Van's following in Mooney's footsteps, and not in a good way

[ragedracer1977]

On 11/2/2023 at 9:33 AM, DCarlton said:

A friend is building an RV12.  The sheet metal is surprisingly thin; for me uncomfortably thin.  My gut tells me that thinner materials may behave differently when punched or laser drilled and dimpled particularly when it comes to cracks.  I'd need to be convinced the engineering models are valid with really thin materials.  I think I'd have to be on the inside and see some of the data and analyses to get comfortable with the design and processes on some of these airplanes.  I haven't had an opportunity to compare the materials in the LSA with the other models though.  Take a look at Vans published service bulletins.  An RV-8 would be fun but I'll take the Mooney.  

You’d be awfully surprised if you ever had to drill out rivets on your Mooney….

[DCarlton]

3 hours ago, ragedracer1977 said:

You’d be awfully surprised if you ever had to drill out rivets on your Mooney….

In what way?

[ragedracer1977]

22 hours ago, DCarlton said:

In what way?

See any similarities between the skin thicknesses between Mooney and RV-14 fuselages?  You may note, in a lot of cases, the RV is thicker. One place it isn’t? The “roof”.  Because it has a canopy.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by ragedracer1977

[DCarlton]

1 hour ago, ragedracer1977 said:

See any similarities between the skin thicknesses between Mooney and RV-14 fuselages?  You may note, in a lot of cases, the RV is thicker. One place it isn’t? The “roof”.  Because it has a canopy.

 

 

Curious about the RV12 LSA.  Will make for an interesting comparison.  

[ragedracer1977]

1 hour ago, DCarlton said:

Curious about the RV12 LSA.  Will make for an interesting comparison.  

A little harder to read as it’s organized differently, but same story…. Aircraft skins are thin.  The top of a 757 is .039, thinner than the Mooney!

[A64Pilot]

The difference is that much of the fuselage on a Mooney isn’t structural, it’s merely a fairing, the tube steel is the structure.

Of the Experimental aircraft Van’s is pretty well designed and the kits are excellent, they actually build skins that fit, no “real” little airplane manufacturer that I know of can.

The issue with a Van’s airplane isn’t the kit, it’s the builder, there is no skill requirement and essentially no oversight, it’s the Wild West as far as quality.

In my opinion from what I have seen LSA’s as a general rule are inherently unsafe, it stems from an unrealistic gross weight limit in most cases. To have a decent sized cockpit and meet the weight limit you can’t have as strong a structure as you could if the weight limit was higher. I wouldn’t fly in a Van’s 12 myself, but as they haven’t been falling out of the sky the are apparently good enough.

But the whole LSA thing is and has been a joke for years, for example a 180 HP Carbon Cub is an LSA?

[Pinecone]

I wonder what it would do the the production time for a Mooney if they made them like Vans with matched hole skins.  All the holes are CNC located, so they pretty much self jig.

[A64Pilot]

2 hours ago, Pinecone said:

I wonder what it would do the the production time for a Mooney if they made them like Vans with matched hole skins.  All the holes are CNC located, so they pretty much self jig.

You can’t, I finally came to grips with that at Thrush, I wasn’t after matched holes, just skins that didn’t need to be trimmed.

We could with the wings and flight controls, but the entire fuselage on a Thrush is 4130 tube steel and even though the tubes are held in a jig welding it all together blows any change of tight tolerances. Wings and flight controls were of course all aluminum so you could at least make skins that fit, but we never came close to Van’s level of precision. Maybe the biz jets do but I’m nearly certain that nobody’s single engine aircraft do, not Cessna, Beech or Piper anyway.

What ought to be not terribly difficult to hold tight tolerances is mold built composites, composites are dimensionally stable over wide temp ranges and the mold of course sets dimensions.

We won’t I’m afraid ever see a Mooney like ours again, anymore than we will see cars that you can remove the body from the frame.

Composites I’m afraid is the path forward for any new designs.

They way our Mooney’s are constructed just doesn’t lend itself to production.

When Aero Commander started mass production of the Meyers 200 they of course thought they could make them quickly, but they couldn’t. Pretty much everything we like about our Mooney’s construction the Meyers had on steroids and it took way more hours than they could sell it and make a profit on, and that was back in the 60’s.

Here is a pic from the Albany Ga plant, everything out to the main gear is 4130 tube steel. Only airplane that I know of that’s never had a structural AD.

 

[Hank]

13 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Here is a pic from the Albany Ga plant, everything out to the main gear is 4130 tube steel. Only airplane that I know of that’s never had a structural AD.

 

Has Mooney had a structural AD other than on the wooden tails?

[A64Pilot]

34 minutes ago, Hank said:

Has Mooney had a structural AD other than on the wooden tails?

No idea, I just remember that supposedly the Meyers 200 is the only aircraft that hasn’t. It was built in the Albany Ga plant is largely why I wanted one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyers_200#:~:text=The Meyers 200D has never,AD) issued against the airframe.

Oh, and the Meyers will smoke a Bonanza without a turbo. I wanted a Meyers for several reasons but couldn’t find a good one, they have a cult following it seems and even projects ask way more than they are worth.

I thought I had found one but the seller was balking at me doing and or having an Annual done and it just set off my alarms.

Oh and the turboprop version first flew in 69 and was Certified in 71 I believe.

[Pinecone]

I know that no light single manufacturer builds planes that way, but I don't see why they could not.

I understand the issue with the steel tube cage, but that is only the cockpit area.  The rest of the plane could be assembled much quicker with a less highly skilled labor requirement.

I toured the Lockheed Martin Ft Worth plant.  To make an F-16 wing, they take a block of aluminum and a CNC mill, and poof, you have the main wing structure, only requiring the skins.  And the holes are already there.

[KSMooniac]

The trend in the major aircraft manufacturing arena is definitely towards hogged-out billet parts instead of built-up/assembled from bent sheet or smaller fittings.  The next evolution is using full-sized holes with parts dropping into assemblies with minimal tooling, no more matched-drilling, etc.  This is definitely the future.

However, you cannot just simply change a Mooney or a Cessna to this method of manufacturing because the engineering is all different, which invalidates the structural analysis and testing, so essentially you have to start over and re-certify all of that portion of the design.  That won't be a business case that closes, unfortunately.

Composite construction has different but significant issues as well.  That is a topic for another thread someday.

Van's is in a tight spot.  I don't see a simple solution, and I hope it doesn't kill the company.  They are a great company that got bit badly by some oversights IMO due to a perfect storm of increasing demand and supply chain constraints during covid.  They apparently did not fully vet their supplier's processes.  The certified world would likely have caught the issues before parts got out, but of course that is why certified costs so much.  

[Pinecone]

2 hours ago, KSMooniac said:

The trend in the major aircraft manufacturing arena is definitely towards hogged-out billet parts instead of built-up/assembled from bent sheet or smaller fittings.  The next evolution is using full-sized holes with parts dropping into assemblies with minimal tooling, no more matched-drilling, etc.  This is definitely the future.

However, you cannot just simply change a Mooney or a Cessna to this method of manufacturing because the engineering is all different, which invalidates the structural analysis and testing, so essentially you have to start over and re-certify all of that portion of the design.  That won't be a business case that closes, unfortunately.

I am not saying to convert an SE GA to that form of manufacturing.  But CNC cut and matched hole should be doable and greatly reduce the hours to produce a plane.

[KSMooniac]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

I am not saying to convert an SE GA to that form of manufacturing.  But CNC cut and matched hole should be doable and greatly reduce the hours to produce a plane.

It certainly does reduce the hours, but the costs have to be accounted for as well.  Maintaining the tolerances required means very modern equipment, and you also have to control the environment to a high degree so that all of the parts fit together on assembly.  Like 70 degrees +/-2 degrees for your machining centers and for final assembly as an example!  All of the little things start to matter, and controlling them adds cost.

[Pinecone]

True.  But Van's seems to be able to do it.

[1980Mooney]

Van's filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy today. This should be no surprise.  In October, Dick VanGrunsven said that he had been loaning the company money.  That means that they have been negative cash flowing.  With the October announcements and the retention of outside advisors (more negative cash outflow to their pockets) I am sure it only got worse.  VanGrunsven and his wife have offered the company a $6M debtor in possession revolving line of credit to support operations during reorganization.

They said they will start contacting customers with outstanding orders and offer them new higher prices.  

Van's Aircraft Announces Chapter 11 Reorganization - Van's Aircraft Total Performance RV Kit Planes (vansaircraft.com)

Edited December 5, 2023 by 1980Mooney

[KSMooniac]

That might be the least-bad way through the mess they find themselves in currently.  I think their product is too good to go away completely, but it is painfully obvious that prices need to go up to survive.  If I were a new customer with a deposit already paid, I might grumble and get over it, provided they don't ship any more laser-cut parts.  

I feel really bad for the customers with already assembled or flying laser-cut parts.  I don't know how they take care of those customers.

[EricJ]

6 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Van's filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy today. This should be no surprise.  In October, Dick VanGrunsven said that he had been loaning the company money.  That means that they have been negative cash flowing.  With the October announcements and the retention of outside advisors (more negative cash outflow to their pockets) I am sure it only got worse.  VanGrunsven and his wife have offered the company a $6M debtor in possession revolving line of credit to support operations during reorganization.

They said they will start contacting customers with outstanding orders and offer them new higher prices.  

Van's Aircraft Announces Chapter 11 Reorganization - Van's Aircraft Total Performance RV Kit Planes (vansaircraft.com)

That is a smart move on VanGrunsven's part, since any equity they have in the company may be wiped out by the bankruptcy.    If the company owes them money, they may convert that debt back into equity post bankruptcy.   I suspect this was part of the decision to file bankruptcy.

[1980Mooney]

43 minutes ago, EricJ said:

That is a smart move on VanGrunsven's part, since any equity they have in the company may be wiped out by the bankruptcy.    If the company owes them money, they may convert that debt back into equity post bankruptcy.   I suspect this was part of the decision to file bankruptcy.

This will be tricky

• Don't forget that the employees are shareholders - not just just the old man.  They will be wiped out.
• The bankruptcy filing shows that they are losing (negative cashflow) about ($500,000) per week.
  • The negative cashflow is projected to continue at over ($400,000) per week through February (and that is with new orders and payments coming in)
• Their plan of negative cashflow depends upon builders sending Vans a new/fresh $9 million in cash over the next 90 days.
  •  Even with the $9 million they will still be short about $4 million and will draw upon most of the VanGrunsven's loan commitment.  

Without the fresh $9 million in cash payments by builders they will burn through $1 million per week and VanGrunsven's loan will be gone mid January.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, 1980Mooney said:

This will be tricky

• Don't forget that the employees are shareholders - not just just the old man.  They will be wiped out.

But as a debt holder, especially with a new debt purchase, he'll be able to own assets coming out of the bankruptcy and convert that to equity if he wishes.   I'm assuming he's the largest debt holder, and the new loans may be a strategic move to make that the case if it wasn't already.

But, yeah, smaller shareholdes that don't also own debt will likely be wiped out.

[1980Mooney]

On 12/5/2023 at 9:24 AM, KSMooniac said:

I feel really bad for the customers with already assembled or flying laser-cut parts.  I don't know how they take care of those customers.

This is a great point that seems to be completely sidetracked for now.  One sad builder on VansAirForce forum commented that had have already built some major sections like the empennage and applied 2 coats of epoxy primer.  It contains defective Laser Cut Parts.  He commented that it will be easier to start over and build a new empennage than to tear the one he has apart in order to replace the parts.

[midlifeflyer]

Just a thought. Filing Chapter 11 to keep the company going and a running commentary to keep customers up to date on status, doesn't strike me an “following Mooney” no matter how it turns out.

[ZuluZulu]

55 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

Just a thought. Filing Chapter 11 to keep the company going and a running commentary to keep customers up to date on status, doesn't strike me an “following Mooney” no matter how it turns out.

Apologies for not foreseeing the future when I posted this two months ago.  Sheesh, tough crowd!  But you're right, that's far more transparent than anything Mooney has done since the takeover.  A sudden flurry of hype and big promises, a new and typo-ridden website with amateur-written copy, a forum no one uses, a "Mooney of the Month" feature that was awarded once and never spoken of again, and that's about it.  The carbon cowl and gross weight increase STCs must be coming any minute, but we've heard nothing more about them for years now.

[midlifeflyer]

On 12/5/2023 at 10:55 AM, EricJ said:

That is a smart move on VanGrunsven's part, since any equity they have in the company may be wiped out by the bankruptcy.    If the company owes them money, they may convert that debt back into equity post bankruptcy.   I suspect this was part of the decision to file bankruptcy.

There are many reasons for a decision to file for reorganization. They typically involve a desire to keep the company going. The realism of that hope is sometimes open to question. Hopefully, not in this case. The Plan is mostly about unsecured debt, which needs to pass muster and objections. There’s also the possibility of secured creditors asking for permission to foreclose. If they don’t, it’s a good sign.

 

[midlifeflyer]

25 minutes ago, ZuluZulu said:

Apologies for not foreseeing the future when I posted this two months ago.  Sheesh, tough crowd!  But you're right, that's far more transparent than anything Mooney has done since the takeover.  A sudden flurry of hype and big promises, a new and typo-ridden website with amateur-written copy, a forum no one uses, a "Mooney of the Month" feature that was awarded once and never spoken of again, and that's about it.  The carbon cowl and gross weight increase STCs must be coming any minute, but we've heard nothing more about them for years now.

I know it was early. My comment wasn’t a challenge to the post, just a comment about what they’ve done since.