Buying a mooney

[sternone]

Hello,

I'm planning to buy an airplane, i tested cirrus, cessna, beechcraft and mooney.. i fell in love with the mooney. But before telling you the reasons why, i would like to hear why you would buy a mooney, or why you would NOT buy a mooney,

Thanks for sharing...

[Dunc]

Used to own a Mooney - Now resides at the bottom of the Med 10 miles of the coast of Italy. A good plane, fast, well built. But a little small and it liked hard runways and quite a lot of it. I then bought a 182 and to this day I think they are great aircraft, they are big, comfortable planes that are good STOL aircraft and proven. However I wanted something newer and now own a Cirrus. They are great value (second hand) and cheap to operate. But the best part is that its very young and you don't land up with items going tech etc. If I changed planes again I would not want to go back to anything say over 5 years old.

[bookworm]

My pre-Mooney-purchase checklist would look like:

a) Do I need a significant load carrying capablility (e.g. 3 adults + bags on extended trips on a regular basis)?

b) Do I regularly need to operate off less-than-perfect grass?

c) Do I regularly need to operate off strips less than about 700 m?

d) Do I regularly need to operate in significant crosswinds? (e.g. I live in Scotland at a single-runway airport!)

If the answer to all those questions is "no", go with your emotion and buy the Mooney. They're wonderful.

[scooter boy]

The Mooney is a pretty rare bird in the UK.

I've flown a TKS, G1000 and TCAS equiped Mooney ovation 2 GX for the last 2 years and put 290h on it during that time.

Great little plane - in a league of its own - a proper personal airliner.

Go to Kerrville and see how they make them.

Fly with Bill Grebe their chief test pilot and let them show you why their airframe squeezes more KTAS out of each USG than any of the competition.

I did and now I own one,

IMHO the best option for speed, safety, ecomony and range - provided you don't want to go into rough grass or very short fields.

Go for it.

SB :cool:

[bookworm]

SB

Out of interest...

* what's your practical useful load?

* have they managed to improve the xwind handling in the Ovation? -- used to fly a 201 which didn't enjoy crosswinds, particularly take-offs.

[scooter boy]

Bookworm,

As I am sure you know the standard ovation 2 max fuel is 89 usg and MTOW is 3368 lbs. I can't remember what the empty weight of N192JM is off the top of my head.

My aircraft has Monroy long range tanks (takes capacity up to 120usg with a 10lb weight penalty) and my rule of thumb is:

Useful load is 3 big adults and 100USG + bags or 2 big adults and 120USG + bags.

This is with the TKS reservoir full of deicing fluid.

Addition of the Hartzell 3 bladed scimitar prop has given the newer ovations much better T/O performance and I have departed with 30mph + wind on the beam (and a very concentrated look on my face).

I flew the 2 propeller bladed ovation (in Dallas in 2003) and takeoff performance was nothing like as good.

I prefer 900m of tarmac as a minimum - more so for landing than takeoff due to Mooney "float" - very low wing with big flap in ground effect etc...

I have never taken it into grass (I go by helicopter instead for pvt-pvt trips or anything less than 120nm).

I love this aircraft, next one will be a TBM or a VLJ (if I win the lottery).

SB

[bookworm]

Useful load is 3 big adults and 100USG + bags or 2 big adults and 120USG + bags.

That's much better than the 201. IIRC ours had a useful load of 860 lb and burned about 65 lb/hr.

[justinmg]

I was close to buying a share in a Mooney 18 months ago. If its an older vintage, make sure the fuel tanks have been checked or resealed recently. They are cheap and fast to fly, but spares can be a bit expensive.

[MikeJ]

Perhaps more than any other make, Mooney's seem to divide pilots into
love-hate groups. After learning in a C150 and then buying a C172, I soon fell in love, and bought, a Mooney. It was a long time ago, when they had O-360, 180hp engines. Perhaps I had rose tinted specs, but in EVERY respect, it was better than the 172 (load, range, runway length, SPEED).
For a start, it made the 172 seem like a transit van in handling compared with the quality sports car feel of the Mooney.
It coped comfortably with my base at Sibson, with its somewhat rough grass short runways, and the gear is rugged. I don't remember 'Mooney float', but it is very demanding in having accurate speed on approach, when it coped with X-wind and short runways at least as well as the 172. It could be side slipped down even steeper than a full flapped 172, in full control, and no vices. The big flat gear door panels make good air brakes when driven sideways! Wing down, x-winds were a doddle.
But it is unforgiving for any not ahead of it.
Because of its speed, it cost less that the 172 to operate per mile.

Later Mooney versions may justify some of the reservations given by previous posters, but when some years later I flew a 201 a few times, it did not seem much different, only faster. I have heard the Porche engined version was poor, and I have no experience at all of the larger engined ones such as the Ovation.

You may have grasped that I'm a Mooney addict - go for it!
(mind you, I fly something even slippier and faster these days)
MikeJ

[Codger]

Pro camp.
M20C, 201 and 231 very happy hours.
Only points to add to MikeJ's post.
Control feel consistant regardless of OAT , -40C to +35C, I flew them in that entire range. Control surfaces linked by torque tubes, no cables to go slack or tighten up with temperature changes.
Xwind capabilities are better than book, after some time getting comfortable.
On grass just keep the nose off as long as possible, not a great amount of clearance from those blade tips to the fixed position grinding compound beneath.