CEO of Mooney

[Patrick Horan]

Kinda of a dumb question. Is Johhmy Pollack still the CEO of Mooney? We haven't heard from him in a while and i can't seem to find his account on here. He used to answer questions and what not. After he sold his Acclaim he's been radio silent

[toto]

Apparently the Texas Secretary of State charges a buck for a business records search, but you could probably find out here:

https://direct.sos.state.tx.us/acct/acct-login.asp

The Mooney website still lists Jonny as the CEO:

https://www.mooney.com/about/#team
 

 

[Pinecone]

Everyone jumped on me when I suggested he do a monthly or quarterly state of Mooney post/email.

Now, we are mushrooms

[toto]

7 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

Everyone jumped on me when I suggested he do a monthly or quarterly state of Mooney post/email.

Now, we are mushrooms

I think it would be fantastic if he did a monthly or quarterly post. He definitely energized MS when he started posting here and engaging with the community of Mooney owners. 

[Hank]

24 minutes ago, toto said:

I think it would be fantastic if he did a monthly or quarterly post. He definitely energized MS when he started posting here and engaging with the community of Mooney owners. 

Then they put a forum on the Mooney web site, and it dwindled rapidly from little to nothing. 

[GeeBee]

When the quick profit from a sale could not be had, everything and everybody walked away. It is a zombie company that has one thing a real value. An FAA production certificate. As long as there is free rent and enough revenue to make a payroll and keep the lights on, it will zombie walk on.

 

[Greg Ellis]

9 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

When the quick profit from a sale could not be had, everything and everybody walked away. It is a zombie company that has one thing a real value. An FAA production certificate. As long as there is free rent and enough revenue to make a payroll and keep the lights on, it will zombie walk on.

 

Not knowing about this side of the aviation world, what happens to the FAA production certificate and the type certificates on our airplanes, etc...if Mooney completely folds and goes beyond just a zombie company and becomes no company at all?  Forgive my ignorance in this but I am curious.

[Shadrach]

To be honest, 

Johnny’s time could be better spent elsewhere. This forum was never going to drive new aircraft sales. However, It would have been a good to have whomever is in charge of service maintain a presence. I don’t know how many gear locks were OPP’d, but the company could have captured all of that business if they’d been paying attention. Not a lot of revenue in the whole scheme of things but still 10s of 1000s of dollars and a way to signal that that the factory should be an owner’s first consideration for parts.

The airframe is a fine design but who are the latest models geared towards?  A single pilot or couple that is willing to sit in a piston recip breathing O2 for hours? Perhaps someone that simply must have the fastest piston single available. The pool of buyers that meet that criteria is pretty small and is made up of experienced pilots who know their realistic mission.

I realize that the vast majority of piston single operations are conducted with just one or two souls on board, but Cirrus has proven that you don’t sell airplanes to aspiring pilots by selling that reality. You sell machines to aspiring pilots by selling a “Family Time Machine” with state of the art safety enhancements.  Long ago, Mooney decided to hang their sales hat on being the fastest guy on the block. They achieved that and still hold that crown. Cirrus built a plane to attract new buyers.

 

[Pinecone]

I don't expect Johnny to be a presence here.  But a monthly or quarterly state of Mooney post here and other venues (post on Mooney site), would be nice.

It would be great if someone from Mooney had a presence online.

[GeeBee]

3 hours ago, Greg Ellis said:

Not knowing about this side of the aviation world, what happens to the FAA production certificate and the type certificates on our airplanes, etc...if Mooney completely folds and goes beyond just a zombie company and becomes no company at all?  Forgive my ignorance in this but I am curious.

The TC does not go anywhere. It has been issued and remains in full effect. The PC may go away and that effectively puts Mooney out of the parts business but has no effect upon owners other than a lack of spares. 

Realistically when I attended my first MooneyMax and heard Jonny speak, I asked one simple question. "Are you not afraid of people eating your lunch with PMA'd parts?" His response was Mooney owned the blueprints. I knew then we were in deep doo-doo. Simply put he does not understand the business.

[EricJ]

6 hours ago, Shadrach said:

To be honest, 

Johnny’s time could be better spent elsewhere.

I suspect it is being spent elsewhere, as in, not much on Mooney.    As others have said, once it became clear that there weren't good prospects for ROI, even in the long run, his energy probably turned elsewhere toward greener pastures.  

I remember when the enthusiasm was high and he was making promises for regular communication with the community, developements of things like replacement cowls, etc.    I was skeptical at the time and it played out pretty much as expected (because that's nearly always what happens), although it was a bit quicker and more pronounced than I anticipated.

It's nice that it still exists and poops out little batches of parts once in a while, but I think anything past that going forward is just going to be a bonus for the user community.   I'm not expecting much.

[201Steve]

Wasn’t Jonny part of a VC firm? 
 

isn’t it true VC never creates anything? Only puts lipstick on something for a flip or recurring revenue by doing nothing. 
 

i guess it had a better shot than the Chinamen that disappeared long ago. 
 

Elon is our only hope. 

[GeeBee]

The problem is they didn't even put lipstick on it, or even high heels. I don't know who the investors are now or their thinking, but the idea you could claim Mooney for a little bit of money and flip it without re-establishing some value seems like a bad business plan. At least develop some programs that create some value within the company such as refurbished J models or Nxi upgrade or carbon cowl. Something, anything, that proves the company has customers and a market. Instead they just thought they could flip it without enhancing the value.

[201Steve]

They re-worked the website!!!!! Dollar General lip stick!!!

[EricJ]

32 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

They re-worked the website!!!!! Dollar General lip stick!!!

I thought the most impressive part was that a pretty significant chunk of it was dedicated to selling Mooney-branded t-shirts and coffee mugs.   That was not confidence-inspiring for me.

[Patrick Horan]

9 minutes ago, EricJ said:

I thought the most impressive part was that a pretty significant chunk of it was dedicated to selling Mooney-branded t-shirts and coffee mugs.   That was not confidence-inspiring for me.

I wish I can still buy mooney merchandise from them 

[bcg]

20 hours ago, Shadrach said:

To be honest, 

Johnny’s time could be better spent elsewhere. This forum was never going to drive new aircraft sales. However, It would have been a good to have whomever is in charge of service maintain a presence. I don’t know how many gear locks were OPP’d, but the company could have captured all of that business if they’d been paying attention. Not a lot of revenue in the whole scheme of things but still 10s of 1000s of dollars and a way to signal that that the factory should be an owners first consideration for parts.

The airframe is a fine design but who are the latest models geared towards?  A single pilot or couple that is willing to sit in a piston recip breathing O2 for hours? Perhaps someone that simply must have the fastest piston single available. The pool of buyers that meet that criteria is pretty small and is made up of experienced pilots who know their realistic mission.

I realize that the vast majority of piston single operations are conducted with just one or two souls on board, but Cirrus has proven that you don’t sell airplanes to aspiring pilots by selling that reality. You sell machines to aspiring pilots by selling a machine that is a “Family Time Machine” with state of the art safety.  Long ago, Mooney decided to hang their sales hat on being the fastest guy on the block. They achieved that and still hold that crown. Cirrus built a plane to attract new buyers.

 

Cirrus understands marketing.  They know that selling to the pilot's is as important as, and sometimes more than, selling to the pilot and so they don't market the airplane, they market the comfort features and the safety.  My wife would be interested in a Cirrus just because of the 2nd door, something that seems kind of trivial to me as a pilot is a big deal to her as a passenger.

In total fairness though, I don't know how a new Mooney could be price competitive in the current labor market.  So much of it is hand made and the labor pool for that work has gotten both smaller and more expensive.  They'd have to either figure out a way to automate a lot of the production ($$$$) or come up with a new design that could be built with composites and modern automation ($$$$$$$).  There's not money for any of those options and with GA as a whole dwindling, it wouldn't be a good investment even if there was.  Sticking with the TBM project would probably have kept them in the black and producing airplanes but, that wasn't to be.

[bcg]

10 hours ago, 201Steve said:

Wasn’t Jonny part of a VC firm? 
 

isn’t it true VC never creates anything? Only puts lipstick on something for a flip or recurring revenue by doing nothing. 
 

i guess it had a better shot than the Chinamen that disappeared long ago. 
 

Elon is our only hope. 

Ironically, the Chinese tried to keep production going and even introduced M10T.  They built over 100 of them and invested more money in the company than probably any of the other owners. 

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, bcg said:

Ironically, the Chinese tried to keep production going and even introduced M10T.  They built over 100 of them and invested more money in the company than probably any of the other owners. 

The Chinese did invest a lot in the factory (lighting, new machinery, new roof, etc.), but they only built one proof of concept M10T. It never went into production and was cancelled in 2017.

https://www.avweb.com/air-shows-events/mooney-shows-certified-acclaim-recalibrates-m10-project/

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/general-aviation/2017-04-04/mooney-ceo-m10-proof-concept-program-over

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooney_M10T

[bcg]

The Chinese did invest a lot in the factory (lighting, new machinery, new roof, etc.), but they only built one proof of concept M10T. It never went into production and was cancelled in 2017.
https://www.avweb.com/air-shows-events/mooney-shows-certified-acclaim-recalibrates-m10-project/
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/general-aviation/2017-04-04/mooney-ceo-m10-proof-concept-program-over
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooney_M10T

True, but 1 proof of concept.is more than most owners have done. I'd rather the company be owned by Americans, like everyone else but...if given a choice between being owned by Chinese that are building planes or Americans that aren't, I'd probably choose the Chinese.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

[LANCECASPER]

13 minutes ago, bcg said:

True, but 1 proof of concept.is more than most owners have done. I'd rather the company be owned by Americans, like everyone else but...if given a choice between being owned by Chinese that are building planes or Americans that aren't, I'd probably choose the Chinese.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk
 

The only point I was making is that they didn't build 100 M10Ts, just one. 

The Chinese still own a minority interest in the company. 

[bcg]

The only point I was making is that they didn't build 100 M10Ts, just one. 
The Chinese still own a minority interest in the company. 

Fair, I read somewhere on the Internet that they did so it could be completely inaccurate. I stand corrected if my information was incorrect.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

[exM20K]

13 hours ago, 201Steve said:

Wasn’t Jonny part of a VC firm? 

No. He is an attorney.  I’m grateful to him and CFO David for trying to resuscitate the company. It was not an attempt to flip the company, but rather it was an attempt to raise fresh capital. They failed to do so, and this doesn’t make them bad guys, and I imagine the whole endeavor was personally costly to them both.

We all have a finite but unknown and dwindling number of years of work left in us and must make choices to best use the time remaining.  …which is precisely why I ended my association with a manufacturer and product line that I am still fond of: I must focus on businesses that make money reliably while I’m willing and able.  Hobbyists have a low success rate in business. 
-dan

[A64Pilot]

On 5/1/2024 at 9:09 AM, Greg Ellis said:

Not knowing about this side of the aviation world, what happens to the FAA production certificate and the type certificates on our airplanes, etc...if Mooney completely folds and goes beyond just a zombie company and becomes no company at all?  Forgive my ignorance in this but I am curious.

If it’s for sale the PC can be bought and the buyer can go into manufacturing right away. If it’s bought correctly the new company has no liability for anything produced not by them. All of the Process specs remain approved as does the QC manual etc, that’s a Huge Major deal, it would likely take years and millions of dollars to start from scratch and no way would your process specs be as lenient as ones from “back in the day”.

The real value in my option of Mooney is the PC, not to build Mooney’s unfortunately but to build, well parts and maybe other aircraft. But with LSA seeming to be the way forward as they allow the FAA to wash their hands maybe having a PC ain’t what it used to be?

Oddly if you buy a Repair Station you do not buy the “FAA rights” if you will, the new owner has to start over as a new Repair Station and get a new manual etc approved.

[Fritz1]

As an engineering student I was able learn fiberglass aircraft production and repair at the Grob company, about 15 miles from my home in Bavaria, Grob has produced 5000-6000 composite aircraft only recently surpassed by Cirrus. The owner was a passionate pilot who happened to own a successful machine tool company 20 times the size of the aircraft biz which subsidized the aircraft biz. Today the only product line that is left are small military turboprop trainers. The general aviation aircraft business was shut down probably 10 years ago, the US subsidiary was shut down and the worldwide support was turned over to composite repair shop in Bavaria. The Mooney fleet is similar in size but has higher complexity. To my best understanding the factory parts biz is somewhere between $5-10M per year. Eventually the structure will refocus and adapt because at the bottom of it all is a viable support business for the existing fleet.