pilot report Mooney Mite
by
Budd Davisson
Three-D Commuter
Here I
was at 2500 feet, cruising along with
a 65 hp Continental perched over my
feet and my elbows in my lap. My mind,
rather than enjoying the three
dimensional surroundings, was playing
word games . . . "Mitey Nice," or
"High and the Mitey," or "Mitey Cute."
As much a
the word "cute" sticks in my throat, I
have to admit that it truly fits the
Mooney Mite. How else do you describe
a little flying machine that sits on
the ground like some sort of forlorn
toy just asking you to whisk it up
into the air where it can play. Where
you both can play. Yep. "Cute" is the
right word.
Time was
when I was absolutely certain a Mite
would be my commuter transportation to
and from the office. See, I was going
to be living in the foothills of some
rocky-type mountains (where the
density altitude never exceeded 2000
ft). It would be a ranch, a working
horse ranch that looked suspiciously
like the Ponderosa, except the runway
was right behind the house/barn/hangar
complex. Each morning I'd amble out to
the hangar, push a button that opened
the door, flip the Mite's prop and
soon be droning my way to the office.
My office would, coincidentally, be
part of an office complex I owned, on
an airport I developed, in a small
suburban town I planned and built. Of
course, I now live on a small
mountainside and fight my way through
traffic with the rest of the slobs and
the only thing I own is my house and
workshop. I don't need the Mitey
little commuter. Not realistically
anyway. That doesn't stop me from
dreaming the long-time dream.
The Mite
would make a hell of a commuter, which
is one of the reasons it was designed
in the first place. It was, and is one
of the most personal feeling little
airplanes available and would knock
the socks off a VW for both economy
and dodging traffic.
The Mite
was the very first production airplane
to actually bear Al Mooney's name . .
. an amazing fact when you consider
the dozens of airplanes he designed or
helped design. In the period from
1928-1955, it's almost easier to name
airplanes he didn't work on than those
he did. Such magical names as
Monocoupe, Dart, and Culver started
out on Mooney's drawing board. Someday
there's going to have to be a first
class job done on biographing Mooney,
since he is certainly one of the
unsung cornerstones of our business.
By 1948,
when the Mite was designed, it was
obvious that the aviation bubble had
burst. Thirty-five thousand airplanes
were built in 1946 and only two years
later the production was down to
around 3000. To say the bubble had
burst is hardly adequate. The
marketplace envisioned never
materialized and what little developed
evaporated shortly after. So what
possessed Al Mooney to set up shop in
Wichita with the idea of building a
little single-place airplane?
He was
attempting the same impossible task we
are trying today . . . he wanted to
build a cheap, affordable airplane.
Since engines were almost (almost but
not quite) as ridiculously expensive
in those days as they are now, he
decided to forego the standard
Lycoming/ Continental 65 hp engine.
Instead, he designed his airplane
around the little four cylinder water
cooled engine that was pushing around
the tiny Crosley station wagons.
As
engines go, the Crosley was, and still
is, a fairly sophisticated package . .
. and not a very big one at that. In
the first place, it was a high revving
little sucker, capable of touching
8000 rpm without too much help. Also,
it was probably the first high
production American engine with an
overhead cam. To make things even more
interesting, it was made entirely out
of sheet metal that was brazed
together in an oven. Since you could
tuck one of those things under your
arm and walk off with it, Mooney was
justified in thinking this could be
his engine, even if it did mean
fitting the unit with a 2:1 V-belt
reduction unit.
And so
the first ten Mooney M-18 Mites went
out the factory doors with a 22 hp
Crosley engine that sipped barely 11/2
gallons per hour.
Things
always seem to go wrong once an engine
is bolted to the front of an airplane.
In the case of the Crosley the change
to cast crankshafts in the auto
engines made them prone to break
cranks in the air. Mooney recalled all
the production airplanes and refitted
them with 65 hp Lycomings (M-18L),
which remained the standard engine
until it was no longer available and
the Continental C-65 was used (M-18C).
Dave
Blanton, then Mooney's test pilot,
recalled flying the airplane, "When we
put the Lycoming in we were so broke
we had to borrow a propeller off a
Porterfield. This prop was too big and
was pitched for climb. We had eight
inches of snow on the field and the
Crosley airplanes required me to make
runs up and down until I had made a
path but the Lycoming exploded out of
the snow in less than 100 feet. It
could really go!"
In total
over 230 Mites were built in Wichita
before the company's financial angel
died. The local county government,
showing the usual foresight such
bodies seem embued with, foreclosed
and took Mooney stock as payment for
back taxes. Since the company was, for
all purposes, bankrupt and since the
local government wasn't all that
helpful, Mooney and his crew packed up
and moved to Kerrville, Texas, a
relationship that appears to still be
working. They cranked out another
fifty Mites in Kerrville, which
included several significant
modifications.
Mumbling
along at 2500 feet, history didn't
really seem all that relevant. What
really counted was how the airplane
flew. And it flies great. Takeoff had
been dead simple. Just a matter of
point it, goose the Continental, and
pick the nose up when it felt light.
All of this happened with me cocooned
in a tiny little capsule that felt
like a glider on its tip toes.
Gear
retraction is the only thing about
takeoff that requires any training.
The gear uses the Armstrong system . .
. a lever and a strong arm. And you
don't just grab it and yank, because
the natural way to grab the lever
locked to the floor in the "down"
position is wrong. You have to turn
your hand over, so that when you've
unlocked and yanked up, your wrist has
enough movement to lock the lever up.
You can actually do it either way and
I did, but one way is easier than the
other.
Maybe
it's the size of the airplane, or the
lack of size, that makes the climb
feel so spectacular. The airplane is
super stable both in pitch and roll
during climb, so you aren't conscious
of the airplane's size and light
ailerons. You can just sit there and
watch the real estate fall out from
under you at what seems to be an
amazing rate. Actually, it's something
like 800-900 fpm (those with the
Beech-Roby props reportedly top 1100
fpm climb!), which is damned
respectable and an example of what
high aspect ratio, lightly loaded
wings do for you.
At cruise
I could easily see myself with a
high-tech LORAN and a nav/comm unit
stacked between my legs ahead of that
tiny stick. I'd be trundling along
talking to approach control while on
my way to work. The comfort is just
fine for somebody my size (5 ft 10 in,
165 pounds) although more height or
width is going to translate into some
crowded corners.
We
(editorial "we") were seeing about 120
mph on the clock, somewhat short of
the 130 mph advertised, but the
airplane I was flying wasn't the
cleanest in the world. With a little
tweaking, 130 mph seems entirely
possible and the fuel consumption
would still hover in the 4 gph
category.
One of
the things I'd always heard about the
Mite, was that it used a lot of new At
Mooney ideas about preventing
stall/spin accidents. Some of these
ideas included the straight leading
edge and swept forward trailing edge
and a truly unusual combination of
airfoils: The root is a laminar
airfoil, a 64215, but the tip is a
standard NACA 2412. This is supposed
to give aileron control well into the
stall . . . a fact that can be proven
only one way.
Carb heat
out, I brought the nose well up and
waited. As the power came back, a
bright light on the panel reminded me
I didn't have the gear down (some have
a little wand that wags back and forth
as a gear warning). The needle fell
off the bottom of the gauge when the
stick pegged against my lap. The
airplane buffeted and nodded up and
down, I could feel air flow attaching
and detaching from the root sections.
The stall was straight ahead and
needed no correction, but I poked the
ailerons out in either direction and
was rewarded with a fairly precise wag
of the wings. Mooney's ideas work! At
no time were the ailerons stalled, or
even close to it. I was impressed.
I was
doing my stalls up around 3000 feet,
fairly close to the airport, so I
brought the power back and headed back
to land. Or at least try to. It became
obvious very quickly that this thing
wasn't going to come down fast enough
to let me enter the pattern. At a
normal glide speed, it didn't look
like we were going to come down at
all. Those super-long wings think they
are attached to some sort of glider.
Which they are.
Gliders
have spoilers . . . and so do Mooney
Mites, only Mooney called his spoilers
"landing gear." I wrapped my hand
around the handle and pulled out of
the uplock detent, prepared to give a
good chunk of shoulder to bang into
position. I had forgotten about
gravity. As soon as I unlocked the
handle, it headed down like it knew
where it was going. And it did, sort
of. The handle knew where the floor
was, but couldn't find the way into
the downlock without some
encouragement from me. I had to do a
fair amount of fishing around the
first time I lowered the gear to be
sure it was actually in the detent.
Once the
gear was down the airplane still
didn't exactly fall out of the sky,
but at least it showed a little more
respect for Isaac Newton and his
theories. Until the gear was out I
wasn't at all sure this thing which
had gone up really was going to come
down. It did and I eventually found
myself on downwind, wondering how far
out I should place base leg so I
wouldn't glide over the airport.
Backing
out a little further than I thought
necessary, I ran out the flaps, which
incidentally, require no re-trimming
of the airplane. The flaps are hooked
to the fully-trimmable tail, so when
you drop flaps, the tail automatically
trims out any pitch change. Neat!
As I
turned final, it looked as if I had
been lucky and was going to be more or
less on profile. The little airplane
really didn't require all that much
coaching from me since it was dead
stable in pitch and the speed hung on
65 mph as if painted there. All I had
to do was watch the end of the runway
and wait until I was practically on
the deck to break the glide.
On
takeoff it felt as if I was sitting on
the runway in my skivvies, so on
landing I was careful not to flare too
high. I did anyway. Having several
feet to go, I flattened out just a
little and settled through ground
effect, which the Mite was very
reluctant to do. There was about 10
mph of wind on the nose, so everything
was happening in slow motion and I had
absolutely no trouble, not a bit, in
planting the machine on the main gear.
I'd like to say I held the nose off
until ready to lower, but I can't. It
came down shortly after the mains, not
an abrupt three-point arrival.
Roll out,
like takeoff, was extremely
anticlimactic. The airplane stuck to
the centreline and slowed to a near
walk in several hundred feet. Once,
years ago, I had seen a Mooney Mite
landed on my local field in Oklahoma
when the wind was blowing like the
hammers of hell about 30 degrees to
the runway and the pilot had not the
slightest problem. He was a good
stick, but I could now see that the
airplane helped him out.
As I slid
the tiny canopy back, I wished I was
at my back door, with my wife and kids
waving from the porch and the horses
watching from the corral. But I
wasn't. I was still in New Jersey
still scrambling for a buck, and
landed only to return the airplane to
its rightful owner. I was a long, long
way from my day-dream foothills.
There are
bound to be some folks out there
looking for a commuter-plane and the
M-18 Mooney Mite is it. There are lots
of them around but you have to look
closely before you start plunking down
the long green. The Mite is of 100
percent wood construction and was
originally designed to be as light as
possible. Remember the original engine
was only 22 hp. Also remember all of
that wood is over thirty years old. So
is the glue. And the airplanes have
been around for a long time. Maybe in
the rain, or snow, or the green stuff
Los Angeles and New Jersey call air.
So the Mite's basic structure has to
be inspected with a fine-toothed A & P
before you buy.
Most of
the problems with the structure are
typical wooden airplane problems. Find
a pampered airplane that's always been
indoors and chances are the wood will
be fine. The Mite still has a couple
of problem areas that are peculiar to
the breed and most of them center
around the tail. The tail on all
Mooneys really isn't part of the
airframe. The entire unit is perched
out on a steel tube structure so the
whole tail can pivot for trim. On the
Mite, this steel tube is bolted to the
rear bulkhead and this bulkhead wasn't
originally secured to the stringers in
the rear fuselage. There was an AD
that called for bolting an aluminium
plate to the bulkhead and, I believe,
transferring the loads to the
stringers via clips. Dave Blanton
stated that none of the Mites with the
AD should be considered safe because
moisture can be trapped between the
aluminium and the wood. He advises
pulling the plate and buttering it up
with epoxy and reinstalling it wet,
which would seal the area against
moisture.
Blanton
also says the tubing on the tail truss
is thin and any corrosion would be
critical. Same goes for tail spars:
They are extremely light and any
damage or deterioration should mean a
complete rebuild of the surfaces.
As long
as you are shopping for a Mite, you
should know that the fifty airplanes
built in Kerrville had a different
cockpit set-up. They lengthened,
widened and deepened the cockpit,
becoming much more comfortable for
bigger pilots. Actually a big pilot
probably couldn't get into the usual
Mite cockpit without coating himself
with two layers of peanut oil.
There is
also one other version of the airplane
that really tickles the imagination. A
single M-19 was built, which was the
Mite with a C-90 engine, bigger
cockpit and (get this) a .30 calibre
machine gun under each wing. No, it
wasn't for Texas ranchers to go
chasing coyotes or rustlers . . . this
was yet another of the COIN fighter
concepts that never caught on.
The M-19
was severely damaged in a bizarre
accident when a pilot reportedly
attempted to takeoff with a concrete
block still tied to the tail. He
didn't make it. At least he didn't
make it into the air very far or for
very long. There are stories that the
M-19 is under restoration somewhere,
but we were unable to locate the
plane. Wouldn't it be a gas to taxi
into the Warbird area at Oshkosh in
the M-19, then taxi under a T-28C and
attach your airplane to its bomb
shackles?
It's
obvious I'm never going to be a high
roller in the real estate community.
That part of my dream is stone dead.
But there are still plenty of Mites
out there. Who knows? Part of a dream
is better than none at all.
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