I’m going to go ahead and put this BS here again

[Schllc]

21 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

A6M, Zero?

I’m guessing based on what I think the canopy looks like

Yes, it’s a zero. 
they didn’t plan on using any of the remnant, only the data tag. 

[A64Pilot]

21 minutes ago, Schllc said:

Yes, it’s a zero. 
they didn’t plan on using any of the remnant, only the data tag. 

I think there are very few flyable Zero’s. Maybe one or two? I am pretty sure the engine is a knock off P&W, I even think the first several prototypes flew with P&W’s, maybe R-1820’s?

Oh, and I think just about like everybody else it’s prop was a knock off Hamilton Standard

It’s rumored that the Zero was heavily influenced by Howard Hughes airplane, the H-1.

I’ve been led to understand a major reason there are so many US aircraft surviving is that our aluminum was superior, the Zero in particular used some kind of alloy that was strong but susceptible to corrosion. I think the US may have been the only ones to Alclad the aluminum.

That is all here say from restorers so I don’t know for sure

[Pinecone]

4 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

I think there are very few flyable Zero’s. Maybe one or two? I am pretty sure the engine is a knock off P&W, I even think the first several prototypes flew with P&W’s, maybe R-1820’s?

Nope.  Prototype was with a 1710 cubic inch engine that was smaller in diameter than US engine.

But, most of the currently flyable ones are flying with a P&W R-1820.  Only one has the original Japanese engine

[1980Mooney]

On 1/27/2023 at 12:05 PM, PT20J said:

I have no idea what Jonny is thinking.  But, it is difficult to see how Mooney could get back into airplane production without a huge investment, and Jonny was pretty clear at MooneyMAX that it's very challenging because every bank and investor asks the same question: Mooney has a long history of going bankrupt every few years; what are you going to do differently?

One possible path forward is to  convert to a parts and service business similar Cal Pacific Airmotive which owns the type and production certificates for the P-51 and also has a repair station certificate. In theory, they could build new mustangs, but they probably never will. Instead, they have a very good business supplying parts and service for the existing fleet. They also rebuild mustangs and modify P-51s to two seat TF-51s.

But, in order to make that work, Jonny would have to hang onto the IP.

Skip

"One possible path forward is to convert to a parts and service business similar Cal Pacific Airmotive which owns the type and production certificates for the P-51 and also has a repair station certificate."

Maybe I am missing something but how is that effectively different from what they are doing today?  All that Mooney Corp really offers today is parts and service.  The notion that they will build planes again is just a facade that is burdening them with costs.  They continue to carry the overhead and cost of an "airplane building business" that builds no planes.  The airframe warranties on the Ultra's have expired but Mooney Corp retains the liability on everything they made in the last 18 years.  The carry greater costs for insurance, legal and regulatory.  They have a top heavy structure for a company that is really just doing "caretaker engineering" at most.  - look at all the fancy titles for "management".

They need to file bankruptcy - jettison the past liability (and insurance and legal supporting it)- reduce management to one GM.  Maybe they can make money then.

[Pinecone]

It is different in that Mooney doesn't have a lot of parts available.

If I were in charge, as they get orders, I would make extras and start to stock up on parts available.

And either open up suppliers to sell direct, or place small orders to stock things like no-back springs.

But not sure what they are doing, as they have not been saying anything.

If I were running it, I would be telling owners what is going on.  Johnny was online almost a year ago with info, and then nothing.  I suggested a monthly post on MS to keep the word out, and everyone here jumped on me.

[A64Pilot]

It’s almost a certainty that Mooney has no liability insurance.

What expenses do they have for being an airplane business that they could get rid of?

Problem with stocking parts is it takes money to produce or procure those parts, then they sit while you wait for them to sell, if you don’t have the $$$ to procure parts, that leaves borrowing the money. Does Mooney have the collateral or book of business to show to borrow money at a decent rate? Especially now that rates are higher?

I agree there is money in parts, for a couple of years Quality Aerospace owned Thrush and operated it as a parts business, that’s who we bought it from, but there isn’t as much money in parts as you would think. You can run a skeleton crew and that’s about it. I think Quality Aerospace had a half dozen people in the plant then.

Unfortunately I don’t think Mooney has any real assets (I have no idea but have heard they don’t own the building etc) and in my opinion the value of Mooney isn’t its Type Certificate, it’s in its Production Certificate. If some big bucks dreamer wanted to produce their dream they could very quickly as all the process specs etc are already approved, ditto for the QC manual and procedures etc.

To start from scratch would likely take years and cost lord knows how much. I don’t know how Cirrus did it, but my hats off to them.

Having an excessive office population seems to be some kind of manufacturing disease, but it seems to strike when you’re successful.

I paid for a no back spring in May that I’m still waiting for, so somethings up. What I have no idea.

 

[hammdo]

Does Mooney have little to no tooling for Vintage aircraft? If they have tooling, they could do what we did for OPP. Get deposits and do a run. If not, then find out what owners need and reverse engineer as needed. How about the weights for the AD? Get with the owners and find out how many want to upgrade. Do a production run and add a few pairs to keep in stock. The run would cover the costs + profits.

How about the no-back spring for the modern Mooney? There are things Mooney could do to gauge interest of what parts owners want and do a production run. If we can do it as OPP, I can’t see why Mooney can not do the same thing. Think outside the box… but give a production date or it won’t work…

-Don

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, hammdo said:

Does Mooney have little to no tooling for Vintage aircraft? If they have tooling, they could do what we did for OPP. Get deposits and do a run.

-Don

Did anyone approach Mooney with that proposition?

[hammdo]

2 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Did anyone approach Mooney with that proposition?

@Jonny is this something to look @?

1 hour ago, hammdo said:

Does Mooney have little to no tooling for Vintage aircraft? If they have tooling, they could do what we did for OPP. Get deposits and do a run. If not, then find out what owners need and reverse engineer as needed. How about the weights for the AD? Get with the owners and find out how many want to upgrade. Do a production run and add a few pairs to keep in stock. The run would cover the costs + profits.

How about the no-back spring for the modern Mooney? There are things Mooney could do to gauge interest of what parts owners want and do a production run. If we can do it as OPP, I can’t see why Mooney can not do the same thing. Think outside the box… but give a production date or it won’t work…

-Don

-Don

[hammdo]

Mooney could work with the folks who did the OPP parts for us - then they would have suppliers. That could go a long way vs the current ‘notice’ approach that’s building up some harsh feeling. You know the ‘honey approach’ works…

-Don

[A64Pilot]

20 hours ago, Pinecone said:

Nope.  Prototype was with a 1710 cubic inch engine that was smaller in diameter than US engine.

But, most of the currently flyable ones are flying with a P&W R-1820.  Only one has the original Japanese engine

I don’t know of course I’ve never even see a Zero, but the Smithsonian has this in their article

“Of course, the first ten Zeros which flew had American engines,” says Barber. “Since we were nice enough to sell Japan some Pratt & Whitney engines, they turned around and essentially copied them, which is why the parts are nearly interchangeable today.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/hunting-zeros-18093606/

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is usually a pretty reliable source.

Before hostilities many countries had bought licenses for the Hamilton Standard props and P&W engines etc.

‘That’s not a new thing, in WWI Germany’s machine guns were built under a Maxim license and I believe they even paid royalties for each machine gun they built.

https://michaeltfassbender.com/nonfiction/the-world-wars/weapons-of-war/maxim-maschinengewehr-08/

After WWII when Russia was attempting to develop Jet engines they had the German Engineers and engines, but the British engine was far superior, so they sent people to talk to the Brit engine designers, the Russian spies wore special soft soled shoes are were instructed if possible to step on the machining scraps in the hope that they could determine what alloy the Brits were using because that was the biggest problem with the German engines.

But unbelievingly the Brits sold them several engines, which of course the Russians copied, and the Mig 15 suddenly had a good engine

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/how-british-turbojet-allowed-russias-mig-15-fight-the-air-26385

https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/mikoyan-gurevich-mig-15-ji-2-fagot-b/nasm_A19860066000

So, do you think we have learned from this? I think not, I bet China is getting enormous technology given to them by greedy businessmen hoping to get business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/business/global/arms-contractor-pleads-guilty-on-china-exports.html

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-technologies-subsidiary-pleads-guilty-criminal-charges-helping-china-develop-new

The Chinese promised 2 Billion dollars of engine purchases for Civilian use if PWC would give them what they wanted. PWC did, but I don’t think they sold many engines.

So China now has their Apache.

[Pinecone]

They could even start by taking orders from customers and service centers and then produce the parts.   I would buy a spare no-back spring.

Invest part of the profit in making a few extras.

I recently had them fabricate a part.  It was less than $60 in materials, and maybe an hour to make one.  They charged over $600.   They could have made 5 of them, and put the on the shelf with some cash in their pocket.

This way, they would slowly build stock of parts based on what is being ordered or needed.

[Pinecone]

4 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

I don’t know of course I’ve never even see a Zero, but the Smithsonian has this in their article

“Of course, the first ten Zeros which flew had American engines,” says Barber. “Since we were nice enough to sell Japan some Pratt & Whitney engines, they turned around and essentially copied them, which is why the parts are nearly interchangeable today.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/hunting-zeros-18093606/

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is usually a pretty reliable source.

Before hostilities many countries had bought licenses for the Hamilton Standard props and P&W engines etc.

‘That’s not a new thing, in WWI Germany’s machine guns were built under a Maxim license and I believe they even paid royalties for each machine gun they built.

https://michaeltfassbender.com/nonfiction/the-world-wars/weapons-of-war/maxim-maschinengewehr-08/

After WWII when Russia was attempting to develop Jet engines they had the German Engineers and engines, but the British engine was far superior, so they sent people to talk to the Brit engine designers, the Russian spies wore special soft soled shoes are were instructed if possible to step on the machining scraps in the hope that they could determine what alloy the Brits were using because that was the biggest problem with the German engines.

But unbelievingly the Brits sold them several engines, which of course the Russians copied, and the Mig 15 suddenly had a good engine

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/how-british-turbojet-allowed-russias-mig-15-fight-the-air-26385

So, do you think we have learned from this? I think not, I bet China is getting enormous technology given to them by greedy businessmen hoping to get business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/business/global/arms-contractor-pleads-guilty-on-china-exports.html

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-technologies-subsidiary-pleads-guilty-criminal-charges-helping-china-develop-new

The Chinese promised 2 Billion dollars of engine purchases for Civilian use if PWC would give them what they wanted. PWC did, but I don’t think they sold many engines.

So China now has their Apache.

"The first two A6M1 prototypes were completed in March 1939, powered by the 580 kW (780 hp) Mitsubishi Zuisei 13 engine with a two-blade propeller."

"While the Navy was testing the first two prototypes, they suggested that the third be fitted with the 700 kW (940 hp) Nakajima Sakae 12 engine instead. Mitsubishi had its own engine of this class in the form of the Kinsei, so they were somewhat reluctant to use the Sakae. Nevertheless, when the first A6M2 was completed in January 1940, the Sakae's extra power pushed the performance of the Zero well past the original specifications.

The new version was so promising that the Navy had 15 built and shipped to China before they had completed testing. "

 

Differing information.

 

[A64Pilot]

If you want to see price gouging price Bonanza parts from Beech, but you can make the argument that at least they exist.

I don’t know why Mooney doesn’t have parts, but can tell you that having been in that business, I was product support, there are thousands and thousands of parts, and the infrastructure has adapted to procuring parts from other sources and or making their own.

I can’t explain why no No Back Springs except to say I don’t think as many are sold as we think. Not that I’ve met or talked to a whole lot of Mooney owners, but I’ve yet to meet one in the wild that has ever heard of a NBS

[A64Pilot]

The US Army used to and maybe still does operate a small fleet of AN-2 Colts as an OPFOR force at Ft Bliss in Tx

I’ve talked to the maintenance officer, he said the Russian engines are such a knock off that the Army uses parts for the US engine in them. I think they may have been P&W’s but that was probably almost 30 years ago so I’m not sure, they could have be Wrights. I looked it up they were Wright copies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-2

The most common version is the An-2T 12-seater passenger aircraft. All versions (other than the An-3 and the An-2-100) are powered by a 750 kW (1,010 hp) nine-cylinder Shvetsov ASh-62 radial engine, which was developed from the Wright R-1820.^[

The first Russian Nuclear bomber was a B-29 that they copied.

Four I believe landed in Soviet controlled territory in WWII. One was completely disassembled and each part copied.

We know exactly which B-29 they took apart because during production if a hole was misdrilled etc. it took Engineering review to approve the part and of course paperwork, well every Russian TU-4 has every misdrilled holes the original the copied did.

[1980Mooney]

5 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

Unfortunately I don’t think Mooney has any real assets (I have no idea but have heard they don’t own the building etc) and in my opinion the value of Mooney isn’t its Type Certificate, it’s in its Production Certificate. If some big bucks dreamer wanted to produce their dream they could very quickly as all the process specs etc are already approved, ditto for the QC manual and procedures 

The Mooney factory building is leased from Kerr County. In 2014 they entered into a 20 year lease at $6,000/month increased by CPI. 

It is a long-term liability- a debt. 
https://dailytimes.com/news/article_76d3f886-3def-11e4-8961-c733c636b59f.html

[EricJ]

10 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

They need to file bankruptcy - jettison the past liability (and insurance and legal supporting it)- reduce management to one GM.  Maybe they can make money then.

I think current management are equity holders, so they will not be motivated to go in that direction.   I don't know whether there are any debt holders, but usually those guys just auction the assets to get what they can, so bankruptcy may not be a good option.  I suspect it'd probably be difficult to get debtor buy-in on plans that would continue the business.

[A64Pilot]

10 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

The Mooney factory building is leased from Kerr County. In 2014 they entered into a 20 year lease at $6,000/month increased by CPI. 

It is a long-term liability- a debt. 
https://dailytimes.com/news/article_76d3f886-3def-11e4-8961-c733c636b59f.html

They have to have the factory to produce parts. 6K a month is a number they likely couldn’t beat even with a smaller building, moving the big press and the rest of the equipment would cost a fortune, moving jigs is an issue as they have to be re-aligned etc., more money as they would likely have to hire that out.

What Kerr county should do is reduce the price of the building, giving incentives to business is done all the time.

Before I retired out of the Army I looked at setting up an FBO/ Maintenance shop in North Ga. The County was willing to rent me the building for $1 a year

How much debt they are carrying is what will determine if they can continue or not.

Maule is the only GA aircraft company still owned by the people who started it, (family owned), there isn’t much to Maule, never was. They produce very few airplanes now. it’s almost a build to order thing, but they solider on because they have no debt, or they didn’t use to, hopefully it’s still the same.

In all honesty Mooney if they haven’t already adopted the Maule model might take a look at doing so, maybe even go check them out, they are friendly people.

 

[Pinecone]

13 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

The US Army used to and maybe still does operate a small fleet of AN-2 Colts as an OPFOR force at Ft Bliss in Tx

I’ve talked to the maintenance officer, he said the Russian engines are such a knock off that the Army uses parts for the US engine in them. I think they may have been P&W’s but that was probably almost 30 years ago so I’m not sure, they could have be Wrights. I looked it up they were Wright copies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-2

The most common version is the An-2T 12-seater passenger aircraft. All versions (other than the An-3 and the An-2-100) are powered by a 750 kW (1,010 hp) nine-cylinder Shvetsov ASh-62 radial engine, which was developed from the Wright R-1820.^[

The first Russian Nuclear bomber was a B-29 that they copied.

Four I believe landed in Soviet controlled territory in WWII. One was completely disassembled and each part copied.

We know exactly which B-29 they took apart because during production if a hole was misdrilled etc. it took Engineering review to approve the part and of course paperwork, well every Russian TU-4 has every misdrilled holes the original the copied did.

Yeap, the AN-2 engine is a Polish exact copy of the R-1820.

I have heard that the Soviets copied the B-29 so precisely that they included a bullet hole that was in the wing of the one they copied.

[glbtrottr]

Does Mooney have little to no tooling for Vintage aircraft? L
-Don

When I spent several weeks back there with Mike Miles, Bill Grebe, Todd, Wes, Stacy, michael Knese, Mr Wheat, Barry and the bunch…

I was told many of the molds for vintage mooneys were “sold to mexico” for lead scrap.

Tigger the military trainer prop is gone somewhere …

So much infrastructure gone over the years.

Afterwards an Australian cat came over, then the Chinese came over and then and then and then…

We love our airplanes, but frankly Mooney as a factory has been raped and pillaged over the years. I’d love to watch them succeed but I just don’t expect it


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[MoonFlyer68]

Has there been any updates from the FAA or otherwise on the legality of the parts in question?