Hey Mooniacs...check this out

Jim K

Jim K

360 For Spacing
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Richard Digits
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On the ramp at CMI this afternoon. I've never seen one like this:

IMG_20260520_161907340.jpg

Here's what Claude gave me on it:

That's a really interesting find! Here's what's going on with that tail:


N6816V is a 1971 Mooney M20E — but registered as "Aerostar Aircraft Corp of Texas," serial number 21-0001. That makes it the very first off the line in the 1971 model year.


Here's the cool historical context: in late 1969, Mooney was bought by Butler Aviation, which had visions of combining Mooney with Ted Smith's Aerostar twin line. As a result, Mooney's airplanes acquired a tailcone stinger and a forward-protruding appendage on the top of the fin — nicknamed the "Butler Buttonhook" — and were briefly sold under the "Aerostar" name. Plane & Pilot


From 1970 to 1972, Mooney was known as Aerostar, with the M20E Chaparral sold as the "Aerostar 201." Production then ceased in 1972. SKYbrary Aviation Safety


So what you're looking at is not a mod — that unusual tall fin with the prominent leading-edge hook/extension is factory original to the short-lived Butler/Aerostar era. It was only built for a couple of years before the company went bankrupt and Republic Steel revived the brand in 1974, reverting to the standard Mooney tail profile.


Being serial 21-0001 of the 1971 run makes it essentially the first Aerostar-branded M20E of that model year — a genuinely rare and historically interesting airframe. No wonder you've never seen that tail before!
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Kinda cool. Didn't know it was a thing. Don't hate it. I mean, it's still a Mooney, but that tail is weird enough to be cool, as opposed to the just regular weird "normal" mooney tail.
 
Looks like he did a carrier landing, and the tail hook caught in the wrong place
 
GoFly said:
Looks like he did a carrier landing, and the tail hook caught in the wrong place
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remember that mooney that got hung up in power lines a couple years ago? Maybe this is a safety feature :biggrin:
 
Could be. Maybe we could get EMan to do some more testing
 
Finally found a solid use case for AI:

Great question — let me dig into that.
Searched the web

Searched the web

Here's what the records tell us:

Production numbers are actually pretty well documented. The Mooney type certificate publications show the 1971 Aerostar M20E ran serial numbers 21-0001 through 21-0023 — so only 23 aircraft were built as true "Aerostar 201" M20Es with that Butler Buttonhook tail before the plant closed in early 1971. The Aerostar 200 (M20C version) was even rarer — only 9 were built, all in 1971. MooneyHandWiki

So N6816V, serial 21-0001, is literally number one of twenty-three.

How many survive on the registry? That's harder to pin down precisely without scraping the FAA database, but we can make an educated guess. The AOPA data shows about 1,121 M20Es are still on the books across all years of production. Given that the entire M20E run spanned 1964–1975 with roughly 1,600+ built total, and the Aerostar era was only 23 airframes with 50+ years of attrition, accidents, and deregistrations... I'd hazard a guess that maybe 8–14 of those 23 are still registered — perhaps half or fewer. AOPA

You might be looking at one of only 10 or so still flying. That's a genuinely rare bird sitting on the CMI ramp!
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23 total built. Funny I'd just randomly run into it. I went to the MX shop to quiz my IA about how they were handling the new PA28 SB that requires pulling the wings. He had already gone home, but I got to see this instead. Has mooney had more bankruptcies or Buttonhook tails?
 
Great questions — here's the full picture:


On the Buttonhook tail — which years and models:


The Mooney name was dropped in 1970 and the planes were called Aerostars. However, the actual Buttonhook tail hardware appears to have only made it onto 1971 production aircraft. The 1970 models were transitional — they were sold under the Aerostar name but the records show the distinctive fin appendage was a 1971 thing. Three models got it: the Aerostar 200 (M20C), of which only 9 were built, all in 1971, the Aerostar 201 (M20E) with your 23 aircraft, and the Aerostar 220 (M20F). So across all three variants it's probably fewer than 60 total Buttonhook-tail aircraft ever built — genuinely tiny production. HandWikiHandWiki


On Mooney bankruptcies — buckle up:


This is a spectacularly troubled company for one that made such great airplanes. The lowlights:


  • Originally founded in 1929, the company went bankrupt in 1930, a victim of the Great Depression. AOPA
  • Near-bankruptcy again in 1953 when their financial backer died of a stroke
  • From 1969 to 1974 the brand was bankrupt and passed through 2 owners, landing with Republic Steel Corporation. That's the Butler/Aerostar era that produced your airplane. BAS Part Sales
  • Republic successfully ran it until 1984 when they were acquired by LTV Corporation, and Mooney was dropped — but a management-led buyout led by Roy LoPresti liberated it from LTV. BAS Part Sales
  • Mooney filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy again in 2001, triggered partly by a riveting machine drilling oversized holes requiring expensive inspections, then the post-9/11 downturn. Company Histories
  • Two years later the assets were sold to Allen Finance while Mooney Aerospace Group went through another bankruptcy, only to reacquire the assets in December 2004. BAS Part Sales
  • 2008 recession — layoffs and production halt
  • Purchased in 2013 by Chinese private equity (Meijing Group), who ran it until 2020, when it was purchased by a group of Mooney aircraft owners under US Financial, LLC of Wyoming. Wikipedia

So by my count that's roughly 5-6 bankruptcies or near-bankruptcies in 90 years, with the company passing through something like 10+ owners. And yet the basic M20 airframe from the 1960s is still flying strong. Remarkable that such a well-engineered airplane came from such a financially chaotic company.
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1929? Really? Al Mooney was not only a giant, but also Rip Van Winkle? I had no idea he was that early.
 
I own a mite, an E model and a K model - won’t be buying an Aerostar mooney :) besides, I’m getting too wide for Mooneys…
 
I actually have time in one. Aerostar 220. Back when Butler owned Mooney and Aerostar,
 
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