Future of Mooney

[aviatoreb]

On 2/18/2019 at 6:26 PM, M20Doc said:

A Van’s RV-10 quick build kit is north of $60K, no engine, propeller, avionics or instruments, paint or interior.  Many owners bump into $200 with them doing the building of a simple airplane.  Hoping a manufacturer could build and sell a 4 seat airplane for the same is a pipe dream.

Clarence

 

And that expense is with experimental avionics and an experimental engine (both of which are often made side by side with their certified counter parts), right?

[aviatoreb]

On 2/18/2019 at 6:26 PM, M20Doc said:

A Van’s RV-10 quick build kit is north of $60K, no engine, propeller, avionics or instruments, paint or interior.  Many owners bump into $200 with them doing the building of a simple airplane.  Hoping a manufacturer could build and sell a 4 seat airplane for the same is a pipe dream.

Clarence

 

And that expense is with experimental avionics and an experimental engine (both of which are often made side by side with their certified counter parts), right?

[aviatoreb]

I always thought the "Raven" was an interesting of a modern materials (glass lay up) copy of a classic design (the Piper commanche) with a few modern improvements, eg the modern wing tips, engine intake in NACA style, and of course everything is much smoother in glass than rivets.

http://www.ravininternational.com/gallery/

The claimed performance numbers are as expected for a much cleaned up example of a commanche.  180kts 75% cruise on a Lycoming IO-540-D4A5 

and carrying 160gal they claim a max range of 2500nm (!!!) (surely going slower than 75% which claims 14.1gph, so that's 11.34hrs max to dry, or a "mere" 2043 nm ).

What would a "ravenized" M20 Mooney knock-off look like, perform like, and cost?

Edited February 23, 2019 by aviatoreb

[CaptainAB]

What good reasons would compel a significant group of buyers in this market to buy a brand new Mooney? 954 sales last year so there is plenty of sales to be had. 

[glbtrottr]

Cirrus sales? Over 300. Mooney for the year, ovations and acclaim, 14.

14.

No parachute, not retractable, has greater curb appeal to the masses, fewer dealers and service centers, etc.

We can all talk about how our airplanes are more efficient, etc. But in the end, Cirrus has a better marketing machine - and at 725 a copy for an sr22 gts versus an ovation...the market speaks for itself. Mooney doesn’t do itself any favors-which means we all pay more for parts and service.


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[jetdriven]

i Think they are willfully blind to what the market demands. 

[M016576]

12 minutes ago, jetdriven said:

i Think they are willfully blind to what the market demands. 

Or they can’t compete.  Because what the market demands is a new design- one that mooney can’t/won’t build and certify... How are those M10’s coming along anyway (and I’m not saying that’s what the market wants- just that’s their last new design... that’s even more vapor ware than the KI-300)

Edited February 23, 2019 by M016576

[jetdriven]

They could’ve spent that M10 money on modernizing and updating the M20 series. But they did not, they went down the rabbit hole on that fabulous piece of shit and now it’s cut up in a dumpster and theyre another 10-20 million dollars in the hole for that. That’s probably going to factor into their eventual demise. Anyway what I wish for the company and what actually may transpire are probably two different things

[glbtrottr]

Sadly, the best thing for Mooney May be to suck out the Intellectual property and find another place to build it once modernized outside of kerrville. It wouldn’t be the first time a design is copied and outsold. It would be sad for the nice people of Kerrville, but they work dog slow, aren’t the most Innovative, and have never had a strong operational marketing time that puts input into product.

Take the origins of Rv, and look at how many copies Dick has sold.

Even Lancair, the evolution, and now they have a Million Dollar kitplane that people buy.

With new Chinese money, hoping to make the M10 work, you’ve got 14 sold copies.

I’d be so fired.

Is it cheap? No.
Is it the absolute fastest out there? No.
Is it the best/most luxurious? No.

It’s a quaternary player as a long shot with a ton of baggage. It’s amazing that the popularity of the J model allowed the factory to survive another 40 years. Now it’s in Chinese hands after being in Australian hands, French hands and many others. I remember supporting it with an insurance job when the assembly line was shut down as others did.

I remember rescuing an exceptional competition dog once that became abused. After bringing her back from 34 pounds back to about 70 (from a competition weight of 75), someone told me I just didn’t have the skill to bring her back. I retired her, and she lived lazily after for many years.

Too many egos have been caught up in trying to bring Mooney back.

14. Cheap, fast, great. Find your niche and excel at it.


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[David_H]

3 minutes ago, glbtrottr said:

It would be sad for the nice people of Kerrville, but they work dog slow, aren’t the most Innovative, and have never had a strong operational marketing time that puts input into product.

It's difficult to understand how someone from California can confidently comment about the people of Kerrville, Texas.

[glbtrottr]

It's difficult to understand how someone from California can confidently comment about the people of Kerrville, Texas.

Read up.

Spending several weeks at Kerrville and counting a number of employees / former employees as friends.


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[David_H]

4 minutes ago, glbtrottr said:

Read up.

Spending several weeks at Kerrville and counting a number of employees / former employees as friends.


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Most "friends" don't like to be described that way.

[glbtrottr]

Hence the reason they no longer work there.

You can detract from my conclusion any way you like: demonizing me, claiming I don’t know, questioning what you like.

I provided facts about how I watched Mooney operate first hand. Up to 5 years ago, back to about 10. I also quoted numbers directly. All of us pay. Do you have alternate facts to offer?


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[David_H]

3 minutes ago, glbtrottr said:

You can detract from my conclusion any way you like: demonizing me, claiming I don’t know, questioning what you like.

I provided facts about how I watched Mooney operate first hand. Up to 5 years ago, back to about 10. I also quoted numbers directly. All of us pay. Do you have alternate facts to offer?

No questions were posed so I'm not sure what your point is.

Edited February 23, 2019 by David_H

[DonMuncy]

It is terribly unfair to blame the workers in Kerrville for the various failures of Mooney. Probably, if someone looked hard, they may find some higher up management person who was a real Kerrville resident, but a very large percentage of them were not. All the Kerrville workers I have met and seen were dedicated, loyal hardworking people, while the people making the decisions that caused Mooney problems were from the outside. And one of the true tragedies is that in the closings of the Mooney factory, the workers were the ones who lost their livelihoods, while the upper management, for the most part, went to other aircraft companies and continued.

[glbtrottr]

59 minutes ago, DonMuncy said:

It is terribly unfair to blame the workers in Kerrville for the various failures of Mooney. Probably, if someone looked hard, they may find some higher up management person who was a real Kerrville resident, but a very large percentage of them were not. All the Kerrville workers I have met and seen were dedicated, loyal hardworking people, while the people making the decisions that caused Mooney problems were from the outside. And one of the true tragedies is that in the closings of the Mooney factory, the workers were the ones who lost their livelihoods, while the upper management, for the most part, went to other aircraft companies and continued.

 

I don’t disagree with that, and I directly stated there were and are some genuinely nice people there.

I also stated that time after time, acquisition after acquisition, someone new comes in with some great ideas, and in the end, Kerrville has always done it one way, with some subtle changes Along the way.

It isn’t the management. It isn’t the workers.

What then allowed other factories and products to flourish and Mooney to languish, since In the end the engines and radios are the same?




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Edited February 23, 2019 by glbtrottr

[Davidv]

12 hours ago, glbtrottr said:

Mooney will never dig out of their hole. I spent weeks and weeks at mooney. I’ve said it before - it’s like clockwork. Work starts and ends exactly on time. So do breaks. Breaks go longer than assigned. Nice people, ok work ethic, lots of bad morale from frequent layoffs and changes in ownership. “Here comes someone new to tell us how to do it better...” common thought. There some exceptional and genuinely nice and decent people. They’re just too battered and their model is about 40 years out of date.

The company is now Chinese owned. Many American aviation companies are. As a patriot, I don’t like it, but it is what it is.

As for Mooney’s for $200k: never happen. I recently studied Icon A5’s as an example: carbon fiber plane, Rotax engines, Garmin 796 avionics, you couldn’t make it much more cheaply. The price? It exploded from $160k to a present $360k and growing. Even if you could manufacture for a lower cost, the market wouldn’t allow the lower price. Even Ocasio Cortez would tell you that’s not happening. I believe the right number of sales for Cirrus last year was 180 SR22T’s. Regular sr22s were only 135. How many 200k mooney’s do you think you want to sell to make it worthwhile?

1. Employees at Mooney would have to be far more efficient. Expect a Chinese made Mooney, for less, in China, not certificated.

2. Your composite airplane, 4 seater, would have to go through certification. Too many government employees at the FAA have a vested interest in keeping the cost high.

3. You would have to find a certificated power plant that would be substantially less than the current Lycoming and Continental prices; Rotax isn’t much better. Diesel engines? Diamond thought about it as did Cessna. If you hold your breath too long you will pass out.

4. While the new world of experimental avionics is making huge inroads in General aviation, no one has stepped up to give Gar-Min a run for their money. Not yet.

5. Electric engines in the world of drones are making huge improvements; battery improvements have also come about. That said, the days of Tesla and ideally better batteries with enough time to keep a GA airplane aloft for a while are still a ways out.


Mooney is its own worst enemy. I remember when the price point was at $500k and the marketing people there tried to bend their heads to talk about the return of the J model for $200k. Our American economy, complete with “free this”, “free that”, and college teacher making north of $100k along with every other increased cost will just not let it happen in America.




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Agreed, when you look at the current price of a new Mooney and compare the value with the other manufacturers you could easily argue that Mooney is already extremely competitive on price.  Trying to be the low cost producer would be very off brand for them.  

Maybe I’m biased but I don’t think it comes down to an inferior product, it’s pure inferior marketing.  It’s almost ingrained to everyone else in the pilot community that our planes are hard to fly and more expensive to operate and maintain.  Good marketing is not putting up signs around FBOs and flight schools that say “Mooney: Pilot Perfect”, or buying the back of Flying Magazine.  It’s changing the conversation through PR and other avenues. 

Maybe the current owners will do this better, but the odds are not in their favor.

On a side note, I was at an Audi dealership yesterday while a friend dropped off his car for service and saw a sign behind the counter that said “Standard shop labor rate: $189.00 per hour”.  I thought that was funny since it’s almost double what I pay on my piece of equipment that was over $500k new in today’s dollars.  And no, I’m not saying that our birds are cheap to maintain, just that I would never get service from an Audi dealership :).

[Mooney in Oz]

9 hours ago, glbtrottr said:

after being in Australian hands

First I've read or heard of this.  When was it in Aussie hands?

I just remembered about 11 years ago when Dennis Ferguson was the CEO there was one Aussie investor, but apart from that I've never known Mooney to be in Aussie hands per se.

Edited February 23, 2019 by Mooney in Oz
Recalled further information.

[Pete M]

Why is Mooney not competitive? In the earlier years it was small size, poor visibility, difficult access. They failed to capitalize on the success of the J by building and successfully marketing a training airplane. It amazes me how many pilots get their certs and then go out and buy training airplanes because it's what their used to. I think mooney realized this when they attempted to build their mil trainer, unfortunately since they couldn't market it to various military's because the wing doesn't have good inverted handling characteristics they abandoned the project. The added visibility, better access and loss of access to the training pipeline that the mil trainer would have provided was a critical error. By the time cirrus rolled around, they were finished. No way to compete with that new, modern design on the emotional level that people use to make buying decisions. In the 70's air fare's were much higher than today and guys used their planes for business. Not so much today for obvious reasons. Today the market requires training airplanes, not million dollar airplanes that aren't so different than a/c I can buy used for one tenth the cost. Mooney's only hope of survival may be if they avoid the same mistakes in the Chinese market.  Today airplanes are so expensive to buy and maintain that they need a job, they need to be revenue generating in order to justify being widely produced, otherwise it's just a niche toy market. When the wings started falling off of the arrow's I figured that the prices of old mooney's would start to rise due to demand in the training market but the faa moved so quickly in changing the rules that require a complex airplane for commercial and cfi that it had a negligible affect. If the rules had stayed the same or the faa had moved at it's usual glacial pace it's quite possible that demand may have even justified the production of a newer J like airplane. Just one of a long string of bad breaks for Mooney...

[LANCECASPER]

2 hours ago, Davidv said:

Agreed, when you look at the current price of a new Mooney and compare the value with the other manufacturers you could easily argue that Mooney is already extremely competitive on price.  Trying to be the low cost producer would be very off brand for them.  

 

Back in the 60's, 70's and 80's Mooney was the lost cost airplane.

 

 

 

 

[toto]

Love these old Mooney ads. 

They really do make a compelling value proposition, in the context of a healthy SEP market. 

 

[mike20papa]

On 2/19/2019 at 6:52 PM, M20F said:

The tubular frame of a Mooney is way over played.  A 1962 Lincoln is a tank by any stretch but if it hit a modern Tesla head on, the folks in the Tesla are walking away.  We tend to turn a lot of what we want to believe about our airplanes into “reality” when it isn’t.  

The frame is a spill over from the cloth era, nothing more.  

The true spill over from the cloth era is the FAA's certification process.  I once read what it took to certify the composite structure of the Columbia (I think that's the name) It was loaded into a custom fabricated jig and "manipulated" to simulate loading for hours on end.  It was all so expensive - the FAA making sure they would never be asked to work that problem again. 

By the way what happens if a Tesla hits a Sherman tank head on?  

[M20F]

1 minute ago, mike20papa said:

By the way what happens if a Tesla hits a Sherman tank head on?  

A laden or unladen Sherman tank?

[aviatoreb]

Talking about hours to build - How many hours does it take to build a Honda Accord?

does that question even make sense re all the robots involved?

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

Talking about hours to build - How many hours does it take to build a Honda Accord?

does that question even make sense re all the robots involved?

Yes,  because you measure person-hours (total hours of the assembly line workers divided by the number of units produced). Robots save person-hours. My guess is that making a Honda Accord on an assembly line is a small fraction of what it takes to produce a  Mooney, 5-10%, maybe less

.