afward

I'm no (aerospace-) engineer, but I don't see how merely putting a flap downstream from the intake is going to address the pressure spillage problem around the intakes. To really have an effect, it would have to be at the intake itself such that the intake doesn't swallow any more air than the system intends to allow through. A movable spike in a round inlet is an obvious solution, but for our planes that would be problematic due to the closeness of the back of the prop. We could in theory build a circumferential intake with movable ends (it would look like the CAFE Mooney's intake), but that has weight and complexity concerns. I've thought on many occasions that a large NACA inlet on each cowl cheek would probably perform better than what we have now, and would be throttle-able with a reduced drag impact, but surely people far more knowledgeable and capable of testing it have already thought of it and rejected it for some really good reason I'm not aware of...

The Acclaim, obviously! Because red carsplanes go faster, right?

Ha, yeah. Lots of not-quite-tech-savvy companies make that mistake. "Repeat after me: Host it on the root domain, or put in a redirect". I wonder how many people have gone to "mooney.com" to research the airplanes and have decided to look elsewhere due to the missing redirect? Or is that a "new" thing? I know it had me going for a moment when I clicked your link...

The screw is in that picture?! Wow... I'm not seeing it, though.

Most likely all of them can, but the interfaces are different (vacuum is whacky at best, analog has polarity and voltage ranges to deal with on multiple possible inputs, and digital is a whole new level of complexity beyond that). ARINC-429 theoretically addresses all that, but it came after the legacy APs in our vintage Mooneys and frankly misses the mark a bit by having multiple different ways to drive an AP (like just about every other "standard" in the digital realm, it's only a standard if everyone actually follows it...).

As I understand it (and I'll defer to an actual avionics expert here), the reason for STEC being first is that the interface is just the single heading deviation input (and I assume for the -60 and above, an altitude deviation input). Other APs need more inputs (I think for the gyros?), so they are more complicated to interface with.

But that's kinda the point I'm making: Make the wings and h-stab non-swept, move the engines into the leading edge, swap the engines to be piston + prop, convert to tricycle landing gear (not a big change), and what's really that different from a B-29? Let's ignore the (rather large) size difference; had it been desired, the B-50 could've been a scaled-up version of the B-29 rather than just being a re-badge. Aerodynamics aren't changing, so until we get a radical new powerplant, there's not a lot of room for a groundbreaking new design to replace Mooneys, Bonanzas, Cessna 206's, etc. Even the "lowly" PA28 is unlikely to see a radical new competitor anytime soon.

Ah yeah... I didn't even think about the increased form / skin drag due to higher local flow rate. I can't imagine it would be major, though when playing the efficiency game every little bit counts... It does make me wonder how much "extra" drag the X-57 experiences at full power vs. "idle". I'm sure we'll find out once the papers are published.

@aviatoreb Fair enough. Personally, I don't think things will be all that different... Consider planes of the mid-1960's vs. planes of the mid-1940's: New powerplants (jet vs. piston), higher speeds, swept wings, tricycle vs. tail-dragger as "default", and ???... The basic form hadn't changed. Even 1980 to today, things haven't changed a whole lot (composites vs. Al, Rotax vs. lyco-saur, though I'll give you avionics hands-down). Panthera Gasoline is a good example of fully modern design, and the only real difference is the T-tail (which designers have known for many decades is aerodynamically better than "standard"; they just elect not to use it on most designs due to deep stall and prop wash concerns). I wish there was more money being put into continuous-cycle synthetic fuel production (and the necessary carbon sources to feed it). That would sidestep the entirety of the electrification challenge and let us keep flying our "antiquated" old birds for a long time to come. Besides, if one is really concerned about CO2 emissions, aviation _as a whole_ is only 2% of annual global emissions... That's well into the "last 10% is 90% of the work" range, so our focus as a species should really be elsewhere (like synthetic fuels made from contemporaneous carbon sources).

I would think that the "gang" of small props would be very inefficient vs. a single prop with the same swept area (probably by a double-digit percentage). Thinking about the aerodynamics, the biggest effect would be an artificial decrease in AoA that is power-setting dependent. For slow flight, that would reduce drag (i.e., lower Vs0 and Vs1) at the risk of stalling (and maybe spinning) in the case of sudden loss of thrust (e.g., the power controller overheats and goes into safe mode). For cruise flight, I can't see how lowering the effective angle of incidence (because AoA would be lower at a given pitch angle) could possibly improve things... Lots of failure modes to consider but with very little benefit to be had. NASA is awesome, but not every research program they take on is intended to advance the state of the art; sometimes it's to prove a negative we already know, and sometimes it's merely mandated by the budget (*cough* SLS *cough*).

Trains aren't very efficient as a mode of transportation. The incredible efficiencies come from fuel burn per ton-mile, which gives them a giant multiplier on their fuel efficiency: "normal" trains have up to 14,000 tons of payload. "Monster" trains can get well past 20,000 tons. Given a "reasonable" multiplier for payload (8,000 tons, or roughly 80 cars), that works out to 18.4 gallons per mile. And this, with a typical tier 3 locomotive achieving a BSFC as good as .334 lb/hp-hr. Not exactly a Prius... Let's stick with airplanes for our comparisons. There's a whole lot out there to pull from beyond just production aircraft, so have fun with it!

Byron, 2011 was a long time ago, and we don't actually know what their plans are now. If they are retooling, that means someone there has a plan that's better than hope. Let's wait and see what comes out of Kerrville next week...

That I won't disagree with.

Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced we're all being overly pessimistic and Mooney is "just fine" (for our purposes, anyway)... 90 employees still kept on, not making parts, and the "parts guy" says the rumors of their demise are greatly exaggerated? Yeah, that sounds a _whole lot_ like retooling. If so, that might be a good sign of things to come. Of course, there are still lots of issues they need to deal with: Marketing, new phone system & FTE's to answer it, being properly competitive with Cirrus, etc. Baby steps, though...

While there might be some truth to this, adding BRS to a C182 isn't going to make it a Cirrus killer. The parachute isn't the only thing Cirrus got right (and this is coming from someone that genuinely hasn't ever really liked the SR2x series). Adding BRS to the M20 *might* have been enough to make it properly competitive, but realistically the increase in price and empty weight probably would've precluded that possibility.

I did say "near" for a reason. In fairness, the last 18 months (and really the last several months) have been hard on the stats. 2018 was a good year, 2019 is not going to be. Of course, there's a lot more flying happening, so per mile or per hour the stats might not be as negatively affected as one might expect. We'll have to see once the "best estimate" numbers are available. But you are absolutely right: Humans are terrible at judging relative risk in the face of over-/under-reporting. That goes doubly-true for individualized risk.

Just to amplify what Bob is saying: My wife is a nervous flier, and by all indications is precisely the type of spouse Cirrus markets the 'chute to. She has never expressed an aversion to getting in the plane with me (whether it's our current M20F or the previous B33, PA28, and C172 rentals I had available) if I said I'd like for her to come with. And the statistics are on her side: with proper maintaince, training, and proficiency, GA is not any more dangerous than driving. Don't let the steady drip of bad news fool you: GA safety is near the best it's ever been... The news just does a better job of putting the bad stuff in your face now.

Just as an aside, there's an open-source app I've used for years in place of Photoshop: https://www.getpaint.net/ It is not Photoshop, by any stretch of the imagination, but I've found it'll do everything I've needed to do. That would include loading RAW and tweaking the color balance of an image. Enjoy!

I believe I recall that the competition all had a substantially lower empty weight (something like 100 pounds difference), so the performance of the C162 wasn't good enough to really compete.

OK, that all makes a lot more sense than what I'd previously thought. The (erroneous) thing about him being CEO of Meijing Group completely threw me off track. So I would agree the M10 was the right idea at the right time. I do wonder why it went so far off the rails... Seems like the initial design team made some rookie mistakes.

Dr. Chen was introduced in a few places as being the CEO of Meijing Group at the time of the acquisition. That's all I was working with. I don't think I ever knew anything about the real ownership (though I might've been a little misled by the inaccurate reporting into thinking he had more control of the money than he really did). Thanks for the clarification and details.

I'll do ya one better: There's nothing on the market that competes with a Basler BT-67. Anyway, the idea is that there is a model out there for taking old airframes and getting the effectively recertified as new. That would reduce the cost by a fair margin, though how much is anyone's guess...

Basler has the model for this. Their turboprop DC-3s are considered 0 time, even though all of them were originally built decades ago. Of course, they literally re-manufacture the airplane. By the time they are done, every part, weld, and joint has been directly inspected and either remediated, replaced, or signed-off as "to spec". That would be a really neat program for Mooney to pick up... Buy older planes with run-out engines and crap avionics, strip them down and re-manufacture them with modern panel, prop, reman engine, and interior. Bonus points for applying newer design features along the way (primarily aerodynamic tweaks, but silly stuff like upgrading the overhead vents to NACA inlet style could also happen). I don't think it could be done for 300 hours of labor, though. Maybe 500? Anyway, the concept isn't bad, and in the process would be a revenue stream for the company that would let them continue to compete... 172 money to get into a re-manufactured 201-clone F with Dynon glass panel and a nearly original useful load? Yes, please.

Paul, as much as I want to argue with you, I think there might be some truth to what you're saying. Don't get me wrong, the CEO of Meijing Group has multiple advanced degrees in aviation and probably really is interested, but I'd be really shocked if Meijing Group wasn't at least partly owned by the state and therefore beholden to the Xi regime. Of course, the optimist in my also wants to say they did a temporary shutdown so they could focus on re-tooling the assembly line and/or engineering a new (less expensive to build) model (a short body trainer would be perfect). Alas, I'm aware that's an extremely remote possibility...

Soooo, I should go buy a Phenom 300? Mooney prioritizes speed, Cirrus prioritizes comfort (which indirectly includes CAPS). That's not to say the Cirrus isn't a good performer with lots of things to recommend it, mind you. In any case, most "new high performance piston single" buyers are more interested in comfort and "enough" performance. There are buyers out there who want the higher performance, just not enough to keep Mooney in the black for new production.