Bravo Sold. No longer a Moniac.

[johnggreen]

Fantom,

 

You won't believe this, but of the existing schemes I've seen, that may be my favorite.  It looks like my Bravo.

If you want to see what I think is the prettiest current scheme on an airplane, go to New Piper's site and look at the Meridian and Mirage.  I just don't know if it can be adapted to the mid wing Aerostar.  There are design services that will draw schemes out for you.  That will probably be my next step.

 

Jgreen

[KSMooniac]

John,

 

Nice choice!  In case you didn't know, Norman/testwest on here has a 201 and an Aerostar.  He has written some great articles about operating the Aerostar efficiently, and has gone through a lot of de-squawking with his to get it reliable.  You might contact him directly for tips/tricks/advice.  He is a test pilot in his day job, and likens the Aerostar to a Twin Mooney due to the speed, efficiency, and uniqueness.  

 

I and several others here have used a freelance scheme designer to create our paint schemes, and I bet he could help you come up with something great for the Aerostar.  PM me if you want more details.  Very modest cost, unlimited iterations, and a nice design package is delivered to the paint shop to execute the scheme.

[fantom]

John,

 

....used a freelance scheme designer to create our paint schemes, and I bet he could help you come up with something great for the Aerostar.  .

 

+1

 

Brian is top notch, a Texan, and way less expensive than that old outfit in NJ.

[johnggreen]

John,

 

Nice choice!  In case you didn't know, Norman/testwest on here has a 201 and an Aerostar.  He has written some great articles about operating the Aerostar efficiently, and has gone through a lot of de-squawking with his to get it reliable.  You might contact him directly for tips/tricks/advice.  He is a test pilot in his day job, and likens the Aerostar to a Twin Mooney due to the speed, efficiency, and uniqueness.  

 

I and several others here have used a freelance scheme designer to create our paint schemes, and I bet he could help you come up with something great for the Aerostar.  PM me if you want more details.  Very modest cost, unlimited iterations, and a nice design package is delivered to the paint shop to execute the scheme.

I am sending you a PM of my email.  Yes, I would appreciate the referral.

 

Jgreen

[KSMooniac]

Any updates John?  (I hope you're subscribed to this thread...)

[johnggreen]

Any updates John?  (I hope you're subscribed to this thread...)

Hello to all,

 

Yes, I'm still hanging around here and BT, just not saying much.  You know I have never regretted what I didn't say.

I have the Aerostar and flying it almost everyday.  I have not gotten the required instruction yet to satisfy the insurance company, but I'm legal, and comfortable with the airplane.  Lots of debugging to do and upgrade panel and paint yet to come.

 

I think that when I "get it right", I'm going to really enjoy the airplane.  It is a joy to fly and very, very stable.  Roll stability better than Bravo but a little sensitive on pitch.  No bad habits that I have found so far, just fast.  Rotate at VMC of 83 knots is hauling ***.  Very comfortable.  Yesterday coming back from Vicksburg, I was at 7,500, 50% power and truing almost 180 knots at 24 gallons, not bad.

 

I'll stay in touch as things progress and post some pics.  Scheduled for the paint shop in early September at Cimarron.

 

Jgreen

[KSMooniac]

Thanks for the update.  Glad to hear you're off to a pretty good start so far with the Aerostar, and I expect you'll get it fully sorted and up to your high specs soon enough.  It is effectively a "Twin Mooney" from everything I've read in terms of performance and efficiency.  

 

Did you develop a custom paint scheme or are you going to go with a conventional one?

[johnggreen]

KS, I had Brian design a custom scheme, but he is also doing a couple of "standards" just for funsies. The custom looks terrific and is unique without being too much so.  I'll see if I can down load one for your thoughts.

 

Jgreen

 

OK, somebody remind me of how to download on here.

[Hank]

John--

Looking forward to your paint scheme.

Hit 'More Reply Options' enter your text, then select 'Browse', pick your photo(s), then click'Attach' and wait. When it finishes, Add Reply.

Enjoy your Twin Mooney! We're flying it vicariously with you.

[johnggreen]

John--

Looking forward to your paint scheme.

Hit 'More Reply Options' enter your text, then select 'Browse', pick your photo(s), then click'Attach' and wait. When it finishes, Add Reply.

Enjoy your Twin Mooney! We're flying it vicariously with you.

Hank,

 

Tried that and it said it could not download the pic.  Go figure.

 

I'll try again.

 

Jgreen

[Hank]

Your pictures may be too large. Can you lower the resolution?

[johnggreen]

Hank,

 

I think that is the problem.  I have the sketches downloaded from Brian's email.  There is a very computer literate lady in my office.  I'll see if she knows how to do it tomorrow.

 

Jgreen

[Hank]

Good luck! I can't do it myself, either. But I'm looking forward to the designs.

[johnggreen]

Hank,

 

PM me your email and i'll send the sketches to you.  Maybe you can figure out how to reduce them.

 

An update for you fellows who are interested.

 

I had Ken Bacon, the head of the Aerostar Owners Association and a very knowledgeable fellow on the intricacies of the A* come and go over my airplane with a fine tooth comb.  He spent two days with the guys at my shop and pronounced it a solid aircraft.  They did find a few discrepancies to add to our list, but overall, it is as expected.  This A* has never been out of annual, but like so many twins today, it had been flown sparingly and the maintenance was not nearly up to my standards.

 

Like I said, nothing major but for instance; replace all lower engine mounts (found one cracked), replace a leaking crank seal, a bad plug, A/C compressor, some chaffed wiring, loose turbo wastegate controller, etc.  All told, so far, on mechanical items about $12,000 including the inspection.  Next week, an engine monitor, then gamis if needed.

 

Still trying to decide on what avionics upgrades.   I have a 530, 430, C-IV AP/FD, weather radar, but no download weather. I suspect that I will put in an Aspen PFD, and replace the 530 with a 750 with the 530 going to the Skylane.  The 530 and 430 were advertised as WAAS but were not; that's about $7,200, ouch !

 

My youngest son, age 27 and a pilot, was home today and flew in the A* for the first time.  He flew from the right seat and made a better first landing than I did.

 

I won't bore you further, but at some point if any are interested, I'll give some details of the systems and flying characteristics.

 

Expect to make my first long X-C to VA Saturday.  Really looking forward to it.

 

More later.

 

Jgreen

[KSMooniac]

I appreciate the updates and am vicariously following along. Looking forward to more! Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2

[kgbpost]

Good to hear John. Sounds like you're doing it right. The 601P is a very sweet airplane...i'm jealous. Post some pics would ya? Brian

[fantom]

I appreciate the updates and am vicariously following along.

 

Me  too, me too.

 

Did the paint design wind up anything like the photo I posted back in May, John?

[johnggreen]

Me  too, me too.

 

Did the paint design wind up anything like the photo I posted back in May, John?

Well, a little, but Brian put his own touch to it.  I sent the sketches to Hank to see if he could reduce and post.

[Hank]

John--

 

I like the look of the dark tail. Maybe the multi-colored stripes emphasize it some? [That's #8 and #14.] What is the logo on the tail--something of yours, or an Aerostar thing like the Thunderbird on my vertical stabilizer?

 

This is the file as you sent it to me. Apparently whoever saved it as a pdf did some good compression for you.

 

Pick the best, and let us see how it looks when it's all said and done. In the meantime, how was your weekend flight??? Enquiring minds want to know!

GREEN-AEROSTAR 601P-R1.pdf

[fantom]

Brian Smith does excellent design work!!! It's a good idea to have the details of what one wants the paint shop to do, from an independent source, not a picture or two to the shop itself. Oh, and Brian is much more reasonable than those Scheme(ing) Designers in the northeast.

 

BTW, my favorite is #8 of 15.

[KSMooniac]

I voted #14!  All of them are great concepts and look *much* nicer than any of their factory schemes I've seen over the years.

[johnggreen]

Many thanks to Hank for figuring out how to post those sketches.  The symbols?  Those are Bryan's, no significance.  As for Bryan's charges, I feel guilty for the small amount I paid him.

 

Now, as to Saturday's flight.  I was taking my son back to CHO to pick up his car.  He just finished his MBA at VA and had brought his things home in a U-Haul.  The A* has on board radar but no XM so we took a XM enabled 796 along.  When we took off from GNF, on climb out, we plugged the 796 into the power plug and it shut the autopilot down.  Grant was nice enough to volunteer to hand fly on the leg to CHO, including my/our first approach into CHO.  Found the problem with the power plug today.  Some dufus put it on the same bus as the A/P and the A/P doesn't like any spikes.  No damage and the A/P works fine.  Only this dufus, being me, tried it again on the way home and "bingo", shut it down again so I got to hand fly it home.  Thankfully, this is a very stable airplane and I didn't bust any assigned altitudes.

 

Anyway, the flight was beautiful.  Started at 15,000 and climbed to 17,000 for some build ups.  Gentlemen, pressurization is nice.  No cannula, no tickling nose, no hanging up on the hose everytime I reach for something behind me.  You can look at the flight and return on Flightaware, N6DU.  About 3.3 hours both ways.  Had a big cross wind and averaged over 200 knots both ways.  It took 95 gallons to top off at CHO.  Didn't fill up on return so, don't know, but think probably 100 gallons, maybe 105.  The Bravo, on the same trip would take about 65 gallons with no wind.

 

Now, the impressive part is that we were at best power, at only 58% power.  The "efficiency" of this airplane is well, unexpected????  It's no Mooney, but then, it's not a Mooney.  Next week we install the engine monitor and I will feel good about LOP.  I'm interested to see just how "efficient" she might be.

 

The A* does, in many ways, remind me of the Bravo.  There is nothing wrong with the way it flies or its systems, but it is certainly different.

 

I am thinking that those of you who are following this will be very interested in the systems, flying characteristics, and flight parameters.  I will post to those topics later.  I think that anyone who flies a high performance airplane, like a Mooney, will find it all truly interesting.

 

Jgreen

[Hank]

 I'm interested to see just how "efficient" she might be.

 

The A* does, in many ways, remind me of the Bravo.  There is nothing wrong with the way it flies or its systems, but it is certainly different.

 

I am thinking that those of you who are following this will be very interested in the systems, flying characteristics, and flight parameters.  I will post to those topics later.  I think that anyone who flies a high performance airplane, like a Mooney, will find it all truly interesting.

 

Jgreen

 

John, you hit that nail on the head! It's a cool airplane, it's nice, advanced, fast and much more efficient than much of its competition. There are several here who are interested in how it performs, and how this twin compares to our singles.

[johnggreen]

I won't try to do this in one or two or probably even three posts, but I'll try to convey the interesting and different aspects of the Aerostar without being too verbose or too many posts.  In a word, the Aerostar is simply about speed.  As I have referenced before, I have been a member of the Beechtalk forum for a couple of years now.  When I started looking at selling the Bravo, my first, almost exclusive, interest was in a turbo Baron, P-Baron, or Duke.  One of my friends, an avid Mooney enthusiast and knowledgeable aviator, kept suggesting the Aerostar.  I was less than receptive.  I just didn't have any faith in the support structure for the airplane.  The more I looked at the Barons and Dukes, the less comfortable I became.  Even the owners carped about the maintenance challenges.  One Duke owner said that the best way to own a Duke was to own two; one to fly, one for parts.

 

A friend of mine had purchased a P-Baron about the same time I bought the Bravo.  The maintenance ate him alive.  His chosen shop was 250 miles away and I almost wore the Bravo out taking him to and from there to deliver or pick up the Baron.  The horror stories that were posted on BT about Duke ownership were not encouraging either; not even mentioning the 45 gallon per hour fuel burn to get maybe 220 knots at altitude.  It was a series of small events that pushed me to look into the Aerostar, but what finally provided the information I needed and the comfort factor I demanded was the Aerostar Owners Association.  Without the obvious support structure of that organization, I would probably be flying a B-55 Baron today.

 

The Aerostar will outrun the "comparable" Baron by at least 20 knots.  That is with the standard 295 horse engines.  The upgraded 700's will best even that by another 15 knots but at one hell of an increase in fuel burn.  The normally aspirated 600 will give a real world 215 knot cruise any day burning just over 30 gph.

 

My 601P has TIO-540 Lycomings that are actually turbo normalized.  My max manifold pressure on takeoff is 30".  The 602P is the same airplane but Piper decided to go to lower compression engines that were true turbocharged with higher manifold pressures.  The issue was to alleviate detonation problems with the higher compression, turbo normalized engines of the 601P.  Machen solved the problem in a much better way, they STC'd intercoolers for the high compression engines that eliminated detonation and upped the performance to boot.  My A*, which has intercoolers, will legitimately deliver 240 knots at altitude burning 35 gph, but the most impressive numbers come at 55% in the mid teens where 200+ knots and 24 gph is everyday performance.

 

The range of the speed numbers is almost unheard of in other aircraft.  Top of the green arc is 215 knots with a Vne of 241.  Coming down from altitude is usually just lowering the nose and hauling ass since you will almost never get to the yellow arc.  If you do need to slow down, 10% flaps are allowed anywhere in the green and 20% @ 175 indicated.   Full flaps are allowed at 148 but full flaps are something you don't use until very short final because it's like throwing out a boat anchor.  Another "interesting" speed is Va, maneuvering, 167 knots !!  At the modest power settings I use, I would usually have to speed up to be at maneuvering speeds.

 

The V speeds are:  

Vne-241; 

Vno, top of green, 215

Va-166

Vf, full flaps 148

Vf20, 20 degree flaps 174

Vle, gear extension, 156

Vmc, 84 

Blue Line:  Best single engine climb speed-109 knots.

 

Stall speeds at gross:

Clean-86 knots

Gear down, Flaps 45 degrees-77 knots

 

Next post, i'll give a recitation of the takeoff and landing procedures.

 

That's enough for now.  It's late and I have a very busy day tomorrow.

 

More later.

 

Jgreen

[DaV8or]

I like schemes 1 and 5. Thanks for sharing the ride in the Aerostar. If I had both loads of time and money, it's the twin I would likely buy, or if I had even more loads I go to the TMB-850