bat443 wrote:And I have never heard a guy who spent $14,000 on a mod say he made a mistake. Actually that goes for the $5,000 mods too.

Tim

I Must be hanging out with a rougher crowd!

I've heard them bitch about 550 fuel consumption, 550 cylinders, Robertson stol in a crosswind, VG's, and noisy 88"C401's.....and pay to have them removed.

Through owning 3 180/185's ive also heard a lot bull shit thrown around as fact as it relates to mods, maintenance and flying. BS that once I ended up doing it myself proved to be just that.

Big Renna asked me what about my project do I regret doing. I think I can be honest. So far the thing I regret most is the Polished fuselage. So much work and not nearly what I wanted. The other thing is the Avionics. The wiring has proven to be a nightmare, a gift that keeps on giving. But honestly, they are just obstacles, and life is full of obstacles.

The MT prop is not an obstacle or a regret. It is the 3rd one I've owned on three separate airplanes. I like the prop, I like the performance and weight. With purely anecdotal testing it was 7 mph faster at duplicate power settings than my McC 2A34C50 Seaplane prop. You can't take the money with you, so you might as well enjoy it while you can. I'd much rather spend it then leave it to my kids!!

Here's the prop on the airplane ready for tis test flight:

Looks good and thanks for the update on speed. Any takeaways on takeoff and climb? Vibration?

Nice!!!!

Compared to the Hartzell, the MT gives shorter takeoff roll, much better climb, and much lower vibration. It's better than I expected, and I'm not saying that because I spent more than $13000 on it.
At gross and 6800 DA, the airplane is easily off the ground in under 1000 feet, but takeoff distance isn't even where the MT really improves things, it's the additional 200-300 fpm ROC. The higher the DA the greater the improvement. This past summer I did a bunch of instrument approaches and landing practice in 8500-9000 DA, and never had problems with CHT or climb, unlike my experience with the Hartzell.

My only complaint is some RPM instability with my existing F-3-2 prop governor. It was bad at first, but has slowly gone away by itself, as John Nielsen said it might.

Nice airplane Gunny! I've got 650 hours on my Aspen and am a big fan. Only issue I've had was that it quit working for a couple minutes one day after my plane sat outside in heavy rain... I'm guessing I got some water under the RSM but we'll see if it comes back.