Mooney 301
| Mooney 301 | |
|---|---|
| Role | Cabin monoplane |
| National origin | United States |
| Manufacturer | Mooney Aircraft Company |
| First flight | 7 April 1983 |
| Number built | 1 |
| Developed into | SOCATA TBM |
The Mooney 301 was a prototype aircraft created by American manufacturer Mooney Aircraft Company in 1983. It was a low-wing, single-engine, six-place monoplane with retractable landing gear and a pressurized fuselage.
The Mooney 301 design team was led by Roy LoPresti. It was an attempt to create an alternative to pressurized single-engine airplanes being introduced by Beechcraft, Cessna and Piper Aircraft. Only one prototype was constructed. Further development was carried out by a consortium led by French investors.
The Mooney Aircraft Company had previously produced a single-engine pressurized aircraft in 1964 (the M22 Mustang), which had been a financial disaster and was probably the largest single factor in the company's 1969 bankruptcy (although the Mustang continued to be produced through 1970). By the late 1970s the company was again feeling pressure to offer a pressurized product; Cessna's pressurized 210 had been available for several years, and Piper and Beech had announced their own pressurized single-engine projects.
To avoid another M22-type disaster the LoPresti design team (he brought in his own engineers, rather than using Mooney company employees) chose to start with a new design rather than a rework of the existing models (i.e. the M20 and its various upgrades).
The 301's general configuration was similar to other Mooney models, differing in details such as an aft-sloping vertical fin, as opposed to the vertical leading edge with forward-swept trailing edge M20 fin, a lower-set engine with small cooling-air inlets, and fixed horizontal stabilizers with trim tab-equipped elevators, as opposed to the pivoting-empennage M20 design. The tapered wing planform was similar to the M20, slightly longer (37.0 feet vs. 36.42 feet for the M20), and with several differences: the airfoil was a low-drag 15% profile NASA NLF(1)-0315 from root to tip;double-slotted Fowler flaps covering 90% of the trailing-edge length, with slotted ailerons on the remaining 10%, and with spoilers mounted on the wing's upper surfaces ahead of the flaps to assist the ailerons.
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