HopePilot Posted February 18, 2012 Report Posted February 18, 2012 There's a nice article on the M20J in this March's Flying magazine. I cringed at the interior shot example with its blue velour seats, but the rest of the article is nicely done. Quote
1964-M20E Posted February 18, 2012 Report Posted February 18, 2012 Don't cringe that could have been my interior. :-))) Quote
MooneyMitch Posted February 18, 2012 Report Posted February 18, 2012 Quote: HopePilot There's a nice article on the M20J in this March's Flying magazine. I cringed at the interior shot example with its blue velour seats, but the rest of the article is nicely done. Quote
HopePilot Posted February 18, 2012 Author Report Posted February 18, 2012 Not Vicki. She's had enough press this month. Quote
rbridges Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 looking forward to reading it. Quote
David Mazer Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 It was a nice article but it would be nicer if Mooney started making planes rather than just making news on its 35 year old planes. Quote
aviatoreb Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 Quote: Mazerbase It was a nice article but it would be nicer if Mooney started making planes rather than just making news on its 35 year old planes. Quote
David Mazer Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 Not that my opinion matters much, and the idea has been dismissed on this forum already, but I wonder what would happen if Mooney put out a new M20J without changes to the airframe or engine but with an inexpensive glass panel. How much would that cost? Far less than $600,000 I'd wager and it would probably kill the Cirrus SR22. At the price of gas today, the M20J's time may have returned. I mean, really, they are selling C172s for $300,000! Quote
Steve Dawson Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 Yes, a glass panel, 3 axis auto pilot and one that ran on auto fuel or fadec w/ electronic ignition. Quote
David Mazer Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 I agree with the A/P but I worry that the re-engineering for the engine would add lots of cost. The KISS principle seems best here. Down the road, if it sold well, then some new development could payoff. Quote
smccray Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 If I were going to pursue a reintroduction of the M20J I'd go with an Aspen and a DFC90 autopilot. However... The problem here is when you buy Mooney you're not buying much more than a design. The manufacturing line is essentially shut down. For Mooney to even get back up and running you have to build a manufacturing capability essentially from scratch. If I were going to choose an airframe it would be a longbody. Depending on the similarity in construction it may be easy to design both the mid and long body into the manufacturing process, but the production cost won't be all that different. The NA SR22 has a base price of $450k. I doubt many sell at that pricepoint, but it never the less, it's a target. Our resident lear jet expert probably has a better idea, but what does that give us in terms of budget for the airframe cost including paint and interior- $100k? I don't have a clue where the cost allocation is, but whatever the margins look like it's a tough sell to an investor at only a handful of units selling per year. Quote
Jeff_S Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 No matter what you think about starting to re-manufacture a "J" variant, one thing seems true: the article can only help the resell price for those of us with Js that may be looking to sell! (I'm not, by the way, but I've noticed that the asking price for Js on both TAP and Controller have held pretty steady compared to what I paid two years ago.) Quote
David Mazer Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 That is like saying - now that we are at the Marianas Trench we won't get much deeper! Quote
John Pleisse Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Quote: Mazerbase Not that my opinion matters much, and the idea has been dismissed on this forum already, but I wonder what would happen if Mooney put out a new M20J without changes to the airframe or engine but with an inexpensive glass panel. How much would that cost? Far less than $600,000 I'd wager and it would probably kill the Cirrus SR22. At the price of gas today, the M20J's time may have returned. I mean, really, they are selling C172s for $300,000! Quote
Parker_Woodruff Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 All the M20 airframes cost about the same to build. The cost of production (and further sales price) *basically* ends up in being the difference in engine prices. Quote
fantom Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Before Wilma took out Mod Works they were trying to make the numbers work on buying up old run out airframes and totally refurbishing them. It never looked profitable, even as filler work during slack times. Fuel prices going up, 100LL going away, the economy going no where, new young pilots almost as hard to find as new GA mechanics, user fees coming, gov't regulations killing GA flying and small business with so much uncertainty. Enjoy it while you can! :-( Quote
Parker_Woodruff Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Yup. Every now and then I get that small dose of encouragement when some 19 or 20 year old calls in because he just bought a plane and needs our services...Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often enough. Quote
Hank Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Quote: Parker_Woodruff Yup. Every now and then I get that small dose of encouragement when some 19 or 20 year old calls in because he just bought a plane and needs our services...Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often enough. Quote
MooneyMitch Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Quote: Parker_Woodruff Yup. Every now and then I get that small dose of encouragement when some 19 or 20 year old calls in because he just bought a plane and needs our services...Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often enough. Quote
KSMooniac Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 The production costs of a J are ~95% of those for an Ovation, and the stubborn fact is that buyers of the last 15 years or so (and likely going back to the late 80s when prices really started going up quickly) that *can afford* to buy a new plane (either private individual or business) almost always choose to get the biggest and baddest of the product line. Look at sales of the 201 Lean Machine vs. regular 201, Eagle (billed as a 201 replacement) vs. Ovation, SR22 vs. SR20, etc. I believe it is probably 4:1 or 5:1 in favor of the more expensive variant. My opinion is that the folks buying new at $300k+ aren't as concerned with the "economy" of a J vs. the speed of an R (which is still pretty danged efficient) and will always opt for the faster plane. The OEM cost difference between an IO-360 and IO-550 is less than $10,000. An M20R airframe costs just a little bit more than an M20J airframe b/c of the stretched fuselage, but otherwise they are nearly identical in terms of labor and raw material costs. We could argue about avionics and that is a legitimate debate, but the stripped-down Eagle didn't sell very well, so I think there isn't much of a debate unless a ground-up new panel with an Aspen or Avidyne or whatever *might* get the price down compared to G1000 or steam gauges. Three major ingredients are truly needed to revitalize our little slice of the universe: more tort reform (to reduce liability costs), more demand (more pilots, and especially "regular" people realizing how useful and rewarding GA can be), and a step-change in manufacturing and regulation to drive down production costs. I thought we would get there in production costs with the modern composite airframes, but neither Cirrus or Columbia/Cessna have figured out how to reduce the labor and integrate parts with better composite design to the extent that is required to make things less expensive. Perhaps the next generation of GA airframes will get there...if there are any customers in 10+ years. Mooney is certainly stuck with a legacy plane that requires a lot of skilled man-hours to produce and is not suited to automation due to low-volume and huge capital expense to set up equipment. Obviously they don't have the capital or man power to develop a replacement, either, and I'm afraid it will be a minor miracle if they ever re-start the lines. (I certainly hope so of course, and they've risen from ashes a few times already.) I've always wondered if they could "tweak" the design a bit to stretch the fuselage WIDTH, and strengthen the landing gear or revise the flaps (not sure which limits the gross weight) in order to make a roomier plane with more useful load... Quote
jetdriven Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Supposedly mooney sold a lot of the high value tooling to raise cash, so they will never build airplanes again. I heard that at the mapa homecoming. Quote
John Pleisse Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Quote: jetdriven Supposedly mooney sold a lot of the high value tooling to raise cash, so they will never build airplanes again. I heard that at the mapa homecoming. Quote
MooneyMitch Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Quote: N4352H I'd love to know more about this.... If they keep all of the jigs and still can make the wing and the empenage, it's relative. If they sold wing jigs, etc..... I find that disconcerting.....very. Quote
Shadrach Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 Quote: jetdriven Supposedly mooney sold a lot of the high value tooling to raise cash, so they will never build airplanes again. I heard that at the mapa homecoming. Quote
DonMuncy Posted February 21, 2012 Report Posted February 21, 2012 From what authoritative source did you get the information that they had sold off tooling. Quote
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