Mooney ... Sold to the Chinese?

[231flyer]

i would be really surprised if a new M20 airframe is ever manufactured again in Kerrville or in China.  As mentioned here its an old design using old aerofoils and old production techniques.  The type certificate dictates the production process as much as the design itself.  Given the current technology airframes (Cirrus, Diamond, and Cessna/Lancair) it does not make business sense to invest in resurrecting a 20+ year old  design.  Although all of us faithful love the elegant Mooney wing, donut landing gear, and hinged trim system; there is good reason it has not been adopted by ANY new design aircraft.

 

Cirrus and Continental Motors were purchased by AVIC, the state owned aerospace conglomerate, for their technology  (composites and diesel).  Meijing is a real estate development company with other group companies involved in mining and construction.....no aviation.  I can only guess they were interested in a global brand that can be extended to their domain - real estate.  Thus the various renderings of Mooney themed development projects.  As China evolves from an export driven low cost manufacturer they need global brands and Mooney was available and cheap.  Most of us would be hard pressed to name global Chinese brands beyond Lenovo (PCs) and Huawei (communications equipment) unlike all the Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese brands we recognize and patronize. Mooney serves a very definite need for Chinese business.

 

I do believe they will keep the parts business alive although it probably ends up outsourced it to someone like Aviall (Piper) given the low volume business model.  I am not encouraged about a new Mooney aircraft taking to the skies and that's a shame! For all the talk about GA in China the market is tiny.  90% of Chinese airspace is controlled by the PLA (Military) and they are not about to allow GA to flourish.  GA flying in China is a royal PITA - plans have to be approved in advance. No spur of the moment $100 hamburger (Chow) runs !

[Hank]

My question is simple:  does "mooney" have an additional meaning in any of the Chinese dialects, like it does in Greek?

[231flyer]

Mooney means Wealthy in Irish.  The transliteration of wealthy in Mandarin is considered auspicious by some.  Sorry no anatomical references in Mandarin.  Btw Coca Cola was transliterated to mean "Bite the Tadpole" when they first went to China.   

[1964-M20E]

 

 

Any minute now, somebody is going to say, just build new M20Js for $200,000, put a diesel engine on it and all will be well.

Dave

 

Don't forget my preference for steam gauges, manual gear and manual flaps oh and it has to be a turbo diesel.

[231flyer]

http://www.mooneyworldwide.com/

 

 

Enjoy the vision for Mooney!!!!!!

[David Mazer]

Pharmacutical manufacturers in the US are inspected at least every 2 years by the FDA.  In China, few are inspected and those that are get inspected only about every 7 years.  The number of medication errors from manufacturing is growing rapidly.  Are we really interested in putting Chineese parts on our planes?  So far, China doesn't appear to believe in the same level of quality that we have come to expect.  The comparison of an iPad or iPhone to an airplane or medication just isn't germaine.

[mcpilot]

Pharmacutical manufacturers in the US are inspected at least every 2 years by the FDA.  In China, few are inspected and those that are get inspected only about every 7 years.  The number of medication errors from manufacturing is growing rapidly.  Are we really interested in putting Chineese parts on our planes?  So far, China doesn't appear to believe in the same level of quality that we have come to expect.  The comparison of an iPad or iPhone to an airplane or medication just isn't germaine.

Aircraft parts manufacturers in the US are under the jurisdiction of the FAA... Parts if made in China would have to be approved with the same process... I haven't seen any more than the usual number of Cirrus Aircraft falling fro the sky since the Chinese bought them...

[David Mazer]

Medicines are also produced under the watchful eyes of the FDA and Chinese manufactures are supposed to follow the same requirements.  They just don’t.  I’m not sure there is enough experience with Cirrus, still produced in the US I believe, to be a predictor of parts made in China over a longer period.

[231flyer]

Almost all of us fly with Chinese made parts in our airplanes.  Most of our avionics like Garmin contain sub-assemblies, displays, circuit boards, etc that are actually manufactured in China.  Flextronics assembles a lot of boxes for Garmin and other avionics manufacturers.  I believe the Chinese will do a good job of manufacturing or assembly (like the iPhone) if they actually move any parts production to China.  However, the business case for moving low volume parts just does not exist.  For example it makes no sense to move the manufacture of 20 elevator skins to China especially since 90% of the market is in North America. Transportation costs from China are a big hindrance let alone the setup of the supply chain for components.  

 

The Chinese already manufacture major components for Boeing and Airbus and China is a major MRO destination for large jets.  American Airlines sends most of its widebody jets to Hong Kong (Haeco) for their heavy (C&D) checks.  They shut down their huge maintenance facility here in FtWorth and moved all of that work to Haeco.  The world has globalized and aviation is no different.  

[aviatoreb]

Pharmacutical manufacturers in the US are inspected at least every 2 years by the FDA.  In China, few are inspected and those that are get inspected only about every 7 years.  The number of medication errors from manufacturing is growing rapidly.  Are we really interested in putting Chineese parts on our planes?  So far, China doesn't appear to believe in the same level of quality that we have come to expect.  The comparison of an iPad or iPhone to an airplane or medication just isn't germaine.

 

In that same vein, I have noticed that many commonly available vitamins are made in china and I am very careful to avoid those as I am put off by the possible quality problems since I too have read the milk poisoning stories and so forth.

[Alan Fox]

I vote that David buy Mooney , and save us all from those pesky chinese investors.......Viva la David !!!!

[aviatoreb]

 

The Chinese already manufacture major components for Boeing and Airbus and China is a major MRO destination for large jets.  American Airlines sends most of its widebody jets to Hong Kong (Haeco) for their heavy (C&D) checks.  They shut down their huge maintenance facility here in FtWorth and moved all of that work to Haeco.  The world has globalized and aviation is no different.  

 

About 5 and 7 years ago I have had two bicycles produced by a titanium manufacturing house in China that I understand that makes parts for these aerospace companies.  I sent them a CAD and I wired about a thousand dollars, and I received about 12 weeks later a box full of titanium parts big and small to my exact specification.  I was really impressed.  The workmanship was superb and very close to my CAD specification, despite many intricate and complex curves, shapes and forms, and everything assembled beautifully.  These parts included frames, cranks, chainrings, stems, bars, seat posts, and so forth.  Titanium as you may no is particularly hard so difficult to machine, and also difficult to weld as it requires an oxygen free environment.  Thus it is very expensive to custom machine intricate parts.  By standard pricing I figure that I got everything produced for ten cents on the dollar.  I still ride both of those bikes today - one a time trial bike, and one a "29er" mtn bike that I rode to work today.

[Jonwayne79]

AOPA just posted this on their site.

 

http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2013/October/09/Mooney-funding.aspx

[231flyer]

My friend is a big supplier to GNC and Herbalife.  A bunch of pills "Made in USA" actually contain precursors made in China.  Almost half of his volume of chemicals is sourced in China.....their prices are hard to beat. The Chevy truck built with pride here in Texas contains 65% of its components made in Mexico, China, Japan etc. The iPhone built in China is actually assembled in China.  Less than $10 of value add in China mainly in the form of labor.  Almost all of the components are shipped in from Korea (displays & motherboards), Taiwan (Memory), and Japan (housing & CPU).  You really can't judge the book by its cover.

[231flyer]

Reprinted from Asoc:

List of recent aerospace transactions;

• Cirrus Aircraft - Government of the Peoples Republic of China
• Continental Engines - Government of the Peoples Republic of China
• Enstrom Helicopter Corporation - Chongqing Helicopter Investment Co, China
• Epic Aircraft - Engineering LLC, Russia
• Flightstar Sportplanes - rights, tooling and parts inventory purchased by Yuneec International, China
• Glasair Aircraft - Jilin Hanxing Group, China
• International Lease Finance Corp - 90% New China Trust Co Ltd, New China Life Insurance Co Ltd, P3 Investments Ltd and China Aviation Industrial Fund
• Liberty Aerospace - 75% owned by the Kuwait Finance House, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House of Bahrain
• LISA Airplanes - 75% owned by Heima Mining Company, China
• Mooney Aviation Company - Meijing Group, China
• Piper Aircraft - Government of Brunei
• Superior Air Parts - Weifang Tianxiang Technology Group, China
• Thielert Aircraft Engines - Government of the Peoples Republic of China

[John Pleisse]

Perhaps this is less to do about us and more to do about them being competitive amongst themselves. Problem is, they are able to accomplish this because of the second largest consumption of debt and wealth transfer in American history. The first, of course, to the Saudi's.

[Alan Fox]

My friend is a big supplier to GNC and Herbalife.  A bunch of pills "Made in USA" actually contain precursors made in China.  Almost half of his volume of chemicals is sourced in China.....their prices are hard to beat. The Chevy truck built with pride here in Texas contains 65% of its components made in Mexico, China, Japan etc. The iPhone built in China is actually assembled in China.  Less than $10 of value add in China mainly in the form of labor.  Almost all of the components are shipped in from Korea (displays & motherboards), Taiwan (Memory), and Japan (housing & CPU).  You really can't judge the book by its cover.

Just so you know NOTHING in the GNC stores is regulated by the FDA or FDC , Thier products have absolutely no pharmacological value...The Chinese could use processed horseshit and it would be legal......Just like its legal for companies to buy everything from China........As we watch our economy plummet because we no longer manufacture , we have nobody to blame but ourselves...... 

[DaV8or]

http://www.mooneyworldwide.com/

 

 

Enjoy the vision for Mooney!!!!!!

 

Wow. Just wow. Are you guys ready the Mooney Billionaire Resort? I guess we're supposed to fly our Mooney jets there. You guys need to have a look at "Mooney Planet" and see what you think. Our humble little airplane factory in Kerrville is going to blossom into a world wide aviation empire for the cosmopolitan man, or woman of the 21st Century. By the way, it looks as though MAC is moving to San Antonio, TX according to this site. Interesting that the site is copyrighted 2012. They have been hatching this grand scheme for a while now.

 

If this is really their vision for Mooney, I expect bankruptcy in short order. Stock up on parts as Mooney won't survive this bankruptcy.

[mcpilot]

Just so you know NOTHING in the GNC stores is regulated by the FDA or FDC , Thier products have absolutely no pharmacological value...The Chinese could use processed horseshit and it would be legal......Just like its legal for companies to buy everything from China........As we watch our economy plummet because we no longer manufacture , we have nobody to blame but ourselves...... 

Not true... It still is monitored by the FTC..  The contents must be listed correctly and in the proper amounts.  Also, The product must be safe and do no harm.  It does not have to be effective for any particular thing if it is a dietary supplement.  However, if a claim is made that it is effective for a certain disease or condition it must then go under FDA regulation.

[PMcClure]

I still stand by my skepticism about using Chinese made planes or critical parts in our planes. I know Boeing, GE, Ford and many others have extensive manufacturing in China. They do a great job. But there is another half of China which doesn't operate like this. Many mid sized companies operate with little oversight. Mooney is not Ford and cannot give the oversight that Ford or GE does in manufacturing. I know nothing is USA made anymore. Everything has a global component. 

 

Again, if China ownership helps Mooney, great. I think it really could. But the slant of the article was that the purchase will be for the Chinese domestic market. Which would imply that manufacturing will be moved to China. It sounds different than the news I saw on the TCM and Cirrus announcements. I guess we will just have to wait and see. I wouldn't buy a Chinese made Mooney or would I buy a Chinese made engine and put it on my Mooney. 

[231flyer]

Dave, I think the parts business is relatively safe.  In facts its the only part of Mooney with tangible value.  Even if Meijin fails the parts business will be hived off to Aviall much like Piper A/C.  Mooney hung on to the parts business to provide a cashflow stream and keep the type/production certificate current.  I do agree the vision looks more like a pipe dream.  The vision for Dubai looked equally outrageous and yet they built it......unfortunately people did not come and the bubble burst.  China has many ghost cities where developers built way ahead of demand.  They even built a replica of Paris right outside Shanghai......looks great but sits empty.  Mooney World probably not as magical as Disney World!

 

Btw I am an optimist.  I would take our manufacturing base over any other country in the world especially China.  Although we have exported a lot of the "trinkets and trash" manufacturing we are still the high tech, high value manufacturing leader in the world. Although we are not as dominant as in the 90s we still lead the world by a mile. Remember when the Japanese were going to clean our clocks in the 80s.....they didn't and the Chinese won't.     

[fantom]

Think about those poor bastard Chinese naval aviators landing and launching from their 'new' carrier  .

[231flyer]

China is a large developing country who traded their environment for fast development.  The 30 year old one child policy will leave them old before they get rich.  That said they have moved 400 million people out of poverty and are on course to move another 200 million out of poverty this decade.  I don't know how their politics evolves but 400 million educated middle class won't put up with corrupt communist politics for long.  Our democratic system is messy and ugly but still the best system out there.  Now if can only get our gov't back to work

[Dave Marten]

Oh well...let's see where this takes MAC. Meanwhile perhaps a new Mooney Caravan logo is in order?

 

 

 

All in good fun! Atleast now I'll fit in better when flying with my CJ-6 buddies!

[PMcClure]

they didn't and the Chinese won't.     

 

I would add, unless we let them!!