Commercial Training Speeds and Tips

[Cwalsh7997]

Hey guys I'm finishing up commercial training in my Mooney and my instructor is unfamiliar with Mooneys and how to configure the airplane and the speeds to use for the maneuvers as well as power settings. If you guys could just put any tips you have and as well speeds for certain maneuvers such as lazy eights, accelerated stalls, and eights on pylons, I appreciate anything I can get.

[StinkBug]

PTS says below maneuvering speed. In my C that's 132 mph IIRC. At the low altitudes you'll be doing this at that'll be a fairly low power setting. I used that speed for all the maneuvers. Slower actually makes a lot of them easier. For Chandelles and Lazy 8s you're expected to be just above stall at the top, so starting at a faster airspeed just means steeper and longer climbs. For the lazy 8 that also means a longer down swing, which can mean picking up too much speed if you're not right on your timing. Our planes speed up really well downhill, and don't slow down as easily going up the other side so it's tricky to get everything to line up if you start fast.

[M20F]

21/23 is what I found works in mine. 

[jlunseth]

It has been a couple of years since I got my commercial now, so I don't remember all that stuff in great detail, but here are some thoughts.

First, as StinkBug said, you cannot exceed design maneuvering.  That is a bust, so figure out how to do the maneuvers and stay under that number.  In my aircraft it was/is 119 knots.

For the 8's on pylons you will learn, if you have not already, that there is a pivotal altitude for each speed.  The formula is   where H is the height above the ground and v is your speed in knots.  As I recall, I did them at 110, and the pivotal altitude is 1,100 so easy to remember, but you can use a different speed.

For the chandelle, you want to start at a speed approaching design maneuvering, and then you will be doing a full power curving climb with falling speed until you are just below power on stall at the top.

I used 110 knots for my steep turn as I recall.

The trickiest maneuver until I got it down was the Lazy 8's.  As I recall, you must do three, and the speed at the bottom must be +/- 10 knots of your starting speed. So you need to do the maneuver with zero gain in speed.  If you gain as little as 5 knots during each descent, you will be at +15 in that third 8, and you will bust your speed.  I believe I used 110 knots for the starting speed.  You then do a curving 90 climb to a point just below stall, and then another curving 90 to the bottom.  The tricky part was that all the books say you are to nose down at the peak, and then do a mirror of the climb, in other words, let the airspeed slowly increase at about the same rate it decreased in the climb.  That definitely did not work, because the Mooney would pick up speed in the descent every time, and by the third Lazy 8, I would bust my starting speed.  The trick was to not go nose down at the top, but rather just let the nose relax a little and let the aircraft fall, rather than pushing the nose over.  You can actually hear the wind start to rush around the airframe when you do it correctly.  This allowed me to hit the airspeed at the bottom, right on the nose.

The other critical speeds you need to know for commercial maneuvers are best glide, and stall at 60 degrees.  When you do the power off 180 the first step is to pitch for best glide, and then you must monitor your speed through the maneuver to stay at best glide.  I also did the steep spiral at best glide, but that is where you need an understanding of stall at 60, because on the downwind side of the maneuver you may actually go to 60, and if your stall is 90 knots (as it was with my aircraft) and best glide is less than that (mine was 85), then you will get a stall horn and you need to do something about it (put the nose down!).

That's what I remember.  Your MP's are going to be completely different from mine in my turbo 231, so I can't help you there. 

 

[N33GG]

Get a different instructor.