M20J Acrobatics

[rwiseman]

Have any readers attempted basic acro maneuvers in a M20J.  (Aileron roll, barrel roll, split-s) and what was the experience?

Please, no flaming.  This  is not a discussion regarding the POH warning that acrobatics are not allowed.  Fully aware.  I am curious if anyone tried it anyway despite the well known limitation.  And what happened. First hand knowledge only please (proves you survived).   I am not advocating anyone try it.  I am not phishing for the authorities. 

 

 

[Hank]

I've never tried aerobatics with my Mooney, and I've never tried acrobatics inside my Mooney--the one it won't do, the other there's not space for.

But I have carried lumber and freshly-chainsawn logs in my car, during that period when I shamefully did not have a truck. No mulch or gravel, though, only wood.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, rwiseman said:

Have any readers attempted basic acro maneuvers in a M20J.  (Aileron roll, barrel roll, split-s) and what was the experience?

Please, no flaming.  This  is not a discussion regarding the POH warning that acrobatics are not allowed.  Fully aware.  I am curious if anyone tried it anyway despite the well known limitation.  And what happened. First hand knowledge only please (proves you survived).   I am not advocating anyone try it.  I am not phishing for the authorities. 

 

 

I know a person who did a loop in a borrowed M20C and then bragged about it afterwards.  The consequence is no one ever allowed him to fly their airplane again.

[Schllc]

I doubt anyone who would try those maneuvers, would be foolish enough to post it publicly on a forum. 
I would think the test pilots would try them if for no other reason just boredom, but I’m not sure what’s legal for test pilot to do or not do...
I do know that any aircraft is capable of these maneuvers if executed properly, that’s just basic physics. 

[N201MKTurbo]

I was at Oshkosh, about '95 I think and someone did an aerobatic routine in a Mooney.

[201Steve]

[insert Michael Jackson popcorn meme]

[201er]

7 minutes ago, Schllc said:

I doubt anyone who would try those maneuvers, would be foolish enough to post it publicly on a forum.

Never doubt the power of stupidity. 

[201er]

1 minute ago, 201Steve said:

[insert Michael Jackson popcorn meme]

 

[David Lloyd]

I have done plenty in an RV7.  Yes, you could aileron roll a Mooney but the slow roll rate might make it exciting as the nose drops at the end and speed builds.  Yes, you could loop a Mooney.  I always used 3 to 3.5 G for the first part of the loop and to make the loop more or less round, about the same leveling back out.  Not much room for error in our 3.8 G Mooneys.  Also remember the fairly low Va speed limit for full control inputs. Get plenty of instruction and practice in an appropriate airplane before becoming a test pilot.

[Hank]

20 minutes ago, Schllc said:

I doubt anyone who would try those maneuvers, would be foolish enough to post it publicly on a forum. 

There once was a YouTube video of someone taking friends flightseeing in a Mooney, demonstrated a stall, entered a spin and recovered. I believe he took the video down after reading some comments . . . .

[N201MKTurbo]

The Mooney will do all of those maneuvers. The problem is if you screw up, the recovery has to be perfect. The Mooney spins violently and if inverted it is almost impossible to recover unless you are perfect. But you screwed up in the first place so you are not perfect.

A lot of risk for no reward.

[N201MKTurbo]

But still safer than touch and gos…...

[Immelman]

The airplane -- structurally -- doesn't know its attitude. It knows angle of attack, airspeed, load factor. So with that in mind you can do things without hurting an airplane that is defined as aerobatic by the FAR. Tex Johnson demonstrated this famously in the 707 back in the day.

I would have serious reservations about whether a mooney could do a vertical maneuver (loop/split s/cuban) without damaging it.

But consider the consequences. A small screw up can easily put the airplane into a state where the AoA, airspeed, load factor, are easily exceeded. We fly slick airplanes. It will not take much of a vertical deviation to exceed limits. We also fly airplanes that don't spin well.

Do yourself a favor, if interested, and get some instruction in an aerobatic aircraft from a good instructor. You'll take away a lot from it. Without fucking up your plane or killing yourself. I would hope you'd come away realizing that there is nothing magical about bank angle. About how to recover from upsets. About how quickly things can change, and how you should not be doing this in a Mooney.

CFI/ATP/did a bunch of basic aerobatics many years ago in Citabrias

Edited February 14, 2021 by Immelman

[jetdriven]

32 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The Mooney will do all of those maneuvers. The problem is if you screw up, the recovery has to be perfect. The Mooney spins violently and if inverted it is almost impossible to recover unless you are perfect. But you screwed up in the first place so you are not perfect.

A lot of risk for no reward.

One consequences this is a very clean airplane and if you botch the maneuver and you have the nose pointed at the ground for any length of time the airspeed is gonna quickly go right past redline and to who-knows  how fast..

[carusoam]

RW,

Flying is new to you...  no flames intended...  (you first logged into MS in 2012, this is your second post....)

There is a YouTube video for your question...

Somebody rented a Piper and did some basic aero...

Friend took video...

Everyone in the world has seen it, or can see it...

 

1) The plane isn’t built for the forces involved...

2) Some aero doesn’t have much force... until something goes amiss...

3) there is another video of a rented Mooney not doing anything illegal... just dumb...

4) There is a follow-up video to that too... pieces scattered everywhere.

 

Find the Piper, and the Mooney... and you will find why people avoid doing aero in their rented non-aero planes...

Rented Mooneys... or pilots new to aviation... are at a high risk of making ordinary mistakes... Unser ordinary conditions... adding aero, is adding additional risk...

 

Call it a dumb question... (follow the logic)

you already know the technical reasons why it is unlawful... and technically a bad idea...

you have been trained... regarding category and classes of planes... Mooneys are on the other end of the spectrum from aero...

Are you looking for somebody to say all that training was for the brand C people?

Ask the folks on CirrusSpace... hey cirri, y’all have a chute right? 

 

You have a great question...

You have all the answers you need...

The only thing missing is how you feel about it...

How old is too old for a plane to do aero?

How up to snuff does a plane need to be to do aero?

 

There aren’t any dumb questions except the one not asked... 

But, this one can’t be answered the way you would like hear...

If you were to take your Mooney and fly aero...  do you think everyone will confuse you with the real Bob Hoover...

Bob Hoover did it in his Shrike, so I thought it would be OK for me in my Mooney..?

 

You are PIC in your plane... let us know your decision process...

Put it in the highly not recommended category of ideas.

kind of like lying down on the highway between lanes, on the white lines... great movie moments, not centered in reality...

Kind of like flying in thunderstorms...

Kind of like fling into icing conditions...

Kind of like not knowing your fuel quantity...

Kind of like flying VFR into IMC...

 

You might come out a live...

You might not...

Kind of a coin flip isn’t it?

Did i simplify  the situation enough to draw your own conclusion? 

 

Want to see a video of an MSer doing aero?

Find JL... he did some excellent aero training... see what plane he used... check out the power to weight ratio of that beast...

 

Want to see some funny aero by a non-Mooney humorist... find Brian the aviation humorist...

Truly a great question!

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

Best regards,

-a-

 

[Greg Ellis]

2 hours ago, rwiseman said:

Have any readers attempted basic acro maneuvers in a M20J.  (Aileron roll, barrel roll, split-s) and what was the experience?

Please, no flaming.  This  is not a discussion regarding the POH warning that acrobatics are not allowed.  Fully aware.  I am curious if anyone tried it anyway despite the well known limitation.  And what happened. First hand knowledge only please (proves you survived).   I am not advocating anyone try it.  I am not phishing for the authorities. 

 

 

Although, not a Mooney....take a look at this video.

Christy is an ATP from the DFW area who leased back her plane.  Some guy took it out for a flight and posted pics of him doing aerobatics in a Cherokee Warrior II.  If you need, skipping to about 4:20 or so in the video shows the pics.

[carusoam]

Greg,

That is it!

Thanks...

-a-

[PT20J]

12 minutes ago, jetdriven said:

One consequences this is a very clean airplane and if you botch the maneuver and you have the nose pointed at the ground for any length of time the airspeed is gonna quickly go right past redline and to who-knows  how fast..

This^^^^

Rolls get a lot of people in trouble. The simplest is an aileron roll like Bob Hoover used to do in the Shrike. Done properly, it is a 1-g maneuver. But, the nose drops precipitously during the second half of the maneuver and in order to end up in a reasonable attitude an aileron roll has to be started with the nose a lot higher than you might think. The pitch attitude necessary will be dependent on the roll rate and the Mooney has a pretty low roll rate. I’ve never rolled a Mooney, but if I were going to I would probably try 60 deg pitch up. That's impossible to judge looking ahead (you will overestimate the pitch angle) so you have to watch the angle the wingtip makes with the horizon. I only point this out because I’m sure someone is going to try it. So, lots of airspeed, lots of altitude and lots of pitch. 

Skip

[bradp]

There’s a lot of irony in the OPs username. Just sayin. Heheh.  
 

This is an example of how fast a Mooney can build up airspeed in an insipient spin. 
 

 

[BDPetersen]

My boss in the ‘60’s, a Mooney distributor, told the story that when asked about aerobatics, the factory disavowed such. ( But parenthetically included a list of suggested entry speeds.)  But there were lots of stories in those days. Like the one about a company pilot ( Bill Mullen?) delivering a plane trans Atlantic and doing a dead stick GCA somewhere in England. All true, I’m sure.

[carusoam]

BDP,

Does this look familiar?

O540 powered M20A... that would be interesting...

-a-

 

[Nokomis449]

I used to do it all the time when training for my IR.  It's a great way to practice upset training and my instructor didn't have a problem with it.  At first my success rate was dismal (overspeeding, exceeding G's, etc) and I had to start over a lot but eventually I got to where it wasn't a big deal.  It helped that the FBO owner was an aerobatic (acrobatic?) pilot and gave me pointers as he watched.  Toward the end of the training I was doing it in clouds and at night, and got to where I was pretty good at it.  I was flying a Bravo at the time.

All this was on a simulator in the FBO.  YMMV.

[N201MKTurbo]

43 minutes ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

I saw it, too, but the Mooney aerobatics routine I saw, and I think the only one that ever performed at Oshkosh, was in either ‘83 or ‘84.  It was a new 201 and 231 and they were flown by two of the three members of the (Christian) Eagles aerobatic team of that era.  I’m not sure which two, though.  I wonder which of us owns those airframes now?  There weren’t that many made those years.  I’m sure the demonstration was sponsored by the factory and, of course, it was flown by two world class aerobatics pilots and approved by the FAA.

As for me regarding this sort of experience with my Mooneys, I have none and never will outside of some sort of emergency   I did take a 10 hour basic aerobatics course 15 or 20 years ago, though, and can’t recommend something that strongly enough for we civilian pilots who were never exposed to it during our primary instruction.

 

Could be I was there in '84.

[bfreelove]

1 hour ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

I saw it, too, but the Mooney aerobatics routine I saw, and I think the only one that ever performed at Oshkosh, was in either ‘83 or ‘84.  It was a new 201 and 231 and they were flown by two of the three members of the (Christian) Eagles aerobatic team of that era.  I’m not sure which two, though.  I wonder which of us owns those airframes now?  There weren’t that many made those years.  I’m sure the demonstration was sponsored by the factory and, of course, it was flown by two world class aerobatics pilots and approved by the FAA.

As for me regarding this sort of experience with my Mooneys, I have none and never will outside of some sort of emergency   I did take a 10 hour basic aerobatics course 15 or 20 years ago, though, and can’t recommend something that strongly enough for we civilian pilots who were never exposed to it during our primary instruction.

 

I think it was '84.  The pilots were the late Charlie Hillard (the first American pilot to win the World Aerobatic Championships), and Gene Soucy (3x US champ and World level pilot).  I had a great conversation with Gene about this last year when I was telling him about buying my Mooney.  The show was sponsored by the factory, and they Charlie kept his for some time.  They were both 231s.  

I flew aerobatics for a living for about fifteen years.  I have zero interest in flying aerobatics in my Mooney.  Why break the rules and beat up my airplane (not to mention trash the "swiss watch" gyros) when there are plenty of way more suitable airframes that are infinitely more fun to throw around?  Modern high performance aerobatic monoplanes are an amazing experience and almost impossible to break (you'll hurt yourself way before the airplane complains).  Find a good aerobatic school and have at it.  

Ben

[GeeBee]

Aerobatic Mooney...it's called a SIAI-Marchetti SF.260. Go find one and have a blast.