Advice on climbing to FL240

[Piloto]

Flying over FL307 may get you into trouble with the altitude encoder. Most GA encoders read up to 30,7000ft. Above this altitude they start reading lower altitude.

José

[aviatoreb]

Hi Houman,

 

I have timed a climb to 17,000 in (late spring/cold conditions) in just over 12 minutes recently.  But that was solo.

 

I have noted on previous occasions that at FL23 that climb was still well over 1000fpm still, again solo.  Still - hard to imaging it won't still be pretty good.  And the cooling/cowling setup of the rocket with those two massive intercoolers is superb.  No issue whatsoever with keeping her cool.

 

I read that when Rocket Engineering was certifying their Mooney Rocket STC that they did some flight tests to FL35 with plans to certify to FL31, but gave up for reasons of red tape.

 

Remember I did a GS327 in a massive tail wind a few weeks ago.  The gauntlet is down - go beat my record!  :-)  I did that at 17,000 and I gave up even higher winds above me since I was enroute on a trip and was not anticipating that I had a potentially even bigger record.

[Houman]

Yeah, we are going that high just for the bragging rights, the other 2 people on the flight both have many more hours of flight than me and one is a CFI, but they have never been that high ( School's C172 for sure not, even with school twin Aztec, it is not certified or flight school doesn't permit above 16000 I believe ). so we are doing this entirely for shits and giggles...

 

Once back on the ground, we are stripping the interior for my big redo project, so one last flight with the 1979 interior

[Danb]

Eric..is that a challenge ..when you going to Weber's

 

Dan

[M20F]

The biggest difference you will notice is in the control surfaces once you start getting above FL210 or at least is the case in my M20F, very sluggish as the air gets thin. The biggest thing to be concerned IMHO is watching cylinder temps both up and down.

[aaronk25]

The biggest difference you will notice is in the control surfaces once you start getting above FL210 or at least is the case in my M20F, very sluggish as the air gets thin. The biggest thing to be concerned IMHO is watching cylinder temps both up and down.

The plane only cares about what the IAS reads. 120kts at 3,000ft or FL410 is the same and the plane has no idea how high it is. True air speed changes but the plane doesn't know what true airspeed its at; assuming we leave surface flutter out of this conversation.

My N.A. J, will only indicate 115kts at fl 210 but it flys the same at 3000ft at 115kts.

[M20F]

The plane only cares about what the IAS reads. 120kts at 3,000ft or FL410 is the same and the plane has no idea how high it is. True air speed changes but the plane doesn't know what true airspeed its at; assuming we leave surface flutter out of this conversation.

My N.A. J, will only indicate 115kts at fl 210 but it flys the same at 3000ft at 115kts.

I said the same thing just in simpler terms.

[Danb]

I fly in the flight levels and agree when above a certain altitude the plane does have a sluggish feeling (not the term I'm thinking of though) and the handling characteristics do feel different , it may be indicating the same speed as at 3000 ft. The the atmospheric conditions differ, when the Piper mirages first came out there where quite a numbers of spins etc above fl 200, and Piper made some type of change to the airframe.

[AndyFromCB]

I fly in the flight levels and agree when above a certain altitude the plane does have a sluggish feeling (not the term I'm thinking of though) and the handling characteristics do feel different , it may be indicating the same speed as at 3000 ft. The the atmospheric conditions differ, when the Piper mirages first came out there where quite a numbers of spins etc above fl 200, and Piper made some type of change to the airframe.

 

Actually, Piper didn't make any changes to the airframe until 2001 or so and only to have to build a single wing for both Malibu and Meridian. The accidents were mostly related as far as I can tell to pilots doing stupid pilot tricks as usual. Malibu/Meridian is one stout airframe.

[Bob]

I fly solo 90% of the time and I like to fly my 231 (fixed wastegate & no intercooler) at 17 or 18.  I always use a oxygen mask at 8000 and check my oxygen levels every 10-15 min.

Last year I climbed up to 23 and I felt fine with 95% oxygen, but the controls did feel mushy.  I was up their for about 10 min and decided to go back down to 19.   I was working in another state and going to see my wife and daughter for Father's Day and it just felt wrong.  It did feel a lot better at 19, but I think the sweet spot for the plane and I is 17-18.

The reduced Manifold pressure , the increased tailwind, but had to run ROP rather than LOP, just became counter productive.

 

Overall it is no big deal, but check your oxygen levels and know the controls will feel different and just do it!

 

Waiting for your feedback after your experience.

[Danb]

Andy I partially agree, but my old memory recollects a certain number of unexplained incidents in The Piper, most likely lack of training etc., but I actually thought it was a big deal and the frame changes came from the occurrences in the prior yrs., I'm sure a Piper rep. would disagree, it was one reason at the time I did not purchase one but very happy with the Mooney family of planes especially since interior size does not matter, unless of course your going to bring one of Mauraders chicks for a spin..

[aviatoreb]

Eric..is that a challenge ..when you going to Weber's

 

Dan

 

Only if you spell my name right.  :-O

[AndyFromCB]

Andy I partially agree, but my old memory recollects a certain number of unexplained incidents in The Piper, most likely lack of training etc., but I actually thought it was a big deal and the frame changes came from the occurrences in the prior yrs., I'm sure a Piper rep. would disagree, it was one reason at the time I did not purchase one but very happy with the Mooney family of planes especially since interior size does not matter, unless of course your going to bring one of Mauraders chicks for a spin..

 

Danb,

 

Actually, the airframe was recertified as was by the FAA. It went thru a special certification review and passed just fine without any changes. It was simply an issue of piston pilots moving on up and not understanding high altitude weather and flying thru building CBs and shedding wings. And a fair share of autopilot induced stalls in IMC during the climb phase.

[Marauder]

Only if you spell my name right. :-O

You spell your name like a Viking but we all know you are a German Rocket Engineer

[Guest]

The plane only cares about what the IAS reads. 120kts at 3,000ft or FL410 is the same and the plane has no idea how high it is. True air speed changes but the plane doesn't know what true airspeed its at; assuming we leave surface flutter out of this conversation.

My N.A. J, will only indicate 115kts at fl 210 but it flys the same at 3000ft at 115kts.

Doesn't air density difference at sea level versus FL210 have some effect on flying qualities? It seems that the engine makes less power, the wings and flight controls should experience similar effects.

Clarence

[aviatoreb]

You spell your name like a Viking but we all know you are a German Rocket Engineer

 

No one ever compared me to Wernher before:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#/media/File:Wernher_von_Braun.jpg

 

Nah - I am just a good-ol boy living in rural America, borna and raised, with a funny spelling for my name.

[M20F]

No one ever compared me to Wernher before:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#/media/File:Wernher_von_Braun.jpg

 

Nah - I am just a good-ol boy living in rural America, borna and raised, with a funny spelling for my name.

Numbers never lie, liars figure ;-)

[Danb]

Sorry Erik I'm a beat up cpa this time of yr which sucks with all the moronic changes this yr I forgot how to spell my name

[Danb]

Andy makes sense to me....like the V tailed Dr killers in the 1960,s

[carl]

Non rebreather mask .

Saturation greater than 95 %

[M016576]

You will certainly have the capability to make it to FL240 in a Rocket.

my only suggestion is just be prepared with your masks already plugged in and ready to put on well before you need them.

In climbing to FL210 in my M20K, I always put on my mask at a workload permitting time somewhere around 10,000' MSL.

That's excellent advice

[aviatoreb]

Sorry Erik I'm a beat up cpa this time of yr which sucks with all the moronic changes this yr I forgot how to spell my name

 

Did you spell that wrong?  I thought you were a KPA.

[Danb]

Kool

[Houman]

yeah I agree with parker, we will prep the O2 and all the masks and all before take off, then during Autopilot climb, the 3rd person can turn on the O2 as we climb, plan is to have everything set up and be on the masks before climbing from 10K upwords. We are planning to do somewhat of an escalator climb, with different plateaux as the engine cooling would require it.

[Parker_Woodruff]

We are planning to do somewhat of an escalator climb, with different plateaux as the engine cooling would require it.

There isn't any real advantage in this...if cylinders start getting hot, just lower the nose for faster airspeed in the climb. Leveling off to give the engine a "break" is just going to provide an extremely short fluctuation in CHT. Literally within a minute or so of starting your climb again, the cyl temps will be right back where they were.

I would just climb at whatever the max continuous power is and get to altitude as quick as you can.

I'm sure you can make quite a climb at 140 KIAS or so.