Why are Mooneys so fast?

flyingron said:
I see nobody brought it up but the main reason is Ray Lopresti. Mooney's started out being a fairly reasonable airframe with a fairly small frontal area to begin with. Ray scavenged all the draggy things that remained on the airframe to make it even faster. The 201 (the M20J) and later are very low drag puppies.
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This ^^^


From: This Illustrated Guide to Aerodynamics, Hubert C. Smith 1992:


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dell30rb said:
You might get it. A clean M20J will do 160ktas LOP

Its a big jump up from the wheel pants-less 172's and PA28's in our fleet. Maybe 110-115 knots with those airplanes.

On a 350-400 nm trip the block time difference is huge. Factor in a 20kt headwind + fuel stop and see what you get.
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You stop on 350-400nm trips? I'll beat you (by half an hour on the 400nm trip) if you do:wink2:
Your point stands however, 30kts is enough to start to make a difference.


Mooneys are out for me, some will haul the load I need, none would let all my regular passengers get in with only one door above the wing. If folks have difficulty getting into the Skylane I think they would have bigger issues with a Mooney, or most other low wings for that mater.
 
Skylane81E said:
You stop on 350-400nm trips? I'll beat you (by half an hour on the 400nm trip) if you do:wink2:
Your point stands however, 30kts is enough to start to make a difference.
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In a 110kt warrior II headed westbound, I have to stop sometimes. One day I had to go up to 10,000 to cross the appalachian mountains because the mountain wave would not leave me alone any lower. I had a 60kt groundspeed for about 45 minutes. I had a 90 kt GS down at normal altitudes.

Also, if you have females on board figure no more than about 2.5 hours at a time. Less if you don't have a crew ISO switch :rofl:
 
On a 120 mile trip I beat Jesse by about 15 minutes in the Mooney when he was in a 172XP.
 
dell30rb said:
I believe the cabin width in the mooney is wider than a PA-28 or C172

M20J 43.5" w 44.5" h

172 39.5" w 48" h

grumman tiger 41" w 48" h

piper warrior II 41.25" w 44.25" h
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Yeah....wide is nice, but for us tall guys cabin height is paramount in bumpy weather. Nothing like beating your headset against the overhead for a few hundred miles. :(
 
dell30rb said:
In a 110kt warrior II headed westbound, I have to stop sometimes. One day I had to go up to 10,000 to cross the appalachian mountains because the mountain wave would not leave me alone any lower. I had a 60kt groundspeed for about 45 minutes. I had a 90 kt GS down at normal altitudes.

Also, if you have females on board figure no more than about 2.5 hours at a time. Less if you don't have a crew ISO switch :rofl:
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Depends, I made ISZ-GNB with one stop with a female on board. Guess I'm lucky to have one that drives for a living
 
dell30rb said:
I believe the cabin width in the mooney is wider than a PA-28 or C172

M20J 43.5" w 44.5" h

172 39.5" w 48" h

grumman tiger 41" w 48" h

piper warrior II 41.25" w 44.25" h
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Yeah except in Mooney you sit on the floor with yoke in your chest :lol:
Fast not always translates in comfortable ...
 
sdflyer said:
Yeah except in Mooney you sit on the floor with yoke in your chest :lol:
Fast not always translates in comfortable ...
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How many hours do you have in Mooneys again?
 
I'm guessing zero, or he is fat. :)

Al Mooney was 6'4" or so, and designed the cabin around himself. I'm 6'1" and have quite a few inches of headroom left before contact...
 
I've always thought it was roomier than a 172, and no one ******* and moans about how small they are.
 
The "length/width/height" statistics alone are misleading. The cabins of most low-wing airplanes have a more-or-less semi-circular cross-section above shoulder level, while high-wing airplanes tend to have almost vertical sides. Thus one type might be wider than another at the shoulders, but narrower at eye level.

Width_zpsb3c437dd.jpg


Look at the front-view photos earlier in this thread -- the top of the Mooney fuselage is a near-perfect semi-circle, while the PA-28 is somewhat boxier. The canopy of a Grumman AA-5x has a slightly bug-eyed look which allows a bit more room at eye level than some other low-wing types.

Also -- how much room is there in front of the pilot's face? The old-style (pre-M20J) Mooney windshields were close-in and nearly vertical, which contributed to the sense of being cramped.

I would be interested to find out the interior volumes of the passenger cabins of the types under discussion.
 
KSMooniac said:
I'm guessing zero, or he is fat. :)

Al Mooney was 6'4" or so, and designed the cabin around himself. I'm 6'1" and have quite a few inches of headroom left before contact...
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Wait I fit the first part :D

I have very little time in a Mooney. Basically a short flight at Gastons M20J I believe. I am 6'2" and around 300lbs might have been ~30 lbs less when I had the ride.
Depending on your build the fit can be an issue. My head did hit. From what I remember just on the side by door. Plenty of leg room I have short legs for my height.
Could be different on side with out door. I know I have no problems with Musketeers (1 door) but head hits on Sundowners (2 doors).
Ride was to short to know if it would be a problem for long flights.
 
I own an older 67C model Mooney with an O-360 carbureted 180HP Lycoming. Over the last 12 months I have flown over 100 hours mostly X-country. It is a very stable IFR platform and I find it comfortable. As others have already said the width is not an issue and if you don't mind sitting with your legs forward like in a BMW or Corvette then you will be fine. Mine is a short body Mooney so the leg room in the back seat is limited. I have carried 4 folks before but the guys in the back will not be comfortable in long flights. Not an issue for me since most of my flights are typically 2 or 3 occasionally. My payload is 989 pounds and with 52 gallons I cruise at 142Kts while burning 8.7 GPH typically between 7k and 11k cruise altitudes. Enough for 600nm with reserves. I did not set out looking for a Mooney, but after evaluating what I wanted to do (mission) and how much I was willing to spend it was the best fit. I also lucked out because a good friend was willing to sell me his Mooney as he moved up to twins. When I had a Cessna I loved it, when I moved to a Cherokee 180 loved it too, and now that I have a Mooney I could not be happier. For my next airplane I'm contemplating an M20J for the better aerodynamics, faster speed, and more rear seat legroom.
 
wabower said:
If a pilot decided to fly a plane with cruise speed 10 knots faster than a Mooney and another decided to fly one 10 knots slower, how much total block time difference would they see for the three planes on the typical GA leg?
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Who gets to do a mid-field takeoff, and who has to taxi to the end of the runway?
 
I was just daydreaming the other day about replacing the steel tube rollcage with a titanium tube for 50% less structural weight to permit a lower empty weight, higher gross weight, higher landing weight, and more useful load.

Redesign the flaps to permit a slower stall speed.

A 4 cylinder, partially watercooled turbo, intercooled diesel FADEC powerplant with around 220 to 250hp sipping Jet-A. Bolted to a longbody fuselage of course. The extra room

Strategically placed composite dielectric panels to hide parasitic drag producing items like antennas.

If I was in the Mooney Billionaires club maybe I could make it happen.
 
Don't know what you're talking about when you say Mooneys are fast?

/Aerostar owner:D;)
 
mirage00 said:
Yes it's flown and yes it performed as designed... :wink2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baRivBB80fo
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I have this grand start-up company in mind, looking for one investor, interested? :D

Pipistrel is good company. Having said that, there's laws of physics. Anything beyond is called bending and amending the truth :no: By the time they are done with this thing, it will be a good airplane, but it won't be the friggin' miracle PR people rave about.
 
DavidWhite said:
How many hours do you have in Mooneys again?
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Enough to nail power off 180s from the right seat :) it was my CFI practical test airplane


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Besides the laminar flow wing on the Mooney, another often overlooked factor that reduces parasitic drag is the lack of an elevator trim tab dragging in the breeze. The entire empennage pivots to trim the Mooney.

Later model Mooneys and those retrofitted have flap and aileron gap seals, 1 piece belly pans (eliminating dozens of screw heads), dorsal and wing root fairings. Combined, they do make the Mooney an efficient and speedy bird.
 
And I should add, I'm 6'4" and at one point I was 280 lbs. I never have felt cramped in the 22 years of ownership.
 
I was admiring a well turned out early model Mooney at KCAE yesterday remembering that it's a plane I could'a would'a should'a fell in love with and made my first plane. After a owning a couple of sailplanes, the high aspect ratio, well tapered laminar flow wing clearly made it an efficiency leader in my eye.

But alas, I live on a rough enough grass strip that made the choice less than the best for me at the time.

After some 180hp Maule years I flew a C or an F for my commercial. It was amazing how much can be done with a Lyc 180. The wing reminded me of my old PIK20b glider; an early laminar design that worked at design speeds and conditions but had limits. Moisture on the PIK versus a drag bucket at 80mph or kts that made short field landings in the Mooney a piece of cake. They both had 'johnson bars' that benefited from a well timed PIO. They both had sporty and comfortable feet out front seating. This 6' 215 pounders second car is a Miata so....

Watching a couple of guys extract themselves from a later model Mooney while we looked down on them from the throne of our gull winged doored RV10 reminded me that we went down a good path.

Bill "they're aircraft, it's all about the wing" Watson
 
dell30rb said:
Also, if you have females on board figure no more than about 2.5 hours at a time. Less if you don't have a crew ISO switch :rofl:
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Thats a priceless comment there, especially the one regarding the ISO setting on the icom.
 
stratobee said:
Don't know what you're talking about when you say Mooneys are fast?

/Aerostar owner:D;)
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Well, they're much faster than the driving you end up doing when your Aerostar has a problem and you have to cancel the trip. :D
 
Alas, if there is one aircraft that has more OWTs following it than a Mooney, it's an Aerostar. A truly great airplane that I would truly love to have. The jet model would be nice.
 
LDJones said:
Al Mooney was a genius....for the most part. What genius he lacked, Roy LoPresti came along and corrected!

Factors contributing to their speed: relatively small frontal area; very slippery wing; articulating tail for trim (no trim tabs to add drag); putting the tail in the correct orientation! :)
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And very efficient cowl design that cools well at low drag.
 
Alexb2000 said:
My .02. Ferrari's are fun for a little buzz around town. Given the choice I'll take a Suburban on a long XC trip. Riding in the back seat of a Mooney would be a good way to get me to give up my secrets.

Maybe if we could pack less than 100lb. of luggage per person, I lost 40lb. and shrank 4 inches, my opinions might be different.:dunno:
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Hmm, I'm 6'2", 175#, and love to ride in the back seat of the 201. Good leg room and one of the best picture windows out there. That rear window is huge and the view is great.
 
Lance F said:
Alas, if there is one aircraft that has more OWTs following it than a Mooney, it's an Aerostar. A truly great airplane that I would truly love to have. The jet model would be nice.
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Oh come now Lance, can't a guy have a little fun? ;)

I'll be off flying The 310 this weekend wishing I had Aerostar speeds.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Hmm, I'm 6'2", 175#, and love to ride in the back seat of the 201. Good leg room and one of the best picture windows out there. That rear window is huge and the view is great.
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I have never found a plane I love being in the back of. The closest is napping in the back of the Navajo on dead legs while my co-pilot flew, but I'll stick to sitting up front. :)
 
As a Cardinal owner I confess to a certain amount of Mooney envy. I was considering looking at them seriously when I was shopping around. The one thing that made Mooney a non-starter for me was that there is no way I could get a bicycle into one with the ease of a Cardinal. In fact I suspect I'd have to take the rear wheel off too, even with the back seat removed. But yes, the speed difference, wow!
 
Lance F said:
Alas, if there is one aircraft that has more OWTs following it than a Mooney, it's an Aerostar. A truly great airplane that I would truly love to have. The jet model would be nice.
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I didn't get checked out in our club's M20J's for a long time due to this BS. I thought they were small, handled funny and didn't have much useful load.

Then one day I was hanging out at the club and someone needed a safety pilot in a Mooney. I started my checkout the following weekend.
 
Marauder said:
Besides the laminar flow wing on the Mooney
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I doubt this makes much difference in this speed range. The "laminar" airfoil's main advantage is that its maximum thickness is further aft, allowing the designers to stow the spar carry-through under the back seat and increase legroom for back-seat pax.

Bonanzas and Barons and their progeny (including King Airs) don't have "laminar" airfoils. Beech tested a laminar airfoil on the prototype Bonanza and found minimal speed improvement over the classic Beech 23000 airfoil, which had better handling. They tried it again in 1961 with an experimental Model O35 Bonanza -- higher aspect ratio, laminar airfoil, trailing-link main landing gear -- but still not enough advantage to make it worthwhile.

Later model Mooneys and those retrofitted have flap and aileron gap seals, 1 piece belly pans (eliminating dozens of screw heads), dorsal and wing root fairings. Combined, they do make the Mooney an efficient and speedy bird.
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Indeed. Compare the performance of a stock M20F Executive with that of an M20J -- same engine, same basic airframe, but with the magic touch of Roy LoPresti.

Bill Jennings said:
And very efficient cowl design that cools well at low drag.
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Too often overlooked. 180 hp PA-28s and C-172s are only about five knots faster than their otherwise-identical 150/160 hp counterparts. But a 180 hp Grumman Tiger is almost 15 knots faster than a 150/160 hp Cheetah. They look just about the same on the outside, but the aerodynamic plumbing inside the cowl is vastly different -- again, thanks to Roy LoPresti. It's a neat trick to have both low drag inside the cowl and adequate engine cooling.
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
Oh come now Lance, can't a guy have a little fun? ;)
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Absolutely. Fun is good.
I think Ted Smith and Al Mooney must have been cut from the same cloth. And they're my kind of thinkers.
It's funny. A good friend, CFI, mentor pilot to me, high time piston and jet pilot and overall good guy is a believer in and spreader of some Aerostar OWTs. :mad2:
 
dell30rb said:
I didn't get checked out in our club's M20J's for a long time due to this BS. I thought they were small, handled funny and didn't have much useful load.

Then one day I was hanging out at the club and someone needed a safety pilot in a Mooney. I started my checkout the following weekend.
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Lance was my enabler, I had already liked Mooney aircraft on paper, but a ride to Gastons and back really planted the seed.
 
Lance F said:
Absolutely. Fun is good.
I think Ted Smith and Al Mooney must have been cut from the same cloth. And they're my kind of thinkers.
It's funny. A good friend, CFI, mentor pilot to me, high time piston and jet pilot and overall good guy is a believer in and spreader of some Aerostar OWTs. :mad2:
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I'm all about fast and efficient. My current bug is wishing I could replace the tip tanks on the 310 with winglets.
 
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