The Legend of Al Mooney

Looked at a Mooney Executive 21 today. It’s been in an open faced hangar on a farm. Cool airplane but has been sitting for several years . Birds and rodents loved it. Owner died a couple years back and kids now in their 50s want to keep it. Total money pit. Forgot to take pictures as was with a couple other fellows in a hurry. Guess it’s a 1967 M20F .
 
In 1958 Lockheed did a developmental appraisal of my grandfather. The one quality they criticize is the one I'm proud of and is expressed in this paper and I wanted to share it with y'all. They said his genuine feelings for his associates and subordinates should be tempered by a more aggressive attitude but I disagree this very trait is what made people who worked with him and for him love him and gave their loyal to him because of it
 

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m.mooney said:
In 1958 Lockheed did a developmental appraisal of my grandfather. The one quality they criticize is the one I'm proud of and is expressed in this paper and I wanted to share it with y'all. They said his genuine feelings for his associates and subordinates should be tempered by a more aggressive attitude but I disagree this very trait is what made people who worked with him and for him love him and gave their loyal to him because of it
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That's wonderful! I retired from Lockheed a few years ago. Wish I'd had a copy of this to hang in my office while I was still working. Thanks for sharing it.
 
This definitely belongs here. With the new morphing capabilities of what I assume is the upcoming M20W, this Mooney will beat every other aircraft in every way.

 
Truly I don't know what my grandfather would say but I think it looks pretty darn awesome!
 
m.mooney said:
Truly I don't know what my grandfather would say but I think it looks pretty darn awesome!
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I'm not sure which I like better, the 5-engine version, or the one that has a propeller on the rudder that spontaneously grows its own cowl. :rofl:

What I really want is the ability to morph into whatever airplane would serve me best on that particular day!
 
As long as the tail is backwards and it says mooney on it!
 
Of course, they didn't really get fast until Roy LoPresti worked them over.
 
flyingron said:
Of course, they didn't really get fast until Roy LoPresti worked them over.
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They were fast for their day. They were known for speed and efficiency right away upon their introduction, despite not yet being up to today's standards.

If you look at an F and a J (the one LoPresti really made shine), the J mainly closed the front of the cowl and sloped the windscreen. But if you look at the F compared to something like an early Comanche or many of the other birds of the day, you can see that they hadn't really figured out the aerodynamics of cooling the engine quite right yet. The other thing with the windscreen is that the older version let you pop a panel at the top back of the cowl right in front of the windscreen and easily get to the back of the avionics to work on them, whereas the more modern Mooneys with the sloped windscreen require you to pull the windscreen out instead.

Mooney probably would have gotten to where LoPresti got if he had stuck around long enough.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
They were fast for their day. They were known for speed and efficiency right away upon their introduction, despite not yet being up to today's standards.

If you look at an F and a J (the one LoPresti really made shine), the J mainly closed the front of the cowl and sloped the windscreen. But if you look at the F compared to something like an early Comanche or many of the other birds of the day, you can see that they hadn't really figured out the aerodynamics of cooling the engine quite right yet. The other thing with the windscreen is that the older version let you pop a panel at the top back of the cowl right in front of the windscreen and easily get to the back of the avionics to work on them, whereas the more modern Mooneys with the sloped windscreen require you to pull the windscreen out instead.

Mooney probably would have gotten to where LoPresti got if he had stuck around long enough.
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If my Grandfather had been able to stick around I think you're right. He loved Roy LoPresti, and when I visited Mooney .aircraft with my father and grandfather I actually got to meet Roy LoPresti. I can tell you he was a very smart and very nice gentleman, and he and my grandfather really got along greatly! I'm guessing they talked on the phone a lot.
The unfortunate truth with my grandfather and my Uncle Art was that they weren't able to stick around because when his partner Pappy Yankee died suddenly, everything turned upside down for.my grandfather
Pappy Yankee left all his stocks and shairs to Grandad but none of Pappy Yankees kids wanted anything to do with the company so he had to sell his shares to save the company. That's how he lost Mooney aircraft anf ended up with nothing. He sold ALL his shares to Republic Steel I believe in order to save Mooney Aircraft.
After that that's when he and my Uncle Art got jobs at Lockheed , and that's a whole other story but it was one of the I think greater ways to end the formal part of his career. I'd say that because he continued to consult.
 
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Half Fast said:
That's wonderful! I retired from Lockheed a few years ago. Wish I'd had a copy of this to hang in my office while I was still working. Thanks for sharing it.
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I will see if I can send you a copy of this. I am happy to do it. Gimme a couple of days, I am a really bad procrastinator.
 
There was much done before the focus on the M-20 and later. The M1 Eaglerock was sort of like the DeHavilland Tiger moth. It wasn't until Mooney joined with Culver to really get going on marketable and well performing aircraft. The M-6 was low wing monoplane, it never got much past the design and testing stage.

After a stint with Bellanca, Al moved on to some success with his design about M-12 or 13 called the Dart. Variations of the Dart sold about 80 planes. Very few remain. Then, joining with Culver Al brought is clean aero design to the M-14, and along with Culver a list of several M series begat the successful Culver Cadet. Cadet having a manually retracting gear, and clean lines with elliptical wings, was ready at the start of the war. More than 600 Cadet variations were built for civilian sales. The Cadet came in 75HP Lycoming moniker LCA, and Franklin engines called the LFA.

A mildly modified Cadet was offered to the war dept as a target drone, and re-designated the PQ-8. This would possibly be about M-16, although the structure and basic elements conformed to the early Culver Cadet, and it took form from back in the Dart G progeny. The PQ-8 target drone and the TDC-1 and 2 for the navy were built in huge numbers(for the time). Accurate production is hard to pin down, but estimates are about 1400 of the PQ-8/TDC's and about 600 of the next version PQ-14. Variations of the PQ-8 entered civilian production post-war but were not commercially viable. The PQ-14 could be considered the Mooney 'M-17'. Noting that the M-12, back in the Dart up to M-17 were very similar in design and construction with just mild evolutionary changes and no major structural upgrades.

Fixed tricycle gear allowed the drones to take off and land easier, larger engines, props, all moved up to the next well known M-18 Mite. Single engine, single seat, manually retract. 283 built over 7 years. At the end of the M-18C version, best guess is the M-19 was the first iteration of a four seat plane. No production is known, and it may have only been a mock-up, or 'buck' for the fuselage and engine placement. And, on to the M-20 versions up through the Ovation.

Al had a lot of design experience that shaped the M-20 and later. Sadly, not a lot is known of the early designs.
 
Barrett50 said:
There was much done before the focus on the M-20 and later. The M1 Eaglerock was sort of like the DeHavilland Tiger moth. It wasn't until Mooney joined with Culver to really get going on marketable and well performing aircraft. The M-6 was low wing monoplane, it never got much past the design and testing stage.

After a stint with Bellanca, Al moved on to some success with his design about M-12 or 13 called the Dart. Variations of the Dart sold about 80 planes. Very few remain. Then, joining with Culver Al brought is clean aero design to the M-14, and along with Culver a list of several M series begat the successful Culver Cadet. Cadet having a manually retracting gear, and clean lines with elliptical wings, was ready at the start of the war. More than 600 Cadet variations were built for civilian sales. The Cadet came in 75HP Lycoming moniker LCA, and Franklin engines called the LFA.

A mildly modified Cadet was offered to the war dept as a target drone, and re-designated the PQ-8. This would possibly be about M-16, although the structure and basic elements conformed to the early Culver Cadet, and it took form from back in the Dart G progeny. The PQ-8 target drone and the TDC-1 and 2 for the navy were built in huge numbers(for the time). Accurate production is hard to pin down, but estimates are about 1400 of the PQ-8/TDC's and about 600 of the next version PQ-14. Variations of the PQ-8 entered civilian production post-war but were not commercially viable. The PQ-14 could be considered the Mooney 'M-17'. Noting that the M-12, back in the Dart up to M-17 were very similar in design and construction with just mild evolutionary changes and no major structural upgrades.

Fixed tricycle gear allowed the drones to take off and land easier, larger engines, props, all moved up to the next well known M-18 Mite. Single engine, single seat, manually retract. 283 built over 7 years. At the end of the M-18C version, best guess is the M-19 was the first iteration of a four seat plane. No production is known, and it may have only been a mock-up, or 'buck' for the fuselage and engine placement. And, on to the M-20 versions up through the Ovation.

Al had a lot of design experience that shaped the M-20 and later. Sadly, not a lot is known of the early designs.
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There's a great deal of information about his designs and what his thoughts and way of thinking was when he was designing these planes in his book that he wrote and in the manuscript that I have.
 
m.mooney said:
There's a great deal of information about his designs and what his thoughts and way of thinking was when he was designing these planes in his book that he wrote and in the manuscript that I have.
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The one thing that grandfather did that I really am grateful for is he kept everything that he wrote. When he wrote letters, he would keep copies of them.He had wrote something for flying magazine one time. Not only was my grandfather, a great engineer.He was a great writer too!
 
It would be of some value to the GA community to see it digitized and uploaded for reference. Not the copyrighted materials such as a book, but notes and detail about various historic planes, ideas, concepts, tests, theories. These would not generally be subject to copyright, but could be however I don't really see a marketable trove of info unless it were put into some kind of structure with the history and see if a publisher would market it.

Sadly, the market for historical small aircraft, even from someone of the Stature of Mooney would be a tough sell. I'm guessing there would be ages, and ages of editorial work to get it all in detailed order, and fit notes where they belong. The editor would need to have a relatively intense base of knowledge on GA planes. Alost a labor of love, without any expectation of volume sales.
 
m.mooney said:
I will see if I can send you a copy of this. I am happy to do it. Gimme a couple of days, I am a really bad procrastinator.
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I haven't forgot about this.I've just been busy with my life.
I will see when I can do and send it as an attachment to you shortly
 
Hmmm... this thread reminds me that I used Gemini to help me remember a VP's name who worked for Republic Steel and oversaw Mooney Aircraft for a while. I think the guy's name was Bob Heames (if it was pronounced Himes). Might be an interesting bit of trivia for Mooney history buffs and I've always wondered if I may have been partly to blame for killing the 301 project:

https://share.google/aimode/3ptJyjk4wDb7PBhQD
 
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