Flying the Mooney Ovation 3 G1000
When Dr. Larry Marshall called me for some instruction in his brand new Mooney Ovation 3, with G1000 WAAS, synthetic vision technology, and the new Garmin GFC 700 integrated autopilot, I didn't give him the chance to change his mind. Larry's goal was to learn to take full advantage of the advanced features of this airplane, which meant learning all the button pushing and knob turning required to fly safely, efficiently, and confidently. Larry is an accomplished instrument rated pilot, having owned two airplanes previously, and the Mooney was a big step up in his training. Read the review of Larry's plane in the July issue of Plane and Pilot magazine
The first thing you notice about the Mooney is the legendary speed. On the way to French Valley from San Diego after reaching 5,000', we had a ground speed of 230 knots and needed to deploy the speed brakes to do the approach at 90 knots. On a subsequent flight we were asked by SOCAL to slow down for traffic ahead since we were outrunning everyone in line on the ILS. This is a request you don't often get in most airplanes I fly!
Our training is almost exclusively devoted to flying approaches using the integrated autopilot. And this is where the Mooney really shines. Most flights last 2 hours and involve four approaches and a hold or two, all done to minimums with the autopilot on. GPS approaches, whether LNAV, LNAV/VNAV, or LPV are flown perfectly. The autopilot steps down where needed (as long as the right buttons are pushed at the right time), all the while telling you time to the top of the next descent and depicting your track and next step down on the MFD. At MDA, the altitude minimums box turns yellow and a concerned female voice gently says "minimums". You could exchange her for a male voice with a few button pushes, but who would want that? The synthetic vision technology (SVT) is an interesting addition. I found the graphical presentation of the terrain and the green aiming doughnut, not as useful as I first imagined, especially with the autopilot doing all the flying. However, if the autopilot fails one dark stormy night and you are doing a poor job of flying an approach in IMC, it will definitely be your friend and get you down without hitting anything solid. Flying approaches in solid IMC one day, it was interesting to see the runway depicted on the HSI as we flew inside a cloud. As we got close to the ground the runway became even larger and the terrain turned red. You can't help but notice that. Here are some pictures.
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