I want to welcome everyone to Mooney’s new website. You’ll notice that rather than focusing on the sale of new planes, this website has its focus on you, the Mooney Community. It’s my firm belief that Mooney owners and pilots have remained true to the Mooney brand despite a factory that hasn’t always reciprocated. Well, it’s time that Mooney return the favor and this website is a first step. This is not to say that we won’t be designing and building new planes. We will. But we need to walk before we fly and that’s likely to take a minute. So, in the meantime, we want to re-engage all of you and let you have a seat at the table as we figure out our future.
I remember the first time I ever saw a Mooney. I was just learning to fly a Piper Cherokee at my home base in Great Barrington, MA and someone had parked a Mooney there for the night. I remember asking my instructor, “What’s that?” He replied: “Why that’s a Mooney… the tail is on backwards.” “Look at that,” I thought, “the tail is on backwards. I really want one of those!” Several years and a few hundred hours later I bought a J Model. Somehow, many more years and many more hours later, I ended up with an Acclaim and became a part owner and CEO of Mooney. So friggin’ weird!
As Mooney advocates, owners and pilots, we all share a love of this incredible flying machine. We’re a tribe, us Mooney folk and we understand one another on an instinctual level. When I’ve run across other Mooney pilots filling up or taxiing and they see I have a Mooney, there is a reflexive tip of the cap to one another as if to say: “That’s right, we fly a Mooney… cause, well, it’s just better!” In fact, I toyed with the idea of making that our new tag line: “Mooney… ‘cause all the others suck!” But in deference to maintaining Mooney as a premium brand, I opted against it. But I know it’s what we’re all thinking.
