Mooney M20S Eagle Systems Description

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lends itself to an efficient production-line manufacturing process. From a safety standpoint, pilots appreciate the Mooney's welded steel-tube cage that surrounds the cabin and the remarkably strong wing with its tip-to-tip continuous carry-through spar. Manufacturing experts, though, wring their hands at the number of hours that it takes to build a Mooney. Inefficient as the process may be, the end product seems to justify the means. Pilots keep buying Mooneys, and while other manufacturers have come and gone and sometimes come back, for decades Mooney has hung in there, churning out airplanes year after year. Sure, there were tedious months and brief manufacturing hiatuses years ago. And as recently as a year ago, the compa- ny seemed on the brink of bankruptcy, buried under unprofitable subcon- tracting deals with other aerospace manufacturers. The Eagle's 10-550 makes life easy on the pilot: push all three levers forward and leave them there for the initial climb. In mid-1997, Paul Dopp and his investment firm of AVAQ Partners bought a controlling interest in Mooney; previously, a French consor- tium owned the majority of the compa- ny. Dopp is no stranger to Mooney Air- craft. He owned it and Aerostar Aircraft in the early 1970s. Dopp's new manage- ment team shed the unprofitable sub- contracts and set about recapitalizing Mooney. In mid-1998, Dopp's son, Chris, was named president, and he has been running the operation ever since. Recognizing that there is little new efficiency to be gained in manufactur- ing the Mooney's complex wing and fuselage, the management team looked at the product line to see if it could be trimmed down to reduce costs. At the time, Mooney was building four mod- els: the Allegro (nee MSE, nee 201), the Encore (nee 252), the Ovation, and the Bravo (nee TLS).The Allegro and Encore used the shorter fuselage; the other two shared the longer fuselage that debuted with the Mooney PFM in 1987. The Dopps decided that building only one fuselage style would be more efficient. Knowing that pilots favor the longer ver- AOPA PILOT· 48 . FEBRUARY 1999 sion, they discontinued the shorter one, leaving the Ovation and the Bravo as the only products. Recognizing that the Ova- tion's nearly $400,000 price would be an obstacle to many buyers, Mooney decid- ed to offer a lower-cost version that still utilized the longer fuselage. The result is the Mooney Eagle, which debuted late last year at AOPA Expo '98 in Palm Springs, California. Mooney considers the M20S Eagle its entry-level airplane, replacing the Alle- gro. Because of the Eagle's $319,000 price tag, entry level is obviously a rela- tive term. But when you look at what you get for the Eagle's price versus what the Allegro offered, it should be fairly Overhead light switches (above) and a well- designed panel give the Eagle a professional look. Among the options are a second nav- com, a Stormscope, and the eagle-head- and-talon paint scheme. easy for prospective buyers to justify the 10-percent premium that the Eagle commands over recent Allegros. In addition to the 20-inch-longer fuse- lage, the Eagle offers greater perfor- mance through the 244-horsepower Continental IO-550-G, which turns a two-blade McCauley propeller. The Allegro flew behind a 200-hp Lycoming 10-360 and a two-blade McCauley. Unlike the Allegro, the Eagle comes standard with dual batteries. It also carries a maximum gross weight of 3,200 pounds, 300 pounds more than the smaller airplane. Eagle fuel capaci- ty is up nine gallons to 75 usable. Like the Allegro and the rest of the Mooney fleet, the Eagle comes with an AlliedSighal Bendix/King avionics stack. Mooney at first announced that the Eagle would carry Trimble's TrimLine avionics. The change was an attempt to differentiate the lower-priced Eagle from AOPA PILOT· 49 . FEBRUARY 1999 the Ovation and Bravo, which Mooney considers its top-of-the-line products. (The 1999 average-equipped prices for the Ovation and Bravo are $405,900 and $467,900, respectively.) Last fall. however, Trimble announced that its general avia- tion avionics product line was for sale. No buyer quickly emerged, so-fearing an orphaned product line and needing to move quickly-Mooney decided to equip the Eagle with a limited Bendix/King stack. The standard airplane carries a sin- gle Bendix/King VHF navcom with glideslope, a KLN89B IFR GPS with mov- ing map, and a transponder; a PS Engi- neering PMA 7000 audio panel with intercom and marker beacons; and an S- Tec System Thirty hVo-axis autopilot. New to the Eagle and the entire 1999 Mooney fleet are the Moritz Corporation engine and power management gauges. The gauges provide both analog and digital readouts. Power,for example, can be quick- ly set by using the analog displays. Fine- tuning is easier with the digital readouts. While other manufacturers have come and gone-and come back again- Mooney has hung in there, churning out airplanes year after year. The Eagle and the Ovation have a lot more in common than their gauge pack- ages and the long fuselage. They also share the same engine model. In the Ova- tion, the 10-550-G turns at a comfortable 2,500 rpm, producing 280 hp. Other vari- ants of the 10-550 produce 300 or 310 hp at 2,700 to 2,800 rpm. Mooney engineers set a benchmark of a 175-knot cruise speed for the Eagle. It turns out that max power of 244 hp is necessary to deliver 175 kts at 75-percent power. According to the engineers, the engine delivers 244 hp at 2,400 rpm. At that rpm, the engine is not working very hard, and, as a result, it should routinely reach its 2,OOO-hourTBO. Mooney specs say that the Eagle at max gross weight and standard conditions will indeed do ]75 knots true airspeed, versus the Ovation's 188knots. On our test flight, when we were some 300 pounds below maximum weight and at 75-percent power,