Interesting analysis on Mooney's final history

[JoeFFG9]

An interesting video that speculates why Mooney eventually failed.

 

 

 

 

[kortopates]

Let’s hope it’s not Mooney’s “final” history; especially since it’s still in business, just not making new Mooney’s.


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[carusoam]

10 hours ago, JoeFFG9 said:

An interesting video that speculates why Mooney eventually failed.

 

 

 

 

let’s send this over to @Jonny…

At about 8 minutes into the video it becomes a Cirrus advertisement….
 

Showing the stock pic of the M20J with the MUNI tail number…

Which failure are they discussing?

There are many ownership changes, plant closures, and re-openings….

Nearly 26 successful Mooney designs…. With a few experimental ones tossed in…

 

Last I checked… Mooney is still in business…. 
 

Call me not a fan of the words Mooney eventually failed….

Too many people, working too hard, to keep it alive…

 

Sounds like a YouTuber trying monetize an inaccurate video….

It has plenty of video taken/borrowed from official sources…

Somebody has produced a nice video, with a less than secret agenda…

Best regards,

-a-

 

[Amelia]

Not well-done. Repetitive and rather uninformative, clumsily stitched together.. The short cut is that the man likes his parachute.  :roll eyes: How nice for him. 

[Brandt]

They lifted their script almost verbatim from another review, included false information and came to an erroneous conclusion.  Feels like the nightly news…

[DCarlton]

A bit of a tangent, but it would be interesting to take a poll and bar chart the weight of Mooney owners.  Americans have gotten pretty big over the last 50 years.  When I hit 230 lbs, I felt like flying the Mooney was too tight of a sqeeuze.  I managed to get back down to 200 - 210 and it's OK.  Gotta wonder if the average Mooney owner is shorter and smaller than the average Cirrus owner.  Perhaps there's just not enough older pilots with $1M burning a hole in their pocket that could comfortably fold themselves into a Mooney.  Even with a high end sports car like a Porsche or Corvette, you've gotta really want one to fold yourself in to it when you get older, stiffer, and heavier.  At that point in life, even a 182 starts to look pretty good.  

[Fly Boomer]

1 minute ago, DCarlton said:

At that point in life, even a 182 starts to look pretty good.  

Nope.  240 and 6'4" but love my Mooney.

[DCarlton]

10 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

Nope.  240 and 6'4" but love my Mooney.

6'4.  Do you hit the headliner with your headset?  Gotta be close.  

[Fly Boomer]

2 minutes ago, DCarlton said:

6'4.  Do you hit the headliner with your headset?  Gotta be close.  

Yep.  Got to lower the seat all the way.  It works.

[Guest]

Perhaps @201er needs to do another of his polls.  This one asking how many Mooney driver are FAA standard sized.  My guess is a few under standard the rest over.

Clarence

[201er]

50 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

Perhaps @201er needs to do another of his polls.  This one asking how many Mooney driver are FAA standard sized.  My guess is a few under standard the rest over.

Clarence

 

[Wildhorsetrail]

Not sure how I started out reading a thread about Mooney's financial woes and ended up voting in a poll about my body size. 

[MikeOH]

7 minutes ago, Wildhorsetrail said:

Not sure how I started out reading a thread about Mooney's financial woes and ended up voting in a poll about my body size. 

It’s the Internet…resistance is futile…just roll with it

[flyboy0681]

2 hours ago, DCarlton said:

A bit of a tangent, but it would be interesting to take a poll and bar chart the weight of Mooney owners.  Americans have gotten pretty big over the last 50 years.  When I hit 230 lbs, I felt like flying the Mooney was too tight of a sqeeuze.  I managed to get back down to 200 - 210 and it's OK.  Gotta wonder if the average Mooney owner is shorter and smaller than the average Cirrus owner.  Perhaps there's just not enough older pilots with $1M burning a hole in their pocket that could comfortably fold themselves into a Mooney.  Even with a high end sports car like a Porsche or Corvette, you've gotta really want one to fold yourself in to it when you get older, stiffer, and heavier.  At that point in life, even a 182 starts to look pretty good.  

I fit in perfect at 5'4", 135 pounds.

But all kidding aside, the last thing I care about, as mentioned in the video, is finely stitched Italian leather.

[FlyingDude]

Summary:

Mooneys are faster, stingier aircraft than Cirrus.

Cirrus has aggressive Salesforce and great customer care.

The parachute.

GA didn't take off in Asia.

You can get the ovation performance from 10 year-old mooneys and (drum-roll) cost-conscious (aka cheap bastard) Mooney fanatics choose those planes at 1/3, 1/4 cost than new ones (in English: Mooney's slick, fast and stingy design appeals to cheap bastards that won't pay the sticker price).

I personally would add the joystick and % power lever that dumbs down Cirrus driving... Some like it that way. 

[DCarlton]

22 hours ago, MikeOH said:

It’s the Internet…resistance is futile…just roll with it

The bar charts are proving to be rather interesting.  Good sample size.  Without similar Cirrus data though, it's not very helpful.  

[Rusty Pilot]

I found it interesting, useful load must be increased and chute needs to be at least an available option for future success.  As a vintage Mooney owner remaining useful load with 103 gallons of fuel is an issue making a new Mooney an effective 2 seater, with a relatively high fuel burn.  As always speed is Mooney's biggest advantage.

[Cruiser]

I think the biggest downfall for new Mooney sales would be confidence that after spending near a million dollars on a new plane the company will still be there to support and maintain your investment in the future. 
That is to say, I would not worry in the near term with a new airplane but what happens to the value of the airframe for resale in twenty years ? 

 

[Jonny]

On 7/21/2022 at 1:02 AM, carusoam said:

let’s send this over to @Jonny…

At about 8 minutes into the video it becomes a Cirrus advertisement….
 

Showing the stock pic of the M20J with the MUNI tail number…

Which failure are they discussing?

There are many ownership changes, plant closures, and re-openings….

Nearly 26 successful Mooney designs…. With a few experimental ones tossed in…

 

Last I checked… Mooney is still in business…. 
 

Call me not a fan of the words Mooney eventually failed….

Too many people, working too hard, to keep it alive…

 

Sounds like a YouTuber trying monetize an inaccurate video….

It has plenty of video taken/borrowed from official sources…

Somebody has produced a nice video, with a less than secret agenda…

Best regards,

-a-

 

Thanks for the note!

I watched this last week, actually. Some of what he said was speculation, but one premise is correct: Building Mooneys is very costly and inefficient. I like to say, "while we pour our hearts into every plane, the competition pours plastic into a mold." To move us to a completely composite airframe would cost many millions to certify and many, many years.

But indeed, to your point, we are still in business. We are going to focus on maintaining the existing fleet and standing ourselves up with parts production. Then we'll start talking about entering the market again. In the meantime, the economy looks set to contract - building GA planes is about to become that much riskier. Maybe this isn't such a bad time to be on the sidelines.

Jonny