Top Ground Speed

[gjkirsch]

Had the best ground speed of 273 knots in level flight yesterday flying from Grand Rapids to Baltimore. This is one of the many reasons I love these planes!

Flight aware only shows 270:(http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N32CG/history/20121222/1330Z/KGRR/KMTN/tracklog

[PAMooney]

Wow, that is smokin! Got to 209 knots in my J heading from Lafayette, IN to Philly a few years back..

[rbridges]

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N6099Q/history/20120916/1259Z/FMMV/KPXE

this averaged over 10, 300 knots, but I had a little tailwind.

[Riq]

212kts in my c this summer.

[carusoam]

Spectacular, is FF in the photo anywhere?

Nothing feels better than getting 270kts for the price of 175!

Mooney flying has a lot in common with sailing, specially if you have a turbo.

Best regards,

-a-

[N201MKTurbo]

In 2004 on a trip from Oakland, Ca to Phoenix at 17500 I maintained a GS of 270 - 275 KTS for about 100 miles and it was smooth as silk. Glad I wasn't going the other way.

On the flip side, on a trip across New Mexico at 16500 ( there was forcast and reported severe turbulance below), I had a GS of 80 KTS

[Hank]

My C can't touch your speeds here (when I hit 180 knots a while back headed south to Charlotte, I had to take pictures). My groundspeed envelope in level cruise so far runs 68-183 knots, all while indicating 130-140 MPH.

Maybe we should have 3: turbo, 200 hp, 180 hp. I'll lose that, too, to Riq, but I've seen near 200 knots in descent.

[Marauder]

Not a ground speed record, but I remember once flying above the NYS Thruway in a 172 and seeing cars going faster than me. What added insult was when the controller called me up and told the world what my ground speed was (50 knots) and asked "you want to try another altitude?" all the while I could hear laughter in the background.

[Jerry 5TJ]

For those of us with panel mounted GPS -- have look in the 'statistics' page and see what your average speed while airborne has been since the avionics were installed or reset. I had a look at a plane's 530 last week (not the "M20C"). It read 203 KGS averaged over the past 232,000 nmi. The peak recorded value is also there in the Garmin's memory -- it read 389 KGS, which is just short of twice the average speed.

[Awful_Charlie]

Try this: http://www.groundspeedrecords.com/database%20light.htm

You can always submit your own if you can better what's already there

[jetdriven]

In the 201 I have seen 215 knots groundspeed. On the 747-200 I have seen 646 knots.

[kris_adams]

Flightaware got me at 249kts Friday night descending into Daytona Beach 2 nights ago. 228kts max in cruise. Beautiful flight with a HUGE tailwind. Not a bump of turbulence until descending through 4,000' into DAB. My previous high was 214kts.

http://flightaware.c...2300Z/KLZU/KDAB

Not quite as fast coming home today!

[201er]

Why do you guys care so much about ground speed? We can get anything, even a skyhawk or balloon to go that fast in the right wind conditions. What I much prefer to know is our indicated airspeed and true airspeed potential because it is reproduceable and in the same air/course as another plane we can do it faster or on less fuel. That's where the Mooney shines. I don't see anyone making "slowest ground speed" topics, yet all you needed was to be flying the other way that day to have that embarrassing figure.

[kris_adams]

I have technically flown a Champ backwards and if GPS's existed at that time, I would have gotten a picture of that for sure...and to answer your question, my TAS was 158kts and I was burning an average 9.5gph-much less during the descent. 201mkturbo did post his slowest groundspeed above. My slowest was 118kts thus far. I hope to not test that again any time soon.

[jetdriven]

Why do you guys care so much about ground speed? We can get anything, even a skyhawk or balloon to go that fast in the right wind conditions. What I much prefer to know is our indicated airspeed and true airspeed potential because it is reproduceable and in the same air/course as another plane we can do it faster or on less fuel. That's where the Mooney shines. I don't see anyone making "slowest ground speed" topics, yet all you needed was to be flying the other way that day to have that embarrassing figure.

Thats easy in a J. 155 knots TAS ROP, 150 LOP, and if you really want to stretch the gas, 3.9 GPH at 90 KIAS

[Jeev]

207kts is my best in my J two weekends ago coming back from Salt Lake. 200+ on 10gph Always puts a smile on my face!!

[Jeev]

Why do you guys care so much about ground speed?

Because its fun to talk about

[bnicolette]

Well it wasn't in the Mooney but nonetheless, pretty cool. Climbing through FL375 @ 700 fpm and doing 571 knots over the ground.

At least something went right when flying home from Arlington, TX after the Cowboys beat the Steelers.

1:46 from Dallas to Pittsburgh.

[jetdriven]

I found it funny today. We flew from Boca to Ft Myers to drop off my wife's aunt and her daughter. We laid down the 97 miles in about 40 minutes, and burned up 7 gallons of gas. On descent into KRSW, we were told to slow up 20 knots for an Airbus 320 on final for sequencing. We were doing about 180 KIAS in the descent. Then we were told to slow up another 20 knots. Its not often I have to slow up 40 knots for an airliner. Love those Mooneys.

[jetdriven]

Well it wasn't in the Mooney but nonetheless, pretty cool. Climbing through FL375 @ 700 fpm and doing 571 knots over the ground.

At least something went right when flying home from Arlington, TX after the Cowboys beat the Steelers.

1:46 from Dallas to Pittsburgh.

Wow, those Lears can sure climb. The 747 with any load on it only climbs about 500 FPM above 20K.

[RJBrown]

Biggest number in level flight in the MSE was 232 KTS.

Pushed buttons in wrong order picture is below.

Never took a picture in the Rocket but saw over 300 KTS many times.

[RJBrown]

Here is the GPS picture 232 kts

[Wildhorsesracing]

Phew! I thought I was doing good when I hit 200 mph the other day!

[Firewalker]

Hi there. My name is Scott and I have been enjoying reading through the threads for a few days. One of the reasons I am on this forum is to ask the guys "in the know" about mooneys about the 421knot ground speed on file in a M20M Bravo. I saw an ad on controller for "record setting mooney". Was that speed a matter of being in a nasty dive and pulling out of it then capturing the record? Was it some hopped up version other than what is available to the public? Forgive me if this is the proverbial dead horse. I just gotta know! I hope each of you are doing well.

I hope to call myself a fellow owner of a Mooney some day. I am a 25hour student pilot and have been in the 110kias club in 152 or 172. I do like flying in anything but as far as future for me I hope to use the plane to get home quick on the weekends to kiss my wife a lil bit! I have read so many times of people putting on "speed mods" on a 172 and after spending a ton of cash only picking up 5-10 knots. I would rather start with a better platform personally. The record is what I am curious about but I wanted to introduce myself. Thanks for the great information on this forum. I hope I don't drive all of you insane with questions. I didn't see this one in search before posting. Happy New Year ... Blue skies!

Scott

[Awful_Charlie]

Welcome Scott

The Bravo book figure for maximum speed is up at FL250 where it is given as 214KTAS. At this altitude, the indicated speed will be 144KIAS in ISA conditions. As the red line speed for the Bravo is 198KIAS, this means the maximum KTAS (again in ISA conditions) will be 293. We can guess that the chap who managed to record 421kts ground speed must have had around 128kts of wind behind him at that time if he pitched to nose down to get the Vne speed. (I think that would quite a substantial nose down too, to get another 50+KIAS)

There's not much out on the market for speed mods to a Bravo, but you could probably get a few more by running the engine to take off power with vast quantities of fuel, but the Vne red line still stands, so all that would do for our record breaker is to reduce the descent rate a bit. It may well be that the conditions weren't ISA on that day, but hopefully the above gets you into the right sort of ball park

Ben