Mooney Gears

There appears to be a problem with the hardening of some of the gears used in the landing gear actuator for a number of Mooney models.  Seems like no one is talking about the problem, but it has been the cause of more than one wheels-up landing in fairly recent history.

The first  picture is of the gears as I found them in the actuator on the first annual inspection of my plane in 1999.  I am not sure how many hours are on these gears, but I believe they were less than 500 hours. The second photo shows the worn gear compared to the new one we replaced it with.  The third photo shows the replacement gear two years and well over 500 hours later.

This is a single point of failure on our beloved Mooney.  If it goes, the landing gear will no longer go up or down, even with the manual backup system since it, too, works through this gear. Obviously we're monitoring these closely at each annual inspection.

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Last modified 10/15/03