"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
om...
Its faster.

It is? Seems to me that, in not much more time than it takes to climb to an
appropriate altitude, do the proper clearing turns, configure for slow
flight and stall the airplane, you could just as easily have flown a
standard square course, using a GPS to monitor your progress, and calculated
the exact cruising speed.

I think your making too much of this.

If I am, then you started it.

Mooney pilots always
try to compare how fast their Mooney is.

If they are, they are being silly. After all, it's not like most Mooneys
are the fastest thing around...they just happen to go fast on less power.

But if they insist on being silly, I can't imagine that they'd use stall
characteristics as a way of comparing how fast their Mooney is to another.

I can just see the conversation now:
"How fast is your Mooney?"
"Well, I get a roll rate of 1 degree per second during the stall"
"Oh really? I only get a roll rate of half a degree per second during the
stall"
"Damn...your Mooney IS faster than mine".

If you want a fast one (and
most Mooney pilots do, otherwise they'd buy an Arrow) you want to
determine how fast your is.

Okay. That seems obviously true.

Running a 4 course range with a GPS takes
a good 15 minutes. Stalling take about 2 minutes.

15 minutes? Uh, right. And only 2 minutes for the stall? Uh, right
(again). But even if that were so, you're talking a time investment of only
13 minutes more, and at the end, you have an actual number that is the
actual speed of the airplane, rather than some vague information about stall
behavior.

Sorry Robert, I'm just not buying it. I know, you'll say "well, I don't
care if you buy it", and that's fine too. And I think it's wise to stall
the airport before buying it, just because that could turn up some other
less desirable issues with the plane. But to determine cruise speed by
stalling it? That just seems silly to me.

Pete