Leaderboard

Hello Mooney Followers, It is time for all of you to take a deep breath and listen to what I have to say about Mooney International, now that I am allowed to speak. We have been working for months with Dr. Jerry Chen, President of Soaring America on a deal to provide funding to restart production of Mooney aircraft in Kerrville, TX. This last Friday, all of the necessary hurdles being jumped, Mooney Aviation Company became Mooney International Corporation, with a funding injection by Soaring America. Soaring America is a U.S owned company, with its home office located in the Los Angeles, Ca area. If you were to meet Jerry, you would find a very intelligent, likable guy. I mean this guy is a full Professor of Aeronautics at UCLA, and he saw the potential in resurrecting one of the most advanced aircraft designs in the world, and growing on that for future Aerospace products. When Jerry first approached us, one of the first visions he presented to us was to maintain a high quality aircraft brand, made in the USA by American workers, sold worldwide including up and coming Emerging markets worldwide. Restarting Production of the Ovation and the Acclaim Type S is an expensive proposition, and Soaring America has the kind if financial backing to get this place up and running again. You, as Mooney owners can expect a serious improvement in parts flow and customer care in the coming months. An example would be the Elevator skins, which have not been available for years, are now shipping from the factory in Kerrville to needy customers everywhere. Why? Because Jerry spent $16,000 to replace the rubber press plate on our Large Hydro Press that had deteriorated beyond use several years ago. We are currently receiving bids to refurbish the factory, and are looking to hire upwards of 100 people in the coming year. This will allow us to start Production of new aircraft in early 2014, delivering later in the year. Last week, an unfortunate, and inaccurate Press Release found its way onto some of the internet aviation websites. That subsequently lit up the chatlines with all manner of speculation and comment, including one commenter that was ready to sell his F Model because “he wasn’t going to put any Chinese Junk” on his airplane. Really?? Allow me to present some FACTS to you, that you may not be aware of: - Mooney International Corporation is a U.S. Corporation. Want proof? Friday I transferred the Type Certificate 2A3 to Mooney International Corp. under the authority of FAA Order 8110.4C Paragraph 3-2(f)(2) which states: “Certificate Transfer to a Domestic Holder. When a TC holder transfers a TC within the U.S., the FAA must reissue the TC immediately. The TC holder submits the original TC to the ACO after completing the transfer endorsement on the reverse side of the TC. This changes the TC holder, and the effective date is the date of the TC holder’s signature… - I personally do not care if another country makes “junk”, or not. I am Chief Engineer for Mooney International, and Mooney International makes aircraft and its parts, in Kerrville, Texas that conform to our Type Design. The people that are, and will be employed here are Americans that live in the Kerrville area. Always has been, always will be. - Is the source of this financing originating in other countries? Probably. Let me remind you of another fact: Mooney, for more than the last decade, has been financed by (GASP!) European investors. So if the source of the financing that funds a U.S Company, building a U.S. product in the U.S built by U.S. workers bothers you, then maybe you should check out one of our competitors. Oh, wait! Most of them are owned by foreign companies! But not Mooney International. Oh, and by the way, Dr. Chen’s lineage is not Chinese, rather Taiwanese. In closing, I hope I have been able to put these rumors to rest. If I were you, I would look for news releases that come from here. What is happening here in Kerrville is GREAT NEWS, and should be greeted as such. Bill Eldred Director of Engineering Mooney International Corp.

I have now owned my M20K for over two years. It helped during my commute from Colorado Springs to Salt Lake City. 14,000 foot peaks everywhere were no problem. Just this last week I flew from Evanston Wyoming to Colorado Springs. I flew over the peaks at 17,500 feet. Smooth air and fast. My wife loves flying in it and the convenience of speed. I know I have said this before but I need to say it again. If you are a commuter, nothing can beat the Mooney. It is the best single I have ever flown by a huge margin. Just needed to say it and glad new life is coming to the company. We are blessed owners, Jim Hamilton

I look forward to seeing new Mooneys rolling out the door, as well as new parts for the existing fleet. And I would love to see a program where the factory could perform certain upgrades to my existing airframe/power plant at a reasonable price. Everything from a new engine to a new interior. i.e. make 231 into a 252 or even better.

Thanks for the straight talk, and putting bogus Press releases to bed. I've mentioned Jerry Chen in my postings before. Seems like a really great guy, and one with the academic credentials to know what he is talking about. Good news for all of us.

After using Alex's Redline Sidewinder for the second time yesterday on my missile, I'm sold. It moves the aircraft at a slow but constant pace. You have to be careful to gently ramp it up and gently come off the drill actuator, It has good control, and moves the Mooney Missile just fine. It's electric, no gas smell, easy to set up, and you can bring it with you if need be in your airplane. My tug is on it's last legs but still working. It's a fixed up EZ 35 Powertow. I may sell it soon and get the Redline Sidewinder. The big negative is that you can't really use it to take your plane around the ramp - such as to self serve fuel or to the wash rack - but then again, you can always simply fire up the engine for that distnace and taxi. -Seth

http://speednews.com/documentaccess/103376_gama.pdf In 2013 gama report, 51 Cirrus sold, 11 of which were SR20's and 40 were SR22s. The idea of M20J has been gone over a lot here though, and the discussion included the remark that being handbuilt, the cost of the Mooney lies heavily in the manpower to build an especially intensive process. Meaning the incremental cost of hanging a bigger engine on the nose is not a great fraction of the cost. I for one am really turned off by the g1000 as it locks you in to mooney and garmin cooperation for upgrades, such as WAAS, svt, or whatever. I would much sooner a multi-component setup, g500, gns430(650) and so forth. Easier to upgrade components, and easier to repair a broken part, and cheaper.

The backfilling procedure worked flawlessly. I've attached a few photos that will hopefully illustrate things for wishing to follow. It's important to use hose clamps. Once you pressurize the pot, which I did to almost 20 lbs, anything that can leak will leak. Save yourself some cat litter absorbent and use the hose clamps where you can. I'm not sure what order these will appear so I'll comment on them alphabetically. On the actuator attachment you first need to slightly pressurize the pot ridding the line of air. As the fluid reaches the end of the hose slide it on the actuator fitting with your hose clamp ready to seal it off. I made fluid catch jars from clean new Mason jars with holes cut in the lids. They both actually had lids but this photo shows one of the lids off. I used two and you'll see why in the Reservoir Tubing photo. The Fittings photo show how I connected the hardware that came with the pressure pot to the line that connected to the actuator. THe pressure Pot line wasn't really long so I needed to add a length of tubing. This is how I did it. Pressure Pot: I got this on Amazon right here and it even arrived on a Saturday with Amazon Prime. I paid $58 but it was well worth the price in time saved and mess not created. I even used the same method to backfill my brakes. It worked amazingly well. Reservoir Tubing: I went for safety since we just installed a new interior. I put hoses on both places fluid can exit the reservoir. I'm very glad I did as it came out both places. Sorry I didn't take a picture of the entire fittings contraption I rigged. I packed it with old rags to prevent any leakage from hitting the new carpet. I bled the system without assistance. I did have to jiggle the small actuator arm on the flap pump itself (not the actuator that connects to the flap). This is the small arm that "dumps" the flaps. Mine didn't want to behave in the open position. By moving it back and forth the fluid moved through the system and out the reservoir tubes. A huge thanks to Shadrach for this amazing procedure that saved me time, frustration and a giant mess.

Huh - but at what engine setting rpm and mp? Surely the true peak tit varies with rpm and mp? Also, what if there are tiny leaks in your baffling? Then I would expect a higher true Tit peak, yes? In my own case, when I first got my airplane, as part of tuning it up to run uber-smooth- I soon found that there were many pin sized holes in the baffling which were cured by replacing some of the baffling. And as a consequence the TIT ran cooler at various settings, and likewise it was part of getting my engine to run smoothly LOP - but which as I said I do not really do much for reasons of stil the tit would be hotter than I would like.

Cooling issues with older vintage planes isn't an issue with the way it's flown nor something mechanically wrong. I'm convinced that much of the challenges we're having is cowling/baffling related. Everyone knows about the WOT enrichment circuit but I don't think it cools enough to overcome bad baffling. It's pretty obvious that the J cowling seems to cool our engines better than the old doghouse baffling with the old style cowls. Because of these differences, we have to keep an eye on our temps and mange it according much more than the newer aircraft. Can we tweak it and make it better... sure. I did that by increasing the Cowl Flap opening more than the 1.5" spec. BTW: this really helped. But outside of re-cowling/baffling them, we'll still have to deal with this cooling issue.

Were you the Ovation that parked with General Aviation? We saw you come in and wondered why you didn't want to park with us. Not sure if they made you pay for your admission ticket...if so, you should have parked with us because we got in FREE! That was indeed a LoPresti cowl with the 201 windshield mod on a F model. And I agree, that tower controller did a bang-up job getting everyone out quickly. We were trying to figure out where he was, and if he could really see all the planes taxiing out for departure or was just charting it on paper somewhere. For a brief 15 minutes he was busier than any time I've ever seen at PDK.

OK, so, I admit, this isn't the most "macho" of topics a pilot can post, but I do figure that some of the other users out there might find themselves, or have already found themselves, looking for stroller options that are "Mooney Friendly." This review is applicable for a midbody- although I'm sure this stroller would work well in a long body. I'm not sure it would fit in a shortbody, though. A little background: We purchased our J model in 2009 while I was stationed at NAWCD China Lake, near death valley. At the time, my wife and I didn't have any kids, so our primary plan was to travel every weekend, whenever it suited us, to wherever we wanted. My how times change! We had our first in 2010, and all was well. We had our second in October of 2012 and all was even better... but the spontaneity of our trips to wine country, San Diego, San Francisco has given way to massive planning for trips to Grandma and Grandpa's house... or our latest... Disneyland. In order to move two children, it seems you need massive amount of not only supplies, but these wheeled transportation devices that lack wings (crazy... I know).. and are known as strollers. Don't be fooled.... many of these "strollers" cost as much as an airplane. After an exhaustive search of collapsible strollers, My wife and I found what we consider to be the best option out there for a double stroller that collapses: the MacLaren Twin Triumph. No, it is not a new Formula One racer... it is indeed a collapsing twin stroller. The stroller proper- The Stroller itself is a collapsing metal frame with nylon covered seats, mesh baskets underneath the seats, and lightweight angled foam covered handles (they kind of feel like a leather wrapped cirrus stick). Equipped with two 5 point harnesses, your children are very secure in the stroller. Each seat can independently recline using a rather simple nylon strap system behind the seat backs. The wheels are high quality and caster-ing, but the stroller isn't much for "off road" usage... even on grass, it's pretty difficult to get going: the wheels are just a little too small for that. The stroller comes with a rain/sunshade. Getting that thing on and off the stroller is not a pleasant experience, and leaving it clipped on the stroller increases it's folded size dramatically, so it's something that you unfortunately need to do if you intend on using it. The stroller is equipped with a braking system which is easy to active using a red foot petal on the back of the stroller. the brakes are very effective, but it's sometimes difficult to tell if you've engaged the brake or not without actually looking down at the stroller wheels. Folding the stroller (or... why I bought the thing). It is very simple to fold the stroller. Remove the sunshade (you can fold it with the sunshade attached, but it's a much bigger finished product). lift up on two large red posts on the bottom of the stroller. push down on two little support braces, and just bend the whole contraption forward. It literally takes 10 seconds to go from a fully functioning stroller, to a tightly packed travel friendly unit. The stroller has two clips on the sides that hold the whole thing small, but they aren't super effective (I purchased a Velcro strap that I permanently secured to one side of the stroller... it's out of the way when in use, but when I fold it, I can quickly Velcro it together). there is a carrying handle on the side of the stroller for when it's folded which is in a good spot for balance and makes it easy to maneuver the folded unit. Putting it in the mooney- It goes in easily through the front door. the entire unit slides perfectly into the hat rack and the handles reach out to just aft of the bench seat (it would rest up against the back of the split seats as well, but since they are a bit taller, you'd have to fold one of the seats down in order to get the stroller into the hat rack. easy in, easy out, no uncomfortable pieces of metal jabbing passengers in the back of the head, either! Yes... we've just gone there... a review of a stroller on an aviation website. I hope this comes in handy for at least one or two of you... otherwise I'm sure I'll catch a rash of bull from the rest!!!! as always, If any of you have any questions, fire away! Note: in the pictures below that I did NOT remove the sunshade. the unit does still fit in the mooney that way, but fits even easier and smaller if you do remove the sunshade prior to folding. Behind Colton's smiling mug is the folded up MacLaren Twin Triumph.

It seems to me the resale value of our existing planes have to be helped if the company is a viable business instead of a shell even if it isn't making our model any longer.

I know - 350 is a big number. Actually, the tbm850 is already the 6 seat mooney. M in tbm is for mooney. If I were dreaming, it would be a 4 seat turbine roughly the size of a M20 - smaller airframe than a pilatus, same engine, go faster. The closest analogue is the Lancair EVO. It goes 320 so says the adverts, so that is probably the practical limit. But hey, 350 isn't that much more. Actually, smart money and a less major mod is on a fadec tsio550 or maybe a diesel on an otherwise as today version of the M20.