Mooney M20

M20 family
Mooney M20J
Role	Personal use civil aircraft
Manufacturer	Mooney Airplane Company
Designer	Al Mooney
First flight	1955
Introduction	1955
Status	In production (2016)
Produced	1955–2008, 2014–present
Number built	>11,000
Unit cost	US$659,000 (M20R Ovation3, 2016) US$719,000 (M20TN Acclaim S, 2016) US$689,000 (M20U Ovation Ultra, 2016) US$769,000 (M20V Acclaim Ultra, 2016)

The Mooney M20 is a family of piston-powered, propeller-driven general aviation aircraft, all featuring low wings and tricycle gear, manufactured by the Mooney Airplane Company.

The M20 was the 20th design from Al Mooney, and his most successful. The series has been produced in many variations over the last 60 years, from the wooden-wing M20 and M20A models of 1955, to the M20V Acclaim Ultra that debuted in 2016. Roughly 12,000 aircraft in total have been produced.

On November 5, 2008, the company announced that it was halting all production as a result of the late-2000s recession, but would still provide parts and support for the existing fleet.

With the injection of Chinese capital after the company's purchase, production of the M20 resumed in February 2014, and since then, has released two more M20 models as well as two all-new M10 models.

The Mooney M20 series has been produced in three fuselage lengths: the "short-body" (M20 through M20E), "medium-body" (M20F through M20K), and "long-body" (M20L through M20V). Although all M20s have four seats, the fuselage length increase provided more rear passenger legroom, but with a slight performance decrease. Other airplane improvements over the years in most cases more than compensated for the effects of a longer fuselage; for a similar engine and vintage, for instance, the shorter-fuselage model is faster, e.g., M20E vs M20F.

In July 2008, Mooney signed a memorandum of understanding with Rolls-Royce to develop a version of the M20 that was to have been powered by the Rolls-Royce RR500 TP turboprop powerplant. The project was announced as being a joint "marketing investigation" and "exploration project", but does not appear to have come to fruition.

With the exception of the wooden wings and tails of the original M20 and M20A, M20s are all-metal, low-wing aircraft. The wings are of cantilever construction, consisting of a main spar and an auxiliary spar that extends from the fuselage to the middle position of the flaps. The wing skin is aluminum which is flush-riveted in many areas to reduce parasitic drag. Slotted flaps cover 70% of the trailing edge. The earliest models (prior to 1963) have manual flaps. Later models use a hydraulic hand pump to control the flaps while even-later models have electrically operated flaps. The forward fuselage has a steel tube cabin structure covered in aluminum skin, while the aft fuselage is of semi-monocoque design.