Mooney makes a comeback

What is your Vle and Vlo?

I don't know about the C model but on mine Vlo is 140KIAS (lowering not raising) and Vle is 165KIAS.....retract speed is 107KIAS

That would mean that to maintain 160kt till 2nm you have to slow down to 140kt (maybe a pitch-up, which if done quickly ATC won't notice) and then apply a LOT of power to get back to 160kt, which will be possible only in a descent (i.e. on the GS) because no piston retractable is going to do 160kt in level flight with the gear down.

The alternative is some interesting maneuvering when becoming visual, to get the speed down for a landing.

Or maybe airbrakes?

I could never land if I had to maintain 160kt till 2nm in the TB20. 130kt maybe.

At 2nm you will presumably be on the way down the 3 deg GS so how do you slow down from 160kt to land?

That's not much of a problem with the arrow either. Just idle the engine for a few seconds, then extend gear (below 150MPH), after that it almost drops out of the sky.

Normally I start configuring at 3.5-4NM final, so that I'm configured at the minimum, if done later it gets a bit busy at the minimum

It is also perfectly practical as a 300~350nm light IFR tourer.

In flat countries, maybe, but the pretty much absent climb above FL100 makes it a challenge to cross the alps.

Furthermore, don't try low drag approaches, you won't be able to configure without overspeeding the flaps. The approach controller will love you for the sequencing challenges.

Also, I don't know why they even put the back seats in, with so little payload. That would also solve the CG dropping out of the rear limit.

It's a strange aircraft, when you want it to fly (departure, climb), it doesn't want to, but if you want it to stop flying (for landing), it wants to keep flying forever.

Is there really a NEED to fly 150, 160 on 2 mile final? I don't see it and I have never heard ATC expect that. I will gladly fly 100 or 110 to the minimum, then set full flaps. But then I don' really fly into JFK and Heathrow a lot ...

I hope we have some ATC people on here who know the real answer, but I do not believe it is normal procedure to have speed control as close as 2nm. I have always thought speed control instructions on the approach were only used to 4nm.

I have certainly never had speed control to 2nm, and whilst it might be possible with the instant drag of propellor(s) to slow down in 2nm it would not exactly be a stabilised approach. Even in a light jet I would not fancy losing 60 kts plus in 2 miles whilst staying on the ILS to minima. In my limited experience Gatwick certainly controls speed to 4 nm, usually 180kts, and they are busier than most.

It doesn't sound right to me either.

There is engine management (CHT) to consider. If you are doing 160kt with the gear up, you will not slow down to land. If you are doing 160kt with the gear down (possible only on the GS) then you will be running at a high power and will risk shock cooling the engine in the eventual semi-desperate attempt to slow down to ~80kt for the flare.

There is a reasonable position that a "maximally competent and compliant" pilot should be at Vle at the GS intercept. That is entirely doable in my TB20, with the Vlo of 130kt (and Vle of 140kt but one should not be accelerating on the GS anyway because of the subsequent engine management issue). Fly the LOC at 130kt, drop the gear and go to flap 1 at the GS intercept, and it all works, even down to a 200ft DH. But it only works because the gear is down all the way down the GS. You also have to be a fast worker if flying by hand, holding the ILS while trying to lose so much speed, trimming, etc. It's easy if using the autopilot... I would never do this on an IR test.

But yesterday I did a 200 knot low approach to Munichs 26R. There wasn't mch traffic when I crossed EDDM - and all of a sudden ATC asked if I wanted to make a low approach. I gave them a nice little airshow with a 4000 fpm climb in the middle of the runway:

I may be a little unusual, but I chose my Jetprop based on mission fit, which included affordability.

When you are dealing with used aircraft out of warranty, factory support is a lottery, and even when in warranty, it is often not the panacea it is made out to be once you start getting further away from the mother ship.

A much safer bet is straightforward engineering that the average A&P can work on without massively technical knowledge.

The Jetprop firewall back is a Piper aircraft, relatively simple to maintain and so far easy to obtain parts for. As for the Jetprop STC, I find I spend more time maintaining piston engines than I do on the PT6. A remarkably simple engine to service.

Show me another aircraft that can operate from a 600M grass strip then continue up to FL270 in 18 minutes, and settle down to TAS 260 at 30G/hr? Phenomenal package. That is where I spent my money, and I am so glad I did.

The Mooney or for that matter any aircraft will do well if it fits sufficient people’s mission fit.

I too visited both the Diamond and Piper factories, and I have to say I was more impressed with the Piper operation than the Diamond one. It may be old fashioned but the Piper workers have been doing that job on average for 20 years+ and know every facet of what they are building. I got a much more reassuring feeling from seeing a human working on a metal airframe than a robot dispassionately sticking two bits of plastic together. Old fashioned that’s me!

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Tomjnx....sorry for being too lazy to trawl back to see what you were quoting...but I assume it was some other type than a Mooney....

My MTOW is 2900lb, BEW 1916lb,....leaves a full fuel payload of 600lb or 684lb to the tabs....also Vfe is 132KIAS to first stage....down to 115KIAS full flaps....these seem like reasonable numbers to me!