D,

The suggestions that you look at Aviation Consumer are spot on.

The Partenavia will fit what you want and probably be the lowest
operating cost twin due to fixed gear, but it makes up for it by
having a correspondingly higher purchase price. The Aztec will carry
the load you want, but may not make the range with IFR reserves when
full of people. The 310 will not carry quite the load of the Aztec,
but is about 20 knots faster. The Baron is a lovely airplane, but
depending on occupant weights, may or may not be able to take six due
to c.g. limitations. The Cessna T303 may fit your needs, there are
not many out there and they don't change hands often as the owners
seem to like them. For the Aztec/310/Baron figure $250-$300 per hour
for all operating costs, including hangar and insurance, maintenance,
overhaul reserve, etc., if you fly it about 200 hours per year.
Flying more will cut the hourly cost a bit as fixed costs are spread
over more hours.

The Twin Commanche and Skymaster probably won't carry what you have in
mind.

If you want more load carrying ability you'll need to go into the 400
series Cessnas or the Piper Navajo, or take a look at the new Adam
A500 that is coming out. Operating costs for the bigger engine
airplanes will be correspondingly higher, especially if you add
turbocharging.

All the best,
Rick

"Big D" wrote in message ...
Hi all,

I'm a private pilot who works for a company (as a programmer, not a pilot,
unfortunately) that is starting to think about getting our own light twin
for both transport of people or our product, so I'm starting to look at
different aircraft that might be suitable. (as well as finishing my
instrument, getting my commercial) I was hoping some might have suggestions
about what aircraft they might recommend. 6 seats, ~1200 lbs useful load, a
range of around 600nm, and a crusing speed of around 160+??? In paticular it
needs to be a low maintainence aircraft with good operating costs. Since
obviously I don't have my multi yet, I know very little about twins.

Is there any website out there that compares aircraft on this sort of basis?
I know that when I was looking at getting a 172, I found a site which
compared all the models since they first came out (in terms of reliability,
the different engines, slight differnces in the airframe, etc).

Thanks for any help!

-D





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