Interesting point of discussion., Tom. If I maintain the same ground
speed I'll be touching down (assuming straight in yada yada yada) in 50
minutes. If I gain an average of say 5 kts maintaining the same power
it will be 48 minutes. I figure I invested fuel to get to altitude (not
that 11000 feet flying into a headwind would have been a wise
investment -- how about I say I'm in a 172?) I'll get a little of it
back on the way down.

The thing I like about the Mooney is, it really is clean
aerodynamically. I had a friend who flew gliders and Mooneys, and when
he felt playful on a day with good thermals he's go to idle cutoff in
his M20 and pretend to be a glider for a half hour or so. He showed me
how to do that. He had a nice touch with gliders, gave me the front
seat and the yoke in one a long time ago. I think I bruised his knees I
was yanking the yoke around so much! Total logged time in gliders -- a
fraction of an hour. Total time in a Mooney pretending to be a glider?
Probably a couple of hours. The IO 360 in front starts every time, but
depending on an air start even with a windmilling prop pushes me
outside my own envelope.

To clear up another point -- I do like the idea of saying "Yo, Boston
Center, Mooney XYZ wants to start downhill slowly -- OK with you?" but
I'd rather just ask for permission to cruise at 5000. If granted, I own
the airspace between where I am and 5000 and can start down slowly,
then make additional requests as I get closer in. In real life a long
time ago going into KBED with nice tailwinds at altitude late at night,
when I requested lower a long way out (I probably had 190 kts over the
ground) ATC gave me cruise at 9000, and when I got close to that,
cruise at 7000, and so on. There was opposite direction traffic on the
airway, the restrictions allowed it time to get under me.

It's fun to talk about, but as most of us know, a LOT more fun to do.






On Jan 17, 9:54 am, Thomas Borchert
wrote:
Tony,

What would you do?Same, expect for the "reduce power" part. Why not get some of the time
back that you lost during climb?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)