February 22, 1999 Mad About Mooneys

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by	Liz Swaine and Carl Marbach

About the Author ... Liz Swaine is a member of the AVweb news writing team. A private instrument-rated pilot, she owns and flies a 1966 Mooney M-20E affectionately known as "Mike" and a Russian Yak-52 affectionately known as "Yak-52." Liz's love for aviation began some years ago when, as a reporter at a TV station in Pensacola, Fla., she was assigned the Blue Angels beat. From there, she moved to Shreveport, La. and, as news anchor at the ABC affiliate, traveled the world covering the happenings at Barksdale Air Force Base. She has traveled to Russia to cover the fall of communism, to Saudi Arabia to report on the build up to Desert Storm, and to Israel to look at the Arab-Israeli peace process up close. Her latest position -- as executive assistant to the dynamic mayor of Shreveport -- is showing her what the political world looks like from the inside, and she reports the sausage analogy is right on ... you may enjoy what it tastes like, but you probably don't want to see it being made. The fast pace of her life extends to her play ... she is a former triathlete and currently into high intensity weight training. Liz recently married airshow pilot and airplane builder Steve Culp, who likes airplanes as much as she does and can fix 'em, too. Their dark, hairy daughter named "Mollie" looks suspiciously like a dog. About the Author ... Carl Marbach is a co-founder of AVweb and its Publisher. Carl is a 4,000-hour pilot, and commutes between homes in Boca Raton, Florida, and Aspen, Colorado, in his 1978 Aerostar 601P. Carl was the founder and CEO of Professional Press which published five computer magazines including DEC Professional. After Professional Press was acquired by a venture capital firm, Carl founded Internetwork Publishing Corporation and now devotes himself to the emerging field of electronic publishing via the Internet. A lifelong resident of Philadelphia until 1994, Carl and his wife Helen now live in Boca Raton, Florida.

Liz

I’m partial to Mooneys, I guess I need to admit that straight up. I own a 1966 Mooney M20E, one of the short-bodied speedster models. My little bird "Mike" cruises along at a calm-wind 140-plus knots and drinks a mere 10 gallons of avgas per hour. I like Mike.

I transitioned to my 200-hp, complex M20E "Super 21" from a Cessna 150. It took me about 40 hours to finally feel as if I was flying my slick little bird instead of the other way around. It took less time than that to master the Mooney "dip" which allows me, pretty as you please, to drop the nose ‘er so slightly and pop my manual gear Johnson Bar into the down and locked position.

My plane purchase was a Godsend from the Big Pilot in the sky. I, who had no idea what a good Mooney was worth, paid a wholly inadequate sum to a man who also had no idea what a good Mooney was worth. I won’t tell you what I paid because 1.) It's classified (I would have to kill you) and, 2.) One day I’m going to sell it for a wholly adequate sum. It was because I paid so little and got such a good plane in the bargain that I often scoffed at spending what seemed an astronomical amount for a NEW Mooney. But then, I got a chance to fly one.

Mooney's Encore

Every year, Mooniacs return to the Mooney Homeland in Kerrville, Texas, much like the swallows to Capistrano, pigeons to statues, lemmings to the sea ... well, you get my drift. For the last several Homecomings, I have been among the faithful, learning about the history of the breed, swapping Mooney lore, debating whether the tail was made like it was because it looked better or flew faster. Get a bunch of Mooney owners together and be prepared to defend why YOUR tail is on backwards, not ours.

I also hung out with other owners of the older (classic, we call ‘em) A, B, C, D, E and F models who probably won’t be buying a new plane but that didn’t stop us from getting smudgy fingerprints on the windows and dreaming what it must be like. It was with that as a backdrop that AVweb gave me an assignment I couldn’t refuse. They told me to go fly a new Mooney and report back on what it was like. What a way to make a girl’s day!

You’ve got to figure that on an assignment this good someone else is going to try to horn in on the action. The interloper in my particular case was AVweb Publisher Carl Marbach, a good and saintly man who also happens to be my boss. Did I mention how clever he is? Actually, Carl is a fine sort who is a former M20-E owner himself, and couldn’t pass up the chance to see what flying a Mooney would be like 20 years later.

Carl and I were ushered around the factory by Tom Bowen, Mooney's Vice President of Engineering. Although Tom can relate to engineering cartoon hero Dilbert, you won’t catch this guy carrying a bunch of pens in his pocket protector. They might put his eye out as he flips inverted in his pride and joy, the Mooney "Predator." Mooney created the M20T to compete for the Air Force's Primary Trainer contract in 1989-1990, but the Predator lost to the T-3 Slingsby. Ultimately, the same fate befell both of them. The Slingsby was grounded by the Air Force because of safety issues, and the Predator, after failing to win the contract, was pushed to the back of a hangar and left for dead. From 1991 until 1996, the little plane sat, moldering away, stripped of its engine, its canopy, its cowling. Then came Tom.

Tom Bowen and the Mooney Predator take a break.

Bowen looked at the flight test data and saw the maneuverability, the ability to spin, the energy the plane carried, and decided to rebuild it. Mooney’s CEO at the time was Bing Lantis, who told Tom he could do what he wanted as long as the project didn’t cost Mooney any money. That was all right by Tom, who assembled a small cadre of like-minded buddies and set about making the Predator fly. "To get it from the point of where it was, no engine, no cowl, no prop, cost the company exactly two thousand dollars. Eight hundred for the paint and twelve hundred for the decals. So what you see is two thousand dollars worth of airplane sitting there." Bowen wanted to rebuild the plane to fly it, but he also hoped to make it viable to the company.

The airplane isn’t certified and to get it to that point would likely take three years and cost about $5 million. To make that worth Mooney’s while, they need a block order for 100 or more. Bowen realizes that’s a tall order to fill, and he continues to ponder the possibilities of kitting out the plane. You can hear the wheels turning as he considers it… "it’s a comfortable two-place cross-country 175-knot airplane. You can load tons of baggage and full fuel, but you can also take it out on the weekend and turn it over, go get a $100 hamburger…."

The Predator is a one-of-a-kind and very few people have ever been able to fly it. AVweb’s Carl Marbach did and loved it.

Carl

AVweb's Liz Swaine and Mooney's Tom Bowen pause on the ramp at Kerrville before putting the Predator through its paces.

The Predator is a patchwork of Mooney models, some new design and a big Continental IO-550 craking out 300 hp mounted up front. It’s made up of a short body from the M20C and M20E, but shortened even more, a tail from the M22 (the pressurized Mooney Mustang from the 1960s) and — believe it or not — a standard 201 wing. The door has been replaced by a sliding canopy and the regular controls have been replaced by … what else? Sticks! All in all, it’s still a Mooney but definitely in wolf's clothing!

The Predator is bare bones with a spartan interior and no insulation, so she’s loud, like a race car. Starting and getting the big bore Continental to run requires a deft ability with the mixture, but Tom Bowen has the perfect touch. When taxiing, it’s evident that the short body makes the Predator nimble … but it’s what happens in the air that counts!

Rotate at about 70 KIAS, then climb at 100 KIAS and you’ll get good rate of climb and some over-the-nose visibility. With only a moderate amount of right rudder, I smoothly applied full power and in almost no time we were climbing at a steep angle, somewhere above 1,000 fpm at 100 KIAS. As tricky as the engine was on the ground, that’s how good it sounds and feels in the air; sometimes when an airplane has the "right" engine it just feels good. Couple the feel with the canopy’s visibility and hold onto your hat!

Level off and the speed builds. Two things become immediately obvious: First, this is a fast Mooney. Considering that all Mooneys are fast to begin with, that says something. Second, the stick feels like it’s stuck in cement. "We know the stick forces are too high," Tom told me, "and we know how to fix that." Even with stick forces like these, the Predator seems light and nimble while still maintaining the famous Mooney stability. But the design and the look say, "let’s rock and roll" so we did.

Liz

While Carl and Tom were up in the air cavorting about, I was on the ground going over the instrumentation of a new Mooney Ovation. The M20R is Mooney’s equivalent of a BMW-Seven series — it’s got it all and it knows it. Rick Pitner, Mooney's Director of Sales and Marketing, was showing me the different bells and whistles and I was trying to quickly make the leap from the panel of my 20-year old plane to one that seemed to have every single pilot gadget currently on the market. The only thing I couldn’t find was a cappuccino maker, but I probably just wasn’t looking hard enough.

Mooney's Ovation

I sunk back into the fine Corinthian leather and taxied to the end of the runway as somewhere in the distance I heard Rick talking about "V" speeds and the like. Heck with that stuff. I knew this pretty baby would fly when she wanted to and look sleek doing it. And that’s exactly what happened. After the engine purred at run-up, we took off down the runway with power to spare. At about 70 KIAS, I pulled ever so slightly back on the yoke and the Ovation headed for the sky. I’m not going to tell you what she climbed at and what we cruised at because you can get all that in a sales brochure and besides, I wasn’t paying any attention to it. What I WAS doing was having a blast in a plane that flew with a light touch, settled down as if it was on rails, and turned elegantly into each and every maneuver. I was in love.

After just a few minutes at typical Mooney speed, we had managed to fly near a top-secret military restricted area and when Rick started looking nervous, I turned the bird and headed for home. But oh, the best was yet to come. If you’ve ever flown a Mooney you know they hate to go down and slow down. Mooneys think "hot" is their middle name, but if you try to land one that way, you’ll discover what "float" means, too. As long as you come in over the numbers at about 70 mph, you’re OK. That’s why I was sweating when we flew into the pattern and were smoking right along at 150 KIAS on downwind. When Rick popped the speed brakes, though, I learned a new lesson in Speed Management 101. Throwing those little pieces of metal out allowed me to keep my manifold pressure and RPM up, yet tidy up the Ovation for landing. She settled onto the runway just like a typical Mooney — so low as to make you feel like your fanny is going to come into contact with the pavement and make you check the gear lights several times. She was a sweet ride and a fine bird, and I will continue to get smudgy fingerprints on one whenever I see it.

Carl

While Liz was smudging up the Ovation, I asked to fly Mooney's newest airplane: the M20S Eagle. The Eagle is meant to be the more affordable of the two non-turbocharged airplanes. The Eagle will have a de-rated Continental IO-550 producing about 240 hp (down from the Ovation’s 270), use a new two-bladed prop, carry about 20 fewer gallons of 100LL in the wings, use fabric instead of leather inside and lack a few other options, including the speedbrakes Liz loves so much. All of these features should allow Mooney to create a sizeable gap in pricing between the popular Ovation and the new lower-cost Eagle.

Mooney's Eagle

The Eagle has new-style power and engine gauges. Each is about 1.5 inches square and displays both analog dials and digital numbers. Leaning the Eagle in cruise means screwing out the vernier mixture control until the analog gauge peaks, then using the digital numbers you increase by 50 degrees. Easy. Exact.

At 7,500 ft/msl, setting up 2370 RPM and 24.1 inches of manifold pressure tell you that the Eagle is no slouch in the speed category. While it will be a bit slower than the Ovation, it will also burn less fuel. My first airplane was a Mooney and they have a feel that was like putting an old glove on again — it fit just right. Stalls, steep turns and a stable cruise make for a great flying experience.

Back in the pattern, the Eagle reminded me that in a Mooney, speed control is very important. I came over the numbers about 10 knots too fast and floated a long way down the runway (OK, Liz, OK) before the Eagle decided to land once, twice, well, alright, three times. At least my Mooney time prevented me from releasing any back pressure and risking the wheelbarrow effect that has been known to ruin props, nosegear and egos. Here it was just the ego that was bruised a bit.

The Eagle has a new two-bladed prop that seemed normal in climb, but extraordinarily smooth in cruise. McCauley and Mooney have been working on improving prop efficiency and they seem to have a winner here. More blades are not necessarily better — they just have more blades. I recently saw a Malibu with four blades and someone is offering them for Aerostars as well.

Maybe it is because the Mooney was my first airplane, but I still love them. They fly with a grace and style that is hard to beat. The push/pull tubes that connect the controls give the plane a solid feel that can’t be duplicated by other designs' cables that have to have some slop. The control harmony is perfect and honed to a fine edge since the Mooney brothers did their thing here in Kerrville almost 50 years ago.

Coming to Kerrville is more than a homecoming, it’s a pilgrimage a pay tribute to a design that has survived the ages and still flies the modern skies. When all was quiet between flights and I looked around at the old hangars and buildings, I was back in the 1950s, when the Mooney’s wood wing and clean lines were showing what you could do with 150 hp. Then the Ovation came rumbling in, longer and all metal now with a big engine up front and cool electronics inside and it makes you wish those who came before could see where we have gone.

Liz

Of course, I’m going to get the last word on this. I told you Carl was a good guy, didn’t I? Anyone who had so much fun flying Mooneys can’t be all bad. Whenever you happen to see one of the birds with its distinctive tail (it’s on right, you know), walk up, put a nose print on it and say it’s from me.