Mooney M20J. Hints? Thoughts?

Henning said:
I'd like a 177RG with an IO-470.
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Me too. Sadly I'm not aware of any STC for one. There's an STC for an IO-390, but I've heard you get only marginal improvement from it. Seems the best available way to improve 177RG performance at altitude is going turbo... if you really need it, and can afford to operate it.

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And it's NOT TRUE... Short bodied Mooney's with good shock disks have plenty of prop clearance.

You do need to be careful but they operate on grass and gravel just fine.

Even the longer bodied models are ok IF you maintain the landing gear.
 
azure said:
AFAIK the 177RG always had the 200hp engine, and none of the various FG 177 subtypes ever did.
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IIRC the 177 fixed started at 160 but was so anemic they upped it to 180. And yes the RG was always 200.
 
Jeanie said:
Doug: NEVER leave a hard-surfaced taxi or runway in a mooney, you're sure to hit the prop.

~~~~. Huh? It will only be on hard surfaced airports....
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Not totally true. The prop seems close but the gear doesn't travel as far a other airplanes. I had my F into several grass and dirt strips in US, Canada and Mexico. After the tank reseal not so much:(. But never hit the prop. A 5-6" hole wouldn't be good but relatively smooth OK.
 
I might feel differently if I owned the airplane...and was very familiar with the surface of a grass runway or taxiway, but to me, Mooneys are so low slung as to make me want to stay only on a nice flat hard-surface. YMMV.
 
j1b3h0 said:
I might feel differently if I owned the airplane...and was very familiar with the surface of a grass runway or taxiway, but to me, Mooneys are so low slung as to make me want to stay only on a nice flat hard-surface. YMMV.
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No argument there. When I learn to fly one coming from 182s. I thought my butt was about to scrape before we touched down.

Just trying to point out the gear travel is much less and stiffer than a Cessna.
 
I fly out of KTWF at 4150' and the Mooney always preformed well even with all the seats filled. Had to watch the CHT's and oil temps on hot days but it was manageable. As was noted before it does have a sharp break on a departure stall and will drop a wing but again very manageable. Out of all the 4 place singles the Bellanca Viking is by far the nicest flying. Nice light controls and it just begs to be rolled. Don
 
Anthony said:
The Tiger is not an aerobatic airplane, and never was intended to be. As far as not being "harmonius", we'll just have to differ on that one.

Nor is the Viking. But it was campaigned around the country in the 70's with a great aerobatic routine, flown here in the Northwest by a Blue Angel.

Have you ever flown a Viking, or for that matter a Bonanza?

The OP could care less about aerobatics, she will be flying a non-aerobativ M20J. Don't know why you're getting into aerobatics. :confused:

You are easily confused.

They could never be, and that is the point.
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......
 
Some of them had the factory-installed wing-leveler that required the pilot to depress a button on the yoke in order to maneuver. The standing joke at the time was that the controls were so heavy that the pilot was never sure whether the button was pushed.

Jaybird180 said:
High aerodynamic forces on the controls above 120.
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If that's true why are all the Mooney prop tips in the north 40 at OSH a distinctive green color? Do they pay a guy to spray paint them?
TMetzinger said:
And it's NOT TRUE... Short bodied Mooney's with good shock disks have plenty of prop clearance.

You do need to be careful but they operate on grass and gravel just fine.

Even the longer bodied models are ok IF you maintain the landing gear.
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wabower said:
Some of them had the factory-installed wing-leveler that required the pilot to depress a button on the yoke in order to maneuver. The standing joke at the time was that the controls were so heavy that the pilot was never sure whether the button was pushed.
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That's true. I put a rubber band over the PC (Positive Control) button when doing maneuvers. I liked it, the vacuum system seemed to smooth out the control actions and it was easy to overpower without hurting the system.
 
They're not. I've owned one, taken it to OSH multiple times, never had a green prop. Proper soft-field technique works just fine.
 
Want to walk the line this year for $20 per prop?

TMetzinger said:
They're not. I've owned one, taken it to OSH multiple times, never had a green prop. Proper soft-field technique works just fine.
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yakdriver said:
I fly out of KTWF at 4150' and the Mooney always preformed well even with all the seats filled. Had to watch the CHT's and oil temps on hot days but it was manageable. As was noted before it does have a sharp break on a departure stall and will drop a wing but again very manageable. Out of all the 4 place singles the Bellanca Viking is by far the nicest flying. Nice light controls and it just begs to be rolled. Don
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I share your taste for the Bellancas. Got a chance to fly a Cruiseair, (a long time ago) and I thought it had the sweetest, silkiest, most delicate controls of any lightplane. I've heard the Falco is similar but haven't had a chance to fly one...yet.
 
Bellanca made some sweet flying airplanes that's for sure, if they made something pretty it would be awesome.
 
Hey, I'm just a senior citizen wishing I was on a fixed income and don't mind bending over to pick up $20 bills.

The reason that Tim didn't see them is that most of the Mooney campers at OSH hang their towels on the prop to hide the grass stains.:wink2:



denverpilot said:
If you do...

:needpics:

LOL!
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ejensen said:
The 177rg is 200hp like the Mooney, Arrow, and Sierra. None are rockets. I have time in all and think the Mooney is the best climber of the lot. The Cardinal was a real dog at altitude much better under 10,000. They say they turbocharged the Arrow to keep up to a Mooney.:)

Anthony, the view is better in the Tiger.
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The Tiger does have nice visibilty, but your M20F was noticeably faster, and also had a better service ceiling than the Tiger. That's what a longer wing, C/S prop and picking up the gear will do. :)

Again, the M20 series are very effecient airplanes, especially the J/201. You can pull back the power, and just sip gas, but still get respectable cruise speeds. The cabin size never bothered me in the Mooney either.
 
Jeanie -I will be interested in what you think of the Mooney, after you fly it some. Fresh eyes always see things in a different way. Hope we haven't jaded you with our biases. Mr. Al Mooney was a brilliant man. Designed a lot of airplanes...most of which don't bear his name.
 
I'll be sure to post a new thread with how it goes :). !!!
 
Jeanie said:
I'll be sure to post a new thread with how it goes :). !!!
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I'm sure it'll go fine, it is a very stable IFR platform, thing is you don't really have much in the way of flyable IMC, it's full of ice. Whether airframe accumulation or hail, the clouds in your part of the world are out to kill you so only use IFR to transition yourself between parts and layers or corridors of VMC.

ATC in my experience is always highly cooperative in allowing me excursions to maintain visual clearance from severe weather. In fact on the way home from OSH last year I had to transit a system that spanned Florida from Cape Canaveral to St Petersburg. I was heading for the deck off the Atlantic shore to skirt the big cell when ATC called me "9SA disregard all airspace restrictions, you are flying into a line of major convection, find your best path through, you are alone in the sky over Florida." "I thank you, I am off the beach 25' with 25 miles of vis, everything black and tall is downwind off my right wing, I see a clear path through and I will be out the other side in 1-0 minutes."
 
Just like a sailor: When the weather gets rough, they head out to sea...25ft, though. Yikes!
 
Thing is the land is hotter than the ocean drawing in all the convection to the west of me. This combined with the prevailing easterly flow barrier that exists at Cape Canaveral, 'Where winter ends.' All the big bad stuff is downwind to the west of me, I am looking up through many thin scattered layers of grey and off my left wing 15nm is blue sky. The nice thing about the 310 is I can be 25' over the ocean, stow an engine and continue to fly 135kts (23 above Blue Line) at 25" & 2500rpm comfortably in trim. This is the advantage to flying a twin light, SE performance goes up exponentially with reductions in weight.
 
Henning said:
Thing is the land is hotter than the ocean drawing in all the convection to the west of me. This combined with the prevailing easterly flow barrier that exists at Cape Canaveral, 'Where winter ends.' All the big bad stuff is downwind to the west of me, I am looking up through many thin scattered layers of grey and off my left wing 15nm is blue sky. The nice thing about the 310 is I can be 25' over the ocean, stow an engine and continue to fly 135kts (23 above Blue Line) at 25" & 2500rpm comfortably in trim. This is the advantage to flying a twin light, SE performance goes up exponentially with reductions in weight.
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I guess I'm late on noticing that you pulled it off the market, eh?
 
Regarding Mooneys on grass, I remember one year at Gaston's when the predominant manufacturer on the field was Mooney! So I know they can handle grass. Now, I admit that I don't remember which models they were!
 
Just my two cents. I owned an Archer for 10 years and belonged to a club that had a couple of Bonanzas (straight and V-tail). I bought a Mooney a three years ago (M20J) and can tell you my thoughts:

1) Pleasant to hand fly. Mine flies wonderfully. But they are hand built machines, and no two fly exactly the same. Mine loves to fly, but doesn't like to land so much...(see #2)

2) I read everything (like you did) about proper speed on approach and thought I believed it. After a few approaches that I flew way too fast I understood it.

3) My first landing with a Bonanza surprised me, I didn't realize I had touched down. It was that smooth. My 150th landing with my Mooney surprised me. It was that smooth !!! (O.K. so it was really my 150th landing...)

Seriously, I wonder if other Mooney drivers can routinely grease it onto the runway every time or close to it. I can land smooth enough for my passengers to say "Nice landing" but I can't consistently grease it on like I could do with the Bonanza. And with my Archer, it was point it at the runway whenever you think about landing and you'll be fine. Not so with the Mooney. I figure 3 miles a minute, 500 fpm descent and pattern altitude 5 miles out. So if I'm at 8500 going to a 500 foot field, I figure I have to lose 7000 feet to get down to 1500 pattern altitude, so 14 minutes at 3 miles a minute, 42 miles plus the 5 miles---start descent 47 miles out !!!
 
epsalant said:
Just my two cents. I owned an Archer for 10 years and belonged to a club that had a couple of Bonanzas (straight and V-tail). I bought a Mooney a three years ago (M20J) and can tell you my thoughts:

1) Pleasant to hand fly. Mine flies wonderfully. But they are hand built machines, and no two fly exactly the same. Mine loves to fly, but doesn't like to land so much...(see #2)

2) I read everything (like you did) about proper speed on approach and thought I believed it. After a few approaches that I flew way too fast I understood it.

3) My first landing with a Bonanza surprised me, I didn't realize I had touched down. It was that smooth. My 150th landing with my Mooney surprised me. It was that smooth !!! (O.K. so it was really my 150th landing...)

Seriously, I wonder if other Mooney drivers can routinely grease it onto the runway every time or close to it. I can land smooth enough for my passengers to say "Nice landing" but I can't consistently grease it on like I could do with the Bonanza. And with my Archer, it was point it at the runway whenever you think about landing and you'll be fine. Not so with the Mooney. I figure 3 miles a minute, 500 fpm descent and pattern altitude 5 miles out. So if I'm at 8500 going to a 500 foot field, I figure I have to lose 7000 feet to get down to 1500 pattern altitude, so 14 minutes at 3 miles a minute, 42 miles plus the 5 miles---start descent 47 miles out !!!
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Mooneys are tricky to land. Due to the stiff landing gear and wing height from the ground they are prone to float and bounce during flare if the speed is just a few knots higher or in gusty/cross wind conditions. To overcome the potential bouncing I raise the flaps just before touchdown. This eliminates the floating problem and assures a solid touchdown, specially in gusty/crosswind conditions. I recommend this procedure specially when coming into and icy runway with cross winds, otherwise the plane may weather vane into the wind at touchdown veering off the runway.

José
 
Dumping flaps in ground effect? Sounds a bit risky. Get an asymmetric retraction and you'll likely loose control or at least fight for it if a wingtip strikes.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Dumping flaps in ground effect? Sounds a bit risky. Get an asymmetric retraction and you'll likely loose control or at least fight for it if a wingtip strikes.
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Mooney flaps are mechanically connected to a common shaft. You will have to twist the shaft to get an asymmetrical condition. Dumping flaps in crosswind conditions is common among many Mooney pilots. I Learned the trick from them.

José
 
Piloto said:
Mooney flaps are mechanically connected to a common shaft. You will have to twist the shaft to get an asymmetrical condition. Dumping flaps in crosswind conditions is common among many Mooney pilots. I Learned the trick from them.

José
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Yes. I've tried this. Gives you a nice, solid landing. Still not one of those "grease-it-onto-the-runway", barely-notice-the-touchdown landings that you frequently do in the Bonanza and sometimes in the Archer. I can usually land the Mooney acceptably, just hard to do it super-slick.

I sometimes wish I could do the landing at the beginning of the flight, when I'm most rested, rather than after a tough, down-to-minimums, solid IMC flight !!!
 
Piloto said:
Mooney flaps are mechanically connected to a common shaft. You will have to twist the shaft to get an asymmetrical condition. Dumping flaps in crosswind conditions is common among many Mooney pilots. I Learned the trick from them.

José
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Does that also apply to electric flaps? As I understand, the Johnson bar models were hydraulic return, so again....:dunno:
 
Jaybird180 said:
Does that also apply to electric flaps? As I understand, the Johnson bar models were hydraulic return, so again....:dunno:
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It applies to both, electric and hydraulic actuators. The common shaft is the same for both. The actuator drives the common shaft.

José
 
Piloto said:
Mooneys are tricky to land.
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Gees is nobodoy gong to challenge this?
Due to the stiff landing gear and wing height from the ground they are prone to float and bounce during flare if the speed is just a few knots higher or in gusty/cross wind conditions.
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True. So don't do that.
To overcome the potential bouncing I raise the flaps just before touchdown. This eliminates the floating problem and assures a solid touchdown, specially in gusty/crosswind conditions. I recommend this procedure specially when coming into and icy runway with cross winds, otherwise the plane may weather vane into the wind at touchdown veering off the runway.

José
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I recommend slowing down. 75 mph before any wheels touch. Do what you suggest on an inspector ride and you'll fail. 2000 hrs in Fs and Js.
 
bbchien said:
Gees is nobodoy gong to challenge this?
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Well I was going to say I never felt like the M20C I flew a bit ever floated or misbehaved during landings, but I don't have a ton of Mooney hours.

Solid little bird. Kinda had to strap it on, but since it cut two hours off the flight time to Houston of a 172 I also did that same trip in, the compactness of the cabin never seemed not worth it. I was also skinnier back then. ;)
 
bbchien said:
Gees is nobodoy gong to challenge this? True. So don't do that. I recommend slowing down. 75 mph before any wheels touch. Do what you suggest on an inspector ride and you'll fail. 2000 hrs in Fs and Js.
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I learned about the trick from a Mooney CFII during a biennial when doing crosswind landings.

José
 
bbchien said:
Gees is nobodoy gong to challenge this? True. So don't do that. I recommend slowing down. 75 mph before any wheels touch. Do what you suggest on an inspector ride and you'll fail. 2000 hrs in Fs and Js.
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75mph over the trashhold?
 
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