Barn find Mooney is it worth my time?

[toto]

7 hours ago, Sabremech said:

The advantage of taking on a barn find, is typically all the parts are there. Why not bring a dormant airplane back to life? 

And if you’re going to bring a dormant airplane back to life, it might as well be a Mooney

 

[201Steve]

I love the 2 sentence topics and a disappearing OP. 

[NickG]

4 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

I love the 2 sentence topics and a disappearing OP. 

lol, guy makes 1 post on MS, stirs a hornets nest and disappears into the ether.

[201Steve]

1 minute ago, NickG said:

lol, guy makes 1 post on MS, stirs a hornets nest and disappears into the ether

Maybe it’s Craig trying to get his clicks up. 

[toto]

14 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

I love the 2 sentence topics and a disappearing OP. 

Pretty strange tbh. We have this same discussion with a different OP about once a month, generally just regurgitating information. But usually the OP sticks around to thank us for our time

I always figure that getting new owners into Mooneys is in our collective best interest. But not if we scare them off after a single post

 

[Pinecone]

Well, people do have lives and it was over a weekend.  Maybe he had other things to do.

 

[cliffy]

Just did a tour of my airport outside tie down and half of the planes tied down are derelicts

that will never fly again. Flat tires, cloudy windows, fabric hanging, etc.

[AJ88V]

@Tim VanDenHoek, are you an A&P? If not, you probably can’t afford to do this unless you have a retired A&P friend to do this with you as a hobby.

Recommend you follow up by searching for the thread posted by @Sabremech.  Best pics I’ve ever seen of dismantling a Mooney for truck transport.

Finally, a young/new A&P who works on my field bought a Mooney that had been sitting outside for about 10 years.  He paid almost nothing for it. He got lucky and got her flying over a couple months of after-hours work. He did find some minor frame tube corrosion and a cracked stub spar. Also replaced all 4 cylinders with overhauled units.  So, yes, it can be worth it, but part is luck and no matter what, significant skills are needed.

[1980Mooney]

1 hour ago, AJ88V said:

@Tim VanDenHoek, are you an A&P? If not, you probably can’t afford to do this unless you have a retired A&P friend to do this with you as a hobby.

Recommend you follow up by searching for the thread posted by @Sabremech.  Best pics I’ve ever seen of dismantling a Mooney for truck transport.

Finally, a young/new A&P who works on my field bought a Mooney that had been sitting outside for about 10 years.  He paid almost nothing for it. He got lucky and got her flying over a couple months of after-hours work. He did find some minor frame tube corrosion and a cracked stub spar. Also replaced all 4 cylinders with overhauled units.  So, yes, it can be worth it, but part is luck and no matter what, significant skills are needed.

You are referring to this:

 

[EricJ]

7 hours ago, cliffy said:

Just did a tour of my airport outside tie down and half of the planes tied down are derelicts

that will never fly again. Flat tires, cloudy windows, fabric hanging, etc.

It's similar around here.   Deer Valley (DVT) has a large number of derelicts of many shapes and sizes of airplanes, including a dash model Mooney M20.   The wing had been restored not long before it got abandoned, but now it's been out in the sun for so many years I think it's beyond saving.    Strangely, a couple of the derelicts have disappeared over the years.   There was an unpainted M20E that was in pretty bad shape, with no motor, and it just disappeared a few years ago.   Similarly a very early Bonanza that literally had control surfaces hanging from a remaining hinge disappeared a year or so ago.   No idea what happened to those, but a there've been several new additions since then so the derelict population seems to be growing.

 

[AJ88V]

2 hours ago, EricJ said:

It's similar around here.   Deer Valley (DVT) has a large number of derelicts of many shapes and sizes of airplanes, including a dash model Mooney M20.   The wing had been restored not long before it got abandoned, but now it's been out in the sun for so many years I think it's beyond saving.    Strangely, a couple of the derelicts have disappeared over the years.   There was an unpainted M20E that was in pretty bad shape, with no motor, and it just disappeared a few years ago.   Similarly a very early Bonanza that literally had control surfaces hanging from a remaining hinge disappeared a year or so ago.   No idea what happened to those, but a there've been several new additions since then so the derelict population seems to be growing.

 

At least DVT is nice and dry about 99% of the year!

[1980Mooney]

1 hour ago, AJ88V said:

At least DVT is nice and dry about 99% of the year!

I bet those 115° F days do wonders for all the elastomers plastics and electronics. What do you reckon the internal temperatures get?  I see online that cars get up to 160° there.
 

Toasty!

[EricJ]

24 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

I bet those 115° F days do wonders for all the elastomers plastics and electronics. What do you reckon the internal temperatures get?  I see online that cars get up to 160° there.
 

Toasty!

I think most of the wing damage to the M20 on the ramp has just been from sitting in the sun.   Paint jobs and window materials don't hold up well, and if upholstery is exposed to the sun it doesn't last very long.  Tires get trashed pretty quickly, too.

 

[cliffy]

In reality if we did a study of airplanes at airports we'd probably find that the "active"

fleet may only be 50 or 60% of the total registered fleet. 

With that in mind and extrapolating to only the MOONEY FLEET it brings the total number of airframes 

down to a point that it may not be advantageous for anyone to supply new parts or STC articles

to such a diminished fleet size.

As I've said before- we are seeing the September  of our Mooneys  an the sun will set on them.

 Just think, in 20 years the fleet will be pushing 80 years old. How many airframes will remain then? 

[AJ88V]

18 hours ago, cliffy said:

In reality if we did a study of airplanes at airports we'd probably find that the "active"

fleet may only be 50 or 60% of the total registered fleet. 

With that in mind and extrapolating to only the MOONEY FLEET it brings the total number of airframes 

down to a point that it may not be advantageous for anyone to supply new parts or STC articles

to such a diminished fleet size.

As I've said before- we are seeing the September  of our Mooneys  an the sun will set on them.

 Just think, in 20 years the fleet will be pushing 80 years old. How many airframes will remain then? 

General aviation has been on a slide for a long time, and, indeed, a core mission of the AOPA has been to increase interest in GA.  Witness what's happened to automobiles.  Sure, the American passion for cars hasn't really diminished, but a manual transmission has become the new anti-theft device.  People can't read maps anymore because they depend on their smart phones to do their navigation.  My own son loves his Tesla with its auto-driving capabilities.  I suspect auto-flying aircraft taxis will become a thing if/when the technology becomes practical, so that might increase people using GA, but fewer and fewer people will want to accept the challenge (and risks) of flying little airplanes like Cessnas and Mooneys when it does.

But back to Cliffy's point (which I agree with), maybe we can look to something like the Navion community.  Only 2634 total were ever built; less than 200 were built between 1960 and 1976 when they stopped production.  And yet there's a pretty strong community keeping these birds in the air.  There are a couple beautiful ones on my field with maxed out panels and show paint and interiors, probably in the $200K value range.  Why?  Because they offer something unique and offer a high-end flying experience at an "affordable" price.  Our Mooneys will slowly tread the same path.  They are wayyy more affordable than just about any new light plane.  Even the last production Mooneys look pretty cost effective compared to a new Cirrus.  And the old ones look very attractive.  The humble M20C is a serious competitor to a Cirrus SR20 at a fraction of the cost on the used market. 

So I expect our fleet to dwindle as Cliffy suggests, but I also expect them to continued to be highly valued and increasingly updated as the years go on.  I'm already seeing the trend, as more and more 'humble' Mooneys get new paint, new engines and new avionics.  There are a couple of M20C/D/E/F/G models with killer panels in the $100K - $130K range on Trade-a-Plane.  Yes, right now those are 'expensive' (and probably slow to sell), but their owners decided to update them because they wanted the performance those upgrades offered. No, they aren't the bottom-of-the-barrel bargains, but they are and will be serious competitors compared to more 'modern' airplanes as time goes on.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

20 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

I bet those 115° F days do wonders for all the elastomers plastics and electronics. What do you reckon the internal temperatures get?  I see online that cars get up to 160° there.
 

Toasty!

Just to expand on what @EricJ said. The heat rarely does any damage. The UV from the sun is what kills everything. 

[AJ88V]

47 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Just to expand on what @EricJ said. The heat rarely does any damage. The UV from the sun is what kills everything. 

Not many SB208 issues in PHX metro!

[N201MKTurbo]

17 minutes ago, AJ88V said:

Not many SB208 issues in PHX metro!

I had to fix that on my old M20F. I’m not sure when it happened.

[A64Pilot]

It’s sad and I hate to see it, every Sun we fly to Crystal River for breakfast, and this time of year I usually end up parking out towards the end of the ramp besides this. It’s been there for far longer than the four or five years that I have been flying there. Lately I’ve begun seeing a lot of beat looking large twins, sad paint etc and botched looking N number changes etc. I don’t know what’s going on with that because it can’t be cheap to keep an old 421 for instance flying even if only occasionally.

 

[AJ88V]

52 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

It’s sad and I hate to see it, every Sun we fly to Crystal River for breakfast, and this time of year I usually end up parking out towards the end of the ramp besides this. It’s been there for far longer than the four or five years that I have been flying there. Lately I’ve begun seeing a lot of beat looking large twins, sad paint etc and botched looking N number changes etc. I don’t know what’s going on with that because it can’t be cheap to keep an old 421 for instance flying even if only occasionally.

 

What's especially sad is there wasn't a conventional tail conversion for the original V tails.  As I understand it, they never could get rid of the magnesium parts in the V tail and pass stability tests.  Lot of lovely airframes going to waste.

[Pinecone]

I understand that a) Beech is making tail skins, but at a cost.

b) someone was working on an AMOC/STL for carbon fiber tails.

[Mister_Bevilaqua]

I am not opposed to a fixer upper as I have restored many old classics and motorcycles so I enjoy the process. That said, the "beaters" I find locally are still at astronomical prices or they have damage that would require repairs beyond my capabilities. It's good to see that there are people willing to take on a fixer-upper as many old planes I see sitting at local airports are in very sad shape and I fear most will never be saved.