174 Mooneys on Controller

[DaV8or]

Quote: fantom

I believe several MSC's are trying to purchase the OEM spare parts side of the business from Mooney but their are existing third parties doing some of the manufacturing and Mooney has given or sold tools, and other equipment, inclusing STC's to them. Not a good situation.

This is second hand info, of course.

[jax88]

Now there's an idea . . . reorganize Mooney as publicly held parts and service provider.

[Bill_Pyles]

I have been flying only since 2002 and I am 54.  I have never owned an airplane but I have an offer on a 1980 M20J.  I figure it is now or never to buy an airplane, and I am as excited as hell.  My 13 year old son wants to be a pilot.  I am also dismayed by the negative trends of GA and I don't think they are reversable.  I try to take as many people flying as possible, and I encourage some of those people to learn to fly.  I hope I have another 15-20 (more?) good years when I can be a safe pilot and have a blast doing it, but I think 20 years from now there will be fewer GA pilots. 

[M016576]

Quote: byrdflyr

In many industries, especially selling products with high acquisition costs, parts and service are the profit center, not the sale of the primary good.  For instance, MRI machines are sold at cost or below, and then annual service contracts and upgrades are where you make money.  I don't think Mooney (or perhaps Cirrus) make much money on new planes, but can make money on service.

I agree it is unlikely that Mooney will produce a new version of the M20.

I agree it is unlikely that anyone will buy Mooney and invest in developing a new airframe (M2x).

What seems most likely to me is that someone will buy the factory OEM parts and service operation.

Perhaps the current Mooney owners should pull together to do this. It has been done before (didn't Eclipse owners buy out the company)?

We've seen other makes purchased with the intent to re-produce legacy designs (American General Tiger, Luscombe 11, etc.), only to suffer the same fate due the generally poor economic conditions.  Folks, the global economy will recover, but the most likely place to produce new airplanes is not going to be in the over-regulated, over-litigated USA.  It will be Brazil, India, or China.  They have the engineering, labor, technology, and capital, to build new designs from scratch. When "basic" new airplanes built in the USA cost $400+, you will see planes built OUS for the lower cost segment of the market.

Other thing that strikes me is:

1. pilots in the US are probably aging out at a much faster rate than new certificates issued;

2. Recent Ex-military pilots (generally) don't seem to be as interested;

3. Airline pilots (generally) don't seem to have the romance for flying like in the 50s-90s);

4. If the active and retiring airlines and military aren't supplying GA pilots (e.g., more UAVs, fewer F16s), and learning to fly?

All of those factors mean a lot of used inventory out there, so why would anyone (other than a multi-millionaire or flight school) buy a new GA plane? The rest of us (mostly weekend pilots) can pick and choose from a vast supply of used for a fraction of the new cost.  Would I love to see Mooney bring back new production, sure, but it wouldn't make sense becaue the wonderful design is dated and expensive to make and sell (here in the US).

 

 

 

 

[kgbpost]

Well as a recovering airline pilot now almost ten years removed (kinda...read on) from the industry I can tell you this. The alure of getting paid to fly has been used to gut the profession. I just for kicks in 2007 got hired as a street Captain for a start up regional subsidiary called Lynx for Frontier airlines..at the time there were few around who were qualified to occupy the Captain seat day one, right out of training, and we were flying a new at the time relatively advanced aircraft to boot - the DHC-8 Q400. So I went for it, Frontier had a good reputation at the time, it was Denver based, so what the hell.

I'm not going to get into the disfuntionality of airline management, partly the reason I left the industry in the first place (America West AL, 2002...prolonged contract disputed, post 9/11 aftermath, outsourced MX, poor moral, seniority going backwards, etc......) but I was blown away by the copilots I was flying with at the startup. Given my previous experience with the industry, and having already been where all these guys dreamed of getting to, I was astounded. I flew with numerous co-pilots that carried 40k in student loan debt from ab initio training...and they were now making $1500/mo gross. How does that work? I flew with several guys and or gals that left decent careers mid-life (cops, medical professionals, etc.) and financed their flight training to 'live the dream'. It became evident to me at the time that the naivity of chasing that airline dream had given executive management a liscence to steal, and you better believe they were gonna do just that.

I have a thirteen year old right now who wants to fly. I told him I will pay for his training thru his commercial pilot certificate. I have also told him that if he truly wishes to enjoy aviation to its fullest, it would behoove hime to pursue a career that would give him the opportunity to have the disposable income to fly for pleasure, like I am blessed to be able to do. I was lucky enough to have an out and have made the most of it, reality is, most don't or wont. And chances are that if you do everything right and persevere long enough to reach that Captains seat at a major and long enough yet to get off reserve and hold a descent schedule, theres a good chance the airlines have beaten the love of flying out of you by that point anyway.

I would venture to say that if I polled most of my airline captain friends most would say they have discouraged their children from learning to fly as a profession, despite the state of the economy in general. Thats a very sad statement.

I would also venture to say that the VAST majority of 500k Mooneys sold prior to the shutdown were sold to business interests that could make use of the depreciation. Otherwise nobody with the business accumen to be in the position to spend a half million bucks would even consider it. Its just gotten WAY out of the reach of the average Joe.

If Europe is the model, than enjoy the heck out of what we have here now cuz it aint gonna get any better. We still got it good, but there are storm clouds on the horizon.

I love flying my Mooney, lets hope we can continue to do it for a while longer. Ya gotta look at the bright side of life. Fly safe, Brian.

 

[kgbpost]

Quote: JimR

[jetdriven]

Quote: kgbpost

[KSMooniac]

I too dreamed of a military aviation career, but knew early on that it was not for me due to poor eyesight.  I briefly got serious about it in the 99-2000 timeframe after the USAF started granting waivers for PRK corrective surgery and even took the tests and had an app together for the KANG (B-1 unit at the time) but the consultation visit with the eye cutter scared me away...he said the chances of side effects for me might have been 1 in 10, and that was not worth the risk to my ability to fly/drive at night, use a computer, etc. while chasing that dream.  Fast forward a few more years and my engineering career started paying enough to buy a great Mooney and fly on my own, and the B-1s went to TX and SD so I would have had to move and likely give up any significant engineering work.  I keep in touch with two college buddies that are USAF pilots and I'm not so sure I would be loving it today, but it is still fun to dream.    

I cannot imagine any circumstance that would convince me to go fly professionally, or at least full-time.  The industry seems to have wrung every bit of fun, allure, pride and pay out of the equation from my perspective.  I think it would be fun to have my ratings and have the opportunity to fly right-seat on some local charters or other business flights, but that certainly wouldn't pay worth a darn either.