Flying a rocket at gross weight

[WardHolbrook]

My POH says 3200 max take off and 3083 max landing weight.  Remember, that landing weight is there because it reflects the engineered strength of your gear - don't push it and collapse your gear.  Climb performance remains fabulous at gross.

 

Stall speed does vary with weight - if I approach at the same speed when light and solo I would float forever compared to the same speed as when at gross. And worse when vice-versa.  I had an AOA indictor installed and it takes all guess work out of choosing a good approach speed since stall angle of attack is a constant.

 

AoAs are great tools. I will have one on my next airplane. I've had them on my working airplanes for 30 years.

[aaronk25]

Rocket has a lot of power. It most likely will climb better 200lbs over gross than a 200hp J will 200lbs under gross.

However would be embarrassing to have to land 15 min after take off, have a hard landing and break the legs off.

I'm trying to do a better job honoring the institution of "pilot", with my posts. It's taking all I have not to spurt out what I wanna say.

I will say this I agree with what a poster above said, what would they write about you if you crashed, even if the cause was unrelated weight. Somewhere at the end of the report it would say "a contributing factor was xyz lbs over gross"

This comes from a guy who took off at 4000 da in a J loaded up at 3,250lbs. Do it again....nope. Do I know it would fly? Not the point. I now kinda enjoy doing the right thing. Seems like I sorted out all my bold moves in the first 1,000 hours of flight experience.

Lost a few good pilot friends doing less dumb things. Besides it kinda gives me the warm and fuzzies doing the right thing.

Aaron

[aviatoreb]

AoAs are great tools. I will have one on my next airplane. I've had them on my working airplanes for 30 years.

 

Your work planes are probably much faster, much heavier and much more variable in weight.

 

Nonetheless I love toys - and besides, I love it - besides being useful - it helped me learn to stop landing too fast - I just couldn't bring myself to stop adding a buffer of 5kts and then 5kts on top of the buffer since despite my logical self knew it was too much - and believe me when I say I know the theory very very well of how airplanes fly - I kept emotionally thinking what if it is too little and I fall out of the sky.  Well, with an AOA I was able to see at all times how much lift reserve and I learned to trust my instruments and my landings have improved dramatically.  A more experienced pilot could have probably used a table or rules of thumb to buffer by x knots at weight y.

 

Also it talks to me in English if lift lowers to close to stall - it speaks to me in case ever I were to screw up and get slow in the pattern.  Not quite a stick shaker but we take what we can get.

 

Back to weight.  True story - Rockets do have lots of power: when I purchased my airplane - the former owner said that he had 7 souls on board one time - he said that to emphasize its climbing abilities I suppose.  I can only hope they were not 7 lumberjacks.  Let's just say I changed the rubber gear pucks first thing upon ownership and I am a W&B choir boy.

[David Mazer]

As an ex-Rocketeer, flying at gross, in the CG, is not even worth the thought process.  Landing at gross requires knowing you shouldn't land heavy (we've all been trained for soft field landings anyway).  Take the fuel that makes you comfortable and keeps you in the limits.  Much more important than +/- a couple pounds either way.  I've flown at gross and it is hardly noticeable on takeoff and climb.  Relax and enjoy the flight.

[WardHolbrook]

Your work planes are probably much faster, much heavier and much more variable in weight.

 

Nonetheless I love toys - and besides, I love it - besides being useful - it helped me learn to stop landing too fast - I just couldn't bring myself to stop adding a buffer of 5kts and then 5kts on top of the buffer since despite my logical self knew it was too much - and believe me when I say I know the theory very very well of how airplanes fly - I kept emotionally thinking what if it is too little and I fall out of the sky.  Well, with an AOA I was able to see at all times how much lift reserve and I learned to trust my instruments and my landings have improved dramatically.  A more experienced pilot could have probably used a table or rules of thumb to buffer by x knots at weight y.

 

Also it talks to me in English if lift lowers to close to stall - it speaks to me in case ever I were to screw up and get slow in the pattern.  Not quite a stick shaker but we take what we can get.

 

Back to weight.  True story - Rockets do have lots of power: when I purchased my airplane - the former owner said that he had 7 souls on board one time - he said that to emphasize its climbing abilities I suppose.  I can only hope they were not 7 lumberjacks.  Let's just say I changed the rubber gear pucks first thing upon ownership and I am a W&B choir boy.

 

I tend to be very vocal when it comes to angle of attack indicators - they are good things. Airplanes don't have stall speeds, approach speeds, best rate and best angle of climb speeds, glide speeds, etc - they have specific angles of attack and those angles of attack are constant regardless of aircraft weight. AoA's allow you to fly with precision and safely wring out every last bit of performance and efficiency out of our airplanes. 

[Super Dave]

I'm trying to do a better job honoring the institution of "pilot", with my posts. It's taking all I have not to spurt out what I wanna say.

I will say this I agree with what a poster above said, what would they write about you if you crashed, even if the cause was unrelated weight. Somewhere at the end of the report it would say "a contributing factor was xyz lbs over gross"

This comes from a guy who took off at 4000 da in a J loaded up at 3,250lbs. Do it again....nope. Do I know it would fly? Not the point. I now kinda enjoy doing the right thing. Seems like I sorted out all my bold moves in the first 1,000 hours of flight experience.

Lost a few good pilot friends doing less dumb things. Besides it kinda gives me the warm and fuzzies doing the right thing.

Aaron

 

Aaron, you're starting to sound like a married man!

[carusoam]

Quick Review....

(1) complete agreement in MS on following POH limitations...!

(2) really high performance Mooneys have max landing weights along with MGTW.

(3) operating at the edge of the published limits is acceptable.

(4) know that performance changes through the range of the envelope.

(5) it requires practice to operate at all the limits, aka corner of the envelope. ie Max gross and short field.

(6) examples of adding bags of weight were given.

(7) using an AOA instrument can ease your math and memory skills, but still requires installation, calibration and practice.

(8) it is better practice to land and refuel than to take-off overweight...

(9) adding additional KIAS for various reasons to the POH numbers can lead to a long float. This could happen to anyone including the most logical of math professor types...

(10) know your numbers, write them down for reference.

(11) the older you get, the easier flying by the numbers becomes. Being young and single may make you feel bullet proof...

(12) the envelope does't not have hard edges. Risks increase in a non-linear fashion. You become a test pilot when you are outside the envelope.

(13) airplane controls can get pretty sloppy going outside the envelope. Make sure you have done your various calculations as accurately as possible to avoid going outside the envelope accidentally.

(14) MS Mooney Pilot's enjoy Speed, Efficiency, Precision and Sharing of best practices!

Did I capture it all?

Go MS!

-a-

[M016576]

I fly my missile at its 3200lb gross regularly. It still climbs and handles very well. It's a non event... And I'm normally taking off from a ~5000' density altitude airport

[Jeff H.]

Look, I'm a newbie at this and here are my Rocket at gross weight thoughts:

 

- My first complex, high performance takeoff was in a Rocket at gross weight.  You'll be fine.

- Most of my flights are at gross weight.

- Gross weight performance and handling is distinctly different between 2 healthy men and full fuel vs. 3 pax and partial fuel.  CG for the first makes takeoff trim settings more critical to reduce workload during initial climb out.  With 4 passengers and partial fuel your normal flap/trim settings should be fine.  Not a noticeable change in runway takeoff performance.

 

The landing weight restrictions are based Rocket serial number.  Early versions have a slightly lower allowed landing weight.  Go by what's in your POH or in the Rocket manual.  What you find online may be not be officially applicable to your specific plane.

 

Good luck, have fun.  White is good, black is bad, shades of gray will kill you.  Keep it in the white.

 

Jeff

[WardHolbrook]

White is good, black is bad, shades of gray will kill you.  Keep it in the white.

Words to live by.

[PMcClure]

I read the OP as a question on margins. In other words, how much safety margin should he put on W&B. I agree we should never intentionally fly outside the envelope or POH limitations. For personal margins,  I add 50% to the minimum T/O and landing distances. But for W&B, I don't add any safety margin. If it is within the envelope, I load and go. It is hard to know exactly what your plane, gear and people weigh on every flight. All you can do is your best. Even if you weigh everything every flight, how can you be sure exactly how much fuel you have, etc... Sweating 1-2 lbs around gross is not helpful. And taking fuel off to add safety to weight calculation is fools logic. 

 

Of course, be conservative and fly within limitations. Practice at gross and light. But don't limit your utility by adding a safety margin on gross weight that isn't needed. Now I don't feel the same way about required runway length, weather, etc.. A healthy margin is very meaningful here. 

[floridaflyer]

There is some cushion of course but not as far as FAA is concerned. At sea level 85F at 200 lbs over gross Rocket takes more runway to rotate but climbs fine. 

[carusoam]

Congrats on your first post FloridaFlyer.

Welcome out into the light.

Best regards,

-a-