The Mooney Mark 21, built from 1962 to 1978, is the aeroplane that established what Mooneys are for: getting two or three people a long way quickly on very little fuel. It cruises at 148 knots on nine gallons an hour with only 180 hp, which no Cessna or Piper of the era comes close to matching. The efficiency comes from a small, slippery airframe, and that is also the source of every compromise the type makes.
The engine and the all-metal airframe stayed the same for the whole run; what changed is how the gear and flaps work and what the cabin looks like. Aircraft up to the mid-1960s have the manual Johnson-bar gear and hydraulic flaps; electric gear became an option in 1965. The aeroplane was renamed the Ranger in 1968, and the 1969 model brought the one-piece windscreen and made electric gear and flaps standard. Nothing was built in 1972 and 1973 while Mooney was in receivership; production resumed in 1974 and the last M20Cs were built in 1978. A 1966 and a 1970 M20C are the same aeroplane with different gear systems and windscreens.
The cabin is narrow and low — a Mooney is worn rather than sat in, and tall passengers in the back are uncomfortable. It sits very low to the ground and the wing is close to the runway, so it floats a long way if flown one knot too fast and it is genuinely intolerant of sloppy speed control on final; a great many Mooney accidents are runway overruns. Early M20Cs have wooden wing spars on the very earliest aircraft and later all-metal ones, so confirm which. The Mooney gear system is mechanical or electric depending on year and is generally reliable, but rubber shock discs in the landing gear need periodic replacement and are frequently deferred. Cheap for the performance, but it rewards a precise pilot and punishes a careless one.