Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) and then on to the story.

Why a Mooney? Low cost to maintain, Fast Aircraft, 950 lbs useful load, ~15/MPG, and all time logged Complex.

When I started looking for a plane to own, I decided that what was important to me was getting there. I need a plane that I could take from Atlanta, GA (4A0) to Chambersburg, PA (N68) and get there in a reasonable amount of time.

I evaluated Cessna, Tiger, Diamond, Piper, (and last Mooney)

To be fair here, I am picking the same year from the performance tables except for Tiger and Diamond, I thought about Cirrus, but 400k was out of the budget. My original budget was 40-80k based on payments, insurance and other factors. I found for instance that the insurance of the plane is linear to the cost. On my AOPA policy it is about $140 per 10k of hull value per year. So 40k more of hull adds at least $560/year in insurance.

I looked into some other models like the Piper Lance and various make it yourself types. I learned that I had little interest in waiting a year or two to fly. The cost of the materials to build would have precluded any flying until the build was completed and I would give up every weekend for years.

Except for the new price tag on the Diamond, all of the prices were in the acceptable range. With the Diamond, I considered one of the leaseback options that would yield similar payments. Since then, I learned that private ownership, not partnership or leaseback is a very different experience in flying. Twice since owning my plane, my wife has said something on late Friday or Early Saturday morning like can we go to ... The best part was twice, the weather was perfect and I said yes. I did not have to find an available plane or check with a partner (who might beat you to the airport on a perfect day for a $100 hamburger). In each of those cases we went away for the weekend by air, more easily than by car. (2 hours in the Mooney is like 6-8 in the car)

Now just for the record, I routinely get 153 knts with normal load (4 passengers and some baggage at 10,000’). My rage of performance, what I can count on is an average of 138 knts for the trip. This of course is based on winds aloft and other factors. With some speed kits I expect to get close to 160 knts. My plane is still a very stock M20E.

The performance numbers below are from the Trade-A-Plane site. When I flew Cessna 172s I usually got about 110knts and pipers between 110 and 125. (True ground speed as measured by the GPS)

Now the story of how a Mooney M20E got on my list. There is always a story to any adventure. When I moved to Georgia renting a plane went from $65/hour wet in Los Angles area to $85 in Atlanta. At the fields near my house the new Diamonds were going for $125/hour and very little rented for under $100/hour with minimums for weekends. I did a little math and planned to fly between 50 and 100 hours a year which worked out to $6250 @ $125 to $12,500 @ $125. I wanted to get my instrument rating which is normally 40 hours at least and I hear many people wind up around 70 hours. I figured that at 70 hours times $125 hour that was about $8,750. Learning from my private pilot, were I spend a lot more than 40 hours learning to fly in Los Angles basin; I decided to purchase and thereby convince the wife that this was cheaper.

Now the rest of the story, I went to the small airport near my house (Berry Hill, 4A0) and got checkout in Von’s Piper PA28-180 (Note the 180). At the pilot shack, I noticed an add for a M20E Super 21 Executive (1966) for about 57k. I asked around a bit and found out that it was a Complex, 4 seater. I check the performance database and did a couple of Jeppesen plots on Piper vs Mooney and found 6 hours vs 4 hours for my longer voyages. So I called the owner and did a test flight. Wow, it was fun, fast and easy to fly. It was a bit more to deal with than the Pipers I normally flew, but what the heck. During the course of figuring out Aircraft financing the 1966, M20E sold, but I continued to search on Trade a Plane. I could not find a production aircraft that was as fast in the same price category. At this point, I decided Mooney was for me. After about 2 more months of searching and learning to get pre-qualified on the loan, I found N3218S a 1965, Mooney, M20E for 46k with a motivated seller. The long and the short, I should have purchased the Mooney, pre-buy kit from MooneyMart.Com. The annual revealed $3200.00 of issues and I received about $900.00 from the seller including a missing AD from the ‘70s. All in all it was not a bad annual and I had many small things that were not required but I considered necessary. I replaced the gaskets with Silicon, new o-rings for the tanks, new altimeter and VSI. I should have caught the 7 bad spark plugs and missing AD during the pre-buy and perhaps the need for a new altimeter for IFR certification. The second annual was much better $650.00, a rebuild on the DG for $275 and I got the Autopilot repaired at Brittain in OK, that cost another $375.00. I consider $375 cheap for a working 2 axis (B6) autopilot. Later in the year, I plan to go to the plant and get the autopilot upgraded to Altitude hold.

Colin’s performance matrix.

				Knots	Archer II	Cessna 182H	Tiger	Diamond	Mooney
Home	Visits	Name	Distance	100	129	138	139	145	163
4A0	N68	Chambersburg, PA	498	4:58	4:06	3:50	3:48	3:37	3:05
4A0	FME	Tipton (FT Meade), MD	489	4:53	4:01	3:45	3:43	3:32	3:00
4A0	OLV	Olive Branch, MS	292	2:55	2:20	2:09	2:08	2:01	2:17
4A0	SGJ	ST Augustine, FL	259	2:35	2:00	2:12	2:12	2:08	1:57

CESSNA 182H SKYLANE '65

Engine: CONT O-470-R	75% Cruise: 138 kts	Wingspan: 36.17 ft
Horsepower: 230	Stall: 48 kts	Length: 27.83 ft
Rec'md TBO: 1500 hrs	Range: 595 nm	Height: 9.00 ft
	Srv Ceiling: 18900 ft	Empty Wt: 1610 lbs
Std Fuel: 65 gal	Rate of Climb: 980 ft/min	Gross Wt: 2800 lbs
Max Fuel: 84 gal
Takeoff (over 50 ft obstacle): 1205 ft Landing (over 50 ft obstacle): 1350 ft
Takeoff: 625 ft Landing: 590 ft

PIPER PA28-181 ARCHER II ) usually a ‘70s model

Engine: LYC O-360-A4M	75% Cruise: 129 kts	Wingspan: 35.00 ft
Horsepower: 180	Stall: 53 kts	Length: 23.67 ft
Rec'md TBO: 2000 hrs	Range: 590 nm	Height: 7.25 ft
	Srv Ceiling: 13650 ft	Empty Wt: 1414 lbs
	Rate of Climb: 740 ft/min	Gross Wt: 2550 lbs
Max Fuel: 50 gal
Takeoff (over 50 ft obstacle): 1625 ft Landing (over 50 ft obstacle): 1390 ft
Takeoff: 870 ft Landing: 925 ft

GRUMMAN AMERICAN AA5B TIGER

Engine: LYC O-360-A4K	75% Cruise: 139 kts	Wingspan: 31.50 ft
Horsepower: 180	Stall: 53 kts	Length: 22.00 ft
Rec'md TBO: 2000 hrs	Range: 552 nm	Height: 8.00 ft
	Srv Ceiling: 13800 ft	Empty Wt: 1294 lbs
	Rate of Climb: 850 ft/min	Gross Wt: 2400 lbs
Max Fuel: 51 gal
Takeoff (over 50 ft obstacle): 1550 ft Landing (over 50 ft obstacle): 1120 ft
Takeoff: 865 ft Landing: 410 ft

DIAMOND AIRCRAFT DA40-180 DIAMOND STAR
(Only new’ish models are available)

Engine: LYC IO-360-M1-A	75% Cruise: 145 kts	Wingspan: 39.40 ft
Horsepower: 180	Stall: 49 kts	Length: 26.30 ft
Rec'md TBO: 2200 hrs	Range: 600 nm	Height: 6.60 ft
	Srv Ceiling: 14000 ft	Empty Wt: 1543 lbs
	Rate of Climb: 1070 ft/min	Gross Wt: 2535 lbs
Max Fuel: 41 gal
Takeoff (over 50 ft obstacle): 1150 ft Landing (over 50 ft obstacle): 2093 ft
Takeoff: 800 ft Landing: 1155 ft

MOONEY M20E SUPER 21 CHAPARRAL

Engine: LYC IO-360-A1A	75% Cruise: 163 kts	Wingspan: 35.00 ft
Horsepower: 200	Stall: 50 kts	Length: 23.17 ft
Rec'md TBO: 2000 hrs	Range: 601 nm	Height: 8.33 ft
	Srv Ceiling: 18800 ft	Empty Wt: 1575 lbs
	Rate of Climb: 1110 ft/min	Gross Wt: 2575 lbs
Max Fuel: 52 gal
Takeoff (over 50 ft obstacle): 1300 ft Landing (over 50 ft obstacle): 1365 ft
Takeoff: 760 ft Landing: 595 ft

last update on 28 Apr, 2005