If You Had 5M

skier said:
As others said, it’s the Mooney M18 Mite, the predecessor to the M20 we all know and love.

Here’s an article by Budd Davisson about flying one. http://www.airbum.com/pireps/PirepMooneyMite.html
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…
And a note about the “drone” thing I mentioned earlier from the Planes of Fame museum website…
  • The Mooney Mite is a direct descendant of the Culver PQ-14 Target Drone. When the Mooney brothers resurrected the Mooney Aircraft Corp. in 1946 their first offering was the Mooney Series 18, an all-wood single seater with retractable tricycle gear and a cantilevered, laminar flow wing. Priced at less than $2000, the 'backward-tailed' "Mite" was a big hit in the sport aviation world.
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schmookeeg said:
Was waiting for that answer. :D

There was one at a starman auction a few years ago but I couldn't attend. I've been dying to know what it went for.
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last time i looked there are 16 left and six flyable. two owned by one person. I have seen three in formation together. it was awesome. i just checked the registry again, they now list 7 flyable.
 
I spent a lot of time when I was younger keeping a couple of Neptune Air Tankers clean, so I've always had a soft spot for those. I think $5 million would allow me to get a P2V-7 airworthy and ready for the airshow circuit...
 
That's a tough one.. your mission evolves when you have access to money like that

my minimum requirements
-1400 lb full fuel payload
-4 hrs range with reserves
-6 seats, comfortable
-200 ktas or higher cruise
-can operate on grass / dirt
-can operate on fields 2,200 ft or less

There are some Piper products that come close to that
 
Tantalum said:
That's a tough one.. your mission evolves when you have access to money like that

my minimum requirements
-1400 lb full fuel payload.....

There are some Piper products that come close to that
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hhhmmmm, quick googlefu on full fuel useful load:

tbm 891
pilatus 988
king air 1,025
citation 791
m500 700
m600 632
seneca V 444
 
eman1200 said:
hhhmmmm, quick googlefu on full fuel useful load:

tbm 891
pilatus 988
king air 1,025
citation 791
m500 700
m600 632
seneca V 444
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Piper Chieftain 350
Horsepower: 350 Gross Weight: 7000 lbs
Top Speed: 230 kts Empty Weight: 4221 lbs
Cruise Speed: 211 kts Fuel Capacity: 182.00 gal
Stall Speed (dirty): 74 kts Range: 883 nm

Takeoff Landing
Ground Roll: 1350 ft Ground Roll 1045 ft
Over 50 ft obstacle: 2510 ft Over 50 ft obstacle: 1880 ft

Rate Of Climb: 1120 fpm Rate of Climb (One Engine): 230 fpm
Ceiling: 24000 ft Ceiling (One Engine): 13700 ft

Less than 4 hours range though.
 
eman1200 said:
hhhmmmm, quick googlefu on full fuel useful load:

tbm 891
pilatus 988
king air 1,025
citation 791
m500 700
m600 632
seneca V 444
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True but these planes don't need to be flown full. Maybe a better way to phrase "3+ hrs range with 1400 remaining useful" .. I just took 4 guys and 3 days worth of camping gear in the Aztec. It's not "fast" or pretty but that's excellent utility

EdFred said:
Chieftain
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Yeah that whole Navajo line are beasts. But they're lacking in the looks department
 
Tantalum said:
That's a tough one.. your mission evolves when you have access to money like that

my minimum requirements
-1400 lb full fuel payload
-4 hrs range with reserves
-6 seats, comfortable
-200 ktas or higher cruise
-can operate on grass / dirt
-can operate on fields 2,200 ft or less

There are some Piper products that come close to that
Click to expand...

Yeah, so a plane-earmarked windfall needs to fit within your current OpEx abilities. So really, the winners here are high-CapEx low-OpEx planes like SETPs. I think the PC-12 or TBM are good answers here. I imagine care and feeding of some of the exotica here will get out of hand almost immediately for anyone with normal means.

The other thing to do would be to design some really nifty E-AB that doesn't exist in the market and try to build it before the money runs out. I actually think that's what I'd do with 5MM for "plane only" -- try to build some reasonable/docile/lower maintenance 4 or 6pax pressurized E-AB that won't end up on the insurance chit list like the Lancairs have all managed to do.
 
schmookeeg said:
The other thing to do would be to design some really nifty E-AB
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I've been playing around in Blender. It'd be fun to draft something up and then hire a small group of engineers to bring your vision to life. You would probably need at least 5 million for that..
 
Tantalum said:
I've been playing around in Blender. It'd be fun to draft something up and then hire a small group of engineers to bring your vision to life. You would probably need at least 5 million for that..
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And the odds are good I create something worse than a Duke, slower than a P337, and uglier than a Raptor. :D But hey, it wasn't my money!
 
That Russian amphib is cool. Stretch the fuselage a foot or two, redesign the windows a bit, throw turbines on the back, and now you're cooking with fire

upload_2022-5-24_18-33-12.png
 
Tantalum said:
That's a tough one.. your mission evolves when you have access to money like that

my minimum requirements
-1400 lb full fuel payload
-4 hrs range with reserves
-6 seats, comfortable
-200 ktas or higher cruise
-can operate on grass / dirt
-can operate on fields 2,200 ft or less

There are some Piper products that come close to that
Click to expand...

Except for the speed, I think an Islander meets that.
Except for the runway length, an A-26 meets that. :)
Probably a PC-12 does that, but less fun than the two others above, IMO.

The bit about full fuel payload doesn't make sense to me, because some/many aircraft are real close to max gross, maybe over, at full fuel, to add flexibility. I'd spec it at payload at X nm range, std cruise speed. If you have the 5m.
 
Albany Tom said:
full fuel payload doesn't make sense to me, because some/many aircraft are real close to max gross, maybe over, at full fuel
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Sure, ultimately I want to be able to go about 3-4 hours, or 600-700 miles comfortably on 'one tank' with a loaded plane, IE, actually fill the seats and the stuff people would want to take for a trip. That's something you can do with an Aztec if you're only going 3ish to 4ish hours. Only issue is it's not that fast. It's a 160-170 knot plane, not bad.. but would be nice to be around 200. Some Aerostars are as low as around 1,500.. if you burn 40/hr combined that cuts you down to 2-3 people for any meaningful range and hope of bringing luggage, etc.

That's been my attraction to the Aztec, slow and ungainly looking as it may be. You can actually sort of treat it like a car. For $5M I should be able to get (or build) something that gives me that kind of utility but goes faster

The Piper Navajo is basically a "better Aztec" but still lacking in the looks department. The Piper Cheyenne could be a slam dunk but then small runways get interesting. Always a compromise isn't it.

Albany Tom said:
Probably a PC-12 does that, but less fun than the two others above
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I PC-12 probably fits the bill very nicely in all those categories, but I agree, less fun. Two engines are a must and the PC-12 has taken on a very 'corporate' look.. like if you buy an Escalade now everyone is going to think you're an Uber Black.
 
skier said:
I’m a simple guy. Just one of these would keep me very happy.

0330_mooney_mite_02.jpg
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That's a man who is now hard-of-hearing.
 
Tantalum said:
Sure, ultimately I want to be able to go about 3-4 hours, or 600-700 miles comfortably on 'one tank' with a loaded plane, IE, actually fill the seats and the stuff people would want to take for a trip. That's something you can do with an Aztec if you're only going 3ish to 4ish hours. Only issue is it's not that fast. It's a 160-170 knot plane, not bad.. but would be nice to be around 200. Some Aerostars are as low as around 1,500.. if you burn 40/hr combined that cuts you down to 2-3 people for any meaningful range and hope of bringing luggage, etc.

That's been my attraction to the Aztec, slow and ungainly looking as it may be. You can actually sort of treat it like a car. For $5M I should be able to get (or build) something that gives me that kind of utility but goes faster
.
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Oh sure...what I was getting at, though, is that if you're talking about the A-26, with the extra wingtip tanks and a belly tank, you can get close to 0 lbs of carrying capacity...but at 12 hours or so endurance at 240+ knots, or close to 3000 nm. But if you carry fuel for 1000 nm you have over 2 tons of payload, easily.

Now you're burning something like 150 gal/hr on the thing, but hey, gas is free for this magical $5M plane, right?
 
Ahhh… NetJets.

You do know you cannot fly the airplane, right?
 
Years ago I was interested in this project.. seems like it actually flew back in 2018 but not much since then

 
Just because I can afford it doesn't mean I should own it! I'd like to own the Sling 4 Tsi High Wing. It's about my speed, literally.
 
After further reflection, if I had $5M to spend on a plane I’d probably buy a really, really nice restored Cub.

Then I’d retire so I could actually have the time to fly the damn thing.
 
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