M20J / 201 questions

DavidWhite said:
I'm actually almost an FAA standard adult now. I don't NEED a GWT increase, but it's always nice to be able to carry more. With 4 people and 35 gallons of gas I can only carry like 30 pounds of bags, and for a beach trip for the weekend that isn't much.
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How much can your new girl's bikinis possibly weigh?

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DavidWhite said:
Is there a certain difference on the later airframes or are they effectively the same? If the zombies come it will be good to know I could load my airplane up to 2900 pounds without the wings falling off.

Like with my 172 I knew it would fly with 2500 pounds of weight because of the Air Plains STC - I had the same engine but didn't have the flaps limit. It's always important to know the limits.

For zombies, of course.
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Breaking the wings off is NOT one of the problems you will see with a Mooney, you'll blow out the tires on the ground long before you risk the wing lol.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I'd also suggest that going head-down and reading long checklists in flight is going to result in less than ideal results. Interestingly enough, the one opportunity I had to fly a jet I was really impressed with their checklists. Not one bit of "fluff." There's a whole lot of checklists, but they're quick and concise.
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First - Thanks for taking the time to reply

The first checklist I posted was a rough draft - the one attached as a .pdf in a later post is the one I have currently, and I addressed some of the concerns you pointed out in that one.

Yes, I am trying to.. refine the checklist to be less of a heads down operation. Stuff like scanning the engine instruments and alternator, vacuum check are things I am trying to avoid on the checklist. Basically I think that once established on a profile (climb, cruise etc) these are things that should be scanned but do not need to be on a checklist.

This is the first plane my friend has flown that was not a 172 and I think he has maybe 6-7 hours in the plane. He smartly recognizes that he is not going to be flying the mooney at night or in IMC until he gets some more experience.

I start my M20J checkout this weekend. I hope to have it done in a sat/sunday and then get some instrument practice at night next week. The mooney is the saving grace of our club - at $155 an hour they are a real good deal.

Your point on reducing MP until the RPM's drop is noted, I will revise that.

As far as the descent goes, yeah I will probably be screaming down at the top of the green arc as long as I am sure i'll be in smooth air. But I was trying to KISS and put in a power setting that is going to be more of an all-purpose descent profile.

My only previous experience with a constant speed prop is in a super decathlon and I basically kept it full forward and flew patterns with it. And of course some inverted flight :)
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
Lance,

I'm curious - You use full (2700?) RPM in climb and 2500 in cruise. Those are higher numbers than I've heard before, and I've also understood that it's best to use the minimum appropriate RPM for a given power setting to minimize wear and power losses to friction.

I'm sure you've decided on your procedures for a reason - Can you share your thought process?
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I'm pretty sure these are pretty normal parameters for an M20J. I think the IO360 would make TBO if you ran it at 2700rpm the whole time. Using 2500 just quiets it down a bit.
 
Henning said:
Breaking the wings off is NOT one of the problems you will see with a Mooney, you'll blow out the tires on the ground long before you risk the wing lol.
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:yeahthat: I think most of the "beefing" up for the high weight is in the landing gear, if I recall.

The Mooney has one of the toughest airframes, and strongest wings, ever made. I believe there has only been one recorded in-flight breakup and that was coming out of a Level 5 thunderstorm.
 
Mebbe so, but snug down tight if you're flying in the bumps, otherwise your head hitting the ceiling will rattle your cage 'til your eyes bug out.

LDJones said:
:yeahthat: I think most of the "beefing" up for the high weight is in the landing gear, if I recall.

The Mooney has one of the toughest airframes, and strongest wings, ever made. I believe there has only been one recorded in-flight breakup and that was coming out of a Level 5 thunderstorm.
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Pilawt said:
Re Mooney M20E/F/J don't forget to close the "Power Boost" on the ground -- it's unfiltered air.
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You may see it referred to as "Ram Air" in the manual.
 
LDJones said:
:yeahthat: I think most of the "beefing" up for the high weight is in the landing gear, if I recall.

The Mooney has one of the toughest airframes, and strongest wings, ever made. I believe there has only been one recorded in-flight breakup and that was coming out of a Level 5 thunderstorm.
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And a case of a mechanic that forgot to torque the engine to the firewall after an engine change:hairraise::mad:
 
dell30rb said:
This is the first plane my friend has flown that was not a 172 and I think he has maybe 6-7 hours in the plane. He smartly recognizes that he is not going to be flying the mooney at night or in IMC until he gets some more experience.
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That's what I figured - That's a pretty big speed jump.

I start my M20J checkout this weekend. I hope to have it done in a sat/sunday and then get some instrument practice at night next week. The mooney is the saving grace of our club - at $155 an hour they are a real good deal.
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Yup - About a dollar a knot, and to go that fast is a good deal. Mooneys are sweet airplanes, and it's all too rare to find a situation where you can fly one outside of owning it yourself. I've only ever seen one for rent, and yours is one of only two clubs I know of that have them (the other being the Des Moines Flying Club).

My only previous experience with a constant speed prop is in a super decathlon and I basically kept it full forward and flew patterns with it. And of course some inverted flight :)
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You'll get to love it very quickly. I think most of my first 250 hours or so was with fixed-pitch, but almost all of the 800 or so since has been with constant speed. It's good for efficiency, and in some ways makes flying easier - No setting power a little high to allow for it to change when your airspeed decreases prior to an instrument approach or the like. You can also make all the power changes you need to make as a pilot without freaking your passengers out because they heard something change. In the Ovation, I make one RPM change between takeoff and reducing power for the last time or two in the pattern.
 
I got one good day of flying in the Mooney yesterday.

The standard practice is to sign pilots off for VFR flight after the minimum 5 hours in type required by insurance, then come back later and do the instrument work. I hope to be finished with both the VFR and IPC by the 5hr mark, we'll see if I can meet that goal.

Knocked out all the airwork (stalls, steep turns, min speed flight), short/soft field landings and several power off 180's yesterday. Got all those boxes checked off the checkout sheet. Tomorrow night i'll have a gear failure or two, we'll do the emergency gear extension thing, go over all the emergency checklists and then put the hood on for slow flight, stalls and an approach or two.

The plane is easy to fly. I found it very easy to land too. The only quirk I could find is that when you put the flaps up, the plane wants to pitch up. So you hit the flaps up switch and go right for the trim wheel.

After 1.6 hrs in the plane I feel pretty comfortable and had the complex thing down pretty well. Using a top down flow for both landing and take off works for me.
 
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Lance F said:
I'm pretty sure these are pretty normal parameters for an M20J. I think the IO360 would make TBO if you ran it at 2700rpm the whole time. Using 2500 just quiets it down a bit.
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The other issue is detonation, there is a fine line between maximum economy/efficiency and a burned up piston. The wear issue between 2300 and 2700 rpm is non existent.
 
dell30rb said:
The plane is easy to fly. I found it very easy to land too. The only quirk I could find is that when you put the flaps up, the plane wants to pitch up. So you hit the flaps up switch and go right for the trim wheel.
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Yup - The Mooney does the opposite of every plane I've ever flown. Flaps down, it pitches down. Flaps up, it pitches up.

Must be 'cuz the tail's on backwards. :D
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Yup - The Mooney does the opposite of every plane I've ever flown. Flaps down, it pitches down. Flaps up, it pitches up.

Must be 'cuz the tail's on backwards. :D
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When I said that to a CFI friend she said "Surely you mean that the nose pitches up when you add flaps?" So I said "I mean what I said and don't call me Shirley.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Yup - The Mooney does the opposite of every plane I've ever flown. Flaps down, it pitches down. Flaps up, it pitches up.

Must be 'cuz the tail's on backwards. :D
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Actually, Mooney is the only one with the tail on correctly, minimum frontal area. The rest are just to give them that 'supersonic' look.
 
Henning said:
Actually, Mooney is the only one with the tail on correctly, minimum frontal area.
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Almost the only one ...

ac100_1968.jpg
 
This is the airplane with which it is fun to play "stump the pilot."
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Photo curtesy George Trussell.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Yup - The Mooney does the opposite of every plane I've ever flown. Flaps down, it pitches down. Flaps up, it pitches up.

Must be 'cuz the tail's on backwards. :D
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Hershey bar Cherokees pitch down on first flaps.
Semi-tapered Cherokees pitch up on first flaps.
 
Well it's not in the FAA registry, but it looks like a Mooney....but that would be too easy, right?
 
Jaybird180 said:
Well it's not in the FAA registry, but it looks like a Mooney....but that would be too easy, right?
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It's in the registry. (I had to cheat but I'm not gonna give it away)
 
It is NOT officially a Mooney.

PILAWT.....you are not invited to this contest!!!:D

(you probably have a brochure on it!)
 
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My dad got this photo at Grants Pass in the late 1990s. It's one of the more interesting combinations of aeronautical DNA -- 1967 Mooney M20E Super-21 fuselage, Beech Musketeer vertical fin & rudder, Mooney-Aerostar-based wing (i.e., from a Mooney built during the Butler regime), engine from a Cessna 337, and Beech tip-tanks. Unfortunately the airplane and all aboard were lost in a stall-spin accident in 2007.

Comoonchey.jpg
 
Henning said:
The other issue is detonation, there is a fine line between maximum economy/efficiency and a burned up piston. The wear issue between 2300 and 2700 rpm is non existent.
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What, do you think I'm running 87 octane mogas?
 
Thanks to whoever posted this... I took the checklist that was at freechecklists.com (or whatever site that was) and modified it. I think the guy who made that is actually an instructor at my club.
 

Attachments

Mine keeps getting problemed out. But hoping to get mine done (or at least most of the time-in-type requirement) Saturday also.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Mine keeps getting problemed out. But hoping to get mine done (or at least most of the time-in-type requirement) Saturday also.
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Got my BFR, Mooney Checkout and IPC signed off today! Hope you had a good flight. It was a bit bumpy below about 4000
 
Had a great flight (so that was you in the airplane before me). Went down to KCRE and had lunch. Took so much time for lunch, didn't have a chance to finish the whole thing, time-wise. We''l hop in together next Saturday and finish it off. All the requirements complete; just the time.
 
Wayne previously has claimed the throne to that title
LoL
 
midlifeflyer said:
Had a great flight (so that was you in the airplane before me). Went down to KCRE and had lunch. Took so much time for lunch, didn't have a chance to finish the whole thing, time-wise. We''l hop in together next Saturday and finish it off. All the requirements complete; just the time.
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Did you fly 26M?

The Mooney is definitely not a time-building machine.
 
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