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#1
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Best Single Pilot IFR Plane
There must be people on the newsgroup that fly single pilot
IFR on a regular basis. These people have a schedule to make and would rather not miss that schedule unless necessary. These people don't have the need to carry many passengers, but just themselves. My question is for these people ... What sort of planes are you flying? |
#2
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Mitsubishi MU-2 Marquise.
11,500lb 1552hp Preasurized Radar Known Ice 300kts 31,000' Mike MU-2 "Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ... There must be people on the newsgroup that fly single pilot IFR on a regular basis. These people have a schedule to make and would rather not miss that schedule unless necessary. These people don't have the need to carry many passengers, but just themselves. My question is for these people ... What sort of planes are you flying? |
#3
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Planes with autopilots...
Stuart "Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ... There must be people on the newsgroup that fly single pilot IFR on a regular basis. These people have a schedule to make and would rather not miss that schedule unless necessary. These people don't have the need to carry many passengers, but just themselves. My question is for these people ... What sort of planes are you flying? |
#4
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Amen, Stuart! A Navion.
Stuart King wrote: Planes with autopilots... Stuart "Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ... There must be people on the newsgroup that fly single pilot IFR on a regular basis. These people have a schedule to make and would rather not miss that schedule unless necessary. These people don't have the need to carry many passengers, but just themselves. My question is for these people ... What sort of planes are you flying? |
#5
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"rip" wrote in message om... Amen, Stuart! A Navion. Sounds good to me...and an autopilot is being added to mine. |
#6
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Nice plane!! If envy is indeed one the 7 deadly sins, then damn me!!
OBTW, what's the fuel burn at cruise, and range of your MU2?? "Mike Rapoport" wrote in message hlink.net... Mitsubishi MU-2 Marquise. 11,500lb 1552hp Preasurized Radar Known Ice 300kts 31,000' Mike MU-2 "Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ... There must be people on the newsgroup that fly single pilot IFR on a regular basis. These people have a schedule to make and would rather not miss that schedule unless necessary. These people don't have the need to carry many passengers, but just themselves. My question is for these people ... What sort of planes are you flying? |
#7
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Thanks. Range, speed and fuel burn vary a lot with altitude and
temperature, but typical fuel burn at cruise in the mid 20s is 85GPH. No wind range with IFR reserves is listed as 1395nm but this is unachievable in practice. A more realistic range number is 1200nm. Coast to coast requires one fuel stop going east and two (rarely three) going westbound. The original poster said that he wanted to be able to get places on a schedule. What that requires depends on where you are and where you are going, but to me it requires radar, known ice, high altitude capability and range. Mike MU-2 "Windecks" wrote in message om... Nice plane!! If envy is indeed one the 7 deadly sins, then damn me!! OBTW, what's the fuel burn at cruise, and range of your MU2?? "Mike Rapoport" wrote in message hlink.net... Mitsubishi MU-2 Marquise. 11,500lb 1552hp Preasurized Radar Known Ice 300kts 31,000' Mike MU-2 "Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ... There must be people on the newsgroup that fly single pilot IFR on a regular basis. These people have a schedule to make and would rather not miss that schedule unless necessary. These people don't have the need to carry many passengers, but just themselves. My question is for these people ... What sort of planes are you flying? |
#8
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Overall probably the various Cessna Citation SP models.
Best as IFR airplane for me personally means safest. As far as single engine goes, the Cessna Caravan comes to mind. For pistons: TURBO SKYLANE - very stable - enough power (turbo) to get out of/over all kind of weather - very forgiving over-weight and wing contamination (ice) - slow, which in some ways is safer - to my knowledge there has never been an in-flight break-up - landing and take-off possible at pretty much every airport in existence Gerd T182 C-FDOW PS: Just to pre-empty some of the comments to come; yes, I know it's a truck but that's the way I like it. |
#9
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The original poster said that he wanted to be able to get places on a
schedule. What that requires depends on where you are and where you are going, but to me it requires radar, known ice, high altitude capability and range. I think there are two issues he suitability for single-pilot use and capability to tackle weather. The two sorta work against one another - probably the easiest to fly plane IFR is something like an 182, but you're not going to be tackling much weather. Conversely, a plane like Mike's MU-2 is very capable, but you've got to ante up to very high proficiency standards. (Mike, are your insurers Ok with you flying alone in clouds? I've heard they're starting to get very sticky about turbines twins being flown single-pilot.) In reality, we don't choose planes that are good for single-pilot IFR - we choose planes that suit our mission (and constraints, particularly costs) and then ante up what it takes to fly them safely IFR. For me, a non-professional IFR pilot who gets maybe 5 hours a year actual in my non-iced heavy single, this means scrubbing a lot of flights. I think that is the big fallacy with new instrument pilots - that they can truly fly in any weather and can meet hard schedule committments. It takes a lot of airplane and a lot of training/experience to be able to consistently tackle IFR weather with reasonable risk. I'd guess that on any given mission, I can make it VFR 80% of the time. IFR cuts my scrubs in half so I can go 890% of the time, but I still have a 10% scrub rate even with the the ticket. Ice is the big issue for me. In reality, I use IFR more for flying security and convenience rather that tackling weather. It's just a lot easier to file IFR and follow ATC's instructions rather than keeping track of everything yourself, especially with all the airspace restrictions these days. - Mark |
#10
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"markjen" wrote:
I think that is the big fallacy with new instrument pilots - that they can truly fly in any weather and can meet hard schedule committments. It takes a lot of airplane and a lot of training/experience to be able to consistently tackle IFR weather with reasonable risk. I'd guess that on any given mission, I can make it VFR 80% of the time. IFR cuts my scrubs in half so I can go 890% [I assume you meant 90%?] of the time There's a lot of truth in that. I've completed a lot of trips VFR that I wouldn't have dared taken if I didn't have the IFR option in my pocket. That means both getting a pop-up if conditions change in flight, and the ability to file IFR the next day or a few days later for a return flight. |
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