Mooney M22 Mustang

The M22 Mustang holds a singular place in general aviation history: it was the first pressurized piston single ever certified. Designed under Ralph Harmon as Mooney's flagship, it is a wholly new airframe -- not a stretched M20 -- with a wider, longer fuselage and a 310 hp turbocharged Lycoming TIO-541-A1A. Type certification came 26 September 1966 under TC A6SW, and deliveries ran 1967 through 1970.

Only 36 airframes were built (per TCDS A6SW's own eligible-serials list: 660006; 670001-670004; 680001-680015; 690001-690005; 700001 and on) before the program was cancelled. The Mustang was a commercial disaster -- expensive to develop, priced above its contemporaries, and Mooney reportedly lost money on every copy. The program's failure contributed directly to Mooney's 1969 bankruptcy. Today the M22 is an orphan within an orphan; industry estimates put the airworthy fleet at roughly 3-4 aircraft worldwide as of the mid-2020s (not independently re-verified this session).

No meaningful sub-variants -- the production run was too short and too small for block changes, and TCDS A6SW carries only one Section with one set of limits for the entire run.

This page carries certificate-sourced limits and weights only. No performance figure (cruise, climb, range, burn, stall speed, runway distance) is sourced this session -- a type certificate never publishes performance data for any airplane, and no Pilot's Operating Handbook or period flight-test article could be found for this specific type. Given only 36 airframes were ever built and the type has had no factory support since 1970, a digitized POH may genuinely not exist anywhere online; a period Owner's Manual, if one survives, would be the pre-GAMA-era document rule 25 describes, in the hands of one of the type's few remaining owners rather than on the internet.

Re-checked against rule 29's specific test this session, not just searched again. A prior pass on this page found no performance figures and moved on; this session went back and specifically tested whether the secondary-source fallback rule 28/29 permits could apply here. It cannot: Aviation Consumer's and AVweb's own site searches for this airplane return nothing at all (checked directly), and aerofiles.com — a plausible type-history source for an obscure 1960s orphan — 404'd this session. For a 36-airframe type with no active market, three independent publishers may genuinely not exist, and that is a legitimate, checkable answer rather than a gap to keep chasing.

A lead worth recording rather than trusting: Wikipedia's M22 infobox cites Taylor's Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1969-70, pp. 390-392, for a set of performance figures (cruise 214 mph/186 kt at 65% power, range 1,493 statute miles/1,297 nm with 45-min reserve, climb 1,125 fpm, service ceiling 24,000 ft). The cruise figure happens to match this page's PRIOR stored value (186 KTAS) almost exactly, which is suggestive but not proof of where that number originally came from. The range figure is dramatically different from the prior page's stored 813 nm -- a genuine, large discrepancy. Neither number is stored here: Wikipedia is explicitly a leads-only source per the research protocol, this session did not independently read Jane's 1969-70, and rule 29 bars range from secondary sourcing regardless. If a copy of that book surfaces, it would be a legitimate press-tier source and this page's biggest gaps would likely close from it directly.

Fuel capacity is stated by weight in the certificate ("540.0 lbs. (90.0 gal.)"), with NOTE 1 confirming the 90.0 is usable (1.5 gal unusable is listed separately, outside the stated capacity) -- fuel_capacity_gal 90 and max_fuel_weight_lbs 540 both trace directly to this one certificate line and agree with each other exactly (540 / 90 = 6.0 lb/gal, avgas), which is the arithmetic check rule 5 asks for.

Airspeed basis is "True Ind." on this certificate, not "IAS" as on the M20 sheets -- recorded per rule 24: the bracketed knots are stored as-is regardless of the stated basis, with the basis itself noted here rather than converted.

Certificate-sourced numbers only: max gross weight 3,680 lb, fuel capacity 90 gal usable (540 lb). Useful load cannot currently be stated -- it depends on empty weight, which no source found this session states (a type certificate never gives one, and no POH was obtainable). A full-fuel payload scenario is therefore not presented on this page rather than built on an unsourced empty weight.

See also: Maintenance Ecosystem for orphan-support context.

• Flight Training (1/10): Not suitable -- complex, pressurized, fragile, expensive and irreplaceable.
• Backcountry (1/10): Low wing, nosewheel-only, 3,680 lb gross, and an engine that cannot tolerate an unimproved surface.
• Business Travel (5/10): In principle the mission this airplane was designed for -- pressurized, fast, IFR-capable. In practice, orphan parts and the near-impossibility of AOG support anywhere make it a poor working tool; fine for a collector who happens to travel in it.
• Aerobatics (1/10): Not certified, and the pressure vessel makes G-loading a structural concern.
• Cross-Country (6/10): The airplane's real strength, on paper -- a pressurized, high-altitude-capable single -- though this page cannot currently confirm range against a sourced figure (see above).
• Cargo Hauling (2/10): Small cabin door and a sloped floor make bulky cargo awkward regardless of useful load.
• Local Fun Flying (3/10): A rare, pedigreed airplane some collectors enjoy flying locally, but fuel burn and engine management cost make it an expensive way to fly the pattern.
• Surveying (2/10): No suitable camera ports, no aftermarket mission integration for a 36-unit type.

Original M22s came with state-of-the-art (for 1967) King or Narco radios, a full gyro panel, and a basic autopilot. By 2026 every airworthy example has been updated at least once; typical panels seen today include:

• Minimum-modernization: A legacy King KX-155 / KFC-150 stack with a bolted-on Garmin GNS 430W or GTN 650 — roughly $25k–$40k in panel value over a stock airframe.
• Mid-level: Garmin GTN 650Xi + G5/GI-275 attitude and HSI replacements, legacy autopilot retained. Adds $45k–$70k.
• Full glass: At least one M22 is known to have a dual-G3X Touch + GFC 500 retrofit, STC'd under the generic Mooney AML where applicable. Installation is complicated by the pressurized panel area and non-standard instrument cutouts; expect $100k+ in panel work alone.

Panel work is disproportionately expensive on the M22 because any wiring that penetrates the pressure vessel must be properly sealed and re-certified, and because there is no type-specific AML for most modern STCs — everything becomes a field approval.

See Avionics Pricing Reference for baseline avionics costs.

The M22 has almost no dedicated STC library — the fleet was too small for any aftermarket company to recoup development cost. Known modifications:

• Engine overhaul upgrades: TIO-541-E1 core swaps from Piper Navajo Chieftain / Beech Duke donor engines. Not an STC per se, but a common field-approved path to keep an airframe flying when the original A1A core is unobtainable.
• GAMIjectors for TIO-541: available and recommended; improves cylinder CHT balance significantly.
• Shadin fuel totalizer installs: common, field-approved.
• Generic Garmin AML-STCs (G5, GI-275, GFC 500) have been applied by field approval on some airframes; not all instrument positions are covered.

There are no speed mods, no gross weight increases, no gap seals, no winglets, and no engine conversion STCs for this airframe. What you buy is what you fly.

Parts availability "poor" (orphan). Mooney does not support the type; no new airframe parts have been produced in decades. Mechanic familiarity "rare." The Lycoming TIO-541-A1A is shared with the Piper Navajo Chieftain and Beech Duke, which is this airplane's only meaningful engine-parts lifeline; airframe-specific parts (especially pressure-vessel components) have no such fallback.

The stored engine overhaul cost ($58,000) is an ANALOG figure, not a priced TIO-541 quote. reference/engine-overhaul-pricing.md has no line for the TIO-541 at all — its Lycoming table stops at the TIO-540 — so this page uses the TIO-540's own "Stored" figure (a turbocharged 6-cylinder Lycoming, the nearest same-manufacturer, same-class engine the reference file actually prices) as a stand-in. A real TIO-541 overhaul, on an engine this rare, with parts shared only with the Navajo Chieftain and the Duke, should be expected to run higher than a common TIO-540's price, not the same — treat $58,000 as a floor, not an estimate of what an actual shop quote would be. This is flagged in reference/engine-overhaul-pricing.md as a gap needing its own TIO-541 line rather than a per-airplane guess.

Price band below is retained from the prior catalogue pass and was not independently verified this session -- Controller and Trade-A-Plane both blocked automated access, Vref/Bluebook access was not available, and given an airworthy fleet of perhaps 3-4 airplanes worldwide, a conventional price guide may not carry this type at all. See raw/market/market-mooney-late-m20-2026-09-08.md.

Major valuation drivers, carried from the page's prior content: engine time since major overhaul (a fresh TIO-541 core is scarce and expensive), whether the pressurization system currently holds book differential, and a general collector premium as the airworthy fleet shrinks.

Carried from the page's prior content and not independently re-verified this session -- treat as background, not sourced fact:

• TIO-541 crankshaft and connecting-rod inspection ADs (fleet-wide Lycoming-540-family items).
• Airframe-specific ADs from the late 1960s/1970s addressing the pressurization bulkhead, fuel selector and rudder control system.
• Pressurization system leaks (door seals, bulkhead penetrations, outflow valve) are the type's defining pre-buy concern -- replacement seals are not being manufactured and must be shop-made.
• Fuel cell (bladder) deterioration, same general issue as the M20 line but a specialty operation given the airframe's rarity.

Carried from the page's prior content, not independently re-verified this session: no standard hull market (specialty vintage/warbird underwriters only), high pilot-experience requirements, and hull premiums well above a common retractable single given both orphan-repair cost and near-total irreplaceability if lost.