Mooney airplanes were built at Kerrville's airport, Louis Schreiner Field, from 1953 onward. The company had been revived in Wichita in the 1940s around designer Al Mooney, whose single-seat wooden M-18 Mite sold for $1,995, and it moved to Kerrville in 1953. The first M20 flew that September. The four-seat M20, with a wooden wing and the forward-swept tail that became the company's signature, was certified in 1955, and versions of it stayed in production for decades. The M20 grew into one of the fastest families of single-engine piston airplanes. The M20J of the late 1970s was sold as the 201, for 201 miles per hour on 200 horsepower, and the Acclaim, certified in 2007, was rated at 237 knots, which Mooney billed as the fastest piston single in production. Mooney built its 10,000th airplane in 1995, and more than 11,000 have been built in all. The company changed hands many times. The plant closed for more than two years after 1971, and production stopped again in 2008, when most of the workforce was laid off. A Chinese-backed company bought Mooney in 2013 and restarted the line in 2014, and in 2020 a group of American Mooney owners took over to support the more than 7,000 airplanes still flying. New-aircraft production has not been confirmed since; the company remains in Kerrville, supporting the fleet with parts and service. Al Mooney left for Lockheed in 1955 and died in 1986.
Getting there
29.9810, -99.0905
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