The Mooney M-18 "Mite" is a low-wing, single-place

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

with retractable,

tricycle A tricycle, sometimes abbreviated to trike, is a human-powered (or gasoline or electric motor powered or assisted, or gravity powered) three-wheeled vehicle. Some tricycles, such as cycle rickshaws (for passenger transport) and freight trikes ...

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

.M.R. Montgomery & Gerald Foster: ''A Field Guide to Airplanes - Second Edition'', p. 46. Houghton Milflin Company 1992. Plane and Pilot: ''1978 Aircraft Directory'', p. 53. Werner & Werner Corp Publishing, 1978. The Mite was designed by

Al Mooney Albert W. Mooney (12 April 1906 – 7 May 1986) was a self-taught American aircraft designer and early aviation entrepreneur. He and brother Arthur Mooney founded the Mooney Aircraft Company in 1929. His first production design (first flight ...

and was intended as a personal airplane marketed to fighter pilots returning from

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Development

The M-18 design goal was extremely low operating costs. The Mite is constructed mainly of fabric-covered wood, with a single spruce and plywood "D" wing spar. The wing aft of the spar is fabric-covered. The airfoil selected for the design was the

NACA The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets ...

64A215. The M-18 represented the first time a NACA 6-series airfoil had been used on a civil aircraft after World War II. The aircraft featured a unique "safe-trim" system. This mechanical device links the wing flaps to the tail trim system and automatically adjusts the horizontal stabilizer angle when the flaps are deflected, reducing or eliminating pitch changes when the flaps are lowered.

Production

The Mooney Aircraft Corporation built a total of 283 Mites in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in ...

, and

Kerrville, Texas Kerrville is a city in, and the county seat of, Kerr County, Texas, United States. The population of Kerrville was 24,278 at the 2020 census. Kerrville is named after James Kerr, a major in the Texas Revolution, and friend of settler- ...

, between 1947 and 1954. The first seven were powered by belt driven, modified

Crosley Crosley was a small, independent American manufacturer of subcompact cars, bordering on microcars. At first called the Crosley Corporation and later Crosley Motors Incorporated, the Cincinnati, Ohio, firm was active from 1939 to 1952, inter ...

automobile

engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...

, but these proved to be troublesome. Production shifted to the M-18L powered by the four-cylinder,

Lycoming O-145 The Lycoming O-145 is a family of small, low-horsepower, four-cylinder, air-cooled engines. It was Lycoming Engines' first horizontally opposed aircraft engine and was produced from 1938 until the late 1940s. The family includes the reduction-ge ...

powerplant. The original Crosley-powered Mites were recalled and retrofitted with the Lycoming engines at no charge. The later M-18C used the

Continental A65 The Continental O-170 engine is the collective military designation for a family of small aircraft engines, known under the company designation of A50, A65, A75 and A80. The line was designed and built by Continental Motors commencing in the 194 ...

aircraft engine. The market for the single-seat M-18 was limited, so Mooney later developed the four-place M-20 to appeal to aircraft owners with families. In the early 1970s, Mooney offered plans for four different home-built versions of the M-18. Factory production of the Mite ended in 1954. Leading up to this, the company was losing $1000 on each plane, which accelerated the development of the M20. Another factor was that Continental had ceased production of the engine used in the Mite due to a lack of demand.Ball 1998, p. 57.

Operational history

As of January 2016, 119 Mites were still registered in the United States and three in Canada.

Specifications (Mooney Mite M-18C)

References

Bibliography

* * {{Mooney Aviation Company aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Low-wing aircraft

Mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods). Mites span two large orders of arachnids, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari, but genetic analysis does not show clear e ...

Single-engined tractor aircraft 1940s United States civil utility aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1947