I got to thinking about turbo Seminoles and did a search here and found your post. How do you like that plane? Those turbos make a lot of difference in performance? Pretty nice plane to fly? Looking for a PIREP on it if you don't mind.
Well the turbos at least keep the engines giving sea level power at ground level sound here, but I wouldn't call a Seminole a "good performer" even at sea level.
The bigger problem with them is that there were only 82 built and Piper has run out of certain parts. The local one has been down for six weeks awaiting a crack repair in an exhaust manifold which is kinda a Big Deal (TM) on any turbo' engine.
Talking to my CFI who owns it, shipping an exhaust manifold somewhere isn't exactly cheap these days either.
For the altitude -- it's pretty good. But if it's for travel there's (much) faster twins. It's a trainer.
This one is in "extra trainer" mode in that the on board O2 system was removed and placarded a long time ago. I suppose taking it up high would help if one were traveling in it.
Cockpit is "roomy enough" and the current owner has updated it with better seat belts and leather seats over the years so it's probably more comfortable than the typical beater on the line at a pilot mill. At one time it was also decked out with stuff like an onboard radar and a Sandel HSI attached to a Garmin 430 when those were new, so it was being used by someone to go places. But you'd burn a lot of gas getting there.
It's like a number of the light twins of the seventies that weren't produced in quantity. If you didn't mind taking care of a "classic" (and I'm pushing classic age and maintain old cars, so I'm cool with that) and didn't mind the *occasional* long downtime messing up your dispatch numbers, it'd be a nice little personal traveling machine for someone who stayed proficient at single engine ops and wanted the comfort of a twin.
I think the owner of this one picked exactly the right airplane for the kind of training he does and some of his clientele, but I'm not sure I'd buy one for personal use here. A 310 or Seneca would probably get that job done better just as a wild assed guess.
I'll stay "slumming it" in the 182. Haha. Happier with the fuel burn and speed is okay for what we use it for.