Even if the likes of a Cirrus or Lancair hadn’t come along, builders of metal airplanes like the Mooney M20 series were headed for a box. As volume diminished, the airplanes remained as complex as ever to build, with thousands of hand operations and individual parts. Economy of scale had evaporated.
Now, with an infusion of Chinese capital, Mooney’s Kerrville, Texas, factory is confronting this challenge the only way it can, with a fundamental rethink of the production process and carefully focused injection of investment in digital and automated manufacturing, essentially mirroring what Lycoming has done to remain competitive. We covered this in detail in the February 2015 issue of Aviation Consumer.