DaV8or

Isn't that the point of being a cheap bastard? To enable you to buy two planes?

Great. I'm sure that will be some very fine, competitively priced services.

Nice! That's a whole lotta skippin'.

Yep. I'm also a believer in the right tool for the job and have multiple vehicles for multiple missions.

I doubt it has anything to do with Mooneys in particular. I think it has more to do with people that want an airplane to travel distances. I bet Bonanza, C-210, Commander, Malibu, etc owners also have similar stories of Porsches and european sports cars. A Mooney most certainly does not handle like a Porsche. Anybody who thinks it does has either never flown a plane that has light, snappy handling, or has never driven a Porsche.

Whoever said they could do it in a day or two probably has never done it. A mechanic that has never done it before has a huge learning curve ahead of them. Of course as usual, the taking apart is the easy and quick part. It's the putting back together and properly rigging everything that takes time. Not to mention the building of any special fixtures to hold the wings, or fuselage while the work is done. I think an experienced Mooney shop can have it done in under a week if it is a priority for them. For a one man shop that has never done it before, I can see it taking over a week. Of course I have never done it either, but I have seen the wings off, I have talked to mechanics that have put the wings on and I have now done a fair amount of work on my own plane and I can imagine the huge job it would be. I truly sympathize with your horrible situation. You really have to decide what this particular plane is worth to you. I doubt you will find a shop that will do this repair for much less and if you do, I would really scrutinize their credentials before agreeing to the work. The way see it, your choices are- Part the plane out, take your loses and buy another plane. Bite the bullet and pay what it takes to get professionals to fix it for you. If you are mechanically inclined and have a hangar, do the work yourself with IA sign off on the work. I know if I were in your situation, I would be most inclined towards the last choice in this list, but given my mood and the circumstances at that time, I might also pick any of the above. I'm so sorry to hear of your horrible news.

And you know what? I bet you wold be hard pressed to find and NTSB, or FAA, or CAA report of dead pilots due to cigarettes setting the interior on fire. At some point year after year, decade after decade of technocrats, politicians and hired safety engineers making paychecks off of improving aviation safety, we have perhaps gone beyond the deep end in search of the THE absolutely safe airplane of the future!!!

Not worthless. You can always sell the prop to a guy with a Vans RV. They don't need no stinkin' STC!

It's true that heavily modified VWs (usually with Porsche engines) are nearly unstoppable on the amateur drag strips of America, the fact that the bone stock car as it was delivered from the VW factory is pretty under powered by American standards. We, with our relatively cheap gas, like some get up and go, where as the Europeans are more concerned with their pocketbooks at the pump. The nice thing about fuel efficient airplanes is, it means they can go faster if desired, unlike fuel efficient cars that are pretty much stuck in the slow lane.

It is a blend of politics, greed and NIMBY. I'll use the example of San Francisco. San Francisco does not have an airport, but it does have freeways that were put in in the '50s, '60s and '70s. It was a supposed natural thing as other cities around the country did the same. However a true network of freeways was never achieved and the ability t pass through the city, or reach it's outer neighborhoods by freeway never materialized. Why? Because San Francisco might just well be the birth place of the NIMBYs. Ever since the Loma Prieta earthquake there, they have been tearing freeways down. I know no other city like that in America. Here is a public transportation system used by nearly all, that they are dismantling and they have plans to go even further. Why? They found that neighborhoods that had freeways running through them rebounded from low income, crime ridden places and became vibrant, even trendy and desirable once the freeways were removed. A big plus for the city in terms of taxes collected, but also the developers and land owners. I have no idea how much, but loads and loads of money has been made out of this. To help sell the idea of making San Francisco an even worse place to drive a car, they used left leaning politics that are popular there. Themes of reducing environmental pollution, excessive energy consumption and the promise of additional public transit to ease the pain was and still is appealing there. Ironically, the city finds itself now with a serious lack of affordable housing, something the homes by the freeway provided. I see San Francisco as a blue print that the folks running Santa Monica are following as to how to turn old 20th century public transportation systems into city profits and get their city closer to a perceived superior European model of how a city should be.

From the Collins article- The answer is, not so much. Once the cost of a brand new four seat airplane elevated well outside the reach of the upper middle class, concerns of fuel consumption became very minor. Mooney didn't kill the M20J, or the M20K, the market did.

I think basically there we have it four pages later. The only thing that really will help eek the M20 along for another decade while we wait for a replacement would be a parachute and a gross weight increase to accommodate that equipment. Of course the added weight of the parachute and whatever they have to do to gain an increase in GW will ultimately slow the plane down and hurt it's performance, but that is likely acceptable to buyers as long as it's still faster than the Cirrus. Of course all of this would require lots and lots of money and time for certification. I still say it's throwing good money after bad. Spend the money on a new design instead.

Yes, Harbor Freight does a reasonable job of making their stuff look like real tools.

I'm able to torque that with a Craftsman 3/8" torque wrench and a Craftsman 1" socket. It just fits, but I suppose their are minor differences between planes and maybe my motor mounts aren't so good. However you could also use this- They make them in the 1" size. You have to do a calculation to get the correct torque and the formula is on the net, or they also have phone app that will do it for you.

Well, that's about what they're selling now. The production volume really doesn't matter. It's the profit that matters for the company's survival. If they can build just 10 planes a year, but still make a profit, then all is well. If they can't... they'll have to ask the motherland for more money I guess.

Harbor Freight is kind of like IKEA, you get what you pay for and the vast majority of it is trash, but if you shop carefully, you can buy a very few adequate products but only adequate. Nothing there is actually good quality. That smell you breath in when you first enter the store is what I imagine the whole country of China to smell like.

That is so awesome! Out of curiosity, did they give any figures on what a runway like that costs to build?

And you know this to be true how??? Do you have GoPro cameras in everybody else's cockpit? No, it's just another biased assumption. Take a critical look at your Mooney. It is an exercise in blind spots. Little tiny windows, but they look cool. The visibility is actually pretty poor and there are planes that are even worse. See and avoid is just a tool that you can use. It by itself will not save you. To chalk every mid air collision up to a failure of see and avoid is ridiculous and short sighted.

The law is pretty much irrelevant. Survival is. Use it all people because "see and avoid" is proven to be crap. So are radios. Traffic information systems are still evolving, but their very nature means they can only be partly effective. Because the law is weak and doesn't require radios, standardized patterns entries, or patterns for that matter, no requirement for traffic information systems, or transponders, and no requirement for exterior collision avoidance lighting, we are left to whatever devices we can come up with. Use 'em all.

I don't think anybody is particularly worried about that.

Yeah, I imagine some vacationers waited too long and got stuck. Now their planes are upside down.

I have suggested for years that one potential future for the M20 was as a kit. However that kit would have to be a redesigned M20J to make it kit worthy. Much like the Raven 500 is a kit version of the Piper Comanche. The Raven and the Comanche look the same and fly much the same, but are built very different. However, the reality is, it takes a fair amount or R&D and certification for a 51% kit too. It's cheaper than a Part 23 certified airplane, but still a significant expense and it requires a lot of staff to support that kit. So Mooney would have to ask themselves how many of these kits, either M20J, or M10J they would actually sell and how much money would they bring in. IMO, the sales would be poor. The trend right now in the kit market (which is also in a slump) is away from retractable gear. I just adds too much time to the build time, costs more in insurance, costs more for the parts, eats into your potential useful load and the perception is it doesn't make you go that much faster. They could do a kit of the M10T, but how does that stack up against the established players in the kit market? It really offers nothing new other than a third seat. People looking to buy a four place kit are likely to pick the RV-10 over the M20J due to the quicker build and the established reputation and fantastic builder support. People looking to buy a fast retractable kit are likely to choose the Glasair II, or III because they are faster. The M20J kit would also be competing against the used certified market. I'm sure Mooney could sell some kits, but the more I think of it, probably not enough to justify the expense and hassle.

Awesome! I'm an EAA member, so I should be able to find it. Thanks for putting it on! I look forward to it.

Ummm... They're doing that. Likely as fast as they can. They are starting with the M10T with fixed gear because it is even easier to certify and it meets the needs back home in China. Certification of an all new airplane takes a long, long time and lots of money. It has bankrupted many a company. What happens is, problems are found with the photo type and they are told to go back to the drawing board and fix the problems and then test some more. The fixes require re-engineering and then further testing. It is slow and tedious. It also usually sucks the performance out of a plane as it becomes heavier and slower. It's the price we pay to be as absolutely safe as we can possibly be and still go up in the air. Whether we really need this level of safety is open to debate, but at this time it is what it is.

They need deep pockets and patience. We'll see if they can bear both. The whole certification process must be unbelievably frustrating to them. I doubt in China they have anything like what you must do in America for certification and they can't just bribe somebody. I imagine the M10T will move forward to completion, but will they go back and do it again with the M10J, or any replacement for the M20? I imagine not any time soon.