CEO of Mooney

[A64Pilot]

17 minutes ago, 201Mooniac said:

I'm not even sure if lack of cash is the problem.  I was speaking with one MSC and they offered to collect up pre-paid orders for the parts run from their customers and other MSCs and Mooney turned them down.  This would not have been a lack of cash issue for the factory, they just didn't seem to want to get the parts run done, I have no explanation for why that might be the case.

Having restarted an aircraft manufacturer in 2003 I can tell you that it could be many things, from the parts supplier not being interested in a limited order to the tooling being worn, person who used to build it Retired, core the parts were made from being no longer available etc, etc.

We think of a factory drawing being the end all to component manufacturing, but very often it’s not. Lots of time what I came to call tribal knowledge is key, by that I’m saying a drawing may detail the complete part but doesn’t tell you the steps to get there, that’s where the guy that built it for years is required.

Would you believe that at the beginning of the Space Launch System it was pretty obvious that the best way to do that would be the Saturn V motors, but it was determined that they couldn’t be built today, not because drawings didn’t exist, they do in exquisite detail, but the people that went through all kinds of trial and error before they got a conforming part built are now gone

Often it’s being on credit hold from a supplier, who wants not only to be pre-paid but for you to pay off your debts before they will supply new parts, so when you add in the paying off the old debt to the pre-paying for the new parts it may not equal the sales of the new parts, so you can’t do it.

Contract work, especially for Boeing is a starve to death living, trust me. I’ve been down that road.

[KSMooniac]

53 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

We think of a factory drawing being the end all to component manufacturing, but very often it’s not. Lots of time what I came to call tribal knowledge is key, by that I’m saying a drawing may detail the complete part but doesn’t tell you the steps to get there, that’s where the guy that built it for years is required.

Would you believe that at the beginning of the Space Launch System it was pretty obvious that the best way to do that would be the Saturn V motors, but it was determined that they couldn’t be built today, not because drawings didn’t exist, they do in exquisite detail, but the people that went through all kinds of trial and error before they got a conforming part built are now gone

Textron learned that back in 1995-96 when they re-started the piston single line in their new factory in Independence.  It had been shuttered in 1986 in Wichita, but they saved the tooling and moved it to the new place in Independence.  They quickly discovered that they couldn't building anything that worked because all of the tribal knowledge about what it took to make those old tools and jigs work was long-gone.  They had to re-tool if my understanding is correct.  (I would bet that was suggested by some while the new factory was being built, and that it was vetoed by the MBA army.)

[Fly Boomer]

58 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Often it’s being on credit hold from a supplier, who wants not only to be pre-paid but for you to pay off your debts before they will supply new parts, so when you add in the paying off the old debt to the pre-paying for the new parts it may not equal the sales of the new parts, so you can’t do it.

I have suspected this.

[Pinecone]

5 hours ago, Texas Mooney said:

Only one continuing problem for Mooney - no spare cash to invest in inventory - and when they do pay a third party to set-up a manufacturing run, they don't have the cash to order in a large economic order quantity that would drive price down.  This is the same story with the "No Back Spring" in the landing gear actuators, the air intake boot on the F, the dial faces in the wing fuel gauges, etc., etc.....  They live "hand to mouth".

But for many of these parts, we, the owners of aircraft, will pay the higher price.  No, they could not operate paying those prices for parts to put in a newly built airplane.  But parts are different.

They have been several cases of groups of owners offering to fund (pre-pay) to have a run of X part made and Mooney would not do it.  That seems like a pretty nice cash flow.  Get the money to pay for the order, plus your mark up/profit, all up front.

[cliffy]

If the real desire is there - there are ways to make any part on the airplane

One route is to use a DER to design and approve the part for OPP by reverse engineering (or even original engineering). That covers the "approved " paperwork  trail requirement for OPP (just one way of doing it)

but it can be done IF THE REAL DESIRE IS THERE!

40:1 gears COULD  be done if one wanted to do it enough ($$$$$).  

No Back up Springs COULD be done if one wanted to do it enough

In the end its only money that is stopping any part from being made. 

[bcg]

19 minutes ago, cliffy said:

If the real desire is there - there are ways to make any part on the airplane

One route is to use a DER to design and approve the part for OPP by reverse engineering (or even original engineering). That covers the "approved " paperwork  trail requirement for OPP (just one way of doing it)

but it can be done IF THE REAL DESIRE IS THERE!

40:1 gears COULD  be done if one wanted to do it enough ($$$$$).  

No Back up Springs COULD be done if one wanted to do it enough

In the end its only money that is stopping any part from being made. 

I could be wrong but, I don't think you need a DER for an OPP.  I think OPP is fine as long as it is functionally equivalent to the part it's replacing. 

If I needed some unobtanium part to get my plane back in the air, I would absolutely OPP it.  No individual parts in these airplanes is all that complicated to manufacture.  It might be expensive as a one off but, it's better than a plane that can't fly.

So yeah, I agree, the only thing stopping any part from being made is money.  The 5th and most important force of flight.

[cliffy]

15 minutes ago, bcg said:

I could be wrong but, I don't think you need a DER for an OPP.  I think OPP is fine as long as it is functionally equivalent to the part it's replacing. 

If I needed some unobtanium part to get my plane back in the air, I would absolutely OPP it.  No individual parts in these airplanes is all that complicated to manufacture.  It might be expensive as a one off but, it's better than a plane that can't fly.

So yeah, I agree, the only thing stopping any part from being made is money.  The 5th and most important force of flight.

A DER is NOT REQUIRED for OPP but a foundation of the OPP (here we go again) is to use "approved" design information so the part is the equivalent of the original. Getting past this requirement is the crux of the problem. 

You can reverse engineer or even new engineer but some sort of "approved design info" is needed. You just can't say (40:1 gears) that they look like brass and make them out of any ol' brass. What type of brass were they made from? How can you prove that?   Just as an example. The part has to be the equivalent of the original one.  

Use a DER and all things become easier in the areas that really need good work - like landing gears that actually go up and down. 

Herein is where the "Approval" of a DER comes in to make things easier. 

[Pinecone]

There are ways to determine exactly what material they are made of.

A couple of years ago someone here on MS was trying to get some no back springs made.  He needed a broken spring to do materials analysis.  AFAIK, no one came up with out.

And it seems that is happening with an effort to produce or provide info to make gears.

[201Mooniac]

Just now, Pinecone said:

There are ways to determine exactly what material they are made of.

A couple of years ago someone here on MS was trying to get some no back springs made.  He needed a broken spring to do materials analysis.  AFAIK, no one came up with out.

And it seems that is happening with an effort to produce or provide info to make gears.

I had helped find a spring from Top Gun but nothing came of it.

[Pinecone]

OK, thanks for the update.

[Igor_U]

4 hours ago, Matthew P said:

Well, maybe China has all of the drawings for the parts we need and we can start buying them from China to keep our fleet flying...anyone know how to say "Do you have any 40:1 gear sets laying around/" in Chinese

 

您周圍有 40:1 齒輪組嗎

[toto]

7 hours ago, Texas Mooney said:

Peerless?  Every airplane is a balancing act of compromises.  Shine/excel in one area but not in all - maybe ever weak in some.  It's like beauty or art - in the eye of the beholder.

You could argue then that … every aircraft is peerless

Mooney has always been a hell for leather design, and when they rolled out a piston aircraft doing 242kts, they had at least the Columbia 400 / Cessna TTx on their heels. But by the time the Acclaim Ultra came out, the TTx was dead and there was nothing close in the single-engine certified piston space. A composite cabin freed up enough weight for two doors with no speed penalty, and you had a gorgeous panel with a nice leather interior. If you wanted to go 242 knots in a SEP, there was nothing else out there, and full-fuel payload was not the mission. 

[Shadrach]

17 hours ago, M20F said:

It ain’t a 737 they need a whole new plane ala Cirrus-like which ain’t gonna happen.  I seriously have made Orville Reddenbacher rich over the years because of these threads.

Cirrus is selling $1B in new planes a year, think the market has spoken and it ain’t Beech, Cessna, Piper, and certainly not Mooney.   

They don’t really need a “whole new airplane”. The external dimensions and airfoils are time tested and could be rendered in modern materials with design improvements. Would it be a huge challenge? Absolutely. However, I remember how the conventional wisdom viewed the SR20 in the late 90s. No one that I knew was bullish on Cirrus’s survival much less their growth. You’d have been laughed out of the pilot’s lounge if you had suggested that they’d be a billion dollar company inside of 20 years.

 

 

[A64Pilot]

19 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

They don’t really need a “whole new airplane”. The external dimensions and airfoils are time tested and could be rendered in modern materials with design improvements. Would it be a huge challenge? Absolutely. However, I remember how the conventional wisdom viewed the SR20 in the late 90s. No one that I knew was bullish on Cirrus’s survival much less their growth. You’d have been laughed out of the pilot’s lounge if you had suggested that they’d be a billion dollar company inside of 20 years.

 

 

A change in material really would render it a whole new airplane, the design isn’t where the money is, as you say airfoils etc are very well know you can literally shop them for just what you want, the money is in proving the design to the FAA and of course tooling etc, and to a great extent process specs on exactly how everything is to be manufactured have to be approved as well as your QC manual on exactly how everything is to be inspected etc.

Building an airplane is actually not hard, hundreds are built by first time builders in garages every year, what’s real tough is gaining approval for serial manufacture of a Certified airplane.

But honestly if you going to change materials you would be a fool not to take advantage of what the new materials coukd give you, and of course that’s a design change, slick as a Mooney is there is still significant drag in I think the fuselage, especially back near the tail, but wasp waiting a metal airplane is exceedingly hard, but not so much for plastic. Even the wings aren’t likely in truth really Laminar, it’s just too hard to get there with riveted metal, but plastic in a mold can hold very tight tolerences.

Don't get me wrong as a mechanic I don’t like plastic airplanes, but you have to concede it’s easier to build a lower drag airplane out of the stuff.

[Schllc]

13 hours ago, toto said:

You could argue then that … every aircraft is peerless

Mooney has always been a hell for leather design, and when they rolled out a piston aircraft doing 242kts, they had at least the Columbia 400 / Cessna TTx on their heels. But by the time the Acclaim Ultra came out, the TTx was dead and there was nothing close in the single-engine certified piston space. A composite cabin freed up enough weight for two doors with no speed penalty, and you had a gorgeous panel with a nice leather interior. If you wanted to go 242 knots in a SEP, there was nothing else out there, and full-fuel payload was not the mission. 

if you wanted to go 242knts in a piston you had to do it in an experimental or in your dreams, because no production acclaim was ever going to go that fast.

[N201MKTurbo]

20 minutes ago, Schllc said:

if you wanted to go 242knts in a piston you had to do it in an experimental or in your dreams, because no production acclaim was ever going to go that fast.

A single engine anyway….

[toto]

27 minutes ago, Schllc said:

if you wanted to go 242knts in a piston you had to do it in an experimental or in your dreams, because no production acclaim was ever going to go that fast.

Of course, but that's what's written on the tin - and every aircraft manufacturer has marketing speeds that aren't quite attainable in the real world.  I don't think Mooney's 242kts is any different from Cessna's 235kts in that regard.  I fly an airplane that goes 201mph even if I don't ever quite see that

 

[Shadrach]

13 hours ago, toto said:

You could argue then that … every aircraft is peerless

Mooney has always been a hell for leather design, and when they rolled out a piston aircraft doing 242kts, they had at least the Columbia 400 / Cessna TTx on their heels. But by the time the Acclaim Ultra came out, the TTx was dead and there was nothing close in the single-engine certified piston space. A composite cabin freed up enough weight for two doors with no speed penalty, and you had a gorgeous panel with a nice leather interior. If you wanted to go 242 knots in a SEP, there was nothing else out there, and full-fuel payload was not the mission. 

The focus on “Full fuel payload” is more a measure of versatility than capacity. I wish the aviation media would juxtapose “full fuel payload” with full cabin range. 

For instance, the “Full Fuel payload” of my bird is just 675lbs. The airplane will take that payload 800-1000nm nonstop depending on cruise altitude and power setting.
Still air, “Full Cabin range” (4x170lbs and 120lbs baggage) with 45 min reserve is 500nm. 

Each metric is at the extreme end of the spectrum but together, they serve as a good basis for interpolating capabilities.

I looked at a few M20TN Ultras on controller. The first two listed ULs of 870lbs and 857lbs. Using the average of 864 you get 244 lbs of full fuel payload with standard 100gal tanks or 144lbs of full fuel payload with the optional 120gal tanks.

Fill the cabin with 4 x 170lbs and 120lbs of baggage does not yield enough fuel capacity to legally take off.

Two 170lb people and 60lbs baggage gives you a 3hr airplane with reserves.

Now, I realize that most buyers with the resources to buy an Ultra are unlikely to have a 170lbs spouse.  A lightweight couple with minimal bags could do ~4hrs with 45min reserves, or throttle back cirrus speeds and do better.

Mooney put a tremendous amount of effort into developing its primary airframe into the fastest, long rang, single person, four place airplane that money can buy. 
Who is the buyer?  A person who mostly travels opinion I don’t alone and wants turboprop speeds for comparatively low fuel burn and maintenance?

The point is, regardless of construction methods and materials or parachutes, Mooney has refined its airframe into a product that answers a question that only a handful of people are asking. It is faster and goes further than an SR22T but the delta in performance is not sufficient to overcome the lack of versatility.

 

[Shadrach]

2 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

A change in material really would render it a whole new airplane, the design isn’t where the money is, as you say airfoils etc are very well know you can literally shop them for just what you want, the money is in proving the design to the FAA and of course tooling etc, and to a great extent process specs on exactly how everything is to be manufactured have to be approved as well as your QC manual on exactly how everything is to be inspected etc.

Building an airplane is actually not hard, hundreds are built by first time builders in garages every year, what’s real tough is gaining approval for serial manufacture of a Certified airplane.

But honestly if you going to change materials you would be a fool not to take advantage of what the new materials coukd give you, and of course that’s a design change, slick as a Mooney is there is still significant drag in I think the fuselage, especially back near the tail, but wasp waiting a metal airplane is exceedingly hard, but not so much for plastic. Even the wings aren’t likely in truth really Laminar, it’s just too hard to get there with riveted metal, but plastic in a mold can hold very tight tolerences.

Don't get me wrong as a mechanic I don’t like plastic airplanes, but you have to concede it’s easier to build a lower drag airplane out of the stuff.

Agree. The constraints in manufacturing an aluminum wing make laminar flow impossible to achieve without wind tunnel testing each wing and using filler to custom optimize each airfoil.

I’ve read that the early wooden airfoil birds would flirt with 140kts with just  a 150hp O-320 pulling them along. Those wings were hand shaped and likely had much better boundary layer adhesion. A refined carbon wing would likely be even better and be cheaper to produce.

[A64Pilot]

In my opinion no well designed aircraft can fill all of the seats and fill the tanks.

If it could then you are giving up a whole lot of range for the majority of the time when there are empty seats.

Another opinion, just about all four seat aircraft are good traveling machines for a couple, want to travel with four adults? Buy a six seater.

[Andy95W]

57 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

 

I’ve read that the early wooden airfoil birds would flirt with 140kts with just  a 150hp O-320 pulling them along.

@Sabremech needs to get his plane in the air to settle this…

 

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, Shadrach said:

Agree. The constraints in manufacturing an aluminum wing make laminar flow impossible to achieve without wind tunnel testing each wing and using filler to custom optimize each airfoil.

Back in 2000 Mooney did a run of twelve Ovation2 Platinum Edition airplanes. In addition to having a Platinum Continental Engine (pistons & connecting rods balanced within 2 grams, precision balanced crankshaft, fine wire plugs, intake ports volume and flow matched), they also took extra care to fill in and smooth the wing and used a special primer before painting to optimize the airflow. They even used special paint if I remember correctly. If Mooney ever did start up again, attention to detail like this would attract certain buyers.

The Platinum engine continued to be an option on Ovations, and later Acclaims. I have a Platinum Continental in my airplane and without a doubt it is the smoothest piston engine I've ever flown behind.

[exM20K]

15 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

I have a Platinum Continental in my airplane and without a doubt it is the smoothest piston engine I've ever flown behind.

Ditto. 
-dan

[Shadrach]

30 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

Back in 2000 Mooney did a run of twelve Ovation2 Platinum Edition airplanes. In addition to having a Platinum Continental Engine (pistons & connecting rods balanced within 2 grams, precision balanced crankshaft, fine wire plugs, intake ports volume and flow matched), they also took extra care to fill in and smooth the wing and used a special primer before painting to optimize the airflow. They even used special paint if I remember correctly. If Mooney ever did start up again, attention to detail like this would attract certain buyers.

The Platinum engine continued to be an option on Ovations, and later Acclaims. I have a Platinum Continental in my airplane and without a doubt it is the smoothest piston engine I've ever flown behind.

I am sure there was a delta in performance but the additional cost was likely significant.

I believe Mooney Mart/Coy Jacob’s offered airfoil optimization. I recall reading an article he penned about how the mid chord area where the top skin is riveted to the spar has a lot of potential for improvement.

[Shadrach]

39 minutes ago, Andy95W said:

@Sabremech needs to get his plane in the air to settle this…

 

That was my first thought when I found out that David was bringing that A model home. I look forward to seeing just how fast the airframe will go on 150hp with a wing that’s aerodynamically optimized.