On April 29 Advanced Aerodynamics & Structures Inc. of Long Beach, Calif., announced it had completed its acquisition of the assets of Mooney Aircraft Co. and had, as expected, changed its name to Mooney Aerospace Group Ltd. The next item on the company’s to-do list is to restart the Mooney production line and complete and deliver in the next eight months some 20 single-piston Mooney airplanes now in various stages of manufacture at Mooney’s Kerrville, Texas facility. The company is also in negotiations with Bill Northrup of Century Aerospace for the rights to manufacture the superlight, not-yet-certified Century Jet.
Based on initial results of a review of the Jetcruzer 500, the company had announced that an estimated 18-month period of redesign of the single-turboprop pusher would be necessary to reduce its weight and expected cost of manufacturing, and make it compatible with the Mooney line of aircraft. In March Norris said, “We are continuing our technical review of the Jetcruzer 500 for compliance with FAA certification requirements in such areas as external noise level, weight and balance, and spin-resistant certification.” However, last month AIN learned that the Jetcruzer program now has been indefinitely suspended. “We decided it would take too big an investment to do the Jetcruzer,” said Dale Ruhmel, v-p of engineering.
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