mooney and a student pilot questions

[tigertrout]

thx very much to everyone for the great input.

 

I have a lot of issues that need looking into, I will let you know how it works out.

[petegaz40]

I would learn to fly first and then decide what kind of plane fits you best.  You can learn in a Mooney but it isn't the best trainer for a beginner.  I think you could probably buy a Cherokee 140 or Cessna 150, fly it for a year or so and get all your money back when you are done with it.   You might buy a Mooney and decide its not the type of flying you want to do. 

[RobertGary1]

I would learn to fly first and then decide what kind of plane fits you best.  You can learn in a Mooney but it isn't the best trainer for a beginner.  I think you could probably buy a Cherokee 140 or Cessna 150, fly it for a year or so and get all your money back when you are done with it.   You might buy a Mooney and decide its not the type of flying you want to do. 

 

The flip side is why should you learn bad habits in a forgiving Cherokee or C-150 if your plan is to buy a Mooney. I've done a private in a Mooney and it was workable. The student bought the plane and that was the plane he was going be flying afterwards. He still flys it today. He was also a very smart kid. Today it seems like the newer generation of Mooney owners are highly technical already so the complexity of the Mooney is not as intimidating as it may have been for the older generation. 

 

-Robert

[bonal]

Accident Occurred on: 1989-02-13 00:00:00

Narrative (ACCP): Narrative (ACCF): THE INSTRUCTOR (CFI) RPRTD THE STUDENT MADE A NORMAL APCH & HIS LANDING WAS GOOD, EXCEPT THE NOSE OF THE ACFT WAS A LITTLE HIGH. HE SAID HE TOLD THE STUDENT 'TO PULL THE THROTTLE BACK' & THAT IT WAS A GOOD LANDING, BUT THE STUDENT ADDED POWER. THE CFI TOLD THE STUDENT TO THROTTLE BACK 2 MORE TIMES. RPRTDLY, THE STUDENT THROTTLED BACK ONCE, THEN ELECTED TO GO AROUND. THE STUDENT SAID THAT DRG THE LANDING, THE ACFT BOUNCED TWICE BEFORE HE TOLD THE CFI HE WAS GOING TO MAKE A GO-AROUND. THE CFI SAID THAT DRG THE GO-AROUND, THE NOSE CAME UP & THE ACFT BEGAN A TURN TO THE LEFT DUE TO THE NOSE HI ATTITUDE & FULL POWER. THE STALL WARNING HORN SOUNDED & THE CFI TOLD THE STUDENT TO REDUCE DRAG BY RETRACTING THE GEAR & FLAPS. DRG THE OCCURRENCE, THE CFI TOOK CONTROL OF THE ACFT & TRIED TO RECOVER, BUT THE ACFT MUSHED TO THE GROUND ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RWY WITH THE GEAR RETRACTED. THERE WERE NO RPRTD MECHANICAL PROBLEMS WITH THE ACFT AT THE TIME OF THE ACDNT. Narrative (CAUSE): FAILURE OF THE STUDENT TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF THE FLIGHT BY THE CFI WHICH RESULTED IN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED NOT BEING MAINTAINED BY THE CFI. DURING AN ATTEMPTED GO-AROUND.             

 

From another thread but hey what do I know.  Cut me some slack I'm having a crappy day  Only bad habits teach bad habits A Cessna is forgiving to be sure but imperfect control shows regardless of type.

[RobertGary1]

That's not a student problem its just poor instructor supervision. The same thing happens when transitioning high time pilots. Aside from a muscle bound student fighting me I can't imaging any scenario in which I'd allow the plane to get into a situation I can't correct.

 

-Robert

[chrisk]

I've been thinking about this a bit.  I think you would be best served by learning to fly in a fixed gear trainer.  Something like a Cessna 152 or LSA.  That said, if the cowl flaps are left open, the prop control set to max, and gear always down, a Mooney is about as simple as a C152.  --Hey, didn't Mooney make a M20D. 

 

I do see a down side to this approach.  You may develop a bad habit of not putting the gear down.   Students are hard on planes: The red knob belongs on the fire wall unless you are shutting down.  Run the starter until the prop stops or the engine starts.   Drop the plane on the runway from 3 or 4 feet in the air.  And then there is the issue of stalls.  A Mooney is not the place to learn what happens when you stall uncoordinated! --Most Mooney owners have a lot of respect for what can happen if a stall gets away from you.

[carl]

 

the new M10 T trainer idea. 

[RobertGary1]

I believe the military still puts students in jets before they fill out the second page of their log book.

 

-Robert

[petegaz40]

I have read all the posts especially the ones that were someone posted the amount of hours their CFI had.  There is a difference in logged hours.....   You can log 100 hours, or you can log 1 hour 100 times...   It's the experience that counts...  I wouldn't fly into a remote strip with a airline pilot with 15,000 hours vs a tailwheel pilot that has been flying in the back country and has 750 hours. 

 

There are a lot of CFI's that don't have a lot of cross country time or if they do it was flying someone else's airplane (such as the military, charter).  It's easy to make recommendations when you aren't paying the bills.  "if I was getting a plane, I would buy brand X".....  

 

Everyone has a different mission:  Some people never fly more than 200 nautical miles from home, some people just go to breakfast on the weekends or give friends rides etc, some people use it for business. You have to try to define your "mission" and go from there... 

 

Can a low time pilot fly a high performance plane??  Yes!   My dad deployed to the South Pacific in World War Two in Corsairs with 278 logged hours..... 

 

It can be done.  Is it a good idea?  Not sure, just glad he didn't get tested when he first got there or maybe I wouldn't be typing this. 

 

Mooney's are amazing airplanes for strength, safety and reliability but they aren't for everybody..

[Mooney20]

I voiced my opinion on low-time pilots in a Mooney in another thread. It was met with immediate and vigorous disagreement. Such is life on forums. Now the subject is using a Mooney as a primary trainer.

A Mooney is not a particularly good training aircraft. The controls are not well harmonized- heavy in roll (especially older models), light in yaw, sensitive in pitch. It does not tolerate well ham-fisted operation during landing that a typical student pilot dishes out. Also, as mentioned, many older Mooneys have no brakes on the right side. I shudder to think about a post-solo student going out and practicing stalls in a Mooney. A simple error can have disastrous consequences if the initial error is then compounded with others. Those mistakes are easily recoverable in a Cessna 150-152-172.

On the issue of comparing primary training in a Mooney with military pilots starting out in complex turbine aircraft, keep in mind that those military pilots have been through a rigorous aptitude screening process before starting their flight training. Then flight training is all they do for a couple years. It is their life. And all through the training process, those who don't measure up are washed out. They're done flying. That rarely happens in the civilian world. It's mostly self-elimination, one way or the other.

For perspective, my background is all civilian. I went from zero hours to Mooney captain in 15 months. In between were a C-150 and Cherokee 140. I had instructors who ranged from great to a sadistic little prick that ended up as a Memphis Center controller (years later, I got to talk with him from the left seat of a 757). I flew A LOT, I was working full time and gained a wife at the end of it all. Thank goodness for the vitality of youth!

After gaining my PPL in the C-150, I sought out mentors. By the time I bought my Mooney, I had a few hundred hours, had made many of the bone-head mistakes that low-time pilots make, but also had a lot of cross-country time, including two 700 mile+ trips. I was Mooney ready.

[DXB]

I believe the military still puts students in jets before they fill out the second page of their log book.

 

-Robert

The military has training infrastructure refined over many decades that lets them put you in much more demanding aircraft from day 1.  A friend who was a Navy A6  pilot started in a turboprop single. The training resources to do this are scant in the civilian world. Instead there's a bunch of 23 year old CFIs who would love to get their hands on a Mooney instead of working in a 172 beater all day. But they probably shouldn't, at least for training new students.  "Real" Mooney instructors are much fewer in number, though they certainly can be found readily.  The ones who want to spend their time giving primary instruction in a Mooney may be quite rare however. 

[RobertGary1]

They are rarer, but like I mentioned, I've done it. Not sure if it's related but they were young pilots and I can't really say that the Mooney was a whole lot more difficult for them than if they'd started in a 172. Some things took a few more hours but nothing extreme. If you never learned that you could mash the nose wheel onto the runway there is no reason to unlearn it. So I'd say that in pre-solo training I probably had higher standards for them but it wasn't at all insurmountable. The first one I did was a good 10 years ago and I still see him flying around in the same E.

-Robert

[RobertGary1]

Maybe similar but I hear people talk about the challenge of a tail wheel transition. I did my own primary training in a tail dragger. It didn't really take me any more time to solo. I just assumed you always had to have the nose up high on touch down so I didn't have to transition into such "challenges".

-Robert

[ryoder]

The one thing I am still a bit cautious about is stalls in the Mooney. I need to spend some time with Mike Elliot.

[RobertGary1]

The most common cause of pilot apprehension of stalls in the Mooney is roll off. Mooneys are much more prone to having a good amount of roll off than Pipers, Cessna, etc. However, there are a couple things that can tame a Mooney stall...

1) A lot of pilots approach a stall by hauling back on the yoke. But notice the Owner's Manual says to approach a stall by slowing at a rate of 1mph/sec. That also prevents you from getting as deep in the stall.

2) Most Mooney pilots are taking the plane beyond full break without noticing it. By definition the plane is stalled when you exceed the critical angle of attack. Once you get to the point that pulling back on the yoke causes the nose to drop rather than raise, you've completed the stall. That is typically pretty tame on short and mid bodies. However, most pilots don't notice that subtle occurrence and pull it further into a deeper stall to get that strong break. Its not necessary, although I'll admit its fun.

Also, a some CFI's like to show asymmetric stalls by stalling uncoordinated. However, notice that the Mooney manual says that all stalls are to be approached from coordinated flight. So if a CFI asks you to tall uncoordinated just say 'no thank you'.

 

-Robert, CFII

[ArtVandelay]

Robert,

You have to ask yourself how realistic practicing stalls under you conditions is, and hence how useful.

I'm sure if someone accidentally stalls the plane, it won't be at a 1 mph/sec, partial break, and coordinated. Chances are it will be none of the above.

[Hank]

TJ, chances are also that the accidental stall will occur at pattern altitude or lower, with no chance of recovery.

We practice stalls to learn what causes them, to recognize the beginning or warning signs of impending stall and to make recovery automatic. There is no benefit to practicing sudden, uncoordinated stalls that I can think of, and I'll beat the stew out of any CFI who tries that in my Mooney, maybe even before the immediate return to the airport is completed.

[RobertGary1]

Robert,

You have to ask yourself how realistic practicing stalls under you conditions is, and hence how useful.

I'm sure if someone accidentally stalls the plane, it won't be at a 1 mph/sec, partial break, and coordinated. Chances are it will be none of the above.

There are some who feel that way. I know quite a few pilots from my aerobatic days who think its outright dangerous to fly a Mooney because you can't practice spins in them. As an instructor you have to look at what the teachable event is. The FAA (post-private), Mooney Pilot Proficiency, etc tell us that the teachable event is the student recognizing the imminent stall and then recovering. Per the learning law of "Exercise" having the student full stall the Mooney is the opposite of what you want. You want to teach the student to recover instinctively at that moment, not dive deeper into it. I certainly have no personal problem deep stalling a Mooney (some Mooney CFI's would disagree) but I don't think its the best teachable moment and if it just serves to frighten a student with a 90 degree roll off (I"ve seen worse in some Mooneys) than its counter to learning.

Undestand that the 1 mph/second approach to stalls And the requirement to be coordinated comes from your POH. Beyond that you should consider yourself a test pilot.

-Robert

[Andy95W]

Well, shoot, I agree with all you guys.

-Recognizing the imminent stall and recovering to normal, stable flight is most important.

-Practicing the stall that will kill you (sudden, uncoordinated, close to the ground) is ridiculous because, well, it will kill you.

-Doing nice, gentle stalls (gear down, at least partial flaps, 15" MP or less) is an excellent way to build confidence in the airplane, as well as a means to gain proficiency in basic stick-and-rudder skills.

-Showing what Robert mentioned, the deep stall without a strong break that still mushes you down at 1000 fpm or more, proves that our Mooneys are actually very stable and well designed, and that an airplane can stall in any attitude (even in level flight).

[ArtVandelay]

My POH doesn't have anything about 1mph/sec, it mentions a minimum altitude of 6000'