I am helping an author who is writing a book about a Mooney M20A that crashed. What is the typical cruise speed of this model?

I imagine you already know this but the M20A had a wood wing and tail. The AD on the wood tail was an interesting read and did not instill a great deal of confidence in the structural integrity as they aged!

I have not owned a wood wing Mooney, but have had most of the basic models through the years.

I have read and heard that the wood wing planes were fast. That would be a 180 hp plane. The early metal wing version is about a 142 knot plane. I would bet a fast wood wing plane would be 148-150 knots or so.

https://www.globalair.com/aircraft-for- ... specid=492

https://planephd.com/wizard/details/436 ... armfr=1958

These both list 157, not sure about accuracy.

Brad

Does anybody have a panel pic of an M20A? Looking for the airspeed indicator.
Never mind, found one. Yellow arc starts at 150 MPH, no way it cruises at 155 knots true. Based on what I've seen elsewhere it's a 130 knot airplane.

I've not flown one, but have read many reports of 145-150 KTAS for the A model. The wood wing is lighter and smoother than the more common C model that is a 140 KTAS cruiser, typically.

Don't know about the A model, but normal cruise in an M20C is in the yellow arc.

I owned one for awhile. Good thing you didn't have to average all the time it was up on blocks with the TAS. I see it is still registered 50+ years later!

BH

Most of the wooden tails were replaced with all metal units supplied by the factory back in the 1960s. I read, somewhere, that there is one in Europe that still flies with the wooden tail unit. Doubt there are any wooden tails still flying in the U.S.

An M20A would likely cruise faster than an M20C, all other factors being equal. My Dad owned a 1964 M20C and it easily cruised well up in the Caution Range.

I bought an M20A with a wood tail that was flying 15 or 20 years ago. I parted it out and kept the engine. As I remember I sold a few parts that went overseas to a wood tail owner.

Most Mooney M20C are around 145 to 150 knot airplanes. The wood wing mooney was faster, so a safe bet would be 150 knots. For the power they have, they are very fast airplanes in the certified world. 130 knots is definetely not accurate.

Don Maxwell in Longview TX could tell you. Service center for Mooney’s.
I’ll bet Don Kaye can too, pm him.

Here is a link to download the POH and Service Manual for the M20A.

https://mooneyspace.com/files/file/152-m20a-poh/

Performance and Normal Cruise speed charts are on pages 20-21 of the POH. It shows max cruise true airspeed at 6,000 of 179 MPH which is 155 knots

We got it figured out. When the book comes out I'll make note of it here. The story is incredible. When I was President of the Montana Pilots Assoc(approx 7 years ago) I was contacted by a woman whose uncle was one of three people killed when the Mooney they were in crashed in the wilderness on Sep 1, 1961. The accident report is linked below.
In the wreckage was found some of the crown jewels of the royal family of Germany, stolen from their palace by members of Gen Eisenhower's staff after the defeat of Germany.
Several years ago the woman who contacted me and a relative of the other passenger in the plane came to my house and I flew them over the crash site, the Mooney is still sitting there where it crashed 59 years ago although you cannot see it from the air. She contacted an author and he is writing a book. He came to my house as well and I flew him over the crash site. He has emailed me many times over these last 2-3 years to ask aviation related questions.
Here's the link to the accident report. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BONvBZ ... sp=sharing

Here is the 1959 advertisement in Flying Magazine for the M20A

http://www.davemorris.com/Photos/Mooney%20Interesting/Ad-BigPleasure.jpg