Hmm? Interesting article.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdat ... 36569.html

C ya, Bub

Go around at Big Creek in a Mooney ?

OK, that's not really my idea of a good time...

I can't believe they managed to clear the trucks parked right along the south edge of the strip and then impacted 75' beyond and below the end, That sounds like a stall on the go-around. BCR is plenty long. It takes real effort to run out of runway there. I've seen some folks come close to overrunning, though. In one case, the pilot was unfamiliar and flew a meandering upstream straight-in approach using GPS to judge his distance from the field. The other was landing to the north (like the Seneca mentioned in the article), which can be done--if you know what you're doing.

CAVU

Saw it on the news last night. Here's some pics.





More here: http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-jul0708-small_plane_crash.3165cf43.html

Sure hate to see anyone get hurt. The end results would seem to indicate very little backcountry flying experience in the pilot's log. The mistakes that it would take to let this happen at Big Creek are both mulitple and serious. Thank goodness it didn't turn out even worse.

I've got quite a bit of Mooney time. A Mooney will float more than anything else I've ever flown. That long wing get's into ground effect and floats forever. To get one in short you have to nail the speed on long final. They are also slick as snot and won't slow down worth a darn. They are fast because they are slick, not because of high power. The older little Mooney's like this one won't climb worth a darn either. Wonderful little efficient, strong airplanes as long as your friendly with whom your flying with, but I just about can't think of a poorer choice for a back country airplane.

I lost an engine 5 miles after departure in a Mooney 231. I was alone and had plenty of altitude. Did a 180, declared an emergency and headed for the opposite runway I had just departed. As it turned out, I had plenty of altitude to make the runway, in fact, I was afraid I would overshoot it, but like any airplane, get it slow enough and it will drop. Mooneys are slippery airplanes and fun to fly in certain circumstances. This accident just reminds me of the hazards of backcountry and canyon flying. Seems that speed control is a big issue, too much and there are landing accidents, too little and there are departure, approach and maneuvering stalls.

Be careful out there and watch the speed !

Note the chevy pickup off the end of my spinner. One week before this mishap. All the more reason to get some dual before doing this. I know I plan on it next year.

That kind of stuff really makes me feel bad for the passenger. It's just hard to believe that folks with inadequate training and/or planning subject other people to that. It pisses me off.

I like seeing people on this website ask questions and trying to educate themselves, and sometimes opt out of making the trip if they decide it's over their head.

Fly safe.

John

I was on Base leg when this happened. His friend came in flying a Tobago after I had chocked up and nearly balled it up also. He bounced with about 800 feet of runway left and poured the coals to it, mushing over the crash scene and barely climbing over the lodge at about thirty feet from the tree tops. I imagine that he loaded his pants up! Everyone on the ground ran aside and took cover. It was a pretty unsettling scene.

a64pilot wrote:I've got quite a bit of Mooney time. A Mooney will float more than anything else I've ever flown. That long wing get's into ground effect and floats forever. To get one in short you have to nail the speed on long final. They are also slick as snot and won't slow down worth a darn. They are fast because they are slick, not because of high power. The older little Mooney's like this one won't climb worth a darn either. Wonderful little efficient, strong airplanes as long as your friendly with whom your flying with, but I just about can't think of a poorer choice for a back country airplane.

a64pilot---- What about slips? Can a mooney be slipped or are they placarded against slips? I know with full flaps some aircraft aren't allowed to be put into a slip. I have never had any thing to do with a Mooney so I don't know. Bob

Wow. Could you tell what kind of approach they made (other than high and hot at the very end)? Left traffic or something else? The safe abort point is waaaay above ground level there. Dumb luck--for both of them.

CAVU

I did not hear any radio calls from the Mooney. The Tobago landed after I was down and I didn't pay attention to his pattern. He was approaching high and fast and used a bunch of his energy being launched up about ten feet on a roller at touch down, which was when he decided to go around. A guy who witnessed the crash said that the Mooney did exactly the same thing, only didn't get so lucky as the guy in the Tobago. After going around, the Tobago executed a pretty nice landing.

I sure liked the spoilers on the Bravo I was flying.
Bruce

Man! That must have been one ugly scene out of his window to make a go-around seem like a better option. Glad no one was killed. Hopefully this will serve as a reminder that this isn't a "normal" airport environment and people new to it need to get some dual. Not to mention being proficient in their aircraft as well.

A Mooney slips well with flaps as far as I remember. The speed brakes are way cool, instant 500 FPM descent and no trim change. Mooney flaps are not nearly as effective as say the Fowlers on a Cessna and VFE if I remember right is 112 kts and VLE 132, so you get gear first which is backwards so to speak. The problem with a Mooney is if your a little fast they float bad. I think part of that is because the wing is only about two feet off of the ground and of course your not going to slip at four feet off of the ground. The old Mooney's had manual gear and flaps. The flaps were hydraulic and you pumped them down with a handle that looked like a tri-pacer's brake handle. They retracted by a spring once you flipped the valve beside that handle. If you started to float you could flip the flap retract valve and she would stop floating and land real pretty where you could use the brakes. I can put a Mooney in way shorter than it would ever get out. They are speed machines and are ground loving airplanes. Old one anyway, I have no experience with the newer high power ones.
Ever noticed how the pitch trim works? There is no trim tab. Trim tabs cause a little bit of drag, so a Mooney changes the entire empenage's angle of incidence with a jack screw.
I did my commercial in an M20J. From a normal cruise if you left trim power in, say 23 squared and trimmed in a 500 FPM descent, it would go right past VNE at 196 kts. indicated. Slick little bugger and handled like a fighter, no cables, all push pull tubes and no slop in the controls. An absolute SOB to work on unless you have itty bitty hands too.
Never heard of anybody pulling the wings off of a Mooney either. Legend has it that after passing the pull tests for the FAA years ago the factory was going to pull them until they broke just to see where that was and they broke the fixture a couple of times before giving up.
I would love to have one as a second airplane, if I had to compare one to a car, I would say an MG or Miata. The big ones are like a Corvette, I guess.

a64pilot wrote:A Mooney slips well with flaps as far as I remember. The speed brakes are way cool, instant 500 FPM descent and no trim change. Mooney flaps are not nearly as effective as say the Fowlers on a Cessna and VFE if I remember right is 112 kts and VLE 132, so you get gear first which is backwards so to speak.

Do you mean that most high performance retracts are able to put out flaps above their gear speed? In my Bo max flap speed is 130 MPH and all the gear speeds are 162 MPH. Also does that imply you use flaps before you put the gear down? In a Bo there's never a reason to use flaps before gear and in fact Bo instructors teach it that way, helps to avoid gear up landings.

This really blows my mind. I always thought, and still do that JC and Big Creek and Moose are probably the easiest strips up there. Big Creek has an approach as long as you want to make it depending on when you turn back upstream. It is a straight in approach and an uphill rollout. I've touched down at mid field and coasted to a stop with no brakes. I also find it hard to believe you can't slow a mooney down enough to safely land in 2000 feet. I'm certainly not one to talk when it comes to screwing up a landing but If you can't put it down slow enough and at least somewhere before mid field you have no business in the mountains.THere have been twins into Big Creek!

iceman wrote:This really blows my mind. I always thought, and still do that JC and Big Creek and Moose are probably the easiest strips up there. Big Creek has an approach as long as you want to make it depending on when you turn back upstream. It is a straight in approach and an uphill rollout. I've touched down at mid field and coasted to a stop with no brakes. I also find it hard to believe you can't slow a mooney down enough to safely land in 2000 feet. I'm certainly not one to talk when it comes to screwing up a landing but If you can't put it down slow enough and at least somewhere before mid field you have no business in the mountains.THere have been twins into Big Creek!

Slight correction...Big Creek, U60 is 3500x110 (with a big uphill for slow down), entirely doable, even @ 5740' MSL...and with a Mooney.

Like a friend used to say, "If you want an argument, change the subject".

My first plane was a Mooney M20J. Loved it. Heck, I love all of them anyway. It was so fast, I found myself using WAC charts instead of sectionals. Coming back into LA basin from the north, I would start descending after Gorman, keeping it in the yellow arc, trying to hit the keyhole over LAX (no speed limit back then -1980- other than the 200+ knots thingy). I would run out of altitude over the Queen Mary and be at Vle by the time I reached the pattern at Long Beach. I think I got better mileage in that plane than I did in my car.

You learn about that float and had better pay attention to your speed. If you did, she was as predictable as any plane. I flew her into dirt strips in Baja - she didn't like it. The Pemex from those old gravity fed tanks didn't agree with her even if I filtered it through a chamois, and her prop clearance was scary. You could slice the head off a snake if you hit any kind of roller in the runway. If I ever saw that amount of prop tip clearance in the Maule, I would promptly void my bowels.