1980Mooney

I’m not sure if I follow your point. Swift also requires that you pay for an STC to use their fuel. And the economic reality is that, because AVGAS consumption is so low, virtually all but the busiest airports have only one supplier of AVGAS. - Daily deliveries of all grades of AVGAS average slightly over 400,000 gallon per day NATIONWIDE. - There are about 5,000 public airports and 14,000 private airstrips. - Just considering the public airports, that is ONLY 80 gallons per day per airport on average. Gas/connivence store sell more beer than that per day. Grocery stores sell more milk than that per day. You may want market competition but the market reality does not support it. The Govt doesn’t have anything to do with it.

What conversion? A bit more information would be helpful for anyone to answer.

This is how Maxwell does it... (that is the Predator he recovered to restore) The last thing that you want to do is separate the wing from the steel frame/cage.

Talking about a specific location is meaningless. Look at the big picture. Globally, 1,500 SEP were built/sold in all of 2024 and only 317 in Q1 of 2025. Yes there are some homebuilts but they do not meaningfully replace certified aircraft - either in mission or life of use. But the number of GA that are crashed or just rot away every year exceeds the number coming into the market. The cost of purchasing and owning/maintaining a GA SEP is rising faster than inflation. Look at the price increases at Lycoming - or anything that Hartzell/Arcline Capital owns...or any other aviation supplier scooped up by Private Equity - up 50% over the last couple years. You have to practically be a millionaire to acquire a new Cirrus. Mooney went out of new aircraft business 6 years ago because they were "only" charging $700,000 and $800,000 for their 2 base models and could not make a go of it. This will not drive growth. At best GA piston may flatline.

Also it depends upon your model and location. Are you in the US or outside? There are comments that "the factory is making parts". Definitely not all parts and not full support for all models. And then some parts are sourced by Mooney Corp from third parties through exclusivity contracts. Things as simple at the mechanical wing fuel level gauge dials can only be purchased by Mooney and not owners directly from the manufacturer. The problem is that Mooney doesn't have enough money to order third party parts in quantity for inventory or for MSC's. Here is a critical intake boot on an E that has a 35 week lead time after 10 orders have been received....

Yes I understand that - I am using the word figuratively but the aft of the plane has to be removed. It is a major event - all the wiring going to the tail which includes power and any remote avionics like autopilot has to be pulled, control rods, etc in addition to drilling out all the rivets. Then it all has to be reassembled - and that sum total work is in addition to actually repairing the plane. What a PITA.

I think that you are talking about Pippen-York Avionics. But I don't think that they will be much help in pulling the TIO-540 to send it out for the prop strike AD/Inspection or replacing the prop in order to get it into shape to ferry it somewhere. The alternative would be to cut the fuselage behind the back seats and put it on a truck/trailer.

T82. Not TX82. It’s 5,002 ft X 75 ft asphalt.

Except that he departed from San Marcos and geared it up about 85 miles away at T82 -Fredericksburg. Other than the Hangar Hotel, there isn’t much at T82.

Texas Air Salvage has a 40-87 nose wheel off of a Beech Duchess https://www.texasairsalvage.com/main_view.php?editid1=296470

It looks like Texas Air Salvage has a pair of the Lasar Comb- tiedown/jack points that actually came off of an M20E… https://www.texasairsalvage.com/main_view.php?editid1=296005

Here is a pragmatic article on the Manual (Johnson bar) gear from KNR Shoptalk https://www.knr-inc.com/shoptalk-articles.html?view=article&id=41&catid=25

I have used these for 25+ years. I leave them on. The space for a tie down chain is tighter than the standard rings but I like it. https://lasar.com/tie-downs/tie-down-jack-point-combo-ss-tie-down-wing Standard jack pads/points https://lasar.com/tie-downs/jack-point-010000-000

Manual or electric (Dukes actuator) landing gear?

Oops….that was the title of the topic. My bad.