March 2012: Flying Magazine Article On The M20J

HopePilot · 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.

**1964-M20E** · February 18, 2012

Don't cringe that could have been my interior. :-)))

**MooneyMitch** · 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.

HopePilot · February 18, 2012

Not Vicki. She's had enough press this month.

rbridges · February 19, 2012

looking forward to reading it.

David Mazer · 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.

**aviatoreb** · 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.

David Mazer · 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!

Steve Dawson · February 19, 2012

Yes, a glass panel, 3 axis auto pilot and one that ran on auto fuel or fadec w/ electronic ignition.

David Mazer · 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.

smccray · 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.

**Jeff_S** · 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.)

David Mazer · February 21, 2012

That is like saying - now that we are at the Marianas Trench we won't get much deeper!

John Pleisse · 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!

**Parker_Woodruff** · 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.

fantom · 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! :-(

**Parker_Woodruff** · 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.

**Hank** · 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.

**MooneyMitch** · 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.

**KSMooniac** · 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...

**jetdriven** · 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.

John Pleisse · 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.

**MooneyMitch** · 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.

**Shadrach** · 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.

**DonMuncy** · February 21, 2012

From what authoritative source did you get the information that they had sold off tooling.

Sign In

March 2012: Flying Magazine Article On The M20J

Recommended Posts

HopePilot

1964-M20E

MooneyMitch

HopePilot

rbridges

David Mazer

aviatoreb

David Mazer

Steve Dawson

David Mazer

smccray

Jeff_S

David Mazer

John Pleisse

Parker_Woodruff

fantom

Parker_Woodruff

Hank

MooneyMitch

KSMooniac

jetdriven

John Pleisse

MooneyMitch

Shadrach

DonMuncy

Join the conversation

Members Online

Browse

Activity

Important Information