pins in and replace the #1 and #2 with all the new hardware before moving to 3,4, and the rest. Something about not wanting to move the cam---which luckily looks great and we got a good look at it today. Thanks for all the replys and suggestions. Parker, i had fine wires on my 360 Lyc, these massive electrodes dont look too swift on this Continental--ill be swapping them in for fine wires too. Mike below piston pin right side has thick carbon build up versus the other side.

Congrats. Glad to see your back in the air. Enjoy !