Re: landing gear retraction in sel

[Ron Rosenfeld]

On Sat, 9 Feb 2008 15:58:05 -0800 (PST), Tina >
wrote:

>OK, our way is like this, It's a Mooney, and the gear comes up in
>visual conditions at about 100 feet agl or when there's not enough
>runway ahead to land. In hard IMC it's sometime after the transition
>to instrument controlled flight if the ceiling is pretty low. We've
>looked thru a bunch of complex SEL NTSB findings, haven't found
>anything that suggests we're missing something that causes accidents
>(other than staying on the ground and NOT driving to the airport)..
>
>Is there a better way?

I'm not sure what your question is.

Manual or electric gear?

With the J-Bar (I used to fly a Ranger with manual gear), the only caveat
is to be at a slow enough speed during gear retraction so as to make gear
retraction physically undemanding (puts less stress on the mechanism,
also).

I now fly an M20E with electric gear and have had about 2500 hrs in this
airplane. I raise the gear no earlier than "no usable runway ahead" and no
later than Vy. If I had manual gear, I'd probably raise it during the
transition between Vx to Vy, but I haven't flown a manual gear Mooney in
many years.

IFR vs VFR is not an issue (for me). The gear retraction is quick and the
flying characteristics don't change noticeably during the process.
--ron

[Tina]

swinging the J bar is a distraction, especially if you're also
transitioning between the marginal VFR during the take off run to
instruments.

I doubt there has been an accident caused by a pilot following either
one, but I was a lot more comfortable getting established on
instruments in the climb before swinging the Joe bar, instead of
during the acceleration to climb speed.

[Ron Rosenfeld]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:00:48 -0800 (PST), Tina >
wrote:

>swinging the J bar is a distraction, especially if you're also
>transitioning between the marginal VFR during the take off run to
>instruments.
>
>I doubt there has been an accident caused by a pilot following either
>one, but I was a lot more comfortable getting established on
>instruments in the climb before swinging the Joe bar, instead of
>during the acceleration to climb speed.
>

I did my primary instrument training in a Mooney with the J-Bar, while also
transitioning to the Mooney from flying non-retractable Pipers and Cessnas.
If your Mooney has a JBar, you will find that, with practice and
experience, retraction will become a non-event.

Until then, do whatever you find comfortable.

However, the recommended (by the MAPASF courses) normal IFR climb speed is
faster than the speed at which you can easily retract the gear with the
JBar. So if you are getting established in the climb at, let us say
105KIAS or so, it will be more difficult to retract the gear as you are
accelerating through Vx.
--ron