Mooney M20
aircraft
The Mooney M20 is a family of piston-powered, four-seat, propeller-driven, general aviation aircraft, all featuring low wings and tricycle gear, manufactured by the Mooney International Corporation.
The M20 was the 20th design from Al Mooney, and his most successful. The series has been produced in many variations over the last 60 years, from the wooden-wing M20 and M20A models of 1955, to the M20V Acclaim Ultra that debuted in 2016. More than 11,000 aircraft in total have been produced across three production runs, the most recent concluding in 2019.
In November 2008, Mooney International announced that it was halting all production as a result of the late-2000s recession, but would still provide parts and support for the existing fleet. With the injection of new capital from the company's purchase by a Chinese private equity firm, production of the M20 resumed in February 2014. Since then, the company has released two more M20 models.
Development
Al Mooney had been developing preliminary designs for the four-seater M20 for some time, while the single-seat M-18 Mite was in production in the late 1940s and early 1950s. When in early 1953 the company moved from Wichita, Kansas, to Kerrville, Texas, and when it became clear that the Mite was nearing the end of its production, development of the M20 accelerated. The first M20 flight took place on September 3, 1953, and it was certified on August 24, 1955.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mooney M20” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.