What's the maximum reasonable range of an Ovation?

[DaV8or]

Quote: Piloto

 You could have save 300nm going via CYYT - LPAZ. This is the route that I take when going to Spain.

José 

[SPEEDMOONEY]

First it was an endurance record.

Second for the southern route via LPAZ HF is mandatory.

[BorealOne]

SPEED, next time through YYR give me a shout - love to talk Mooney with folks when they pass through town.

[Piloto]

I always carry HF on these crossings. You never know when the Greenland VHF repeater is going kaput. I use the Icom 706 with the SGC-237 tuner and a fix wire antenna from tail to wing front edge or fuselage top. I don't use the trailing wire anymore because it is to RF noisy (it behaves like a big static wick) and the wire flutter causes it to break. New York and Gander Radio has excellent coverage over the North Atlantic, never had a problem contacting them on HF.

José   

[thinwing]

hey Piloto...As a Ham I sometimes like to operate aeronautical mobile...I have an icom ic 7000 with the icom autotuner,,,so on  your ferry setup...tell me how you brought the coax lead with out drilling holes,and also the power supply...that pic is of a 28 volt ovation or aclaim I assume,,the ic 706 or 7000 needs 12 volt @ 20 amps or so....sinc kp couch

[danb35]

Quote: Piloto

I always carry HF on these crossings. You never know when the Greenland VHF repeater is going kaput. I use the Icom 706 with the SGC-237 tuner and a fix wire antenna from tail to wing front edge or fuselage top.

[carusoam]

Newer Ovations have 12V at the cigar plug (voltage converter hiding in the tail cone).

-a-

[gsengle]

you wrote:

 

Newer Ovations have 12V at the cigar plug (voltage converter hiding in the tail cone).

-a-

 

Don't all ovations?  My 96 is 12v in the plug...

[thinwing]

Danb 35...I dont think fcc has jurisdiction on aeronautical frequencies when flying over international airspace(he is over the middle of the atlantic remember???)If there is an issue its one of icao type certs...either way the ic706 as well as my ic7000 is easily modifable...usually just the removal of a resistor or two and the microprocessor for the freq synthisizer can easily transmitt a clean usb on 18.122 mhz(atlantic control freq.)I believe a certified sunn hf is tens of thousands...a ic 706 is a real fool proof workhorse and more powerful unit capable of 100watts out ,the 3 amp cigar lighter 12 volt supply is not enough however,,...and that was what I was interested in..kpc

[Piloto]

You are right Thinwing. The Icom 706 is very popular among ferry pilots and it is very well accepted by the Canadian government. When you remove the diodes for freq expansion it can also transmitt on the marine VHF channels. I have used these feature to see what boats are down there. BTW the FCC now allows the use of marine VHF frequencies by aircraft, before it was limited to 1000ft. I found the Icom 706 to outperform the KHF -950 on reception and flexibility. Mine is programmed with some of the duplex ITU channels to connect with WLO and other shore based stations. My installation is 337 approved. I have not seen any objection to its installation. Canada for sure prefer to have it on board than no HF at all. The only drawback I have noticed is that you can not use ANR headsets with it. RF tends to couple into the ANRs and cause feedback. It works very well with regular aviation headsets/microphones but you have to set the mike gain to 1. 

José   

[Piloto]

Thinwing  you can see details of the installation at http://www.aircraftdelivery.net/ferrypilotforms/706_In_Airplane.pdf

I replaced the lexan insulators with PVC material for better strength. The SG-237 tuner is attached to the ventilation conduit at the rear of the tail cone. For ferry flights I attach an access plate with the insulator/spring at the tail and use one of the access panel screw to anchor the other end at the wing. It works very well even on the ground. For 28V I use a switching down converter.

José 

[thinwing]

Jose...very nice...thanks for the info....do you recall the model # for the 20 amp out 28 to 12 converter...i pulled out my edition 14 a radio/tech mods and alignment controls ,for ic 706 and it is removal of diode d-2030 allowing transmit 100 -199.000 mhz with note on instabilty at lower end of tunable range....118 mhz pretty close to this...any problems???thanks for sharing your setup...sinc kp couch

[Piloto]

Thinwing, see attached the power converter data plate that I use. No problems found with it. Because it is a switching converter the current drain at the 28V side is only 10 amp but 20 amp on the 14v output side. Also attached is the VHF/UHF antenna I use. Because of the temp variations in the tail cone I installed on the 706s the high stability temp compensated oscillator. The oscillator is very stable. It keeps within 1Hz with WWV at 15 MHz. I have programmed the WLO Radio ITU channels. The provide  phone patches for $5.00 for three minutes and the quality is pretty good. Also has programmed the VOLMETS channels for METARS in the US, Canada and Europe. I have no experience with the Icom 7000 but I am sure is as capable and better than the 706.

José

 

[alexl]

Interesting post ...

I'm just curious, the Ovation2 GX (long range tanks) does 2400nm - would that  be practically enough

to do Honolulu to LA?

 

Thanks!

[jdrake]

Last Sunday, I flew my J from Santa Fe, NM (KSAF) to Indianapolis, IN (KEYE).  975 miles in just under 6 hours.  Fuel flow at 13.5k was 8.3 gph.  Burned 51.5 gallons but had a 20-ish kt tailwind the entire way.  Without the tailwind, I would have gotten seriously into reserves.

[kris_adams]

That's pretty amazing.  I'm hoping to stretch the legs of my J this summer when heading back from the west coast to GA.

[jetdriven]

I have never been to 13,500 but at 11,500 our FF was 7.3 GPH.  this was at peak.  Thats like adding larger fuel tanks, or a tailwind as well.

[gsengle]

I once went DAB to FRG, prob 850nm in 4.8 hours, only burning 63 gallons...

[sreid]

You guys have me beat, but I'm still pretty proud of JAC to FOD nonstop (727nm), and GPH to AMG nonstop (755nm) in my F model! The latter flight burned just 43 gallons in 5 hours! Not bad for a 45 year old airplane.

[Piloto]

Quote: alexl

Interesting post ...

I'm just curious, the Ovation2 GX (long range tanks) does 2400nm - would that

[Piloto]

Quote: alexl

Interesting post ...

I'm just curious, the Ovation2 GX (long range tanks) does 2400nm - would that be practically enough

to do Honolulu to LA?

 

Thanks!

[Tyler G]

Bump

[Hank]

@201er flies his J up to 11-12 hours LOP with 102 gallon tanks (I think). An Ovation can be had with larger tanks (130 gal), but I'm not sure how the fuel flow would compare.

[bigmo]

2 hours ago, Tyler G said:

Bump

13 year bump might set a Mooneyspace record...

[A64Pilot]

A few points.

Max range would be most likely in a piston at min drag, which is best glide. Turbines have unusual fuel burn profiles so can be at much higher throttle due to terrible part throttle efficiency.

There is one one best mixture for best BSFC and that’s not lean as much as it can stand, just as you can be too rich, you can be too lean, I have read that -25F LOP is the sweet spot but I don’t have any way to verify that.

Disregarding ground effect which is at or less than one wingspan high, higher is better, reason is thinner air = less drag, but you burn fuel to get there so unless long legs going higher can burn more fuel. The pumping losses from a slightly closed throttle is small, but it is real, just don’t think you could measure it. Likely the best would be very high, WOT largely because even that is very low MP and RPM at the bottom of the green and an indicated airspeed close to best glide. 

Just for a point my J LOP at 23 squared, 8 GPH gives about 135 kts true. 64 gls is 8 hours to exhaustion which is 1080 NM. That’s without optimizing anything and as she gets lighter burning fuel she should speed up, so if someone is truly trying for Max range above all else usually altitude and or airspeed and % power change along the route due to decreased weight.

It gets complicated, the only time I made a science project out of it was planning to self deploy AH-64’s to Europe, we could snap on four 230 gl  of Aux tanks fuel on the wing weapon pylons giving us 1295 gls of fuel. We never self deployed to Europe, but we needed a plan just in case.