My goodness, @Mooney_driver , what a beautiful Mooney you are sitting in (at EDNY it seems!) . Makes you want one!
@Peter, thread drift alert, feel free to move out…
Mooney_Driver wrote:The baggage door of the Mooney as well.
Yes. All Cessna SEP’s are dual-door but the P210, and that one does have a large emergency exit like the upper side of a clamshell door, with the threshold just slightly above copilot’s seat pan level:
To stay on-topic, this emergency exit allows for long-range flights that would otherwise not be possible since…(pick your reason, maybe because you would not fly so long unless you have the comfort of pressurization ;)
However, most Cessna SEP’s have strutted wings which, except for the 162 (that one is an anomaly in itself with the upward opening door), are in front of the cabin doors somewhat limiting opening and thus access.
The epitome of access is of course 90-degree opening dual-doors and for Cessna SEP’s this means Cessna 177’s and 210’s since they have cantilever (strut-less) wings.
177’s are really the gold standard for access for pilots with limited mobility and on wheelchairs, more so with (rudder-pedal-) handcontrols STC being available. 210’s are similar access but about 1ft higher cabin+seat above the ground, making transfer from a wheelchair more difficult.
We bought our 177RG from a pilot that was able to take his wheelchair next to the airplane, lift himself out of the chair and onto the airplane’s seat, then from his pilot’s seat, fold his wheelchair and lift it into the cabin behind the pilot’s seat. Then he could close the airplane door, operate his remote control for forward and rear hangar doors, fire up the engine and go fly unassisted. A real range-extending mod! He had another 177 and was not selling it…
A pilot friend of mine with some limited mobility is able to climb into our P210 and even his 182, but is selling his PA32 and PA28 because access is a real pain for him: that is a real range shortening issue since after sitting in it for more than 1h he sais he needs a crane to lift him out…
edited to replace one of the pics with a more representative one
Of course I forgot to mention the one Cessna SEP with “bathtub” access:
So there are Cessna SEP’s with limited access too, although this one seems to come with extra-large boarding steps!
Antonio wrote:
My goodness, @Mooney_driver , what a beautiful Mooney you are sitting in (at EDNY it seems!) . Makes you want one!
That was one of the very few Acclaim Ultra’s made and sold. It was owned by someone from Switzerland for a while and is now back in the US. Friend of mine was exhibiting it in FHA on behalf of the owner so I got to try it on.
Yes, it was beautiful, yet it did not really make me want one. I found the high instrument panel rather difficult to see over and the airplane is tilted far more backwards on the ground than my C-model. Also the payload with which the interesting range can be achieved is tiny and it really does it’s magic up where you need oxygen all the time.
I am still quite happy with the bang for buck my C-model returns and if I were to upgrade ever, it would probably be a J or an Ovation. Both can do 19000 ft as well (the C does 17000) but without the hassle of a turbo and, particularly the J, with much less fuel burn. The Ovation is a great airplane which will fly around 180 kts, vs the 160 kts of the J model. For my personal taste, the J was the best Mooney ever made in terms of speed per horsepower and efficiency. The Ovation is like a Lamborghini super car which is primarily interesting to it’s monumental range but for normal cruising with the distances we do here, the J will do the same job much much cheaper, both in capital outlay and fuel consumption.
Back in my aerial photo days I used to work on 5 hours brakes off to brakes on in a C150.
26 US gallons of which 22.5 was usable.
Bathman wrote:
Back in my aerial photo days I used to work on 5 hours brakes off to brakes on in a C150.
I think my longest flight in my C150 at the time was 4-45. Avignon to Zurich. We had about 2.5 USG usable left when we landed so 6 in total.
Datapoint from experimental category:
Glasair III at FL165
215 TAS
10.1 gph LOP
76 usg tanks
1600nm range in about 7.5h
