M20J Owners - Glide Slope

[GeeBee]

I have this fun exercise on my simulator where I have set up a point and altitude from my home airport where if you shut down the engine and do everything right, pull the prop, stay on speed,  do not lower the gear or flaps early you will just make the runway. It is fun and instructive to watch pilots do it the first time and how many stall the airplane. They do ok at first, but when the runway looks "iffy" they start dropping speed as they pull up the nose. Then things start going real bad, real fast, because once you are on the backside of L/Dmax drag increases rapidly. It is a great exercise in the importance of speed discipline and the results of failure.

For those reasons and more, when flying I double my altitude in and subtract 20% for viable landing sites. 10% of course would be the absolute true, but you have to account for startle factor and trouble shooting time (spark, fuel, air). I set my glide ring on the tablet at 9.5 for the same reason.

 

[Shadrach]

On 10/26/2021 at 12:51 PM, A64Pilot said:

Could be, you never know until you try it.

Next time I’m out without the Wife along I’ll try it in the Mooney, J model with factory prop.

I believe our flat pitch setting is courser than average, I say that as it takes way less RPM for me to taxi up our slight uphill than my neighbors Bonanza.

Of course it could be their flat pitch is finer than average too, or maybe it’s just the airplane weight?

I won’t pull the pitch knob, I’ll leave it be. Once that engine stops it’s not going to matter, the prop is going flat in a short time, anyone who flies turbines shut down without feathering, by the time you get out most likely the prop will be in feather

My limited Bonanza experience is with an early 80s A36. I liked that plan a lot. It was significantly heavier than my F. In the neighborhood hood of 800lbs heavier IIRC. The delta increasing even more at normal operating weight. The delta in required thrust to climb an incline would be significant.