Mooney International remains committed to developing the M10 single-engined piston for the training market, but the Chinese-owned firm has tossed out the original design and closed the research and development centre that developed it, a top executive said on 25 July.
The M10 was the first new product launched after Minsheng acquired Mooney in 2013. It was unveiled at the Zhuhai air show as a two-seat, composite aircraft powered by Continental diesel engines.
The fate of the programme appeared in doubt last April, however, after the company’s chief executive publicly stated M10 development would be shutdown and the knowledge transferred to a next-generation piston aircraft. CEO Vivek Saxona left Mooney a few weeks later.
“The M10 is something that’s very, very important to our investment group,” Mooney vice-president of marketing Lance Phillips said at the Airventure fly-in.
But he confirmed that the original concept for the M10 has been dropped.
“We are working to define what that airplane is going to look like and what it’s going to be,” Phillips said.
Phillips declined to offer a timeline on when the new version of the M10 could be delivered.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
