Company Updates Factory And Designs New Trainer

By John Ylinen

Mooney International provided an update on its return to production a year ago at a news conference at AirVenture 2015.  Since last year Mooney has made major upgrades to the factory in Kerrville, TX with investments in new digital technology and infrastructure, including a new digital heat treat oven, alodine process line, multi-axis CNC machine CNC water-jet cutter, newly designed tooling and fixtures, 3D laser scanner and more.  This investment has positioned Mooney to increase aircraft production should they get increased sales.

Mooney also continues design work and production of the first prototype for the M10T and M10J aircraft announce a few months ago in China.  They said best case, certification would be in late 2017.

At last year’s AirVenture,  Mooney showcased the signing of a commitment document for the purchase of several aircraft from China, however in questioning today it was learned that none have been delivered due to delays in the Type Certification exchange between the U.S. and China. No announcements of major U.S. or other country sales were announced.  Mooney indicated they had completed maybe 11 or 12 airframes since restart of the factory.

It is sad that we have such great talents, capability, and heritage, but such a constrained market due to FAA over regulation and lack of purpose to rewrite the Part 23 to address the pain of product certifications.  This industry really needs to work to remove the impediments to success and market growth before they are all forces to close their doors or only sell toys to rich boys.

FMI: www.mooney.com