Taking Mooney for a Spin (poll)

[Hank]

8 hours ago, twall001 said:

. . . it seems every aircraft has its things and if operated outside the envelope it will bite you.

This sums it up well. Or . . .

8 hours ago, 201er said:

In other words it’s not the plane you pick but how you use it.

Even a Piper Cub is barely fast enough to kill you. 

Respect whichever plane you fly, learn it’s characteristics and fly it properly. Many people call this "flying the numbers," using known power settings to achieve known airspeeds. These are different for every plane, but you still have to watch your speed and don't stall by accident. 

[Pete M]

Spins dont happen by accident. They require specific control inputs to maintain. Spin entry's that become high g spirals happen by accident. If your mooney drops a wing and begins to rotate pull power, lower the nose( its probably point down anyway. Always push to break the stall)) and level the wings, raise nose gently. Mooney spin entrys are very abrupt and disorienting. Keep in mind, power makes her spin. Pull power and she'll do what ever you want. A 3 turn developed spin will go flat and you may not recover. Near the end of training i teach all of my students how to recover from an intentional spin entry (in a cessna). Its easy and desensitizes them to the unusual attitude so they dont freeze up if they ever have to recover in anger:)

[twall001]

interesting thought I read about rigging properly also

[Pinecone]

On 10/28/2013 at 9:35 PM, jetdriven said:

But in normal operation I treat it like a jet. Never stall the airplane during flight.

Huh.

Not only have I stalled jets, I have even intentionally spun one.

Now, these were not GA or Aircarrier jets.

But if more jet pilots had stalled jets, AF 447 might not have crashed.

A stall in swept wing aircraft is a lot different than a straight wing aircraft.  There is no stall break.  Then nose stays pretty much on the horizon and the wings rock.  And you come down VERY quickly

 

[jlunseth]

There is a better way to get out of an incipient spin than PARE. An incipient spin is the first turn of a spin. The formula is PUSH-ROLL-POWER-STABILIZE. Power is variable depending on the attitude when the spin break happens. If nose up, then increase power initially, and decrease when pulling out and stabilizing. If nose down, reduce power initially then increase when pulling out and stabilizing. PUSH-ROLL immediately unloads the wing and then you roll level. It works in any attitude. PARE is necessary if the aircraft enters a full spin. I went to APS and did a lot of this work in an Extra. Would not try it in the Mooney. Among other things I was very impressed (negatively) by the Victoria accident about a year ago. In the exact wrong circumstances it is possible to break the control surfaces in a very short period of time.

[KLRDMD]

4 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Find a competent instructor with time in your desired model and do the required training, put in a bunch of hours learning to fly your Mooney then do your instrument rating.

I think there's a huge difference between a CFI with time in your desired model (maybe 5 hours) and one with 1,000 or 5,000 hours in Mooneys. Just like any old A&P can work on your Mooney but do you want someone that has only done an oil change on one to do your first annual?

Edited October 9, 2022 by KLRDMD

[Pete M]

44 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

There is a better way to get out of an incipient spin than PARE. An incipient spin is the first turn of a spin. The formula is PUSH-ROLL-POWER-STABILIZE. Power is variable depending on the attitude when the spin break happens. If nose up, then increase power initially, and decrease when pulling out and stabilizing. If nose down, reduce power initially then increase when pulling out and stabilizing. PUSH-ROLL immediately unloads the wing and then you roll level. It works in any attitude. PARE is necessary if the aircraft enters a full spin. I went to APS and did a lot of this work in an Extra. Would not try it in the Mooney. Among other things I was very impressed (negatively) by the Victoria accident about a year ago. In the exact wrong circumstances it is possible to break the control surfaces in a very short period of time.

In a prop plane always pull power. I dont care if the nose is straight up. Pull power, push. The nose will drop into the relative wind. Its the power that causes rotation. It is different than what is taught in unusual attitude recovery. Thats why i teach it. Its amazing how many experienced pilots will shove power in because the manuever started out nose up. As soon as they do the airplane drops its wing and we're off to the races:) You must break the stall, reduce aoa below crit aoa before adding power. A 0 g airplane will not stall, the nose simply drops. No stall, no spin...unless ofcourse you have power. Then its a carnival ride:)

[Guest]

1 hour ago, KLRDMD said:

I think there's a huge difference between a CFI with time in your desired model (maybe 5 hours) and one with 1,000 or 5,000 hours in Mooneys. Just like any old A&P can work on your Mooney but do you want someone that has only done an oil change on one to do your first annual?

Agreed, but I did mention competent instructor, so yes one with more than just the ability to know it's a Mooney.  Not sure how many 1000-5000 hour Mooney specific instructors there are around the country, other than the few who grace these pages.

 

[Pete M]

1 hour ago, M20Doc said:

Agreed, but I did mention competent instructor, so yes one with more than just the ability to know it's a Mooney.  Not sure how many 1000-5000 hour Mooney specific instructors there are around the country, other than the few who grace these pages.

 

5000 given in prop planes? Damn few. 5000 given in mooneys? Probably near 0. 

[Fly Boomer]

On 6/9/2013 at 8:17 PM, Hank said:

I've read Bob Kromer's advice about spin recovery, and someone's article (Don Kaye?) about inadvertent spins in Mooneys

Kromer basically said you MIGHT recover from a one-turn spin if you start at altitude, but you will need about 2,000 feet.  Near the ground, forget it.  I think at the time he was testing 252s, but I suspect that any medium or long body is the same.

[jetdriven]

5 hours ago, Pinecone said:

Huh.

Not only have I stalled jets, I have even intentionally spun one.

Now, these were not GA or Aircarrier jets.

But if more jet pilots had stalled jets, AF 447 might not have crashed.

A stall in swept wing aircraft is a lot different than a straight wing aircraft.  There is no stall break.  Then nose stays pretty much on the horizon and the wings rock.  And you come down VERY quickly

 

I wholeheartedly endorse  stalling them during training…but inadvertent stalls  at low altitude  never end up well.  Hence the normal operation part, just don’t allow that to be something that develops. 

[DXB]

17 hours ago, 201er said:

Finishing your instrument rating will go a long way too. Such a long way that you’re practically uninsurable in a Mooney without it. 

@twall001 This statement misses the mark completely.  You are not uninsurable in a Mooney without an IR, and the IR is neither needed nor recommended before you transition to one. You might not want to start off in a K model or Acclaim, but much of the Mooney fleet is perfectly appropriate for your experience level, given some transition training and respect for their distinctive flight characteristics (as with ANY unfamiliar plane).  There are also no perils in not having an IR in a Mooney that do not apply to any other plane.  At the same time, there is hardly a more favorable piston single platform for both your IFR training and subsequent real world IFR flying than a Mooney.

[KLRDMD]

4 hours ago, Pete M said:

5000 given in prop planes? Damn few. 5000 given in mooneys? Probably near 0. 

I'm pretty sure Don Kaye has more than 5,000 hours in Mooneys and he travels the entire country doing transition training so those paeople are available.

[M20F]

9 hours ago, Pete M said:

Spins dont happen by accident. They require specific control inputs to maintain. Spin entry's that become high g spirals happen by accident.

This is the correct answer.  A spin is an aerobatic maneuver during which the airspeed floats around stall spreed.  A spiral is continual increasing airspeed and they are what kill you. 
 
Pilots spend an inordinate amount of time talking about spins when they really mean spirals.  

[A64Pilot]

I’ve not read a whole lot of this and only really have a couple of comments

Many of you that have spun a Mooney I’d respectfully say maybe you had a rotation of two but not a fully developed spin, I spin my little C-140 every now and again (it’s approved for spins) and if you do the classic spin entry, that is full stall and as she breaks full rudder and hold it, it will rotate pretty rapidly, but it’s not a fully developed spin, the inboard wing isn’t fully stalled.

It’s takes a pretty hard application of power just at stall break for the P factor to really put her into a spin, or what I like to do is bury the rudder before stall break, that makes her roll over on her back in a sort of split S and she immediately wraps up into a spin.

Be very respectful and fear aircraft that are hard to make spin, very often they are also hard to recover from one. Mooney doesn’t seem to want to spin

Then lastly a spin with one or two people in the front seats is vastly different than one with four aboard and some baggage, Every dual category aircraft (normal and utility) has two very different CG envelopes, the utility doesn’t allow nearly as much aft CG (all utility category aircraft are approved for spins)

If you want to spin go rent a Utility category aircraft and an aerobatic instructor and have at, but don’t even tempt the devil in your Mooney, for those that have and survived to tell the tale, don’t do it again, you may have just gotten lucky those times.

My thought is if she ever really wraps up in a fully developed spin, she may be real hard to recover.

‘There was a video of a NASA test pilot spinning a V tail Bo, he did several entries and successful recovery, but then he did one with a little opposite aileron and she wrapped up in a fully developed spin, he fought it for thousands of feet and finally bailed out.

I saw it only about a year ago, maybe it’s still around, you have found it when the guy has a huge handlebar moustache

[GeeBee]

9 hours ago, Pinecone said:

Huh.

Not only have I stalled jets, I have even intentionally spun one.

Now, these were not GA or Aircarrier jets.

But if more jet pilots had stalled jets, AF 447 might not have crashed.

A stall in swept wing aircraft is a lot different than a straight wing aircraft.  There is no stall break.  Then nose stays pretty much on the horizon and the wings rock.  And you come down VERY quickly

 

What if I told you that on AF 447 if the stick was full forward (to the stop) out of FL270 and thrust idle AF447 still would have crashed?

[Skates97]

14 hours ago, M20Doc said:

You’ve got more than enough time to fly a Mooney, they’re not difficult to fly.  Far to many posters here pedal the myth of how difficult they are to fly and only God himself should be your instructor.

Find a competent instructor with time in your desired model and do the required training, put in a bunch of hours learning to fly your Mooney then do your instrument rating.

 

I agree completely. When I was finishing up my PPL I told the owner of the flight school I wanted to get a Mooney. He told me to get something slower and fly a few years and then transition. He was very familiar with Mooney's, they had one at the school they did commercial instruction in. I didn't take his advice, I finished my PPL with 46.7 hours in my logbook and then with 58.6 total hours bought and started flying my Mooney. I got my transition training and never looked back. There are a number of other members here on the site with a similar story of getting a Mooney right after their PPL. There are even some who did their primary in a Mooney, although I'm glad I didn't.

21 hours ago, 201er said:

Finishing your instrument rating will go a long way too. Such a long way that you’re practically uninsurable in a Mooney without it. Instrument rating, good transition training, practice and proficiency, a healthy respect of the rules (rules of FAA and rules of nature), and ongoing Mooney learning like Mooney Summit and PPP courses are ways to strongly shift things toward your favor.

I didn't have an instrument rating, I didn't even have any complex time but still got reasonable insurance and flew the next 600 hours all over the southwest with multiple trips from CA to AZ, UT, ID, CO, OR and all the way to the East Coast and another trip to Oshkosh VFR. One of the things people say is that you go fast enough that you are bound to run into weather. While that is somewhat true depending on the part of the country you fly, the speed also enables you to go around a lot of it and if you have flexibility (a requirement if you are flying VFR) you can go somewhere the weather isn't. We did have to sometimes modify our departure/arrival times because of weather, but we still got most of our flights in.

I finished up my IFR a year ago and it has been very beneficial, but not "a must" if you have flexibility.

[Shadrach]

7 hours ago, Fly Boomer said:

Kromer basically said you MIGHT recover from a one-turn spin if you start at altitude, but you will need about 2,000 feet.  Near the ground, forget it.  I think at the time he was testing 252s, but I suspect that any medium or long body is the same.

I think that is paraphrasing with an eye towards the dramatic. With adequate attitude, all Mooneys will recover from a spin using proper recovery technique. I think Bob would say as much if asked. They lose more altitude per rotation and will likely not recover in a single turn but they are not 50/50 unrecoverable.

[Fly Boomer]

14 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

I think that is paraphrasing with an eye towards the dramatic. With adequate attitude, all Mooneys will recover from a spin using proper recovery technique. I think Bob would say as much if asked. They lose more altitude per rotation and will likely not recover in a single turn but they are not 50/50 unrecoverable.

To help dispel a cavalier attitude regarding spins, reference “Stall/Spin Awareness” by Rich Stowell.

[Shadrach]

1 minute ago, Fly Boomer said:

To help dispel a cavalier attitude regarding spins, reference “Stall/Spin Awareness” by Rich Stowell.

Are you suggesting that I have a cavalier attitude regarding spins simply because I’ve stated that the airframe will recover from a spin?  Every airframe listed in TCDS 2A3 had to demonstrate spin recovery for certification. 

[Fly Boomer]

Just now, Shadrach said:

Are you suggesting that I have a cavalier attitude regarding spins simply because I’ve stated that the airframe will recover from a spin?  Every airframe listed in TCDS 2A3 had to demonstrate spin recovery for certification. 

I’m suggesting that anyone who flys a Mooney (or probably any higher-performance airplane) should read the book.

[carusoam]

23 hours ago, twall001 said:

Thank you all,

I'm chkd out 152 72 and 82. To buy I have looked at the mooney for alot of reasons and stuctural integrity is one of my interests. I have seen folded up Cessnas not so bad. Pipers seem to be nothing left ever, same with bo's and all I hear is break up break up! I have 178 hrs and 10+ instument, watch and read everything I can. The Dakota still is a big want along with the F35A or V33 a choice 182 with a little more ponies or the 201 mostly I think a Ranger with johnson bar gear and manual flaps tricked out like new. wife does not like the high wing to much but I will talk her into it if an instructor tells me I have to build more time. Lost a friend in a P180 stall spin so in my mind I worry survivability of the Dakota. Bottom line (get to the point man) is after reading your comments it seems every aircraft has its things and if operated outside the envelope it will bite you. I just cant get all the accident numbers or I need to look elswhere than google. I am looking at 4 manufactures and you scared me almost off the mooney but than again? .... any comments on these 4 aircraft? Like the low wing...Help us Obi-Wan Kenobi Your our only hope. Thanks again, Tom

 

Tom,

Let’s set the stage properly…  

1) This thread is ancient… but, many of the posters are still Mooney owners… 

2) Many of them are Pro-pilots, mechanics, CFIs and ordinary GA pilots…. Some are all four… 

3) Often they sound like a family at a big holiday dinner, in front of an important football game…

4) Continue to ask a ton of questions…

5) If you miss something… ask for clarification…

6) Mooney has built tremendous airplanes that continue to fly even after 50years…

7) Oddly, some people learn to fly safely from zero hours in their Mooney…

8) Insurance costs for ‘complex’ airplanes becomes more affordable with additional experience and training…

9) getting the IR helps… but is definitely not a requirement… the training pays for itself over a few years… pretty good ROI! 

10) the topic of this thread… taking a Mooney for a spin… Mooneys recover from spins using the usual inputs…

Mooney pilots avoid spins… using the usual techniques…

11) Sadly, few pilots ever recover from mishaps at traffic pattern altitudes… even the ones with parachutes… it’s not the plane.

 

Sooooo….

Get trained, let’s go fly some Mooneys!

Stay extra safe while building your experience…

PP thoughts only, not a CFI…

Best regards,

-a-

PS, Mooney owner after about 100hrs… C152 and 172 experience before that…

[M20F]

43 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

To help dispel a cavalier attitude regarding spins, reference “Stall/Spin Awareness” by Rich Stowell.

A book which covers spirals in about 2 pages and talks incessantly about spin maneuvers (FUD sells books).  The secret is don’t stall, in every case where an inadvertent spin (leading to a spiral) will occur the stall kills you the spin just gets the credit.  There generally is no possibility of recovery (ala base to final) from a spin in an actual real life situation.  
 
Spins are like the LOP of flight maneuvers.  Often debated but mostly by people who don’t know what they really are taking about.  Want to learn something that will save your life, learn to fly partial panel well.  Want to screw around and have fun do spins, loops, and rolls.  They are all acrobatic maneuvers. 
 
Here is 52 1/2 spins for everyone to get sick watching.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsX2yGJ2Tn4

[201er]

5 hours ago, DXB said:

@twall001 This statement misses the mark completely.  You are not uninsurable in a Mooney without an IR, and the IR is neither needed nor recommended before you transition to one. You might not want to start off in a K model or Acclaim, but much of the Mooney fleet is perfectly appropriate for your experience level, given some transition training and respect for their distinctive flight characteristics (as with ANY unfamiliar plane).  There are also no perils in not having an IR in a Mooney that do not apply to any other plane.  At the same time, there is hardly a more favorable piston single platform for both your IFR training and subsequent real world IFR flying than a Mooney.

Last I’ve heard from the insurance people, there are fewer carriers than ever before that will insure a pilot in a Mooney at all without an instrument rating. This leaves fewer options, therefore higher prices, therefore “practically” uninsurable these days. It’s the same issue as insuring student pilots or super low time pilots in Mooneys. 

[M20F]

5 minutes ago, 201er said:

Last I’ve heard from the insurance people, there are fewer carriers than ever before that will insure a pilot in a Mooney at all without an instrument rating. 

Totally untrue.