Mooney M-18 Mite

The Mooney M-18 Mite is a small single-seat, low-wing monoplane with retractable tricycle landing gear, designed by Al Mooney and built by the Mooney Aircraft Corporation as a low-cost personal airplane for fighter pilots returning from the Second World War. It is built mainly of fabric-covered wood around a single spruce and plywood D-shaped wing spar, and its NACA 64A215 airfoil was the first NACA 6-series section used on a civil aircraft after the war. A mechanical safe-trim system links the flaps to the tail trim so that lowering the flaps causes little or no pitch change. Mooney built 283 Mites at Wichita, Kansas, and Kerrville, Texas, between 1947 and 1954. The first seven used troublesome modified 25 hp Crosley automobile engines and were retrofitted with the 65 hp Lycoming O-145 of the M-18L, while the later M-18C used the Continental A65. The market for a single-seater was limited, which led Mooney to develop the four-seat M20.