The toughest Texans don"t necessarily all live in Crawford.
About 120 miles southwest, there"s one very hard-core Texan
who"s celebrating a 58th birthday this year by making a stop
at this year"s NBAA Convention—and it won"t even
result in a presidential campaign TFR—here in Las Vegas.
Mooney Airplane Co. (Booth 13835), one of the most resilient aircraft
manufacturers to survive for almost six decades, actually has been
around longer than the NBAA. During that period, it"s been
remarkably successful at times, it"s been bankrupt twice (most
recently in 2001), and it"s been involved in plenty of misadventures.
But now the firm is on more solid financial ground and still firmly
in touch with its Texas Hill Country roots, where patriotism runs
strong and the stars and stripes never fade. This year, Freedom
Editions of its 280-hp normally aspirated Ovation and 270-hp turbocharged
Bravo models are being shown at NBAA in honor of the thousands of
American soldiers "defending our freedoms right now" in Iraq, Afghanistan
and other perilous areas, according to David Copeland, Mooney"s
vp, sales and marketing.
Mooney now is sponsoring 10 members of the U.S. armed forces in
Iraq and Afghanistan by encouraging company employees to e-mail
and send regular care packages to the troops and their families
back home. The response from soldiers has been gratifying, Copeland
said. "I speak for all the soldiers when I say that getting support
from back home means more than you could ever know," Private Mark
Saksa said in a recent e-mail message sent to Mooney.
Ovation and Bravo Freedom Edition models have special package pricing
and are painted in vivid red, white and blue colors. They"re
available as DX models with conventional instrumentation and GX
models, equipped with Garmin G1000 flat-panel avionics. The Ovation2
DX has a B/CA equipped price of $409,950 and cruises at up
to 191 KTAS at 8,000 feet. The top-of-the-line Bravo GX sells for
$459,950 and cruises at 220 KTAS at 25,000 feet.
