"Cheap" turbine?

[James_Dean]

Understood, my point was more that the price of a hot section isn't going to change depending on what kind of airplane it's hung on, or how much money was paid to purchase that airplane. At the price of that particular Cheyenne, one might have enough $$ left over to pay for the hot section, compared to something else similarly equipped.



It seems this particular back-seat rider is really more interested in jets than turboprops... I had lunch with him today and he thought maybe a used Mustang might suit him better, even if it costs 3x as much to buy. Looking at the direct operating costs at the link provided previously, it looks like the cost per mile there actually favors the jet.

Heavily dependent upon mission. Short legs and high cycles will favor the TP bigly.

 

[3393RP]

Ted mentioned Commanders, and glancing at the Jetbrokers' cost matrix the 820 looks to be in line with Conquest operating costs. I flew right seat in one years ago, and it was a nice ride.

 

[Ken Ibold]

So what about an early Meridian or JetProp? Several available sub $800K, and only the care and feeding of one engine.

 

[Ted]

Understood, my point was more that the price of a hot section isn't going to change depending on what kind of airplane it's hung on, or how much money was paid to purchase that airplane. At the price of that particular Cheyenne, one might have enough $$ left over to pay for the hot section, compared to something else similarly equipped.

It seems this particular back-seat rider is really more interested in jets than turboprops... I had lunch with him today and he thought maybe a used Mustang might suit him better, even if it costs 3x as much to buy. Looking at the direct operating costs at the link provided previously, it looks like the cost per mile there actually favors the jet.

It depends on what your mission profile is, and it also depends heavily on what you buy and where it is on inspections. It's sort of like what Wayne Bower used to say about turboprops being cheaper to own than pressurized piston twins. It CAN be true, but using it as a blanket statement is not accurate.

So what about an early Meridian or JetProp? Several available sub $800K, and only the care and feeding of one engine.

Yabut then you only have one engine, and who wants that?

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Heavily dependent upon mission. Short legs and high cycles will favor the TP bigly.

The most frequent and predictable destinations would be Atlanta and farther south. There could be a fair number of closer destinations, but they'd be kind of random. And if he will spend an extra $600K to not have props, I'm not sure he's overly concerned about op costs going a couple hundred bucks an hour either way.

So what about an early Meridian or JetProp? Several available sub $800K, and only the care and feeding of one engine.

Pax won't go for a single, period.

 

[Bell206]

I'm not sure he's overly concerned about op costs going a couple hundred bucks an hour either way.

Do you have an idea who might perform the scheduled maintenance on this possible turbine? If so, take your Cheyenne info to them and get some input. They could possibly offer better cost numbers.

 

[Ted]

The most frequent and predictable destinations would be Atlanta and farther south. There could be a fair number of closer destinations, but they'd be kind of random. And if he will spend an extra $600K to not have props, I'm not sure he's overly concerned about op costs going a couple hundred bucks an hour either way.

"A couple hundred bucks" might be on the low side.

As with anything a lot of it is maintenance dependent and will depend on the aircraft purchased. If he's flying to Atlanta and further south then you're looking at probably 2.5+ hours block time in the Cheyenne vs. 1.75+ hours block time in a jet (depends on the specific jet). An MU-2 gets you fast enough that your block times aren't much different from a Slowtation on a lot less cost. But if he's not concerned with that level of cost, then the jet is a pretty easy call.

 

[ronnieh]

If I understood the OP engine times they are on the MORE program with 5800 hours on them. What that means in the real world is the engines are used up and likely will need an extensive OH sooner rather than later. Let me give you an example from personal experience. First, this example is -61's which is a different animal. Original engines, first run, at TBO (3600 hrs). After much back and forth including threats of legal action, after the tear down inspection we agreed on an overhaul price of $775,000 plus shipping. Like I said different engines for sure but what was suppose to be $500,000 overhaul for two engines came back at $1,060,000.00 and was negotiated down to $775,000. If you can't write checks with lots of zeroes, a PT6 might not be your best choice.

 

[Everskyward]

It seems this particular back-seat rider is really more interested in jets than turboprops... I had lunch with him today and he thought maybe a used Mustang might suit him better, even if it costs 3x as much to buy. Looking at the direct operating costs at the link provided previously, it looks like the cost per mile there actually favors the jet.

It he's thinking of a Mustang, he'd better consider how many people he wants to carry, including their sizes, and the size of the pilot(s). It's a single pilot airplane, but if he wants two engines, he might also want two pilots.

 

[Ben2k9]

I was looking around the web the other day for an entry-level turbine (no, not going to have one anytime soon, but I'm always planning for the dream!) and found this:

https://www.flyperformance.com/aircraft/1979-piper-pa31t1-cheyenne-n939jb/

Yeah, a Cheyenne I isn't exactly a speed demon or a ramp model, but it's still a turbine and still faster than most pistons, and a good way to operate in the thin air in pressurized, vibration-free comfort, right?

Short list: $369K for a very nicely equipped (GTN 750, G600) Cheyenne I. Both engines 5820 SNEW, #1 is 205 since hot section, #2 is 552 SHSI.

What am I missing? Seems like a nice plane with good performance for a pretty good price.

What about a good pressurized turbo prop like a piper meridian?

 

[James_Dean]

If I understood the OP engine times they are on the MORE program with 5800 hours on them. What that means in the real world is the engines are used up and likely will need an extensive OH sooner rather than later. Let me give you an example from personal experience. First, this example is -61's which is a different animal. Original engines, first run, at TBO (3600 hrs). After much back and forth including threats of legal action, after the tear down inspection we agreed on an overhaul price of $775,000 plus shipping. Like I said different engines for sure but what was suppose to be $500,000 overhaul for two engines came back at $1,060,000.00 and was negotiated down to $775,000. If you can't write checks with lots of zeroes, a PT6 might not be your best choice.

As you said, the bigger block pt6’s are a different animal. He could choose to shell out $700k to Blackhawk and end up with two brand new -135A’s and a 270ktas bird.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

As you said, the bigger block pt6’s are a different animal. He could choose to shell out $700k to Blackhawk and end up with two brand new -135A’s and a 270ktas bird.

That does assume one has workable cores, though, I think... Can't run 'em 'til they melt and turn in a pile of vaguely disk-shaped things.

I found an interesting article on some of the options here: https://www.flyingmag.com/piper/gear-time-pay-piper It's 8 years old now, but it talks about the options. $280K-ish (with a wide "ish") to overhaul the PT6A-11s, $700K for the Blackhawk -135As and new props, $270K for a pair of used -28s with 1500 hours left on them... Definitely no shortage of zeros on these numbers.

I plugged its stats into the NAAA E-Valuator on TAP (AOPA Vref doesn't have the Cheyennes in it at all) and it came up with a value for the plane of about $140K, even with all the avionics specified. I put in 3600 hours for the engines, too, since they don't seem to control for past-TBO numbers - It originally came up with -$200K and change. Yeah, I'll let someone pay me $200K to take that airplane!

 

[denverpilot]

A co-worker just came back from Costa Rica a few days ago. He was all excited to send me his photo of a “little tiny puddle jumper I flew on”...

He sends me a photo of a Grand Caravan in Slack. LOL.

I didn’t even have to give him a hard time. My boss-ish other co-worker the glider pilot, sends him back, “That’s not a puddle jumper!”

Costa Rica guy says, “But it was really bumpy!”

Boss sends back, “Everything is bumpy at 3000 feet! That just meant it was a good soaring day!”

It’s nice having other pilots as co-workers / bosses sometimes. Hahaha.

* I call him “boss” because a while back they decided I wasn’t the IT manager anymore, I was the Special Projects Engineer and my DBA friend was now IT manager. Neither of us want the title or the job. It doesn’t come with any pay increase or anything but more emails to answer and a two more meetings per week or so. Hahaha.

 

[jsstevens]

[snip]
It’s nice having other pilots as co-workers / bosses sometimes. Hahaha.

* I call him “boss” because a while back they decided I wasn’t the IT manager anymore, I was the Special Projects Engineer and my DBA friend was now IT manager. Neither of us want the title or the job. It doesn’t come with any pay increase or anything but more emails to answer and a two more meetings per week or so. Hahaha.

Yeah. I get the not wanting the title or job bit. In the mid-90's we were rolling out the Beta of a product I was lead engineer on. (Small, small company.) They handed me a pager (yeah, that long ago) so I could handle support calls from the beta. I told my wife when I got home "My career just took a wrong turn..." Actually the beta went very well and the product was a great one: Lots of people bought our storage products because of the sophisticated (for the time) monitoring software we built, but apparently nobody in our market ever bothered to install it... 0 support costs.

John