Mooney Airplane Company
 |
|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | General aviation |
| Founded | 1929 |
| Founder | Albert Mooney |
| Headquarters | Kerrville, Texas |
|
Key people
|
CEO Vivek Saxena |
| Products | Light aircraft |
| Owner | Soaring America Corporation |
| Website | www.mooney.com |
The Mooney International Corporation (formerly Mooney Aviation Company, Inc. and the Mooney Aircraft Company) is a Chinese-owned manufacturer of single-engined general aviation aircraft based in Kerrville, Texas, United States.
The company has gone bankrupt and changed ownership several times. Among its achievements were the first pressurized single-engined, piston-powered aircraft (M22 Mustang), production of the fastest civilian single-engined, piston-powered aircraft in the world (M20TN Acclaim Type S), the first production aircraft to achieve 201 mph (323 km/h) on 200 hp (150 kW)) (M20J 201) and the fastest transcontinental flight in a single-engined, piston-powered production aircraft (M20K 231). All Mooney aircraft have the signature vertical stabilizer with its vertical leading edge and swept trailing edge that gives the illusion of being forward-swept.
Mooney Aircraft Corporation was started in 1929 by Albert Mooney and his brother Arthur, with funding from the Bridgeport Machine Company of Wichita, Kansas. Mooney Aircraft went bankrupt in 1930. The Mooney brothers worked for other aircraft companies from then through World War II. In 1946, Albert started Mooney Aircraft, Inc. with Charles "Pappy" Yankey in Kerrville, Texas. The next year Arthur joined the company.
The first aircraft produced by the new Mooney company was the small, single-seat, Mooney Mite M-18. It was designed to appeal to the thousands of fighter pilots leaving military service (some thought the Mooney Mite looked so much like the Messerschmitt Bf 109 that they called it the "Texas Messerschmitt".
The Mooney Mite established some of the design concepts still used by Mooney today. The model Mooney M20 entered production in 1955 and outwardly resembled a scaled-up Mite. Mooney is still producing variants of the M20 today.
...
Wikipedia