The Mooney 301

[mulro767]

LoPresti is the narrator of the very cool promotional video of the Mooney 301!

[aviatoreb]

Such a shame.  If that had come to market - it surely would have beat Piper to the Meridian/Mirage sales with a stronger version first to market, and when eventually converted to turbo prop it would have been a knock out.  Maybe enough to be that second line of planes that could have really helped Mooney.

 

Happily Mooney is coming back to business.  I am excited and interested to see what they do in years to come.

[Cruiser]

The tail is on wrong and the landing gear is not right.

 

No wonder they got rid of it.

[M016576]

Such a shame. If that had come to market - it surely would have beat Piper to the Meridian/Mirage sales with a stronger version first to market, and when eventually converted to turbo prop it would have been a knock out. Maybe enough to be that second line of planes that could have really helped Mooney.

Happily Mooney is coming back to business. I am excited and interested to see what they do in years to come.

I think it did... The TBM?

[aviatoreb]

I think it did... The TBM?

 

No TBM is a derivative idea - yes M is for Mooney but T and B.....not the 301.  If THIS 301 had come to market....as a Mooney.  

[orionflt]

I think it did... The TBM?

Yes, The 301 was shipped over seas was used to develop the TBM

[orionflt]

Correction, it wasn't shipped over seas but the design was used in the development of the TBM

[Steve Dawson]

Are the wings still around and the frame at the A&P school?

[jetdriven]

I read somewhere the horizontal tail had some issues with strange behavior during certain stalls and needed to be redesigned. Then the whole economy (especially Texas) tanked in 1983 which pretty much killed the 301. It was a really cool airplane.

[flyboy0681]

The tail is on wrong and the landing gear is not right.

 

No wonder they got rid of it.

 

Cruiser is right, no straight tail? Why this is blasphemous.

[aviatoreb]

I read the same thing, Byron, and that it was because they tried an inverted airfoil section on the horizontal stabilizer that just didn't work out as they hoped that it would.

Jim

 

I read the same thing too Bryon.

 

That could have been fixed somehow with good engineering ... but what killed the project was as said here, the economy.

 

The TBM700/850 might use some of the ideas of the 301, from the temporary cooperation of the companies, but that airplane in the video is not the tbm700.  

 

I am most impressed by a plane that can land at 53kts but go 301mph.  Very impressive.

 

I read that the airplane was eventually deliberately disassembled so as not to be a temptation to anyone anywhere.

[johnbkeck]

Probably would never happen but maybe new Asian owner could buy the design back from Daher-Socata. I can barely put gas in a 201 partnership airplane so I would not be a 301 prospective owner.

How about a Tornado Alley Turbo powered M-22 Mustang without that ugly oversized dorsal fin and aerodynamic cleanup. At least the design probably still belongs to Mooney.

John Keck

[Carl S]

Cruiser is right, no straight tail? Why this is blasphemous.

 

Would this have helped?  http://mooneyspace.com/gallery/image/34687-m301-with-tail-mod/

[RobertoTohme]

I can tell you firsthand that the Mooney soul is alive and well on the TBM; it feels like an oversize, slightly heavier M20...  Back in '09 when I first flew the 850, it was a deja vu moment as I felt I had flown the plane before, which made the transition pretty easy for me.  I can't say the same thing of other planes I've trained or typed on.

[Seth]

A mechanic at an MSC who worked on a TBM said in the past that once you took off the belly panels and got into the airframe systems that it screamed Mooney heritage.

Without a doubt the Mooney influence is apparent in the TBM. Not a 301, but they took that design and then did even better.

-Seth