The Kerrville Daily Times in Texas is reporting that Mooney has furloughed all its employees and closed the local factory where Mooney International had been slowly turning out aircraft.
According to a report at AOPA.org, a voicemail announcement confirmed the bad news: “Please be advised that all Mooney employees have been furloughed at this time. Therefore, we are not able to respond to your inquiry.”
Does Mooney still have the tooling, etc., for the “C” and “F” models? 165-plus MPH on 8.5-9..6 GPH, my “C” with full fuel and me has 484 pounds left for passengers and/or baggage, have flown into and out of crop duster strips to international airports, VFR and IFR, low maintenance, engine seems bullet-proof…. The perfect A/C for most of us. Probably could be sold for the same price as a C-172.
Unfortunately, airplane manufacturers never learned what the car guys knew; the product has to wear out in a few years or there is no future market. The FAA inspection requirement to “repair to new” (annual) is great for safety but lousy for selling new planes. Most pilots are very happy flying a 30-50 year old plane upgraded with modern avionics (or just an iPad and Stratus). How can you justify the price they ask for “new”? CIrrus is just starting to experience this with the robust used SR-22 market; time will tell how that plays out.
David pointed out what is happening with GA. As far as myself (since my days of serious flying are gone), I’m happy with the 38 y/o 172 I have access to for the monthly $100.00 hamburger or just around the patch. But I agree times are changing,
This is a bit misleading statement. The car manufacturers have economy of scale. The airplane market has not. If you have 30 million people flying as pilots in this country instead of under 1 million, there would be a much greater demand for airplanes and the ability to build more at a lower cost. It has been easier for people to buy a new car every several years, because the cost is much more reasonable to do so.
From FASTA – the Federal Air & Surface Transportation System
We will soon enter the era of the NIFS – the National Intra/Interstate Flyways System
1700 NIWS – the Waterways
1800 NIRS – the Railways
1900 NIHS – the Highways
2000 NIFS – the Flyways
FASTA predicts three major elements of the NIFS:
1. NASA/SATS* ( change Small Aircraft to Small Airport Transportation Systems and you get the picture )
2. Global Airports ( the USA will need at least 10 Globals )
3. The JRC and other NIFS BWB NIFS aircraft
Q&A If this is Hiragana to you give FASTA a call 813-784-4669 C/T

I’ve been in the GA OEM sales business for many years and worked for Mooney shortly after the Chinese purchased the company. I quickly learned that Mooney Management was a complete joke!
Their President Jerry Chin had not a clue about GA and was only interested in assimilating the company and moving it to China were there was little or no GA infrastructure in the first place!
Instead of improving the build quality and reducing the costs and ultimately the sales price of the M20 product, he was more interested in spending millions of dollars to develop a ground up design training aircraft of which became more evident that the design would never fly to satisfaction in the first place!
While the wonderful employees tried their best to innovate, it was painfully obvious that one more door on the M20 product line would not a company save, which is sad because the M20 aircraft was and still is a wonderful flying aircraft built by a wonderful group of employees that by and large have been with the company for many years, and truly deserved much better then this!
Mooney found itself in the same position that Harley-Davidson will be in shortly. The product, while very good, is dated, expensive for what you get in utility value, and appeals to a shrinking demographic which is also aging out.
Mooney never moved down-market to lower priced aircraft (the M10 was at least an effort, even though half-hearted) and never moved upward to where the REAL money is, military contracts and airplanes that make money for the owners such as commuter aircraft. The only real chance Mooney had was to sell the Scorpion variant (two seat tandem military trainer) which they showed at Oshkosh probably 20 years ago and then decided not to build, which was interesting because it had something like 75% parts commonality with their existing 201 series. If they had sold a hundred or so of these things to various smaller air forces around the world, they would have been set forever, with a continuing cash flow and a continuous order stream and thus money to develop more and more viable products.
That airplane (the prototype Mooney Scorpion) is, I believe, in the EAA museum at Oshkosh. If I had a pile of money, I’d reverse engineer it and do the conversion on 80s vintage Mooneys, eventually going into production and selling them as military basic trainers (with hard points) and to civilian enthusiasts (no hard points, sorry 😉
Mooney will probably be back, someone, somewhere will be convinced that they can make money on this airplane, and they will try again (and again and again), but they will HAVE to be able to expand the revenue base and offer some more contemporary designs if they are to be successful in an extremely tough market.
Textron made the “Scorpion” Military Trainer (jet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textron_AirLand_Scorpion Mooney tried the “TX-1” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooney_TX-1
The project they probably should have stayed with is the highly popular TBM (“M” for Mooney) based on the original Mooney 301 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooney_301
Never enough $$ to carry through on these dreams…
As many here and elsewhere have bemoaned, the Part 23 Industry has been left behind for the most part, for the predators. Leadership is needed that has the intestinal fortitude to publicly define the problem, and then build consensus on a way forward.
In my opinion, if we as individuals, ignore what must be done, we are responsible, in part, for what happens to our Industry. Myself included.
All the threats to GA which people bemoan here are true, of course. And they shrink the pie for aircraft manufacturers. But I have to think the biggest factor in Mooney’s latest demise—in a full employment economy, no less—was that the market did not want that product at that price. It’s pretty simple.
Absolutely true… not THAT product at THAT price. Are we to learn sometime?
Ok
Not surprised but I sincerely hope that there was some sort of financial provision for the employees to get them past the holidays.
Mooney Aircraft, owned by the Meijing Group in China, dies on the vine. Yet another casualty of U.S. aircraft manufacturers selling their American aviation souls to China and other foreign investors who are interested in nothing but sucking any value out that they can. Wake up, GAMA!
As has been the case often in recent years, Chinese and Middle Eastern interests continue to buy up western aerospace manufacturers and keep them in business. Numerous American companies in all sorts of other industries are also falling prey, as we sell out heavily to the Chinese and others who only care to lay their hands on our technology. And the U.S. legal liability system is just as guilty in causing the problem.
Here is a partial (possibly dated by now) list of western aerospace firms that have been bought out by non-western interests:
Cirrus Aircraft — Government of the Peoples Republic of China
Continental Engines — Government of the Peoples Republic of China
Enstrom Helicopter Corporation — Chongqing Helicopter Investment Co, China
Epic Aircraft — Engineering LLC, Russia
Flightstar Sportplanes — rights, tooling and parts inventory purchased by Yuneec International, China
Glasair Aircraft — Jilin Hanxing Group, China
International Lease Finance Corp — 90 percent New China Trust Co Ltd, New China Life Insurance Co Ltd, P3 Investments Ltd and China Aviation Industrial Fund
Liberty Aerospace — 75 percent owned by the Kuwait Finance House, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House of Bahrain
LISA Airplanes — 75 percent owned by Heima Mining Company, China
Mooney Aviation Company — Meijing Group, China
Piper Aircraft — Government of Brunei
Superior Air Parts — Weifang Tianxiang Technology Group, China
Thielert Aircraft Engines — Government of the Peoples Republic of China
Again…WAKE UP GAMA!
I had some interface with GAMA during the FAR Pabst 23 rewrite. It became perfectly obvious to me that they were MORE interested in helping their member company’s sell NEW aircraft than helping to get relief for existing older airplane owners. What resulted was the ridiculous STC process item by item than a blanket rewrite for Class 1 airplanes. If ya don’t find a way to get people into lower cost entry airplanes … there won’t be clientele for higher end Machines !
Thankfully, the President has exposed what the Chinese are doing to us!
Your an idiot, trump has nothing to do with the above list nor can he.
I thought the Chinese bought Mooney??? Likely reopen in China if that is the case. Sad state of affairs.
The FAA rules governing certified airplane modifications are part of the problem. Some of the rules are just plain stupid. Like replacing a fixed pitch propeller with a electric constant speed propeller. Or an auto gas STC for later Cardinals. The earlier Cardinals with the O 320 engines are approved for auto gas but, the Cardinals with the O 360 engines are not approved for auto gas. Yet, the O 360 is approved for auto gas in other airplanes. Can anyone explain that to me? Stupid rules. I think it is just a good thing that the FAA is not in charge if the auto industry or we would be traveling in covered wagons on dirt roads.
FAA, smarten up!!
I have predicted this for years. Mooney lovers were always defending the product against the obvious reality that they were not selling planes. Old designs are old…a riveted metal aircraft piston single with retractable gear and no parachute is passe. This end to Mooney is no surprise.
Agree completely. I’m one that had many memorable and enjoyable flights in several different Mooney models and regret to see this happen. The speed/fuel economy combination couldn’t be and I don’t think still can be matched. BUT, you had to be willing to fit into a noticeably smaller cabin. With our expanding bodies over the past 50 years, maybe this was another factor.
What amazes me is not that Mooney closed, but that they closed and reopened so many times in the past. Will another crazed optimist come along to pour multi millions again down the drain to reopen the doors one day? Stay tuned.
Sad but predicted, and inevitable.
$ Million dollar Mooneys (or Cirrus, or C182s, or Seneca IVs) just aren’t going to revitalize GA. Especially now with the crushing of existing airspace access with ADS-B add-on requirements, and death of GA airports, FBOs, fuel cost, parts cost, STC policies, and loss of mechanics and avionics shops. Having to now pay $300,000 for even a Cub equivalent is absurd, especially considering that I once used to be able to fly a Cub solo for $5.00/hour wet, back when I was learning to fly. A combination of FAA foolish policy, over-regulation, destruction of the airspace system, and overly complex and expensive ATS infrastructure and overhead, combined with faulty short-sighted land use policies, the insurance industry, liability, and lawsuits have brought us here.
What a sad day for small airplane aviation.
I agree and if the charges for ATC ever begin like in Canada, turn out the lights the parties over.