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Future of Mooney: Speculation thread


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8 hours ago, carusoam said:

The lead is in the fuel to lubricate the valves... it also helps with the octane chemistry...(?)

Same challenge needed to be overcome in the automotive world... when going lead free...

Best regards,

-a-

Leaded gas also had lubricative qualities, the vaporized lead would adhere to metal components and create a barrier much like graphite lubricant does inside a lock. The valves on the  engines were prone to failure due to the materials available at the time of manufacture. While the lead did help, it's effect was marginal at best. Remember, the purpose of the lead was to improve the octane rating of the gas Inexpensively, not to lubricate the valves. Once lead was phased out of gasoline, carmakers began to make hardened valve seats and used different (higher-temperature) valve materials to eliminate the problem of microwelding and valve seat wear. 

I imagine once Lycoming and continental run out of 1950's ish valve seats......

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To set the proper perspective, Mooney is now a Chinese company. I'm not stating this as either good or bad... but it is a fact.

Setting a goal to "clean sheet" design a new aircraft in the amount of time stated earlier in this thread indicates that the design was never intended for the US market. This "failed" design effort could have simply been an way to measure and mine current US engineering and technology knowledge in the aviation market. It's possible that they really didn't have any idea whatsoever about what they were doing... but that's not likely. It would be very interesting to hear how much time it would take to get a clean-sheet design "certificated" for the US market.

The "trade war" hypothesis is a somewhat weak position to take. Mooney was not purchased with the intent of serving the US market. It was purchased for the brand-name and IP. A "trade-war" has nothing to do with any of that.

Mooney didn't ask for any opinions from current Mooney owners or enthusiasts since this group was not their target at any price-point. However, if an enthusiast (considering other competing options at the price-point) was gullible enough to pony up the cash for a new one... they were happy to oblige.

I don't intent to freely give Mooney any ideas to help the company survive, prosper, or for any other reasons. They've made it clear that they have no intent of serving the market that I'm a part of. 

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2 hours ago, David_H said:

To set the proper perspective, Mooney is now a Chinese company. I'm not stating this as either good or bad... but it is a fact.

Setting a goal to "clean sheet" design a new aircraft in the amount of time stated earlier in this thread indicates that the design was never intended for the US market. This "failed" design effort could have simply been an way to measure and mine current US engineering and technology knowledge in the aviation market. It's possible that they really didn't have any idea whatsoever about what they were doing... but that's not likely. It would be very interesting to hear how much time it would take to get a clean-sheet design "certificated" for the US market.

The "trade war" hypothesis is a somewhat weak position to take. Mooney was not purchased with the intent of serving the US market. It was purchased for the brand-name and IP. A "trade-war" has nothing to do with any of that.

Mooney didn't ask for any opinions from current Mooney owners or enthusiasts since this group was not their target at any price-point. However, if an enthusiast (considering other competing options at the price-point) was gullible enough to pony up the cash for a new one... they were happy to oblige.

I don't intent to freely give Mooney any ideas to help the company survive, prosper, or for any other reasons. They've made it clear that they have no intent of serving the market that I'm a part of. 

Regarding the: "This "failed" design effort could have simply been an way to measure and mine current US engineering and technology knowledge in the aviation market. It's possible that they really didn't have any idea whatsoever about what they were doing... but that's not likely. It would be very interesting to hear how much time it would take to get a clean-sheet design "certificated" for the US market."

Hope you do realize that the only Chinese help at all for Mooney is the 100's of millions of dollars poured into Mooney to keep the Kerrville factory going and to pay pay for the Chino team of US engineers to design and develop the trainer to US FAA certification standards - it had to meet US certification standards before they would try to get it certified in China. If you want pass blame for its failure its all on US folks - not the Chinese. The Chinese contribution was cash and lots of it! 

It was from engaging with current Money owners, that Dr Chen, (the UCLA Aerospace Engineer that headed up the M10 project) learned how important the Mooney tail was to the brand and added it to the M10. 

 

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In the modern era you're looking at a minimum of 4-5 years to get a new Part 23 airplane to market. There is only so much you can do to make it go faster, but you can't go 3-4x faster than what other companies and the FAA have done. We frequently joke in the aircraft industry about getting nine women together to have a baby in one month... Some money people and managers think that is possible.

Mooney would've been much better served with a smaller, more focused and experienced engineering team and time to get it right versus the way it played out in Chino.

Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

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I quoted "failed design" because nobody seems to know exactly what happened. It's unlikely that it was a complete failure if a competent development team was assembled. They appeared to have shuttered the design effort for some reason.

To be clear... no blame is being passed since the details aren't really known... just the current outcome.

1 hour ago, KSMooniac said:

Mooney would've been much better served with a smaller, more focused and experienced engineering team and time to get it right versus the way it played out in Chino.

I think the key thing is time to get it right. Failure is certain if the proper goals weren't set. That is a management issue. At what level is unknown.

Either they really knew what they were doing spending the money or were very unwise.

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1 hour ago, kortopates said:

pay for the Chino team of US engineers to design and develop the trainer to US FAA certification standards - it had to meet US certification standards before they would try to get it certified in China. If you want pass blame for its failure its all on US folks - not the Chinese. The Chinese contribution was cash and lots of it!

If engineers in China could have done better with the program, why didn't they do it there?

It's doubtful the design was a complete flop. It appears as if unattainable expectations were set. The reasons why are unknown.

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I quoted "failed design" because nobody seems to know exactly what happened. It's unlikely that it was a complete failure if a competent development team was assembled. They appeared to have shuttered the design effort for some reason.

To be clear... no blame is being passed since the details aren't really known... just the current outcome.

I think the key thing is time to get it right. Failure is certain if the proper goals weren't set. That is a management issue. At what level is unknown.

Either they really knew what they were doing spending the money or were very unwise.

You're more correct than you know. The details are known, including to some of us in this forum. It was a failed design. Great concept, and at the right time, but extremely poor execution. More time, and better, experienced leadership might've gotten it done. Enough money was certainly spent to finish a program thru certification.

 

I'll always wonder if the investor was sold a false promise of being able to do such a project 2-3x faster than any other experienced company. The Chino team got a POC in the air very, very quickly, but unfortunately it ended up being a pig of a plane and there was no time to get it right. I still dream of an alternate universe where the M10 was certified in 2018 and in 2019 we would've seen 200-300 deliveries... And the funding of a modern M20 replacement and a strong future for the brand.

 

Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, David_H said:

If engineers in China could have done better with the program, why didn't they do it there?

It's doubtful the design was a complete flop. It appears as if unattainable expectations were set. The reasons why are unknown.

Nobody here has ever suggested the Chinese could have done better. The usual references to the Chinese is the fear that they bought the company for its intellectual property or to manufacturer in China - all of which are absurd given the realities of aviation in China. The Chinese aren't yet interested in attempting to build GA planes because they well know the Chinese people won't trust the quality of Chinese made planes - not for a long time to come. They came here to buy brands that the Chinese people would have confidence to get into aviation with. They also believe that the equivalent of the FAA in China, the CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China) is bigger (not in people but as a maze) and more difficult bureaucracy to work with than our FAA. Its far harder for them to get a brand new aircraft design certified and into production in China than its if from for them to buy a US firm to design and certify a new plane here and then work to get an approved US product certified in China.  

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Sounds like the Beechcraft starship had some similar challenges....

Or the first Long Body Mooney, M20L.... where most have been updated...

Or the TLS... where most have been converted...
 

Suffering from being mostly right on version A...

Very few people want to fly the A model of anything... if given the opportunity to fly the Bravo...

 

I’m glad we are taking the time to separate the Chinese people, from China, the communist country...

I’m glad we are putting in the extra effort required to type a few more words... to be a bit more specific...

 

Since we had an MSer actually in China supporting flight training... we had some good insight to what was actually going on... as it was happening...

We can sit around chit chatting about what happened... or figure out how to support the next steps going forward...

Mom always said “don’t cut off your nose just to spite your face...”

 

I prefer a factory building Mooney aircraft, and supporting the maintenance organizations in the field... :)

I might have a biased opinion... because, I got a nice coffee mug and a sandwich while at KOSH, from the Mooney display...

 

Looking forward to the production of Ub and the Vb models... they will be extra sweet...

Best regards and Go Saturday Nights!,

-a-

 

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The Mooney debacle is a sad deal for everyone.

I certainly wont argue about who's at fault since I don't know all the facts and it really doesn't matter at this point.

It would be a really tough sell to deliver a new airplane to anyone with the funds to make the purchase after this. A shaky or nonexistent support structure would be a non-starter for anyone with the funds to make the purchase (new or renewed).

Mooney will likely not be able to recover from this in it's current form. The best outcome would be for someone that had a different vision to purchase the company.

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On 11/22/2019 at 9:13 PM, Blue on Top said:

C175?  I owned a 1963 P172D for a while with the GO-300.  We had planned on putting in an O-470 when the GO-300 gave up.

I did not realize the series lasted into 1963.  Ihad heard Cessna only made 69 of them.. We had serial #1.

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6 hours ago, Dave C said:

Turbines are too expensive, I would vote for an STC for the 300HP Diesel engine Continental developed for Diamond.  Or ANY diesel motor for that matter.

I like the 350-450hp EPS Diesel (not yet certified).  Since we are dreaming - dream for what I really want.

Question - turbines are terribly expensive.  Why?  Does anyone know why a turbine engine is practically an order of magnitude more expensive than a piston engine of roughly the same physical size?  Is it made of more expensive materials, maybe finer grade of the same kind of materials?  Is it harder or more complicated to make to such precision?  Or is it just turbine magic lets them sell turbine stuff for turbine prices to boutique turbine owners because the market will bear it?

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1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

I like the 350-450hp EPS Diesel (not yet certified).  Since we are dreaming - dream for what I really want.

Question - turbines are terribly expensive.  Why?  Does anyone know why a turbine engine is practically an order of magnitude more expensive than a piston engine of roughly the same physical size?  Is it made of more expensive materials, maybe finer grade of the same kind of materials?  Is it harder or more complicated to make to such precision?  Or is it just turbine magic lets them sell turbine stuff for turbine prices to boutique turbine owners because the market will bear it?

I've wondered the same.  But, based on VERY little research, I think there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.  For just one example, Google "single crystal turbine blade."  This ain't your 1940's piston aircraft engine part!

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1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

I like the 350-450hp EPS Diesel (not yet certified).  Since we are dreaming - dream for what I really want.

Question - turbines are terribly expensive.  Why?  Does anyone know why a turbine engine is practically an order of magnitude more expensive than a piston engine of roughly the same physical size?  Is it made of more expensive materials, maybe finer grade of the same kind of materials?  Is it harder or more complicated to make to such precision?  Or is it just turbine magic lets them sell turbine stuff for turbine prices to boutique turbine owners because the market will bear it?

The turbine components are very expensive to make, especially in the hot section.   Each blade is a precision piece with careful manufacturing, metallurgy, and coatings to withstand the centrifugal forces plus the heat in the hot section.   The rotating assemblies all require precision balance, since they're spinning pretty fast.  The stators in the compressor and guidevanes in the turbine have the same requirements but without the centrifugal forces and balancing.    Cooling is complex, which adds to the manufacturing cost (e.g., many of the turbine (hot section) vanes and blades are hollow and to facilitate bleed air to be forced through them internally for cooling, sometimes coming out in small openings on the rear face of the blade/vane.   So each one of the blades and vanes is a tricky little bugger to make, and there can be a LOT of them in there, then they have all be assembled on disks where they won't fly apart at 40k rpm or cause even a little vibration.    The assemblies also have to withstand significant thermal cycles and still hold up under the load and heat stress.

Yeah, not cheap to do.   But once it's together and running it's pretty reliable.

 

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32 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

I've wondered the same.  But, based on VERY little research, I think there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.  For just one example, Google "single crystal turbine blade."  This ain't your 1940's piston aircraft engine part!

Right - it is amazingly impressive to stand up to 2000 degrees of heat, 40,000 rpm, runs  flawlessly for many thousands of hours.

Still is this what is in a Pt6? A new Pt6 runs 500k-1M.  are these ultra modern turbine blades in a Pt6?  Its hard for me to wrap my head around these blades are this expensive even in mass production.

My old roommate from college is head of the department of material science at one of the major name brand universities - and this is his thing.  The how to - not the cost.  I asked him the same question and he said mostly the same thing back - regarding standing up to extreme heat and precise build.

My iPhone is precisely built - but costs a lot less.  I have no sense of how much something should cost but $1M is a lot for a little Pt6.

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17 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Right - it is amazingly impressive to stand up to 2000 degrees of heat, 40,000 rpm, runs  flawlessly for many thousands of hours.

Still is this what is in a Pt6? A new Pt6 runs 500k-1M.  are these ultra modern turbine blades in a Pt6?  Its hard for me to wrap my head around these blades are this expensive even in mass production.

My old roommate from college is head of the department of material science at one of the major name brand universities - and this is his thing.  The how to - not the cost.  I asked him the same question and he said mostly the same thing back - regarding standing up to extreme heat and precise build.

My iPhone is precisely built - but costs a lot less.  I have no sense of how much something should cost but $1M is a lot for a little Pt6.

I hear ya...the single crystal blade was just an example.  I think there is a lot of that (exotic materials and precision machining/assembly)...it adds up.  I think all of that development R&D represents an enormous amount of up-front investment that is spread over a relatively low volume.

That is one reason why I think the iPhone is NOT a valid analogy.  The admittedly very large R&D is spread over an almost inconceivable volume (i.e., the per unit R&D cost is lost in the rounding. There are 56 billion transistors produced every year...for EACH person in the world!!).  Further, I suspect building a PT-6 still requires a substantial number of labor hours.  The direct labor involved in building a smart phone is likely pretty low due to automation that I doubt exists for building turbine engines.

I don't like the answer either; but, I don't think turbine engine companies are screwing their customers.  Well, not beyond 'normal' aviation standards, anyway:o

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1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

Question - turbines are terribly expensive.  Why?  Does anyone know why a turbine engine is practically an order of magnitude more expensive than a piston engine of roughly the same physical size?

The turbine in a JetProp PA46-350 Piper Mirage replaces a turbocharged Lycoming piston. 

The new turbine engine is not really an order of magnitude more:  A PT6A-35 is “only” 2-3 times higher in cost than a new Lycoming TIO-540-AE2A. (The latter is now a staggering $196,000 outright from AirPower) AirPower List

The PT6A also weighs much less, is considerably more reliable and effortlessly puts out twice the shaft horsepower compared to the piston.  

Hard to compare the two technologies except on price as in operation and performance they are so different.  

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Some of the fancy turbine blades are 3D printed, to facilitate internal cooling and bleed air lines. A $1M printer will do 6-8 blades in no less than 4 hours. They then need additional precision machining (often a combination of EDM [100-150k], Wire EDM [200-300k] and 5-axis milling [300k or more]). So no, turbine blades are not inexpensive! Count how many are in an engine, then add compressor blades. And one stator per rotating blade . . . .

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12 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

I hear ya...the single crystal blade was just an example.  I think there is a lot of that (exotic materials and precision machining/assembly)...it adds up.  I think all of that development R&D represents an enormous amount of up-front investment that is spread over a relatively low volume.

That is one reason why I think the iPhone is NOT a valid analogy.  The admittedly very large R&D is spread over an almost inconceivable volume (i.e., the per unit R&D cost is lost in the rounding. There are 56 billion transistors produced every year...for EACH person in the world!!).  Further, I suspect building a PT-6 still requires a substantial number of labor hours.  The direct labor involved in building a smart phone is likely pretty low due to automation that I doubt exists for building turbine engines.

I don't like the answer either; but, I don't think turbine engine companies are screwing their customers.  Well, not beyond 'normal' aviation standards, anyway:o

What are they doing in a PT6?  From my friend the material scientist - I hear it is often generally ceramic coatings in turbine blades.

Right - the iPhone would cost what - if they produced 4 per year?  What is the R&D for an iPhone?  A Billion?  I dunno.  First one costs a billion, second one costs $800.  Right of course that the iPhone has a large degree of automation behind it.  Still I assert it is every bit as complex a machine as a turbine engine, in terms of its intricacies, the physics and engineering innovations, and the complexities to build - probably more because there are likely more parts, more complex supply chain, more variety of exotic materials to source.  And so on - its amazing the economy of scales.

But yikes $1M for a Pt6 that in some sense was mostly developed how long ago?  First run in 1960.  SO that initial R&D should be paid for by now.

It is $1M...so there it is.

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14 minutes ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

The turbine in a JetProp PA46-350 Piper Mirage replaces a turbocharged Lycoming piston. 

The new turbine engine is not really an order of magnitude more:  A PT6A-35 is “only” 2-3 times higher in cost than a new Lycoming TIO-540-AE2A. (The latter is now a staggering $196,000 outright from AirPower) AirPower List

The PT6A also weighs much less, is considerably more reliable and effortlessly puts out twice the shaft horsepower compared to the piston.  

Hard to compare the two technologies except on price as in operation and performance they are so different.  

Wow - yeah I looked up the cost of a PT6 and it said $500-$1M.  But I forgot that a Lycoming TIO-540-AE2A - $200k.  For a WWII era design engine with a few modern tweaks and maybe better modern metallurgy.  SO that is essentially the answer why a Pt6 is so expensive is probably generally having to do with low number production runs meets certification costs meets insurance costs.

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This is soooooo way cool.  Especially to know that I am not the only total geek on MooneySpace!

The precision and metallurgical complexities of a turbine engine (turboprop, turbofan or turbojet) are beyond amazing.  In addition all of this is happening in an unbelievable, high RPM and changing  temperature, pressure and fluid (airflow) environment.  The cooling requirements and blade to case tolerances alone are mind-blowing.  A 5% fuel efficiency gain is a total game changer.  To use an over-used statement, "This is not your father's PT-6."  Now, let's put one on the front of an Acclaim.

With a turbine, efficiency comes with speed and altitude.  Both would have to go up from the Acclaim to make this work.  Regretfully, gross weight would need to go up, too, or useful load would go down or the seat weight would need to go up significantly (we still have CAR 3 seats in our planes).  

It CAN be done.  Keep dreaming!  As the Wrights said (paraphrasing), "If all one does is sit on the fence and watch the birds to see how to fly, they will never fly themselves." 

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