Mooney Mite M-18

M-18 Mite
Mooney M-18C
Role	personal use aircraft
Manufacturer	Mooney Aircraft Company
Designer	Al Mooney
First flight	1947
Introduction	1947
Produced	1947–54
Number built	283
Unit cost	US$2965 (price new in 1947)
Variants	Mooney M20

The Mooney M-18 "Mite" is a low-wing, single-place monoplane with retractable, tricycle landing gear.

The Mite was designed by Al Mooney and was intended as a personal airplane marketed to fighter pilots returning from World War II.

The M-18 design goal was extremely low operating costs. The Mite is constructed mainly of fabric-covered wood, with a single spruce and plywood "D" wing spar. The wing aft of the spar is fabric-covered.

The airfoil selected for the design was the NACA 64A215. The M-18 represented the first time a NACA 6-series airfoil had been used on a civil aircraft after World War II.

The aircraft featured a unique "safe-trim" system. This mechanical device links the wing flaps to the tail trim system and automatically adjusts the horizontal stabilizer angle when the flaps are deflected, reducing or eliminating pitch changes when the flaps are lowered.

The Mooney Aircraft Corporation built a total of 283 Mites in Wichita, Kansas, and Kerrville, Texas, between 1947 and 1954. The first few were powered by modified 25 hp (19 kW) Crosley automobile engines, but production shifted to the M-18L powered by the four-cylinder, 65 hp (48 kW) Lycoming O-145 powerplant and finally the M-18C with the Continental C-65 aircraft engine.

The market for the single-seat M-18 was limited, so Mooney later developed the four-place M-20 to appeal to aircraft owners with families. In the early 1970s, Mooney offered plans for four different homebuilt versions of the aircraft.

Factory production of the Mite ended in 1954.

As of January 2016, 119 Mites were still registered in the United States and three in Canada.

Data from A Field Guide to Airplanes - Second Edition, Plane and Pilot: 1978 Aircraft Directory & The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage