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 Albert W.
(Al) Mooney was born in Denver, Colorado on April 12, 1906. In
1926, at the age of 19, he was a draftsman and assistant to the chief
engineer at Alexander Aircraft in Denver. That was where the
classic
Curtiss
OX-5 powered
Eaglerock
became a standard.
Later, as chief engineer at Alexander (1928-1929) he was responsible for
the Bullet, an advanced, high speed, low wing monoplane. With Mooney's
patented retractable landing gear, it was a mild sensation and ahead of
its time.
Early in 1929, Mooney left Denver to form the Mooney Aircraft
Corporation with
his brother, Arthur B., in Wichita, KS. There he designed and built a more
advanced low-wing monoplane, the Mooney A-1. Like the Bullet, it was
designed for efficiency. Then the Depression hit the Mooney Corporation,
and it closed its doors in 1931.
By 1934, Mooney was with Bellanca, where he spent a short time as chief
engineer. During this time, he greatly influenced the design of the very
successful Bellanca low-wing wooden wonders, a version of which is still
being produced.
Then, becoming the vice president and chief engineer at Monocoupe
Aircraft, he developed the Model G "Dart" and the Monocoach. The
Dart was unmistakably an Al Mooney
airplane, and when Culver Aircraft purchased the design, prototype and
tooling for the Dart in 1938, Al followed right along with it.
During his days at Culver, Al designed the famous and fully aerobatic
Cadet.
With its elliptical wing and retractable landing gear, the two-seat
Culver Cadet was fast and efficient. Over 350 of these high-performance
aircraft had been produced by the time W.W. II erupted. During the War, the Culver Company turned to the production of radio
controlled target drones, and by the war's end had produced over 3000 of
the PQ-8 (a drone version of the Cadet) and the PQ-14 (its successor)
target drones. The tricycle geared, bright red
PQ-14 was the direct
ancestor of the Mite.
In July 1946, in partnership with
C.G. Yankey and W.L.
McMahon, the
Mooney brothers resurrected the Mooney Aircraft Corp. Al was the general
manager and chief engineer, while Art Mooney was the production manager.
Bill
Taylor was the sales manager and chief pilot, while Yankey financed the
operation. Their first offering was
the Mooney Series18, an all-wood single-seater with retractable tricycle gear
and a cantilevered, laminar flow wing. Test flights continued through 1947 and
certification was received in July, 1948. With its now-famous
"backward" tail, the Mooney "Mite" hit the sport aviation world
with a price tag of less than $2000, and represented the cheapest,
smallest aircraft to be produced in quantity.
The first Mites produced were certified
to use the 25 h.p. liquid-cooled
Crosley
Cobra automobile engine.
These engines
were mounted back-to-front
and drove the propeller through a belt-driven reduction gear. However,
due to numerous technical problems, they were soon recalled and
replaced, at no charge to the owners, with 65 h.p Lycomings.
The economy and efficiency of the Mite with the 65 h.p. engine was
remarkable: Three-and-a-half to four gallons per hour at cruise between
120 and 130 m.p.h. This miniature "fighter plane" was cheap to
buy and fun to fly. It had a lot of appeal to ex-military pilots
recently returned from the War. To celebrate his 25th anniversary as an aircraft designer,
Al Mooney set an unofficial
distance
record of 1312 miles in a Mite. One drawback of the Mite was its limited carrying
capacity. The pilot could easily equal 25% of the gross weight of the
airplane. In the model with the full electrical system, the baggage
compartment was taken up by the battery, leaving a baggage capacity of
only 40 lb.
The Mite had a hand-operated,
retractable gear system which was
difficult for some to operate. Pilots who had trained on other small
aircraft with fixed landing gear occasionally forgot to lower the gear
for landing in the Mite. This is said to have happened to an embarrassed
Al Mooney while he was giving a demo flight. This incident prompted him
to invent the unique Wig-wag warning device which waves from the
instrument panel when the pilot throttles-back with the gear up. Mooney
had confidence in the rugged little Mite. Mooney advertisements claimed that belly-landings were a quicker, safer way to stop in
difficult landing situations, and would cause little damage.
There were many ingenious features in
Mooney's airplane. A small Plexiglas window in the floor permitted the
pilot to easily observe the nose wheel position. The Safe-Trim mechanism,
operated by a small handle on the left side of the cockpit, integrated
the flaps and stabilizer. Rubber disks used in the landing gear resulted
in a virtually problem-free shock absorber system.
In May, 1951, during the Korean war, Mooney conceived a militarized
Mite. At their own expense, they developed the
M-19
"Cub-Killer", a "counter-liaison" aircraft,
featuring a 90 h.p. engine with a Flottorp constant speed propeller and two
.30
caliber machine guns in the wings. The gross weight was 1450 lbs. and it
achieved a top speed of 150 m.p.h. Although successful strafing
demonstrations were given for the US military, no purchase orders were
received.
In 1953, for economic reasons Mooney moved to Kerrville, Texas, where
production continued. The M-18C and M-18L, now named the
Wee
Scotsman,
featured the 65 h.p. Continental A65-8 and
the Lycoming O-145-B. However, the M-18L was
soon to be discontinued because the Lycoming engines were no longer
available. A plaid-coloured paint job on the vertical fin using
Scotchlite reflective material made it the first plane to be
reflectorized for safety. It also had a greater fuel capacity, 16 gallons
instead of 12, extending the range from 290 to 420 miles for Continental
model, and from 355 to 465 miles for the Lycoming model. With an
optional 6 gallon fuel tank installed in the wing, the range extended to
610 miles. A Flottorp controllable-pitch propeller was now available
for $189. The price of a new Mite was $2840, or you could buy one for
$2400 without the engine.
By 1955 the Mite had evolved into the model M-18C-55, which had a
larger cockpit and canopy, but the price was approaching $4000.
Mite
production came to an end in 1956, as Mooney was then devoting his talent to the
development of the Mark 20 family. The four-place Mark 20, with the
hallmark forward-swept tail, was another solid airplane that achieved
180 m.p.h. on 180 h.p. However, Al Mooney was soon to depart the company
he had founded and move to Lockheed-Georgia. He retired in 1968 and died in Dallas, Texas on May 7,
1986 at the age of 80. |
