A New Day and Yes Another Mooney Gear-Up(s)

[M20Doc]

1 hour ago, Canadian Gal said:

I would not try to certify a new plane if I was Mooneys owner, but keep it as is, making only 2 models, the Ovation ultra, and Acclaim ultra.

The tooling already exists to fabricate the parts, all those rivets would be time consuming to put in, but not difficult.

A team of people who have top quality rivet guns should be able to do that relatively quickly, and its not a super high skilled job, so no need to be paying them $50/hour. Keep the damn unions away from the place, so people can actually work, or be fired, and not get $50,000 / year in vacation pay, and 5 million dollar pensions.

Spoken like someone who has never held a rivet gun or bucked a rivet ever. 

Mooney wings have and average cord of 4 feet, 1 oval hole 6 1/4" X 3" in front of the spar, and one hole 6 1/2" X 4 1/2" aft of the spar.  Through these holes you have to buck every rivet.  Riveting is a two person job unionized or not, Mexican or Texan, makes no difference its not a glamorous job.  Not to mention the joys of sealing the fuel tanks through opening only slightly larger.

[Canadian Gal]

3 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

Spoken like someone who has never held a rivet gun or bucked a rivet ever. 

Mooney wings have and average cord of 4 feet, 1 oval hole 6 1/4" X 3" in front of the spar, and one hole 6 1/2" X 4 1/2" aft of the spar.  Through these holes you have to buck every rivet.  Riveting is a two person job unionized or not, Mexican or Texan, makes no difference its not a glamorous job.  Not to mention the joys of sealing the fuel tanks through opening only slightly larger.

Guess you missed where i said team of people.

 

Done many a rivet, its not brain surgery.

 

 

[DCarlton]

50 minutes ago, kortopates said:

shall we return this thread to its original discussion of Mooney incidents/gear ups?

yesterday two late model J's incidents were reported; One was reported as the gear collapsed on landing at Lake Havasu, AZ.

The second J reported "AIRCRAFT VEERED OFF THE RUNWAY AND STRUCK A FENCE DURING DEPARTURE, PELL CITY, ALABAMA."

Makes you wonder if the pilot encountered excessive cross winds but winds were calm on 1/21 at 1930Z at PLR, most likely airport

KPLR 211935Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 13/M02 A3011 RMK A01
KPLR 211915Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 12/M02 A3010 RMK A01

Two unusual incidents.  Wonder how long it took to clear the single runway in Havasu.  Potential causes of a "gear collapse"?  

[EricJ]

3 minutes ago, DCarlton said:

Two unusual incidents.  Wonder how long it took to clear the single runway in Havasu.  Potential causes of a "gear collapse"?  

The FBO there is pretty decent, so I'd guess it didn't take much longer than anywhere else.

Actual gear collapses on J models (or any electric gear) seem rare.   Otherwise nose gear failures due to porpoising or bad landings might be described as "gear collapse", so it's hard to know what happened from the description.

[DCarlton]

6 minutes ago, EricJ said:

The FBO there is pretty decent, so I'd guess it didn't take much longer than anywhere else.

Actual gear collapses on J models (or any electric gear) seem rare.   Otherwise nose gear failures due to porpoising or bad landings might be described as "gear collapse", so it's hard to know what happened from the description.

It's a little challenging to get a good wind forecast at KHII.  With the Govt. sites I think you have to use KEED.  I end up using Windfinder.  Not sure if the winds were kicking up yesterday.  

[EricJ]

5 minutes ago, DCarlton said:

It's a little challenging to get a good wind forecast at KHII.  With the Govt. sites I think you have to use KEED.  I end up using Windfinder.  Not sure if the winds were kicking up yesterday.  

I use the Avia Weather app and look up both KHII and KEED when going there.   Windy is a good tool as well.  We've had some crazy systems come through lately, but I don't know what was going on there yesterday.

[kortopates]

1 hour ago, DCarlton said:

It's a little challenging to get a good wind forecast at KHII.  With the Govt. sites I think you have to use KEED.  I end up using Windfinder.  Not sure if the winds were kicking up yesterday.  

KHII stopped reporting METARs on the 20th, its been only KEED METARs since then.

The KEED winds at that time where:

KEED 212056Z AUTO 01022G27KT 10SM CLR 13/M07 A3030 RMK AO2 PK WND 01027/1958 SLP252 T01331072 57027
KEED 211956Z AUTO 01018G25KT 10SM CLR 12/M06 A3032 RMK AO2 PK WND 02028/1905 SLP261 T01221061
KEED 211856Z AUTO 01018G26KT 10SM CLR 12/M06 A3036 RMK AO2 PK WND 36027/1827 SLP273 T01221056

But personally I wouldn't only use the EED winds as relative magnitude to expect at HII. Its typical that they are 40 degree different from EED at HII - they're runways are aligned very differently for good reason. But i think its safe to conclude it was windy on the day of the incident and could have been a factor contributing to rough landing resulting in a gear collapse - if that's what actually happened.

[1980Mooney]

21 hours ago, Canadian Gal said:

That would have to be a union involved to take that long.

There has never been a labor union at Mooney.  

Per the CEO last year...

 

[1980Mooney]

4 hours ago, Canadian Gal said:

A team of people who have top quality rivet guns should be able to do that relatively quickly, and its not a super high skilled job, so no need to be paying them $50/hour. Keep the damn unions away from the place, so people can actually work, or be fired, and not get $50,000 / year in vacation pay, and 5 million dollar pensions.

You think people in the Hill Country in Texas make $50/hr?.....You must be on drugs.  I bet Mooney never paid over $25/hour for assembly labor - and like most of non-union Texas almost zero benefits. NO PENSION.  Probably 2 week vacation max after 10 years on the job....but since they kept going bankrupt the clock reset and likely they got nothing.

This is not Canada.

Edited January 24 by 1980Mooney

[1980Mooney]

1 hour ago, kortopates said:

KHII stopped reporting METARs on the 20th, its been only KEED METARs since then.

The KEED winds at that time where:

KEED 212056Z AUTO 01022G27KT 10SM CLR 13/M07 A3030 RMK AO2 PK WND 01027/1958 SLP252 T01331072 57027
KEED 211956Z AUTO 01018G25KT 10SM CLR 12/M06 A3032 RMK AO2 PK WND 02028/1905 SLP261 T01221061
KEED 211856Z AUTO 01018G26KT 10SM CLR 12/M06 A3036 RMK AO2 PK WND 36027/1827 SLP273 T01221056

But personally I wouldn't only use the EED winds as relative magnitude to expect at HII. Its typical that they are 40 degree different from EED at HII - they're runways are aligned very differently for good reason. But i think its safe to conclude it was windy on the day of the incident and could have been a factor contributing to rough landing resulting in a gear collapse - if that's what actually happened.

A "rough landing" will not cause all 3 gear on a Mooney to collapse - it would have to rip the gear motor out.  There are cases where one rod breaks and a single gear collapses.  I bet the when they lifted the plane up that the gear cycled properly.

Most likely the winds were steady 20+ kts directly down the runway and he mistook his slow ground speed of 52-58 kts before touchdown as being caused by what he thought was his gear down.

N1014U, a 1989 M20J.

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[1980Mooney]

8 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

A "rough landing" will not cause all 3 gear on a Mooney to collapse - it would have to rip the gear motor out.  There are cases where one rod breaks and a single gear collapses.  I bet the when they lifted the plane up that the gear cycled properly.

Most likely the winds were steady 20+ kts directly down the runway and he mistook his slow ground speed of 52-58 kts before touchdown as being caused by what he thought was his gear down.

N1014U, a 1989 M20J.

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Furthermore his descent rate on final seemed to be stabilized at 400-600 fpm - he was 63 kts short final. 

[kortopates]

23 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

A "rough landing" will not cause all 3 gear on a Mooney to collapse

Where did you get this detail that "all 3 gears" collapsed? Not from the incident report. 

You do realize these incident reports are often entered without an FAA inspector seeing the plane and can be just quoting what the pilot told them. Which is also why many reported gear collapses are indeed the pilot failing to put the gear down. But we only have what the report says so far.

Otherwise I don't at all disagree with what you theorize, very good chance of what may have happened.

Edited January 24 by kortopates

[M20Doc]

1 hour ago, 1980Mooney said:

You think people in the Hill Country in Texas make $50/hr?.....You must be on drugs.  I bet Mooney never paid over $25/hour for assembly labor - and like most of non-union Texas almost zero benefits. NO PENSION.  Probably 2 week vacation max after 10 years on the job....but since they kept going bankrupt the clock reset and likely they got nothing.

This is not Canada.

And only some should be entitled enough to make $50.00 per hour, have more than minimal vacation, sick days, have a pension, those people get to own a Mooney.  Those that don’t get those things own Pipers.

[hammdo]

I’ve owned Mooneys and Pipers - where would I fit ;o)?

-Don

[redbaron1982]

5 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

You think people in the Hill Country in Texas make $50/hr?.....You must be on drugs.  I bet Mooney never paid over $25/hour for assembly labor - and like most of non-union Texas almost zero benefits. NO PENSION.  Probably 2 week vacation max after 10 years on the job....but since they kept going bankrupt the clock reset and likely they got nothing.

This is not Canada.

Sometimes I dream I win the Powerball and I purchase Mooney factory for 8MUSD, invest another 200MUSD to modernize it, and bring the glory of Mooney (and Texas!) back into the aviation world... sadly I always wake up from that dream.

[jetdriven]

13 hours ago, Greg Ellis said:

I don't know the answer to what I am about to write but I am sure someone here does.  If you redo these major components in carbon fiber instead of metal (wing, tail feathers, etc) are you not venturing away from the original type certification that a new one would be required?  And if so, I think those are almost cost prohibitive to get for a company like Mooney that is financially struggling to begin with.  But I may be wrong about that.

It's a CAR three airplane, and in fact the earliest planes have wings made of wood, and then they metallized the wing but it's still the same type certificate. But here's the thing, composites are not necessarily lighter than metal, in fact they're often heavier, but they are faster to build. But if you're going to make a carbon fiber wing and tail, then you might as will make a carbon fiber fuselage and get all of those benefits too, After all, the Mooney fuselage is the part that's  really obsolete, that uses a prewar steel tubing fuselage design that's covered by metal instead of fabric, but underneath it all, it's still half J3 cub. But you better have a parachute because that's like the reason half of those other planes are sold. So include that.  And then what do you have left, Cirrus  by a different name.

[jetdriven]

10 hours ago, Canadian Gal said:

I would not try to certify a new plane if I was Mooneys owner, but keep it as is, making only 2 models, the Ovation ultra, and Acclaim ultra.

The tooling already exists to fabricate the parts, all those rivets would be time consuming to put in, but not difficult.

A team of people who have top quality rivet guns should be able to do that relatively quickly, and its not a super high skilled job, so no need to be paying them $50/hour. Keep the damn unions away from the place, so people can actually work, or be fired, and not get $50,000 / year in vacation pay, and 5 million dollar pensions.

Surely you're joking,.I work on airplanes because it interests me, but actually I fly them for a living, and at at the top echelons of unionized airline labor which is a very strong union, there's no $50,000 a year in vacation pay or a $5 million pension. In fact it's about five weeks of vacation pay and no pension at all, just a B fund retirement account. Similar to a 401K. We also don't have free healthcare which as they say, will cost you $1 million. Probably most of the value of that 401(k). 
Texas also is about as antiunion as you get. People grouse on about unions with you the fact is they have higher wages and better working conditions. But anyway, I can totally believe that having an employee down there in Kerrville probably costs the employer a total of about $50 an hour by the time it's all said and done. Workmen's Comp., unemployment insurance, and other things do add up.
9000 hours to build. I bet half of that is OJT, two people doing the job of one because there's not enough people to keep around to keep the skills going forward. But that is 450 grand in labor alone. Now they used to build Mooneys  in about 2000 hours, they used to build Aerostars in 2000 hours. But that was back in the day of high-volume and large workforces. They were also highly skilled. 

[PT20J]

10 hours ago, kortopates said:

shall we return this thread to its original discussion of Mooney incidents/gear ups?

Apparently not. But, it's my fault for suggesting that a fixed gear airplane can prevent gear up landings.

[larrynimmo]

On 1/23/2023 at 2:09 PM, Canadian Gal said:

If enough older Mooneys are gone, I wonder if they would start producing new ones again to feed the market.

I'm already surprised that they haven't been building them again.

I would buy a new Ovation tomorrow if I could.

In todays manufacturing environment, it’s not practical to manufacture a mooney….too many man hours …

that being said…if you own one, you have a hand crafted marvel.

you will have the most affordable fast moving certified airplane.  Last weekend I flew from central maryland to Myrtle beach sc.  2.5 hours each way, and average of 25 gallons each way…slight headwind, and averaged about 155knots about 180mph

[T. Peterson]

6 hours ago, larrynimmo said:

In todays manufacturing environment, it’s not practical to manufacture a mooney….too many man hours …

that being said…if you own one, you have a hand crafted marvel.

you will have the most affordable fast moving certified airplane.  Last weekend I flew from central maryland to Myrtle beach sc.  2.5 hours each way, and average of 25 gallons each way…slight headwind, and averaged about 155knots about 180mph

Yep, Mooney is a wonderful airplane! 
Canadian Gal may have gotten a little ahead of her skis, but I think at heart she just hates to see the end of the line for our beloved brand. I too long for the genius that can resurrect the Mooney.

[Canadian Gal]

31 minutes ago, T. Peterson said:

Yep, Mooney is a wonderful airplane! 
Canadian Gal may have gotten a little ahead of her skis, but I think at heart she just hates to see the end of the line for our beloved brand. I too long for the genius that can resurrect the Mooney.

This is exactly correct.

 

I have no means to buy it, and build them now.

But if I win a 10 billion dollar lottery, you can bet that I would try.

If it lost a little money, so be it, nothing but a good tax write off, while employing people, and make wonderful planes.

[carusoam]

Peeps,

This is still an active thread related to the title… GU Landings…

unfortunately, this thread refuses to die!

-a-

[1980Mooney]

On 1/24/2023 at 5:14 PM, kortopates said:

Where did you get this detail that "all 3 gears" collapsed? Not from the incident report. 

You do realize these incident reports are often entered without an FAA inspector seeing the plane and can be just quoting what the pilot told them. Which is also why many reported gear collapses are indeed the pilot failing to put the gear down. But we only have what the report says so far.

Otherwise I don't at all disagree with what you theorize, very good chance of what may have happened.

The FAA ASIAS usually notes when an individual gear collapses.  See the Mooney nose gear collapse below which happened 2 weeks ago.  You will see plenty of cases under Beechcraft where one main has collapsed.  You don't see it much in Mooney because of the solid linkages between all 3 gear.  A Mooney gear-up (all 3) is generally very straight along the centerline and short.  However on rare occasions the linkage breaks on a Mooney main gear with disastrous results - wing damage and possible runway departure.  These cases generally go to NTSB due to damage. (see N231DW)

 

 

Kathryn's Report: Landing Gear Collapse: Mooney M20K, N231DW; accident occurred May 03, 2020 at Athens - Ben Epps Airport (KAHN), Clarke County, Georgia (kathrynsreport.com)

Edited January 27 by 1980Mooney

[1980Mooney]

Another gear-up landing on January 30.  N6612U, a 1963 M20D, landed gear up at Sagit Regional KBVS.

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N6612U Flight Tracking and History 30-Jan-2023 (74S-KBVS) - FlightAware

[carusoam]

There are three causes of GU landings in Mooneys…

1) Bounce #3 taken to the extreeem… pile driving the nose gear.  Solution, go around before #3 happens…

2) Mis-rigged landing gear… snaps a connecting rod. Solution, use proper tools and procedures for setting up the gear.

3) I forgot…   Solution, checklist in the form of Gumps.

 

It is a good idea to avoid all three…

PP thoughts only, not a CFI…

Best regards,

-a-