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MY OH MY, you can invest a ton of money in the newer airplanes Lord knows, but what of us regular income types? We can't afford a new Acclaim with all that cool glass on the panel, hell, I probably can't even afford sales tax on one of those! So where does that leave us wanna-be owners? Anyone in the aviation biz would tell you that SPEED COSTS! But does it? Complicated airplanes can also cost a King's ransom in maintenance bills..................So where does that leave us?..................

It leaves us a captive audience for the fabulous, cheap to own and operate Mooney M20E! You betcha and a half! But let's get into the E model some shall we?

I'm in a fun business that I get to fly all different kinds of planes and certainly all those Mooney models, but one that I look forward to flying time after time was my first personal Mooney; an E model. So how can a forty some year old airplane still excite me? The answer is enthusiasm. That's right enthusiasm. The E model is so enthusiastic when it comes time to fly. When lightly loaded she leaps off of the runway and puts valuable ground distance from the plane in a hurry.

I remember one Thanksgiving Holiday back in '89 or '90 when I went to West Virginia to get my E model painted. It was time to pick her up and Thanksgiving was two days away. I spent the night at a local motel as we arrived late and the shop had closed for that day. The problem was that the airport was zero-zero with fog the next morning with no letup in the forecast. As usual, I try to err on the side of caution where flying is involved, so I stayed another night hoping that tomorrow would have a break or two in the dismal forecast, but it seemed worse the next day. My ride there had flown back and I had no way home, not even a local airport with regional service. Now what! I needed to get home as we were having guests in for Thanksgiving and I'd be in the dog house for sure. The tops of the fog was reported to be around 1200 feet and severe clear above. Tempting wasn't it? Now I don't recommend that yous guys fly in this type of soup, but I knew my trusty E model well and now that she was sporting new "lipstick", she would fly better than ever! So I decided that I would barrel down the runway using my compass DG to hold ground heading and I let her accelerate up to 80 mph and then I reared back on that yoke with mad intentions. With half tanks and just me aboard, she climbed like a homesick pigeon and a number of seconds later I busted out on top to a glorious sky of blue. I had noticed that I was climbing out initially at around 2,000 fpm and she settled near 1500 fpm until I broke out on top. WOW! I was impressed and I remain impressed with this affordable flying machine.

Nearly everything the E model does is near perfect. She's a cheap date in that she sips fuel, about 9 gph at 155-160 Kt cruise, and a four plus hour endurance which can equate to up to 700-800 statute miles depending on winds and just in time to land for a pee break and fuel. Not many of us fly distances greater than 1,000 miles so that means that most sorties can be made with just one hop.

What I like most about the E model as compared to the longer body Mooney's is the crisp handling characteristics. She is so nimble yet stable. This is the only airplane this author has flown that can do both at once and don't ask me how they built that in to just one airplane. Sharp turns are easy in the E model, yet you could put her into a ferocious climbing turn, let go of the yoke and there she remains just where you put her. Stalls are a piece of cake unless you are heavily aft loaded and aileron control remains throughout the stall! It doesn't take much rudder pressure to whip her around the sky because like all M20's, the rudders are tied into the aileron through bungees or springs help add rudder when the ailerons are deflected.

There is a power setting on the E model of 19.5 squared that will yield 120 mph indicated while sipping fuel at 5.5 GPH like a Cessna 150 burns and your endurance approaches ten hours at that fuel burn! So if you just want to enjoy flying for cheap fuel bills, this is the way to go, but when it's time to travel, her 180+ MPH speeds will get you there but quick! And after specializing in Mooney's for 21 years now, I still wonder how a guy can go out and spend $50-60K on a 172 or Piper 180 when there is the Mooney M20E for those same bucks. What some people fail to realize is that the 172 and the P-180 cost so much more to operate. WHAT?! The Mooney is a complex aircraft zef, so how the heck can it cost less to own and operate than a Cesspool or Pooper?! The answer is simple; the Mooney E model flies about 60 mph faster than the 172 and about 40 mph faster than the P-180. Getting to your destination so much quicker means less fuel burn, less time on your airframe, engine, avionics, and you! Dude, if I had to fly a 172 I wouldn't fly! Flying is usually anything but boring, but in a 172, boring is the gig. I recently met a man that owns a 172 that is loaded with top line Garmin stuff and a great autopilot. Whatta waste! All show with little go. (I hope that he doesn't read this article). :o)

Airplane maintenance doesn't get much easier. With little preventative maintenance, there is nearly nothing that wears out on the Mooney airframe. There are no cables and pulley's to worry over and get sloppy which is why a 45 year old Mooney feels as tight as the new ones. The Lyc four banger engine is as foolproof as they get, so believe it that the Mooney is no maintenance hog. It is said that if you don't ever do anything to a Mooney, lubricate it properly. Don't cut corners there because lube is cheap, other than that, it is very easy to maintain the E model, especially if you're the hands on type because you can do your own lubrication. The retractable landing gear is as foolproof as they get and all you really need to do is to lubricate the zerk fittings like you lube your car.

But the E model with the standard two piece windshield and that wide open cowl mouth makes that bird look OLD! Well for not a lot of money you can slowly fix her up to look as modern as anything out there. The 201 windscreen and cowl bowl enclosure can do wonders along with a paint job. See my Paint page to see that there are ways to save money on paint so as to not equal the national debt.

The average aircraft owner has enough funds for maintenance or lipstick, your choice but rarely in combination with each other. I had recently sold an E model that belonged to a Space Shuttle pilot. That airplane sported a near fresh engine and boasted Mooney Service Center maintenance. She was in great mechanical shape, but that was one of the most butt-ugly airplanes I had ever seen. Here she was original paint and all:

Here she was until her new owner, a military type flier had a 201 style windshield, and new side glass in charcoal tint, and a new "suit" of overalls. Oh yeah, before paint got a custom N number assigned..................AND NOW; HERE SHE IS!

So what do you get besides speed and efficiency? Well, you get the best engine out glide ratio by far, a single piece unbreakable wing, a Chromalloy steel roll cage to hold the superstructure together while protecting its occupants way better than anything in its class. You get a German engineered and designed airframe with many failsafe touches that was meant to be the Mooney. For instance, what if you're flying and you encounter impact ice that loads up in front of your air filter/air inlet effectively killing the engine? Al Mooney and his boys designed a simply ingenious spring loaded door that anytime your engine is suffering from air filter impact ice or other blockage, the suction from the engine opens this door and allows fresh warm air to enter the engine automatically and you'd never know it as there would be no interruption in air intake.  You get a landing gear system that is tied together, so if one is down, they are all down and if one is  up, they are all up and it doesn't get any simpler than that which is why there is only one green light to show the gear is down. However bulbs do burn out, what then? Well Al put a glass window in the floor between the seats that shows a barber pole pattern if the gear is up and a white oval in front of a green sign that indicates the gear is down and locked. It is a mechanical mechanism thus no potential failure there. In a Mooney, the entire tail empennage pivots for trim and should the unlikely event of the steel tube actuator ever fail, there is a V shaped hinge similar to a door hinge that will not allow the tail to travel beyond what your muscles will allow in order to keep the plane flying in such an event, but I've never even heard of one of those steel tubes ever failing. You're flying such a strong and well though out airframe that it was eventually stretched to about 24" longer than the original M20 design, plus huge horsepower engines take that airframe way beyond what Al ever thought possible, but know this; that unless you've got such an airframe, modifying an airplane by adding up to 24" to its length still makes a great plane to fly. With that said, there is no Mooney that flies anywhere as nimble as the original M20 frame. She's simply a blast to fly and for those non Mooney types, your airspeed indicator will take you places you've never before experienced, especially in a $50-60K airplane and most E models will cruise at 160-165 mph indicated, so at 6-8,000' where normally aspirated Mooney's do their best singing between speed and economy, you'll see trues of around 185 mph. I know of one local doctor that has an E model with every mod ever conceived, plus Gami injectors and a cross-over high performance exhaust system. This guy regularly sees close to 170 kts true airspeed. No doubt this doc can afford a newer airplane due to all he has invested in his gorgeous E model, but there are those true dyed in the wool original M20 airframe enthusiasts that feel the "Mooney was taken out of Mooney" when they stretched it twice again. It's not that big a deal, but if you are the flying type that likes performance coupled with handling, I'm not sure where you could go to get all of that in the one E model package, and don't forget the Ram Air (poor man's turbo charger) that can give you up to another inch and a half of manifold pressure above 5,000'. Whatta design Al! Your Mooney's have one of the best safety records to boot not to mention the best resale value increase of anything out there.

Imagine what she will do when outfitted with Lycoming's new IO-390 engine that is STC'd for the E model and oh yeah, there are a few left out there that sport the Rayjay part time turbo mod where you can add as much or as little MP to that engine at altitude. I've seen over 200 mile per hour cruise at 10-12,000' in an E model fitted with the Rayjay.

There is nothing out there like a Mooney and in this author's opinion, there is no Mooney that is as nimble and as fast horsepower for horsepower than the E model Mooney. So why not give up that new SUV you've been eyeing and keep driving your old ride because you can now afford to purchase an E model and no matter how sweet that SUV seems, you still get there 3 to 5 times faster in the Mooney and with better gas mileage than those SUV road hogs. So, when there is a choice involved, which will you choose?

This? Or this?

But zef, that plane is 45 years old; can I trust an airframe that well? Oh please.............it's a Mooney and a Mooney is built like a tank. There is no predetermined time limit in the Mooney unlike a Pooper. If you maintain the Mooney reasonably well enough and keep her away from serious corossion, it will be flown by your great grand children long after we're turned into fertilizer and that new SUV will eventually be worth nothing. Values of used Mooney's traditionally keep climbing so that it could eventually pay for itself. I paid $16,800 for my E model and sold it somewhat fixed up with new paint, interior and windshield 2 years later for $35,000.00. That same plane has been worth as high as over $60K. I paid $40K for my J model and sold it 4-1/2 years later for $68K and it has been worth up to $115K when the market was right. Speaking of market, the values are there right now for the E model and other Mooney's. They are selling on average for 15-20% less than in the regular economy. Planes are selling like hot cakes these days and being bought by smart consumers who know that once things recover, it will be worth so much more. I have actually sold a fully modified E model for Southwest Texas Aviation that brought a hair under $100K. Those E's are in demand boys and now that you can get a decent one for 50-60's, jump on them!

If you need help determining if you're buying a good vs. junk airframe, sign up for our free to you the buyer Location Service where my criteria for locating a Mooney for my Mooneylander's is whether I would buy that plane for my own use. That is why I suppose that I have a 100% satisfaction rate from those I've located Mooney's for, plus they end up with my tech support, my dealer cost on most anything they'd want for the plane, and more important; sources and resources or where to get the stuff you need and pay right for it. That becomes my job for the life of the ownership and in some cases beyond because once a Mooneylander, always a Mooneylander. I will also fly with my customers any time they want me to in order to help insure they know all the techniques and maintain safety my number one goal.

Get an E model, slowly fix her up and keep her forever. She'll endear herself to you for the low maintenance, fun to fly, strong as King Kong, safe and super efficient. Forget Piper/Cessna/Beech/Plastic planes, etc............there is nothing like a Mooney except a Mooney!

Fly safe!

zef   

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