How Mooney Marries Metal to Composite 

Henry Ford was making a product that anyone with a spare afternoon could be licenced to drive. There were also no other options within an order of magnitude in price at the time. So anyone who wanted a car and didn't have $20,000 for a Dusie bought his make and model. And a Model-T would now cost around $20,000-$100,000, if you consider they were $1000 initially, later reduced to $250. And the US dollar has inflated nearly to 1% of it's 1913 value. Airplanes are different, because no single design meets all mission requirements. It's pickup truck vs sports car vs motorcycle. Except they all have wings in this case. There are only a couple hundred thousand GA aircraft in existence. Built over the last 80+ years. Ford builds 1,000,000 F-150s per year. Each design generation sells 6-8 million copies of that one model, one design, one assembly line layout. And the cheapest F-150 is in the $30Ks and up up to mid-$70s, they actually take less than 40 man-hours to build, each. A GA airplane takes 800-3,000. A Mooney and a model T have nothing in common. Even a J-3 cub was beyond reach of all but the wealthy, or flying clubs, and governments in it's day. The Curtis Jenny was also. But the government gave them away to pilots and barnstormers for like $70, new they were several thousands of dollars. There are only so many pilots out there, fewer yet who would be interested in purchasing a new plane and taking on the maintenance and storage obligations. Fewer yet who want or need a cramped 4-place, high speed commuter. Maybe a 2-seat or a 6-seat meets their mission, or maybe they need short grass field takeoffs, now you down to a much smaller number of pilots who would ever consider the Mooney. Maybe only 100,000 people total. That still nearly 1/4 of the pilot population in the USA. It's simply an impossible task to market a Mooney to the masses. There aren't enough customers in existence to sell mass produced airplanes to. It's impossible to market a Cessna 172 to the masses. And more people would want one of those than a Mooney. They run $375K+. A Citabria Aurora with an O-235 118hp is $200,000, before upgrades. The Mooney is probably about twice the man hours, has five times more money in the panel, and runs behind an engine that costs 3x as much as a baby 118hp 4-cyl. Not to mention the constant speed propeller costs about $20K vs 2K for the Citabria. The Mooney is an equivalent deal, considering you get about 300% more value in components and nearly 3x the speed, 3x the luxury, for around 3x the price of the Citabria. And price usually goes up at the square of speed. So the Mooney is actually a bargain. :)

Mike Kobb they’re shipping like 2-3 per quarter :(

Back of the airplane fuselage, aft of the cabin is a standard "semi-monocoque" stressed aluminum skin. The aft fuselage bolts to the cabin steel tube. The cabin is skinned (aluminum but now they use composite skin). The skin is riveted to formers (and now also bonded with adhesives for composite skins). The formers are attached to the "cage" or steel tube via welded flanges or tabs. I don't think they drill direct into the tubing.

@@gmcjetpilot Thank you! I was really trying to figure out how they would rivet through the tube directly😅. If I would drill on the skin by my previous thoughts, It would be a mess.

@@alexandrebueno3656 I'm not an expert but it seems like a curiously mixed construction.

Anything coming after "I'd love to work.." is kind of crazy. I prefer I'd love to have a plane and be free flying around without to worry about the money, sounds much better IMO

@@JP-xd6fm Well you obviously don't work with your hands,and have no skills working with your hands,where as I do,I am multi skilled,so that's why it appeals to me.

@@johnbravo7542 Good for you man, we need folks like you.

it is until you get the urge to create somethign. @@JP-xd6fm

The maximum load a control cable ever sees in normal use is the maximum force the pilot is able to physically exert. That's why control cables are aproximatly the same size from an Peitenpol to an Extra 330 to a McDonnell-Douglass MD-80. 8,000-10,000lb steel cable is pretty darn strong.

A joggle.

In woodworking it's called a rabbet like in rabbit. An L shaped groove where another panel can fit into.

It does seem counterintuitive. Are there any advantages to that composite shell? Other than complicating assembly, allowing the occupants to become the antenna counterpoise, and showcasing how the wonder of proseal can overcome a backward-facing lap joint subject to slipstream, what are the benefits? I'm not an aero engineer, just an old mechanic. Is there something I'm missing and/or a technical lesson to be learned here, or does the glass shell just make the windows easier to glue on?

Thanks @6 6, that composite piece saved a lot more weight than I'd have expected -- sensible starting part for an incremental change strategy.

@@gth042 aluminum has a density of 2.73 and a stiffness of 70 GPa. A carbon fiber - epoxy laminate has a density of 1.5 and a stiffness of about 70 GPa. An e-glass - epoxy laminate has a density of 1.7 and a stiffness of about 8 GPa. You can see pretty quickly why carbon saves a lot of weight. Because geometric stiffness is a function of the cube of the thickness, you have a difficult time making aluminum as stiff as a cored fiberglass part, and carbon is just in another galaxy.

inflation. also rules are so complicated, there is no competition and thus the price gaugijg can commence.

That is to take all the technology... China steals several billion in intellectual property every year by pure theft or forcing companies they deal with to give it to them. They also make synthetic opioide which makes it to USA and kills 10's of thousands of Americans every year. All this Russia BS, a country that has the economy of Texas and can't make an elevator... Yet China is the real threat, is overtaking ours, has human rights abuse out the ying-yang, and no one talks of it.

@@gmcjetpilot "no one talks of it" Only if you're oblivious to foreign affairs.

Or a bowtie.

@@earth9531 no that's just satan's excuse in your weak mind. Hillary was a serious sober candidate, Trump is a bizarrely childish sociopath monster. He lies transparently at every turn even when there is no reason to at all. He's the most spectacular personality flaw I have ever seen. Republican idiots aren't squeezed from every side, things are better than ever. Despite Bush jr crashing the economy hard. A pos republican. The only merit indirectly to trump is that the left has been too indulgent of sjw idiocy but that is in no way anywhere near enough to vote for the absolute garbage that is Trump. No one who knows Jesus would ever vote for Trump. Not one. Jesus said he is the very concept of truth. Yet socalled evangelicals voted for this sociopath child liar. Trump's first press conference was to lie about crowd size at his inauguration. Half his cabinet is in prison. His family is next. He's a carbon copy of Nixon just worse. Trump is a joke the world over. Opinion polls in europe was something like 90% for Hillary and the UN laughed at Trump when he spoke his idiocy. USA's own media and late night shows are the most scathing by far ever and Bush jr was a satanic joke himself yet he was only somewhat ridiculed for his incompetence and evil. We are not talking subtleties here. These a biblical level events because not only is Trump utter filth but about 40% of USA is so beastly mindless as to stubbornly still side with Trump. Siding with Hitler would have more integrity. Not one Trump voter shall enter heaven. Not one.