Resource for choosing a plane?

On 5-Jan-2006, "Douglas Paterson" wrote:

Is your $10/hr "savings" based on going the same speed but burning ~2.5 -
3 gph less to do it in a retract (less drag, I assume)? I'm still getting
a feel for performance comparisons (hence this thread!), I don't want to
make a bad assumption on what you're saying....

Yes. Our 200 HP Arrow delivers about the same cruise and climb performance
as a 235 HP C-182 or Dakota, and burns about 3 GPH less per hour. That is a
BIG difference with today's fuel costs. Of course, some of the 182s and
Dakotas can use less expensive mogas, but only if you have a reliable and
reasonably convenient source. The 182 and Dakota also have a higher useful
load, but much of that is eaten up by the requirement to carry much more
fuel for a given mission, especially with IFR reserves (and particularly in
the West where it can be an hour's cruise between a destination and a
workable IFR alternate).



What about turbo vs normal aspiration? Another poster suggested ~$40K for
an overhaul of a (specific model) t/c engine, which seems to be ~2x what
I've read elsewhere. What about annual & "surprise" mx cost differences?

I've never owned a TC airplane, so can't give you even antecdotal numbers
for comparison. We recently put a factory rebuilt ("zero time") engine in
the Arrow. Total cost worked out to around $23K, including removal and
reinstallation, new oil lines, and that sort of stuff. We also overhauled
the prop at the same time, which cost an additional $3K or so. I imagine
that costs for a Continental TSIO-360 would be a bit higher. However, you
will probably get fewer hours out of a TC engine simply because they spend
more time putting out higher power, and at higher temps. We got over 2000
hours out of our "old" Lyc. IO-360 engine without any big maintenance costs.
(Never had to pull a cylinder, etc.) I doubt that a Continental TSIO-360
would be able to deliver that kind of service. There is a good article that
touches on this by Richard Collins in the December edition of Flying
Magazine.


If I'm understanding you correctly, the differences (not including turbo)
should be about a wash for flying 100 hrs/yr. Even if it's not (or if I
fall into the apparently common category of overestimating my annual
flying), $1K / yr extra doesn't scare me....

As long as you remember to put the gear down for landing.... Actually, the
real cost potential for RG is not routine maintenance but rather the
consequences of gear failure (i.e. failure to extend/lock) for landing.
This is true for both human error and mechanical failure. That is why you
pay higher insurance premiums for the RG. We had just such an instance a
few years ago in the Arrow when the nosewheel failed to fully extend. A
backed-out bolt in the gear scissors got hung up on the gear trunion.
Anyway, all repairs were covered by insurance, and our premiums didn't even
go up the next year. (It helped that the pilot -- a partner, not me -- was
able to stop the engine with the prop horizontal prior to landing, so there
was no engine/prop damage.)

The way I see it, since the likelihood of injury or death in a gear failure
incident in a light single is very low, the risk is purely financial, and
that is covered by insurance.

--
-Elliott Drucker