Mooney M20R - Returning to Issues

[happydappyman 4]

I haven't flown the M20R in a while, but it's an awesome aircraft that I always find myself coming back to. Having been spoiled with some really excellent addon aircraft recently, I've been quite annoyed by a few remaining issues in the M20R (and literally all my other Carenado aircraft). 

 since the infamous Idle cutoff bug was fixed I haven't seen much about the M20R. I thought I'd start a discussion to see if anyone else was still flying the Mooney, and maybe get some more people to report these issues to Carenado. Or who knows? Maybe I'm crazy and these aren't effecting anyone else.

So these are things I reported to Carenado months ago and I'm wondering if I'm the only one:

1 - RPM / Prop handle: It seems wrong to me, but currently, decreasing RPM seems to do absolutely nothing other than to increase fuel flow. That's not right is it? Am I the only one who's noticed? Am I wrong in thinking fuel flow should actually decrease along with power? 

2 - Power Settings: related to my last point, power settings aren't anywhere near the table on the back of the sun visor. They were darn close when the plane was released. A few months later the performance was broken in an update and never went back.

3 - Fuel runs out with... 3?... I think it's 3 gallons indicated in the tank... While there is unusable fuel in the Mooney, the digital readouts in the cockpit should read 0 gallons before the engine dies as per the POH.

4 - The sound issue: This one has indeed been discussed before, but never fixed as far as I can tell. Let me know if I'm wrong on this one, it's true I haven't noticed it recently. The problem usually occurs when switching back and forth between internal and external views. The sound of the plane will suddenly change and it sounds awful until suddenly the problem fixes itself many minutes later.

5 - Alternator Amps: If the plane is started on the runway, the alternator produces less power than if you start the plane cold and dark from the parking at a given RPM (very strange and the least of my concerns).  

Well that's my list, what do you guys think? Is there anything else you have found? Is it hopeless to dream that one day Carenado might actually fix any of this? Are any of you still even flying the M20? I know I keep coming back to it.

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

[Johnny Wyatt 152]

You're correct. But Carenado couldn't care less about patching their aircrafts. Given that MSFS is now ramping up with many nice aircrafts for serious devs, there's no point anymore buying their aircrafts. The Mooney before the XBOX release was a very fast fast with a powerful engine, now I can't reach ceiling and it takes longer to takeoff than the Arrow 🙄

Regarding 4), the sound bug. It's a Carenado bug, again, due to ground traffic. If there is another Carenado bird parked close to you, your plane might play these sound instead of yours. Solution is thus to deactivate ground aircrafts, or remove from content manager the other Carenado planes.

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Is it hopeless to dream that one day Carenado might actually fix any of this?

Yes.

[happydappyman 4]

8 hours ago, Johnny Wyatt said:

Yes.

Yeah, I'm kinda with you on that, I really don't think they care. When the sim was new I bought a few Carenado planes because they were pretty much the only option. The M20R, the Seneca, and the WYMF5. The Seneca doesn't seem to have as many obvious issues as the M20, and I'd even go as far as to call the WYMF5 good. Though it doesn't have much to mess up as far as systems go.

I bought the Just Flight Arrow and avoided the Carenado one as I'm not insane. The Seneca I really don't care about, because the 414 and 310 are better products in every way. I just wish there was an alternative Mooney I could buy. 

I wouldn't care if the systems were modelled simply if the plane is cheap. I would just like the basics to work somewhere close to the way they should. 

Edited June 7, 2022 by happydappyman
readability

[Cpt_Piett 4,736]

11 hours ago, Johnny Wyatt said:

 

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Is it hopeless to dream that one day Carenado might actually fix any of this?

Yes.

Lol. 😆

Flew the Ovation just the other day as I wanted a suitable plane to explore the coast of Italy south of Genova. I didn't buy this expecting amazing systems fidelity, but she's an enjoyable plane and handles well enough. 

[happydappyman 4]

3 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Lol. 😆

Flew the Ovation just the other day as I wanted a suitable plane to explore the coast of Italy south of Genova. I didn't buy this expecting amazing systems fidelity, but she's an enjoyable plane and handles well enough. 

Absolutely! It's a totally fun and fast little plane. That's why I always come back to it. I would just love to get the power settings and RPM handle working correctly at least. It really makes it much more fun to have to properly manage the engine. As it stands, the prop handle is useless. But definitely still a fun plane which is why I wish it was fixed!  

Isn't it Admiral Piett now btw? haha

[Cpt_Piett 4,736]

10 minutes ago, happydappyman said:

Isn't it Admiral Piett now btw?

Yeah, well. It was. But then there was that Endor battle. And.. well. Sigh 😨

"We only need to keep them from escaping." Yeah, not that simple, as it turned out. 

[Danno 192]

System depth and lifespan of Carenado work do not match their pricing model. When we look at developers such as Simworks, Fenix, Flysimware and others, there is a standard of trusted companies...ones who genuinely care about the customer experience. I am not going to bash Carenado. They have many customers who enjoy their products. I had a few in FSX and I might consider MSFS models someday if their prices were more reflective of what they build and if they repair things broken with sim updates. But I am not holding my breath. 

 

[RichieFly 735]

20 hours ago, happydappyman said:

So these are things I reported to Carenado months ago and I'm wondering if I'm the only one:

1 - RPM / Prop handle: It seems wrong to me, but currently, decreasing RPM seems to do absolutely nothing other than to increase fuel flow. That's not right is it? Am I the only one who's noticed? Am I wrong in thinking fuel flow should actually decrease along with power?

Not wrong. I've noticed this in other piston engine models; the MP should increase. The fuel burn shouldn't change much at all.

For example, say you change RPM from 2700 to 2500 at 2,000ft, the MP should increase about 2-4 inches. This is why you reduce power before reducing RPM...in general. Not a hard-fast rule.

Also, it is hopeless.

[happydappyman 4]

2 hours ago, Danno said:

I had a few in FSX and I might consider MSFS models someday if their prices were more reflective of what they build and if they repair things broken with sim updates. But I am not holding my breath. 

I wouldn't care what they charged really if they would stick by the product and fix the bugs. People could decide if it was worth paying the sticker price. What's annoying definitely is having a sticker price and not knowing what that will include (whether your plane will break after the next sim update and never work again for example).

 

[happydappyman 4]

2 hours ago, RichieFly said:

Not wrong. I've noticed this in other piston engine models; the MP should increase. The fuel burn shouldn't change much at all.

For example, say you change RPM from 2700 to 2500 at 2,000ft, the MP should increase about 2-4 inches. This is why you reduce power before reducing RPM...in general. Not a hard-fast rule.

Also, it is hopeless.

Thanks. I was 99% sure about this. But having never flown a real Mooney, I wasn't sure if maybe it had some crazy mechanism I wasn't aware of. 

Yeah, you're right that you rarely ever see the change in MP modelled at all in most aircraft. Luckily there seem to be plenty which are good enough they at least have the RPM - Fuel flow - power aspects all working pretty well in concert.

The sim itself has some built-in issues to overcome when it comes to engines. Most people know about the multiple fuel issues. There's the problem with fuel injected planes needing to be leaned out when it's not always necessary. Things not working the way they should with turbocharged engines. And the fact that most(?) planes seem to need to be leaned out quite a bit to develop full power even at sea level.

Then there's always the fact that if these get fixed, the developers will need to go back through all their models and change the engine logic to suite the new code. Maybe Carenado is just waiting for Asobo to fix everything and then they'll surprise us all by going through and fixing all their bugs haha. Wouldn't that be a laugh. 

[Ferg 35]

I too have just revisited the Mooney.

The issue I am having (and it may be nothing to do with the aircraft) is that when I start the aircraft on the runway with a loaded flight plan the GNS530 does not show the magenta flight path immediately. It seems only to show up once a few minutes have elapsed.

I can see the flight path on the Sim Map ok.

Anyone else experienced this?

 

 

 

 

[Holdit 551]

On 6/8/2022 at 2:54 AM, happydappyman said:

I wouldn't care what they charged really if they would stick by the product and fix the bugs. People could decide if it was worth paying the sticker price. What's annoying definitely is having a sticker price and not knowing what that will include (whether your plane will break after the next sim update and never work again for example).

 

There's a reason Carenado crank out releases as quickly as they do, and it's lack of quality control prior to release and lack of follow-up support afterwards. I had vowed never to buy anything from them again except if they had something at a good discount. I think the final straw was one of their King Airs in which the gear down indicator lights didn't work. No "three greens" - ever. Ask yourself what that says about their alpha and beta testing processes, assuming they even bother.

I broke my own rule recently because Simcoders released Reality Expansion Packs for certain X-Plane Carenado aircraft, which add the missing systems depth and bring it to something approaching A2A standard. I don't mind paying a total of $50 for an aircraft with decent systems depth, but I won't spend $30 on something bug-ridden that they won't even patch. The only thing that (sort of) saves them, IMO is their 3D modelling, which is gorgeous inside and out, no question, but that will only get you so far after the ooohing and aahing wears off.