Comments on: Visiting an old Mooney friend and wondering why

By: Doug Triplat

Doug Triplat — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:13:23 +0000

Came close to buying a PFM after a couple of flights but the aircraft was lacking speed and and payload. I was told a 270 HP model with turbocharger was coming out next. The mistake was made when they came out with the 217 HP engine first. I understood the bigger engine was already developed and ready to go. I saw the engines and talked to reps at 1987 Oshkosh. Porsche invested 200 million on this project and should have gone full tilt on HP. Nobody wants to fly a slower aircraft than is already available in the product line.
The one thing that I have trouble with is not having enough payload with full fuel. The PFM was anemic. I now fly an early Beech 36 with a 920 lb payload with full fuel. I haven’t yet but just add wing tanks and gain another 198 lbs thru the STC. Add a IO-550 and gain another 100 lbs thru the STC. Certain aircraft should be built for expansion. The Beechcraft 36 was built from the begining to take the heavier loads that have evolved.

By: Boyd Maddox

Boyd Maddox — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 02:09:27 +0000

Imported one from Canada and maintained it for some time. I remember the first time that I flew it, had3-4 fuel boost pumps all had to be on for takeoff. Ran a compression and had very low compression, Called Bill, the Porsche rep (I think hos name was Bishop?). He talked to me a while and then said Boyd just adjust the valves,that is all that is needed, I usually come out and do it and charge $200 but I’m busy. I hated the single handle throttle, prop & mixture. There was a mod available to install a standard throttle.
Boyd

By: R. Zephro

R. Zephro — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 21:56:41 +0000

The PFM was/is a great airplane to fly. It was back in the ’90′s that Ken Shoup of All American had a PFM and a Mooney Turbo 231 for sale and I had a couple of guys inbounding from Alabama to buy one of them and wanted to fly in both to compare… Shoup had the 231 stored at Stinson on the South side and we were at AA’s office at SAT, so Shoup sent me to fly the PFM over to Stinson with the two other big guys aboard. It was a hot summer day here and about 105 degrees. I had mentioned to Ken that I had zero PFM time and he said to just push the throttle control in to go and even full out (idle) if I wanted to come down quickly. No shock cooling of this engine due to the 911 fan by Porsche. I got a kick out of starting that bird. Way more like a car than a plane! Wow, she sounded bad-ass from within the cockpit, so I gave her a testosterone rev or two and off we went to the active. The PFM did not have much useful load numbers, but why I don’t know. We were a bit over gross and on a hot day, she got off quickly and immediately went to about 1100 fpm minute climb and stayed there until I got 3 to 4,000 feet, my assigned altitude. We flew her a bit and had fun doing so as we were all impressed! After arriving at Stinson and pulling the 231 out of the hanger, we took off with about the same fuel load and only got 5-600 fpm that day even though we were weight legal. It was a hot day and fully understandable, but compared to the non turbo’d PFM’s over gross rate of climb? Sick!
Shoup had gotten several PFM’s to sell and I was selling of his inventory as well as mine in those days, so I was able to garner some experience with the PFM. Porsche was hoping to eventually get a 3-4,000 hour TBO, so they sent one of their engineers around to the planes to do a free top overhaul just to see how things were progressing. None of them really needed a top that I was aware of and I sure bent that mechanic’s ear. His first name was Bill and his last escapes me at the moment, but Bill knew his stuff! He also told me that they hoped to make a higher horsepower version with a turbo and that was exciting to hear. I really loved that engine to spite hearing about an occasional engine failure in the vicinity of certain microwave towers, but they fixed that straight away so I was told.
I love Mooney aircraft, but the problem Mooney suffers and has suffered in its past has been in my opinion poor marketing to spite being the best product out there by far. During the ’80′s, people were coming out of flight schools by the droves and many bought airplanes; usually what they learned in, the Cessna’s. There should have been a PFM parked centrally advertising a free ride to flight school graduates so as to show them what a “real” airplane is and how easy the PFM is to fly. How could the PFM compete when it was priced a bit higher than the flagship 252? Couple that with having to change out prop blades every 1500 hours as well as overhaul the gearbox to the tune of around $5800.00 in ’80′s money, and some thousands for the composite blade replacements, well, they set their own death by trying to advertise and compete with airplanes they were already producing.
The PFM had greatness, just overlooked some. I would personally consider operating a PFM as experimental just to keep that great 911 engine purring under that jet-sexy bonnet of the PFM.
zef

By: J. Ashment

J. Ashment — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 00:14:35 +0000

I’m a mechanic at a Mooney shop. I really enjoyed working on the Porsche Mooney. Always a challenge, and reading the engine manual was great fun, it really challenged my German skills. There was more and better maintenance information in the German half of the page than the english half.?? There is one more rotting away near San Jose, CA, complete with moss on the paint. I had a chance to work on it a couple of years ago.

By: Luke Lucarelli

Luke Lucarelli — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:46:11 +0000

My PFM, N152MP was based in Bradford, PA (KBFD) since I purchased her in 1993. Dr. Tom Castillenti, a friend of mine and his neighbor, Dr. Nate Graham, also a friend of mine know the author of this blog, Mr. Tom Haines. He is Dr. Nate Graham’s brother-in-law. I’ve been told tha Tom has visited Bradford, PA a time or two and would have loved to have known that MooneyPFM N152MP of Lucarelli’s was based there and he probably would have mentioned it if he had known. I live around the corner from the previous home of Castillenti and Graham. Dr. Thomas Castillenti is an AME if you need a medical, based in Tampa, FL. Look him up.

By: Luke Lucarelli

Luke Lucarelli — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:13:01 +0000

I have been the proud owner of N152MP, the MooneyPFM Porsche Powered plane, since October 1993 as the second owner. I thinks it’s one of the nicest single engine planes so far. Then came the politics and FAA ceasing its certification. With this one still within its time frames, I was able to keep it in annual and enjoy it once in a while, trying to preserve its time limits. I have made friends with a new owner in Germany and with an extremely confident pilot, Tony Eyer, who has flown the PFM up the Northern route to Germany to its new home. I will miss the MooneyPFM. I now have an Ovation and it is nice, but not as smooth, quiet, responsive or as sharp a looker as the PFM! Porsche Powered Rocks!

By: Jan Charles Potter

Jan Charles Potter — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:38:22 +0000

You guys can carry on about the Porsche powered Mooney but the simlple fact is the Lycoming engine had better performance and this is what ultimately killed the Porsche powered Mooney! Also at the time the Porsche engine parts were much more expensive than Lycoming. I don’t know many pilots who are going to pay more for less performance.

By: Bert Bigelow

Bert Bigelow — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:47:22 +0000

I will vouch for Mark’s description…”quiet, smooth…”
Mark took me for a ride in N911GT. I have been in many small aircraft, and this was the smoothest and quietest ride I have ever experienced. I was really sad when he told me about the Porsche decision to pull the engines.

By: Mark Leuzinger

Mark Leuzinger — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:37:05 +0000

I owned Mooney PFM, N911GT which was the 38th of 42 produced. It was years ahead of its time and a fantastic airplane, quiet, smooth and nearly as fast as my previous plane, a Mooney 201. I had Bosch CIS injection which automatically compensated for altitude and air density which allowed a single power lever. That meant there was no prop or mixture control plus because of fan cooling there were not cowl flaps and the curse of shock cooling was eliminated. Mooney was in financial straits and stopped paying their engine bill. That was the real cause of the end of production.

By: Keith E Rodgers

Keith E Rodgers — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:33:18 +0000

In checking my log book, I found a few hours logged for a checkout in N142MP in 1990. I remember thinking, as an automotive technician, how the Porshe engine and management system would revolutionize GA. We are still waiting. The power curve of the basically automotive engine neccesitated the need for the complicated, heavy reduction gear box. This was it’s downfall. Slower,heavier, and more expensive than the standard M20L, buyers moved on. Great experiment.