Just had my longest flight

[N513ZM]

5:25 Cincinnati - San Antonio non-stop

M20R Ovation2

 

[Urs_Wildermuth]

Bryan and other "C" owners:

What altitude/power settings did you use on those 700 NM / 10 USG remaining flights? Really interested to hear what people actually do. I have a destination around 700 NM away, but with the manual figures I don't really get a legal planning together.

[jetdriven]

Quote: JimR

Well, yesterday wasn't my longest flight ever, but it was my longest flight in my Mooney in a single day.  972.4 nm according to the flight plan, roundtrip from the panhandle of Florida to the NC/VA line north of Raleigh in 7.5 tach hours while burning 6.5 gph LOP at a little less than 50% power and averaging 130 knots. 

It was a $100 BBQ sandwich run, but I had to eat three of them to make the math work out!  Nothing beats a Mooney for economical cross country work.  God help me I love it so!

Jim

[Skybrd]

One of my friends was flying his M20A Mooney non stop from Albur... New Mexico to Inyokern and ended up running out of fuel about 15 miles short. It was dark when the engine quit and he set the plane down on a curvy road heading west. Some would say he was real lucky but I think he was helped from the Lord. His wife and him came out unharmed but the plane was totaled. The only reason why I wrote about this is to let you know it could happen to you and you might not want to push your plane's endurance. I think my friends accident was partially due to strong headwinds. Fortunately my friend has a newer Mooney and still flyes. -- respectfully, Darrell

[KSMooniac]

My longest leg to date is Henderson, NV (Las Vegas) to Wichita, 868 NM in just under 6 hours.  Landed with 15 gallons remaining so I easily could have flown 1000 NM and still had an hour left!  My current favorite relief device is a 1-gallon freezer ziploc with some diapers thrown in there...works great and doesn't fill completely up when I'm recycling my 72 oz of iced tea that I frequently have on board.  

[Frosty]

Quote: Skybrd

One of my friends was flying his M20A Mooney non stop from Albur... New Mexico to Inyokern and ended up running out of fuel about 15 miles short. It was dark when the engine quit and he set the plane down on a curvy road heading west. Some would say he was real lucky but I think he was helped from the Lord. His wife and him came out unharmed but the plane was totaled. The only reason why I wrote about this is to let you know it could happen to you and you might not want to push your plane's endurance. I think my friends accident was partially due to strong headwinds. Fortunately my friend has a newer Mooney and still flyes. -- respectfully, Darrell

[RJBrown]

My longest leg was from Denver to Cincinnati. 950 nautical. Took off 100 usable planning 20 gal hr/200 kts in a Rocket. Initially I had a strong direct crosswind and had to pull back to 15 GPH to maintain a reserve. Once the crosswind turned into a tail wind I saw over 300 groundspeed and landed with lots of fuel. A 5 hour planned flight stretched out to 6 hour enroute but ended up under 4 hours in the end. Took off with a 15 min reserve and landed with well over 1 hour fuel onboard. YMMV don't try this westbound.

 I have found tailwinds Always less than advertized and headwinds always greater.

[Hank]

That works eastbound, but don't try to make it non-stop going the other way! I went West in my C at ~128 knots per Flight Aware, and came east at 150+ with basicly the same power settings [8500 westbound, 9500 eastbound]. Distance was ~1300 nm each way, so I'm pretty confident in the speed numbers.

[flyboy0681]

Quote: RJBrown

Took off 100 usable planning 20 gal hr/200 kts in a Rocket.

[Mooney65E]

Before the purchase of an EDM 800 I would typically be manually calculating fuel burn rates from the POH inflight and allowing a little extra just for safe measure only to land with 5-6 gallons more in the tanks than my figures showed. After flying with the EDM 800 for several years and consistantly seeing it accurately measure fuel burn  within .1 gal per tank I became confident flying longer legs knowing my actual remaining fuel. Longest leg was 1177NM from LWS-LMI done in 6.2 hours averaging 189kts and 7.4gph. Landed with 6 gal remaining. Had a s#it load of help from winds flying Eastbound  at 17.5K that day. Continued on to Hartford, CT the next day traveling an additional 800NM non stop. Mooneys truely are one of the best if not the best cross country aircraft money can buy!  I won't bore you with the details of the Westbound return to LWS but let's just say it was measured on the calendar instead of the clock!

[AlexR]

My longest flight in my M20C has been Williamsburg, VA to Ormond Beach, FL.   Then flew on to the Bahamas via Ft. Lauderdale.  Currently planning a trip from Key West to San Jose, Costa Rica via Belize.  Gotta love the Mooney efficiency!

[RJBrown]

Quote: flyboy0681

My Lord, 20 gallons an hour in cruise? Is the increase in speed and extra maintenance really worth it?

[DanM20C]

Quote: AlexR

My longest flight in my M20C has been Williamsburg, VA to Ormond Beach, FL.   Then flew on to the Bahamas via Ft. Lauderdale.  Currently planning a trip from Key West to San Jose, Costa Rica via Belize.  Gotta love the Mooney efficiency!