I love my turbo. It is of course a waste of time/money/etc at lowish
altitudes, say below 8000'. But the freedom to climb at keep on climbing,
not to mention high-performance take-off without having to worry
about density altitude (well, not so much anyway) is enormous.
I can climb to FL200 at a steady 500 fpm - the plane would probably
go quite a lot higher although it is not certificated to do so and I haven't
tried it. On long journeys going up high is a real bonus, especially over
unfriendly terrain.

John

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
I had mentioned turbo arrow, he mentioned arrow, Alot of people confuse
the
two, putting them in the same catagory not knowing there is a difference.

My personal opinion is that a comanche is still the best plane for the
money
for useful load and speed. the only problems with them is the avionics are
usually outdated, avionics are so expensive alot of people dont upgrade
them.
My wife only let me upgrade to our current plane if I promised to get one
with
airconditioning, so the comanche was out for us. Also the turbo arrows I
looked
at all seemed to have more options in them then most other planes in the
same
catagory., ie, storm scope, airconditioning, HSI, auto pilot.

The main problem with a turbo arrow for me, is the rate of climb. you only
use
max horse power for take off, then at about 1000 ft you reduce power to
cruise
climb which is 75% power. and 75% power at 104 kts only gets you about 500
FPM.
Its kinda a trade off, turbo's are good if you consistantly fly higher, if
you
like lower then no need to really get it, unless you want the extra speed
it
has, and for the price, its a pretty good deal. At 10,000-12,000 ft your
hanging with bigger/faster planes like the bonanza.



Ben Jackson wrote:


He didn't say Turbo Arrow III, did he? Or did all Arrow IIIs come with
TIO-360s? If he's talking turbo that makes some sense, since the
numbers
are similar to the Comanche and the M20J. The big difference will be
that the optimal altitudes will be higher in the turbo. That's a win if
you're in Colorado but probably a lose on the coasts or in the midwest.
The Comanche peaks at ~160KTAS @ 7000' @ 75%, like all non-turbos it
can't hold 75% beyond that, dropping back to ~155KTAS @ 10000 @ 65%.
The Turbo Arrow probably doesn't even hit its peak until the low teens,
but I don't have a chart for it.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/