Future of Mooney: Speculation thread

[bradp]

My take... Mooney has been on “corporate hospice” for some time.  Probably looking at another fire sale unfortunately. They should rename the company to Phoenix as it keeps coming back from the ashes.  
 

Anyway - strategy for a way forward. 
 

1) Take build new planes out of the business plan.  

2) Keep tooling for parts manufacturing to generate a revenue stream.  This would be primary.  

3) Keep maintenance facility going (MSC). 
4) Start a refurb program ala Rmag and Jake. This should be mildly profitable and little risk if 2/3 are running. 
5) Use 1-4 to eventually support an R&D efforts to build a kit mooney that addresses the transport version shortcomings.  Use that as a certification basis. Honestly I don’t know if the ship has sailed on the M10, or if that IP is salvageable in any realistic way  

6) Lease unused square footage - may be the asset most likely to go but most important if mooney is to ever come back*** 

7) Keep on the marketing and social media on all fronts.  Use dealer network to identify refurb customers / provide cores / capital for flips / identify kit customers.  

Mooney as a company would have to move from a fabled old school factory mission to a LASAR on steroids setup and probably 90% of the remaining workforce would stay laid off... in order to salvage what is left of mooney the brand   

We as current owners can only hope the tooling is protected for parts manufacturing.  However in the era of 3D scanning, 3D printing and additive manufacturing on the horizon as long as we have existing parts / drawings everything will be Ok. 
 

*** lease space to Lilium or some other high tech wonder with investor cash on hand and use that as an avenue to a future partnership.  

[Austintatious]

9 hours ago, Blue on Top said:

Why beef up the landing gear?  That is not what is holding up a gross weight increase (one needs to think more outside the box).

ok, I should have put the two separate....  These aircraft have a very bad reputation when it comes to the landing gear.  Moonies are over represented in gear related mishaps.

As far as what they need to do to increase gross weight...  probably a bit of beefing up the spar and/or changing VNo/VNE

[Austintatious]

9 hours ago, Blue on Top said:

Regretfully (and as KSMooniac pointed out), these $ values are from a couple decades ago.

New engine $80K, G1000 $100K, paint $30K, interior $20K+ and the largest omission, insurance $50K+

Yes, its stinks.  Someone hit the nail on the head about the quantities used in GA.  If you're even a Cirrus, making 300 parts per year is still in prototyping quantities.  We need to borrow from other industries and not certify what we don't need to certify.  We all fly with iPads … take the second screen out (saves $30K+).  Add a little cost to cool the iPad.

After this post I recanted on the G1000 suite... So I admit I was off on that...  However I don't think I a m that far off on the rest.

I JUST had my mooney painted for under 20k.  No way a 4 cylinder cost 80k to have a factory reman done.  And 20k for an interior... seriously?

Lets adjust a few numbers and see if things still walk

 

Old Mooney with run out engine         60k

Install RE-MANED  engine                   50k

New avionics/AP                                   60k

New paint                                               25k

say 400 hours labor                              40k

factor 40k for warranty work              40k

Interior                                                     15k

Insurance                                               50 k

__________________________________________

                                                                   295k

 

Sell em for  400k.  or give an option for owners to upgrade their aircraft for 340k.  That's 105-145k  profit... more I think as some of that is just too high IMHO, you think they are paying the workers 100 an hour?

 

I think their biggest problem would actually be getting the old birds.

[aviatoreb]

14 minutes ago, Austintatious said:

After this post I recanted on the G1000 suite... So I admit I was off on that...  However I don't think I a m that far off on the rest.

I JUST had my mooney painted for under 20k.  No way a 4 cylinder cost 80k to have a factory reman done.  And 20k for an interior... seriously?

Lets adjust a few numbers and see if things still walk

 

Old Mooney with run out engine         60k

Install RE-MANED  engine                   50k

New avionics/AP                                   60k

New paint                                               25k

say 400 hours labor                              40k

factor 40k for warranty work              40k

Interior                                                     15k

Insurance                                               50 k

__________________________________________

                                                                   295k

 

Sell em for  400k.  or give an option for owners to upgrade their aircraft for 340k.  That's 105-145k  profit... more I think as some of that is just too high IMHO, you think they are paying the workers 100 an hour?

 

I think their biggest problem would actually be getting the old birds.

At least in some parts I think that could be done for less.  Interior - 10k.  I had a gorgeous complete interior job done for about 12k and that was a one off,  In bulk I bet 10k would be realistic.  Or perhaps a tad less.

Avionics - go Dynon - maybe 30k?  Gorgeous.  New paint - 15k?

Your refurb plan is what a lot of us have done individually.  Most extreme was Bennet and a few others.

[aviatoreb]

9 hours ago, Blue on Top said:

Now for the hypothetical … UBER

1. no matter how many $B are spent, physics will not change.  Vertical takeoff and landing is VERY power intensive (~10X from an airplane).

2. Tilt rotor/engine/pods/wing are a compromise.  Propeller inflow where high thrust (1.1 GW minimum) is required is very low.  In cruise the inflow is high (180 knots).  The blades would need to be twisted differently.  Before you say it, I can rotate the blade.  True, but the Wright Flyer propellers are not twisted very much from root to tip (30 mph inflow) … and they did a great job!  Fast airplanes may have 30 degrees+ twist from root to tip.

3. The X-57 (with 12 propellers per side) is so inefficient that they are now down to using them for high lift (takeoff and landing only).  They are shutdown otherwise … yes, inside information.

4. Electric motors - Low end torque is not applicable.  The propeller controls how much torque can be used … and how efficiently.

5. Electric motors - cooling IS an issue,  Not as much is required, but it is in a very concentrated area.

6. Hybrid electric is just an interim solution until something with more power density comes along.

&. Airplanes are designed around failure modes and not everything operating 100%.  One may design with 20 electric motors but if one connection fails and takes out 10 of them, the airplane is a twin  

Very interesting points.  As for a few

1) If electric charged on the ground then using 10x the energy briefly is not 10x the cost since electricity charged on the ground is dramatically cheaper than avgas energy, cost per Kw-h.

6) I agree completely.

8) Spot on.  So we can have 40 electric motors driving 20 miniature props with energy delivered in serial in some robust failure resistant way instead of a parallel Christmas light string way,  Absolutely its an issue but one I think can be designed for graceful failure modes.

And the rest of your points are good too of course but I only commented on a few.

E

[steingar]

16 hours ago, EricJ said:

The "car gas" you get out of the typical retail pump to pump into the typical road vehicle is almost universally contaminated with a fair percentage of ethanol.   While it does have some advantages, efficiency generally goes down, and it typically plays havoc in older vehicles with seals that weren't made for it, e.g., older airplanes.    So you'd need to carry more to get the same distance, and be prepared to deal with leaks in unhappy places.

"Mogas" conversions usually assumed 100% gasoline, which is a lot harder to find.    If it were easy to get, it might be a reasonable solution.   Blame the corn lobby, but on the upside, it's made our farmers wealthier...oh, wait... 

In the United States.  Mooney was trying to make a trainer to be flown in other lands.  They wanted a diesel engine, but in China they have auto gas just about everywhere, and I don't think there's any booze in it.  They drink theirs.

Booze free mogas available everywhere (I've been to the hinterlands of both Guatemala and Mexico and had no trouble finding car gas) and engines that will happily burn it.  I still don't see the big deal about diesel.

[afward]

9 hours ago, Blue on Top said:

3. The X-57 (with 12 propellers per side) is so inefficient that they are now down to using them for high lift (takeoff and landing only).  They are shutdown otherwise … yes, inside information.

I would think that the "gang" of small props would be very inefficient vs. a single prop with the same swept area (probably by a double-digit percentage).  Thinking about the aerodynamics, the biggest effect would be an artificial decrease in AoA that is power-setting dependent.  For slow flight, that would reduce drag (i.e., lower Vs0 and Vs1) at the risk of stalling (and maybe spinning) in the case of sudden loss of thrust (e.g., the power controller overheats and goes into safe mode).  For cruise flight, I can't see how lowering the effective angle of incidence (because AoA would be lower at a given pitch angle) could possibly improve things...  Lots of failure modes to consider but with very little benefit to be had.

NASA is awesome, but not every research program they take on is intended to advance the state of the art; sometimes it's to prove a negative we already know, and sometimes it's merely mandated by the budget (*cough* SLS *cough*).

[Blue on Top]

37 minutes ago, Austintatious said:

As far as what they need to do to increase gross weight...  probably a bit of beefing up the spar and/or changing VNo/VNE

Just making an educated guess, the structure is probably good, but stall speed is too high -> new, 26G+ seats -> empty weight increase of 60-80 lbs.

[aviatoreb]

2 minutes ago, afward said:

I would think that the "gang" of small props would be very inefficient vs. a single prop with the same swept area (probably by a double-digit percentage).  Thinking about the aerodynamics, the biggest effect would be an artificial decrease in AoA that is power-setting dependent.  For slow flight, that would reduce drag (i.e., lower Vs0 and Vs1) at the risk of stalling (and maybe spinning) in the case of sudden loss of thrust (e.g., the power controller overheats and goes into safe mode).  For cruise flight, I can't see how lowering the effective angle of incidence (because AoA would be lower at a given pitch angle) could possibly improve things...  Lots of failure modes to consider but with very little benefit to be had.

NASA is awesome, but not every research program they take on is intended to advance the state of the art; sometimes it's to prove a negative we already know, and sometimes it's merely mandated by the budget (*cough* SLS *cough*).

I agree - it might be a bad idea - but it might be a good idea.  It should be pursued at least until it is settled and that is what NASA, and also airbus, etc, are doing.  I actually don't know beyond a little bit of reading the ins and outs of what is truly going on, but I do know in gory details some other interesting phenomenon in fluid dynamics to be sufficiently used to the fact that sometimes fluids can be manipulated to do some very nonintuitive things.  I think it is promising - but I'm just having fun as is the nature of this thread - trying to imagine what airplanes might look like in 20 years with knowledge available today - but I expect something significant will change anyway.

[Blue on Top]

27 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

8) … So we can have 40 electric motors driving 20 miniature props with energy delivered in serial in some robust failure resistant way instead of ...

E

I didn't say that this would be efficient … it would not be.  Ask the X-57 guys.

[Blue on Top]

30 minutes ago, steingar said:

In the United States.  Mooney was trying to make a trainer to be flown in other lands.  They wanted a diesel engine, but in China they have auto gas just about everywhere, and I don't think there's any booze in it.  They drink theirs.

Booze free mogas available everywhere (I've been to the hinterlands of both Guatemala and Mexico and had no trouble finding car gas) and engines that will happily burn it.  I still don't see the big deal about diesel.

I agree with you 100%.  But (not bragging, Don M., I was the chief engineer on the "trainer to be flown in other lands") I was told that autofuel is not consistent in China.  Not sure I believe that though.

[AH-1 Cobra Pilot]

31 minutes ago, steingar said:

 I still don't see the big deal about diesel.

Gasoline engine bsfc = 0.36 lb/hp-hr, diesel engine bsfc = 0.34 lb/hp-hr.  That IS a big deal!

[Blue on Top]

32 minutes ago, afward said:

I would think that the "gang" of small props would be very inefficient vs. a single prop with the same swept area (probably by a double-digit percentage)...

In addition, it would increase the airflow velocity over more of the airplane (instead of just the fuselage), which increases drag.

[Blue on Top]

3 minutes ago, Ah-1 Cobra Pilot said:

Gasoline engine bsfc = 0.36 lb/hp-hr, diesel engine bsfc = 0.34 lb/hp-hr.  That IS a big deal!

I so agree with you, but … It is difficult to cool an engine that is water cooled without adding a lot of drag (temperature delta is too small between water and the outside air).  On the other hand, being air cooled means not running the really high compression ratios that make the diesel so much more efficient.  Catch 22.  There have been certified air cooled diesel radials in the past, thnough .  Hummmmmmm. 

[afward]

@aviatoreb Fair enough.  Personally, I don't think things will be all that different...  Consider planes of the mid-1960's vs. planes of the mid-1940's: New powerplants (jet vs. piston), higher speeds, swept wings, tricycle vs. tail-dragger as "default", and ???...  The basic form hadn't changed.  Even 1980 to today, things haven't changed a whole lot (composites vs. Al, Rotax vs. lyco-saur, though I'll give you avionics hands-down).  Panthera Gasoline is a good example of fully modern design, and the only real difference is the T-tail (which designers have known for many decades is aerodynamically better than "standard"; they just elect not to use it on most designs due to deep stall and prop wash concerns).

I wish there was more money being put into continuous-cycle synthetic fuel production (and the necessary carbon sources to feed it).  That would sidestep the entirety of the electrification challenge and let us keep flying our "antiquated" old birds for a long time to come.  Besides, if one is really concerned about CO2 emissions, aviation _as a whole_ is only 2% of annual global emissions...  That's well into the "last 10% is 90% of the work" range, so our focus as a species should really be elsewhere (like synthetic fuels made from contemporaneous carbon sources).

[afward]

13 minutes ago, Blue on Top said:

In addition, it would increase the airflow velocity over more of the airplane (instead of just the fuselage), which increases drag.

Ah yeah...  I didn't even think about the increased form / skin drag due to higher local flow rate.  I can't imagine it would be major, though when playing the efficiency game every little bit counts...

It does make me wonder how much "extra" drag the X-57 experiences at full power vs. "idle".  I'm sure we'll find out once the papers are published.

[Jerry 5TJ]

11 minutes ago, afward said:

Consider planes of the mid-1960's vs. planes of the mid-1940's: New powerplants (jet vs. piston), higher speeds, swept wings, tricycle vs. tail-dragger as "default", and ???...  The basic form hadn't changed.

I was strolling around the B-47 at Wright-Patterson a few years ago and I was struck by how radical a step forward it represented.  First flown late in 1947, it was contemporary with the B-29 and DC-4 but almost everything about the B-47 was new both in hardware and concept.  It looks like the progenitor of every airliner now so we tend to forget what a shock it must have been to the observer in the late 1940s.  

 

[afward]

But that's kinda the point I'm making: Make the wings and h-stab non-swept, move the engines into the leading edge, swap the engines to be piston + prop, convert to tricycle landing gear (not a big change), and what's really that different from a B-29?  Let's ignore the (rather large) size difference; had it been desired, the B-50 could've been a scaled-up version of the B-29 rather than just being a re-badge.

Aerodynamics aren't changing, so until we get a radical new powerplant, there's not a lot of room for a groundbreaking new design to replace Mooneys, Bonanzas, Cessna 206's, etc.  Even the "lowly" PA28 is unlikely to see a radical new competitor anytime soon.

[Urs_Wildermuth]

18 hours ago, steingar said:

Yeah, Jet-A is cheap and everywhere, but car gas is cheaper and even more universal.  There just aren't that many places without it.  

For the US that may be true, it is totally the opposite in Europe. Jet A1 is massively cheaper and available almost everywhere whereas Avgas is hardly available in some countries at all and expensive where it is available. $ 10/15 per USG is the standard here for Avgas whereas Jet A1 is between $8 and 12 per USG for General Aviation (taxed fuel). Add to that the pretty low consumption of Diesels and you get a massive reduction in price per hour and much better availability.

That is why e.g. Diamond made an Avgas version of the DA40 primarily for the American market. I don't think that there are many flying in Europe, as it makes no sense at all.

[steingar]

47 minutes ago, Urs_Wildermuth said:

For the US that may be true, it is totally the opposite in Europe. Jet A1 is massively cheaper and available almost everywhere whereas Avgas is hardly available in some countries at all and expensive where it is available. $ 10/15 per USG is the standard here for Avgas whereas Jet A1 is between $8 and 12 per USG for General Aviation (taxed fuel). Add to that the pretty low consumption of Diesels and you get a massive reduction in price per hour and much better availability.

That is why e.g. Diamond made an Avgas version of the DA40 primarily for the American market. I don't think that there are many flying in Europe, as it makes no sense at all.

Car gas was everywhere in Belgium last time I was there.  I bet its everywhere in Switzerland.  More expensive than here, but way less than Avgas.  Moreover, I bet Europeans have the good sense to not contaminate their auto fuel with booze.  Booze-free car gas can be burnt in the majority legacy aircraft engines.  Used to be guys would use it, there were STC's and everything. Harder to do now that there's booze in it.

[Urs_Wildermuth]

@steingar True and there is a huge market for so called "Mogas" capable engines and airframes.

Unfortunately Mooneys are not, even if some engines would be capable of Mogas, such as the O360. However, Mogas has problems such as vapour lock which in the Mooneys never was eliminated, therefore there is no STC to run them thus.

Apart, this does not eliminate the problem in southern Europe, where 90% of airports e.g. in Greece only have Jet fuel, nothing else.

[steingar]

1 hour ago, Urs_Wildermuth said:

@steingar True and there is a huge market for so called "Mogas" capable engines and airframes.

Unfortunately Mooneys are not, even if some engines would be capable of Mogas, such as the O360. However, Mogas has problems such as vapour lock which in the Mooneys never was eliminated, therefore there is no STC to run them thus.

Apart, this does not eliminate the problem in southern Europe, where 90% of airports e.g. in Greece only have Jet fuel, nothing else.

Moneys don't burn mogas, but lots of other legacy aircraft do.  My guess is were there lots of mogas burning airplanes there'd be mogas at the airport.  That, or owners would schlep jerry cans and fill up at the nearest petrol station.  Saw a film of a lady doing that flying her taildragger to Afghanistan.  The advantage is you don't have to develop new technology to pull it off.  I think one of the things that made the M10 so darned heavy was the diesel engine. 

[Tony Starke]

9 hours ago, steingar said:

Harder to do now that there's booze in it.

...and not very good booze at that.  Maybe the U.S. could get some pointers from the Scots on how to make real booze. Then we wouldn't be putting it in our cars.

[Blue on Top]

13 hours ago, afward said:

It does make me wonder how much "extra" drag the X-57 experiences at full power vs. "idle"...

X-57 only uses the DEP for takeoff and landing; otherwise those propellers are stowed.  Power is added inversely proportional to airspeed.  It starts (minimal) just above the clean stall speed and gets to full shortly before full flap stall speed.

[Blue on Top]

10 hours ago, Urs_Wildermuth said:

@steingar True and there is a huge market for so called "Mogas" capable engines and airframes.

Unfortunately Mooneys are not, even if some engines would be capable of Mogas, such as the O360. However, Mogas has problems such as vapour lock which in the Mooneys never was eliminated, therefore there is no STC to run them thus.

Apart, this does not eliminate the problem in southern Europe, where 90% of airports e.g. in Greece only have Jet fuel, nothing else.

Did anyone ever try to certify the eligible Mooneys for autofuel?  Or did Mooney just roll over to Continental/Lycoming and say no.  My first aviation job was on EAA's autofuel program.  Yes, low wings have more problems with vapor lock, but there are low wings that are FAA approved (most have fuel pumps in the wings to push the fuel and not pull it).