Are the Bonanza and Baron on the same path as the M20?

[Pinecone]

On 3/1/2024 at 10:40 AM, amillet said:

I just read an article about a Boeing manager who recently quit and says he will not fly on a max

Because Boeing managers are MBAs and know squat about airplanes.

[Pinecone]

BTW, being a Mooney owner is a lifestyle also.

Just not the same lifestyle as Cirrus owners.

Cirrus owners are the type of people who buy a BMW or MB and have no idea which engine they have.  Mooney owners are more in tune with the cars, and possibly even have some quirky weird car tucked away for fun.
 

And remember, we are all CBs to the heart.

 

[ttflyer]

11 hours ago, Pinecone said:

BTW, being a Mooney owner is a lifestyle also.

Just not the same lifestyle as Cirrus owners.

Cirrus owners are the type of people who buy a BMW or MB and have no idea which engine they have.  Mooney owners are more in tune with the cars, and possibly even have some quirky weird car tucked away for fun.
 

And remember, we are all CBs to the heart.

 

I have a 2017 FIAT 124 Spider. Does that count?

[hais]

13 hours ago, Pinecone said:

BTW, being a Mooney owner is a lifestyle also.

Just not the same lifestyle as Cirrus owners.

Cirrus owners are the type of people who buy a BMW or MB and have no idea which engine they have.  Mooney owners are more in tune with the cars, and possibly even have some quirky weird car tucked away for fun.
 

And remember, we are all CBs to the heart.

 

Now you are forcing me to google what engine is in my car ....

[Pinecone]

12 hours ago, ttflyer said:

I have a 2017 FIAT 124 Spider. Does that count?

FOR SURE.

Many years ago, I had a Fiat 850 Spider.  A couple up the street recently picked up a 124 Spider to go with their MG Midget.

[amillet]

On 3/4/2024 at 6:38 AM, Pinecone said:

Because Boeing managers are MBAs and know squat about airplanes.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/26/former-boeing-employee-speaks-out-00142948#

[N201MKTurbo]

I was listening to an aviation podcast on my bike ride tonight and they said Textron has no intention of shutting down production, but their order books are full and they just stopped taking orders until they could clear out the order books a bit. They didn’t want to increase their production capacity, which  is about 10 Bonanzas and 10 Barons a year.

That was hearsay. The company isn’t commenting.

[Igor_U]

On 3/11/2024 at 7:05 PM, N201MKTurbo said:

I was listening to an aviation podcast on my bike ride tonight and they said Textron has no intention of shutting down production, but their order books are full and they just stopped taking orders until they could clear out the order books a bit. They didn’t want to increase their production capacity, which  is about 10 Bonanzas and 10 Barons a year.

That was hearsay. The company isn’t commenting.

GAMA 2023 production data is showing 5 Barons and 5 Bonanzas. I would not call that a "production"... 

[N201MKTurbo]

59 minutes ago, Igor_U said:

GAMA 2023 production data is showing 5 Barons and 5 Bonanzas. I would not call that a "production"... 

It is 10 more airplanes than Mooney made.

[Schllc]

All GA planes that have ceased production will suffer the same fate as commander, and Mooney. Even those still building will have issues with older models simply because of the low volume. 
In the grand scheme of aviation all of our planes are incredibly rare, and while scarcity and shortages are not pleasant, they are just part of owning an aircraft.  
If that wasn’t difficult enough the FAA is an anachronism, and stifles most innovation and production.
For one who  expects parts availability for any reason in any model to be simple is just wishful thinking. 

[N201MKTurbo]

17 hours ago, Igor_U said:

GAMA 2023 production data is showing 5 Barons and 5 Bonanzas. I would not call that a "production"... 

It is 10 more airplanes than Mooney made.

[N201MKTurbo]

Luckily, our Mooneys can be repaired with sheet metal tools, a welder and a machine shop. 

[Hank]

18 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

It is 10 more airplanes than Mooney made.

 

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

It is 10 more airplanes than Mooney made.

Thanks for repeating yourself . . .

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Luckily, our Mooneys can be repaired with sheet metal tools, a welder and a machine shop. 

Amem, brother! Little dents won't condemn our airframes!

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, Hank said:

 

Amem, brother! Little dents won't condemn our airframes!

Back in the 80s I had my plane in for annual. The mechanic found the nose truss dented. He fixed it himself. He called Mooney and asked them what the material was and what the heat treat process was after it was welded. He cut the bent tubes out, welded in the new tubes, sent it out for heat treat and then painted it. It looked as good as anything LASAR ever did. Just a logbook entry. He charged me extra for the heat treat. it was $40 if I recall.

Hard to find a mechanic like that these days.

[GeeBee]

5 hours ago, Hank said:

 

Thanks for repeating yourself . . .

Amem, brother! Little dents won't condemn our airframes!

Actually, recently visited a shop that is both a Cirrus and Mooney Service Center. The shop is qualified to do Cirrus repairs and I saw two under repair. One was a hangar rash to the stabs, the other was a collision between a fuel truck and wing. Neither repair condemned the airframe. The repair method was reviewed and approved by the factory and a repair kit was created to fix the damage sections. As I spoke to the shop foreman I asked how the man hours of the Cirrus repair compares to an aluminum airframe. He said in reality they are about the same if not a little less for the Cirrus because removal of the damaged section is actually easier. Repair of composite airframes is not new. The Marines in the 90's repaired successfully a lot of AV-8B Harriers wings with a lot of Iraqi created holes. They have not lost one to a bad repair.

[exM20K]

4 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Actually, recently visited a shop that is both a Cirrus and Mooney Service Center. The shop is qualified to do Cirrus repairs and I saw two under repair. One was a hangar rash to the stabs, the other was a collision between a fuel truck and wing. Neither repair condemned the airframe. The repair method was reviewed and approved by the factory and a repair kit was created to fix the damage sections. As I spoke to the shop foreman I asked how the man hours of the Cirrus repair compares to an aluminum airframe. He said in reality they are about the same if not a little less for the Cirrus because removal of the damaged section is actually easier. Repair of composite airframes is not new. The Marines in the 90's repaired successfully a lot of AV-8B Harriers wings with a lot of Iraqi created holes. They have not lost one to a bad repair.

This was my experience with Diamond planes as well.  We had a customer DA20 that somehow fell off a jack, driving it through the wing. Factory designed the repair, and it was done without too much strife.  A golf cart into the leading edge of a DA40 had a similar repair.  I believe the DA20 was fiberglass, and the DA40 was composite with carbon fiber, but it’s been a while.

 

If the factories do go dark sometime in the future, legacy aircraft ownership starts to resemble automobile ownership in Cuba. In some cases it does already.   Parts generally get scavenged or re-produced. Life goes on.

-dan

[dkkim73]

1 hour ago, exM20K said:

 

If the factories do go dark sometime in the future, legacy aircraft ownership starts to resemble automobile ownership in Cuba. In some cases it does already.   

 

Being new to ownership I've had that exact thought. Eg Cuban cars and fridges in the embargo days. 

You can buy new Smart phones but a lot of stuff that requires real expertise or depth shows short supply lines. 

Gives a person pause.