Three quick shots of prime, mags on both, two blades and the Continental began doing its characteristic chug-chug-clatter routine. Fred had spent a lot of time telling me not to use the brakes so I had to plan my paths through the puddles and airplanes with great care. I noticed, as I passed beneath the wing of a 172, that there are lots of advantages to little airplanes on crowded ramps.
The turning radius without brakes is almost exactly as wide as a 50 ft. runway, but such a wide turn at the end of the runway gave me plenty of room to clear for traffic. I reached up for the throttle which is a black plastic peanut placed far enough forward on the left wall to bring your left elbow out from between your ribs. The neutral position of the stick does the same for your right arm. "Aha!" I thought, "Maybe I can fly this thing after all."
Thumb to throttle. Throttle to forward. The chugs got closer together, the noise got worse, the airplane gave a couple reluctant vibrations and began rolling forward. Inertia is the greatest enemy of 65 horse powerplants. Once rolling, however, it grabbed for speed fairly quickly and I don't remember doing anything at all to make it fly. It came off the ground in a nearly level attitude and probably would have climbed out all by itself with the nose only slightly above the horizon had I not given a gentle tug on the stick.
First problem: turn the trim system from coarse to fine. It was more trouble than it was worth to get it with my left hand, so I changed hands on the stick and reached across with my right hand for it. Voila! I discovered the secret to working in tight quarters . . . reach across so your arm has more room to work.
After I was three or four hundred feet up and trimmed for an 80 mph climb, I decided it was time to try for the gear. Jerk, tug, pull, stab! I finally got it in the slot. If I owned a Mite one of the first things I would do is make a "V" shaped guide that would mount on the up-lock slot on the floor. The lever on Fred's Mite wiggles sideways too much and a guide is needed to accurately force the lever into the slot with one hand. This is not the usual case with M-18's, I'm told.
Once I got the gear up and squared everything away, I suddenly found myself quite comfortable in an over-stuffed sort of way. Wearing lighter clothes would probably make the airplane seem a size or two larger and most of my problems would have disappeared. Even so, during climb-out I was already beginning to warm up to the airplane, though my feet were freezing (OAT 10° F).
I feel sorry for every pilot who flies his entire life without ever experiencing the thrill of a little airplane like the Mite, be it a homebuilt or otherwise. The controls fill your hand and your brain like three-dimensional random thoughts that need only be brought to mind to become reality. A bank is only a mental message away and the gorgeous feeling of flight is insulated only by your gloves. I took mine off. Despite my earlier doubts about the Mite, as a flying machine its emphasis is more on flying and less on machine, and I loved it if only for that reason.
Visibility is, as might be expected, nearly perfect, although the wing does block downward visibility somewhat. Even twisting around to see behind you is no big deal, which incidentally, is a good thing because the fuel gauge is a plastic tube that runs up the bulkhead right behind your noggin.
Eleven gallons are housed behind you (15 gallons on some) and an additional six are in an auxiliary tank that has to be wobble-pumped up to the main tank to be used. At 3.5 gallons an hour, that's an endurance of almost 5 hours. My two-way speed checks gave a speed of about 118 mph so the no reserve range of this little 65 hp number is a solid 590 miles. I've even heard of these things being set up for IFR and night work. Quite honestly, if I had the opportunity to do some cushion shifting I'd be happy to bore holes in the sky for 6 hours.
The stability is good for such a small package, especially through the pitch axis, although this particular airplane was a mite (pun intended) out of rig, as it always wanted to turn left. Control pressures were what you'd expect, light although not as light as most homebuilts, and the rudder gets useless in steep maneuvering. It seems everything named Mooney is short in the rudder department.
Stalls clean came around 55 mph with nothing spectacular happening. With flaps down, however, the Mite would slow down to 50 mph, shudder, try to drop its nose, and then, if you insisted on holding the stick back, it would really snap its nose towards the ground. It flies out of a stall immediately, but leaves no doubt when it's had enough. With the gear down, the break is a bit more civilized.
I practiced snapping the gear up and down several times and found things worked out best if I grabbed the handle with my thumb pointing down, giving it a healthy yank and letting the inertia of the gear legs help me out. Later Mites (officially called; are you ready for this: "Wee Scotsman" after 1953) have a shorter throw landing gear system, which should work even better.
After making a couple of fighter pilot passes on two Cherokees, a Baron and a chicken hawk, I started letting down to head for the barn. In the process, I found that power off and clean, you're lucky if you can persuade the Mite to descend at 400-500 fpm. Those high aspect ratio wings would probably work out well in slope soaring.
Fortunately, the stall series had shown me that Fred's airplane's trim system was wildly out of rig and would force me to carry bunches of forward stick with the flaps out. Otherwise, between trying to get the gear out and keep the nose down, I would have had an interesting trip around, the pattern. When properly rigged, the trim/flap system is supposed to work together so that the airplane is never out of trim.
Seventy to seventy-five mph felt good on final and the little bugger settled into the groove and held its speed like a 747 all the way to the runway. As we hit the downdraft for which my home field (Sussex, N.J.) is famous, I had to jab a little with the stick to keep the nose down. Otherwise, the only thing of note was the reluctance with which the airplane landed. It's a floater and any extra speed is going to embarrass the hell out of you. It lands a lot like a T-Craft except the nose-wheel makes it track straight as a die.
Now that I've had my chance at a Mite, I can see why they are such a popular item at the paltry $3000-4000 they currently go for. Mites also have another thing that makes them unique; you can buy the plans for them and build one yourself.
The M-18 Mite went out of production in 1955 and the type certificate was eventually sold to Fred Quarles of Mooney Mite Aircraft Corporation (Box 3999, Charlottsville, VA 22903) who now offers complete plans to anybody who thinks they'd like to build their own. So far over 500 people have. And at $70 each his plans are a bargain. His long term objective is to put a modified version of the airplane back into production. This one would use newer state-of-the-art tooling and an O-200 100 hp powerplant. That would give a solid 65 hp at around 10,000 feet which would be like having a turbo-charged Mite that could speed up to 175 mph at altitude. With that engine, it would climb like a frightened squirrel.
In total, there were 292 Mooney Mites built (285 according to some sources). There were four series in the production, of which 83 were L models with Lycoming engines and a 780 pound gross weight. Then 124 Cs and LAs were built with an increased gross of 850 pounds. The remainder were C-55s which were a little longer and had a slightly higher canopy, sort of a Malcolm hood, that messed up the lines slightly but made it easier for tall folks to look around. It's anybody's guess how many Mites still survive, but I personally know of two hanging in hangar rafters waiting for somebody to rebuild them. (Don't write, they aren't for sale.)
Around 1953 they cranked out one Mite that I'm certain was tagged Mighty Mite by any who saw it; would you believe a 90 hp engine, and two .30 caliber machine guns? Officially known as the M-19, this was Mooney's bid for a ground support, COIN airplane and although much similar in appearance to a M-18, it was a much modified airframe. It was beefed up in many areas, featured a wider cockpit and the engine was fully cowled. Imagine what a kick it would be taxiing up to the warbird line at your next fly-in and demanding to be parked next to a
P-51!
Personally, I very much like the airplane, but I couldn't own one. Because of the way they fly and the thoughts they plant in your head, I'm afraid they'd wear down my will power and my enthusiasm would get the best of me. They aren't acrobatic in even the mildest sense of the word and I'd wind up spreading plywood all over three counties. But, for my money, they are a hell of a cute little airplane and the EPA should take note: a Mooney Mite gets better than 33 miles per gallon in both city and highway driving. |
| N4096, a 1952 M-18C, is currently owned by Winslow Jones of
Glen Ellyn, IL. |
