Landing Height System for Mooney

[Will.iam]

4 hours ago, Microkit said:

Thank you for the feedback, Will.  

One note to keep in mind to all; whenever the airplane comes out of annual or any wiring/panel related maintenance; make sure you test the Gear Warning System again, the best test is to do a low-approach with the gear up, then perform a go-around, the unit announces “Check Landing Gear” every 4 seconds until a positive rate of climb is registered, or the gear is extended.    

We did get a report from a pilot who handed over his airplane for a GPS/EFIS upgrade, the shop temporarily removed part of the panel along with some wiring to assist with their installation and when they put it back together, they ended up connecting the GWS wire to a permanent +VE source; unaware of its functionality or why it was there in the first place; this effectively made the LHS unit sees the gear as always down.  

He only found out about it when he wanted to demonstrate the GWS feature to another pilot, so we asked him to troubleshoot the location of the GWS wire after he told us the airplane just got a huge panel upgrade.   Apparently; system failures and issues after maintenance is a hot topic at the moment.  

It is a good idea to have an “After Maintenance checklist” with first flight to be around the pattern and check all critical systems such as the Gear Warning System, autopilots and such.  

Funny you should say that as my first test flight with the new system i came in to do a low approach and test the LHS and the first thing i heard was 100ft i thought humm they didn’t get the gear switch connected. Then i lowered the gear to come in and land and the LGS started saying check gear over and over until i landed. It was an easy fix to just go into the software via wifi and change the switch logic to up instead of down and the next flight it worked as published. They got the height dialed in right too. I need to take screen shots of the configuration pages just in case they are ever erased or factory reset. 

[katzhome]

Just ordered one of these with the rest of the avionics work I have being done on N43CA.  Looking forward to the additional situational awareness!

[Will.iam]

Another added benefit is landing to the north our field has a 400ft grass overrun that while I could land on it the undue roughness and transition to the concrete runway, I’d rather not subject to my gear, so before having the LHS, I would come in about my estimate 3 to 5 feet above the grass as I wasn’t quite sure how close I was. Now with the landing height calling out 1ft I can reliably get much closer to the ground which once I past the threshold of the end of the runway chop the power and only have to loose 1 ft of altitude. This gets me on the ground way sooner giving me more rollout distance and I use less brake power to slow to taxi speed. 

[Jetpilot86]

Just took my first flight with mine today. Dropping in from 1 foot on new donuts still produces a few bounces. 

[pkofman]

4 hours ago, Jetpilot86 said:

Just took my first flight with mine today. Dropping in from 1 foot on new donuts still produces a few bounces. 

my experience in the bravo final over the numbers at 75. at  2 or  1 ft  call out hold it off,  be patient, and never force it  .... it will land and be perfect .. just check the calibration height is correct ,, (it's in the manual and easy to check )

[Jetpilot86]

4 hours ago, pkofman said:

my experience in the bravo final over the numbers at 75. at  2 or  1 ft  call out hold it off,  be patient, and never force it  .... it will land and be perfect .. just check the calibration height is correct ,, (it's in the manual and easy to check )

Ya, I seem to get to a foot and it ends up dropping in from there. With the old donuts it would bounce once, the new ones twice. I just keep the nose up and wait. 

[Will.iam]

11 hours ago, Jetpilot86 said:

Ya, I seem to get to a foot and it ends up dropping in from there. With the old donuts it would bounce once, the new ones twice. I just keep the nose up and wait. 

Actually i don’t think my nose drops at all or very little. It feels like the plane rotates at about the engine section point and the part behind the engine lowers down as the speed bleeds off to the runway and then i relax the backpressure on the yoke and the nose comes down after that  

[exM20K]

@Jetpilot86 have you confirmed that your LHS is correctly 0’d? On my TN, the sensor is mounted inboard of the step, and it is 18” off the ground there. 
 

“1 foot, 1 foot, 1 foot” with a stall warning, idle power, full nose up trim rolled in, and almost full-back stick usually leads to greasers, short rollouts, and further inflation of my considerable ego. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Ive never measured it, but is seems to me that bleeding off energy holding the plane, then the nose, off is as or more effective than jumping on the brakes > 50 KIAS. Bounces, on the other hand, are a splendid way to consum8ng landing distance.

-dan

[Jetpilot86]

2 hours ago, exM20K said:

@Jetpilot86 have you confirmed that your LHS is correctly 0’d? On my TN, the sensor is mounted inboard of the step, and it is 18” off the ground there. 
 

“1 foot, 1 foot, 1 foot” with a stall warning, idle power, full nose up trim rolled in, and almost full-back stick usually leads to greasers, short rollouts, and further inflation of my considerable ego. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Ive never measured it, but is seems to me that bleeding off energy holding the plane, then the nose, off is as or more effective than jumping on the brakes > 50 KIAS. Bounces, on the other hand, are a splendid way to consum8ng landing distance.

-dan

Thanks for the info  

I’ll have to dig into it more next time at the plane. I didn’t get to play much on the ferry flight as I was running late. 

[Microkit]

 

[Ed de C.]

I'm happy to lend my voice to this thread extolling to virtues of this system.  I ordered it in February a couple of months ago, received it quickly and presented it to my shop that had no prior experience with it (LHS system with gear warning option).  The avionics-skilled A/P elected to wire it to the AUX circuit of the G1000's audio panel.  We tested the audio messages from the LHS system against streaming ATIS to make sure it would not mute out (which it did not).  He also wired the power to an unused breaker labeled "Radar Altimeter".  We thought "close enough". The installation was relatively painless, given we had the interior out for CIES gages anyway.  We mounted the laser in the rear access panel inside the left main gear. 

As you folks who have this already know, the big win here is the aural altitude callouts during the last 15 seconds of flying.  I've flown with it for 15 hours so have not yet really focused on matching up my flair with a specific altitude callout.  But what's immediately clear is I no longer bounce the plane on due to misjudged height.  I'm rotating when I hear "five" and have arrested my descent when I hear "two".  Now, 100% of the landings are at least good, whereas before, 50% were at least good. If you are coming down too fast or in gusty winds, the callouts tell you where you are relative to the pavement.  Your hand on the yoke does the rest.  

My field (KPTK) is at 980 feet msl and so immediately upon touch down I get a "1,000" callout.  The A/P riding along with me got a chuckle out of that.  I'll be disabling the GPS altitude callout feature soon.  

Well done Microkit!

Ed

[Jetpilot86]

Don’t forget to get the “experimental” gear warning turned on. Mine is supposed to bark at me at 250’ AGL if they aren’t already down. Probably need to verify that one day. Preferably before it might be needed.