Short business travel needs

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PPD

Filing Flight Plan
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I’m in need of a cost effective but reliable and comfortable plane to fly me around New England for business. Most flights are two hours or less, average being about an hour.

what would be a good airframe for under $200k?

single or twin? Pressurized or non?
 
What's your piloting experience? Do you need IFR capability? Are you going to fly IFR in the winter?

For VFR lots of single-engine planes can get you around in reasonable comfort at a minimum cost (both in the purchase and in fuel/operating costs).
If you need FIKI you can still get that with some singles, though you may be looking at a twin.
 
If 2 hours is max, pressurized seems to be overkill. Also tough to get pressurized under $200k
 
Low experience in singles, non in twins.
Was leaning more towards a twin, but would need to get certified and maybe need a pilot for a little while.

looking for at least a 200kn cruise, if that helps. I’ll admit, I’m not very knowledgeable and the last time I flew was more than ten years ago. Business needs kind of bringing me back to it now.
 
How many passengers?

How does your business treat flying as a means of business travel?

Have you considered the time required to go to the airport and pre-flight, as well as the time required following the flight? Also, a number of airports have curfews prohibiting flights before a certain time (e.g., KBED is 7am).

For destinations around New England, it's kind of hard to be much faster than driving.
 
Yep, Bob is right. On flights within NE, even in a 130kt plane, your preflight and postflight are going to eat up a lot of time. Frankly, my 140kt Navion did great for heading from the DC Area to BOS (I have a lot of family there) and SE Maine (more family). I can still beat the airlines because while it takes 2.5 hours of flight time, I fly into whatever airport is closest to where I'm going (OWD, BVY, etc...) and transfer my stuff direct from the plane to the rental car. No security lines, no buses to the rental car, no fighting my way through the Calahan or Williams tunnels...
 
Bob Noel said:
How many passengers?

How does your business treat flying as a means of business travel?

Have you considered the time required to go to the airport and pre-flight, as well as the time required following the flight? Also, a number of airports have curfews prohibiting flights before a certain time (e.g., KBED is 7am).

For destinations around New England, it's kind of hard to be much faster than driving.
Click to expand...

Bob -

likely just myself, maybe one other passenger at times. My longest drive is about 4 1/2 hours depending on traffic, so it’s those trips that I want to cut down on.

Sometimes I have to travel to southern NJ as well to check on a property - that’s a good 4-5 hours
 
How often do you plan on doing this, and for how long? It may be more cost effective to just hire a charter if you're only doing this once a month.
 
I anticipate a trip of this length once a week. It could end up being every two weeks, but hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I thought about charter as well, so I’m trying to weight the pros and cons of each.
 
Probably should pick up an instrument rating if you plan to make the trip once a week. I'm not from New England, but I am familiar with how crappy the weather can get. Icing would also be a concern for me.

As far as 200 knot cruise... that's pretty fast for under 200k, as far as I know. Maybe an RV could get those speeds for under 200k?

Or, just get a Bonanza.
 
Not much you're going to be able to find to have a 200kts cruise, especially for $200K. I'd be looking at a Mooney M20K which will get you into the 170+kts cruise and can be had for relatively low purchase cost. If it's just you and sometimes a plus-one, it's got plenty of payload. However, you have to climb above 10K' to get those speeds, so take that into consideration. With short, 1-2hr hops, spending a bunch of it trying to climb into the upper teens and sucking oxygen may not be worth it versus handing out down low and dealing with lower TAS.
 
If you’re staying in the NE, run the numbers on how much difference 170 vs 200kts is going to make on travel times.
(Not much)
 
dans2992 said:
If you’re staying in the NE, run the numbers on how much difference 170 vs 200kts is going to make on travel times.
(Not much)
Click to expand...
21 mins on a 400nm flight. but doesn't a 400nm flight get you out of the NE? :D
(it's 380 miles from Worcester, MA to Richmond, VA)
 
Being from the west, I am semi jealous of how close everything is in the northeast. Of course, there are pros and cons with that.
 
A Piper Aerostar would seem to fit the speed/cost (well, maybe cost) mission requirements, albeit kind of overkill for anything in New England proper. Flights to southern New Jersey would be pretty quick. (edit: not sure about "cost effective")
 
Even in the Midwest the NE seems small.
 
If you're not instrument rated yet, I'd get a instruemnt-capable medium performance single (Mooney, Arrow, something along those lines). Get your instrument rating and log some experience. Then you can figure out if you need a higher performance single or twin.
 
Thanks to all for your input
I was thinking of a Mooney. The aerostar would be great, but too expensive for this sort of limited use.

I have an airport about 6 miles from the house, so I’m optimistic that it could cut my 4 1/2 hour drive (one way) down to two hours by plane including pre/post flight, but I haven’t run the numbers yet.
 
PPD said:
Low experience in singles, non in twins.
Was leaning more towards a twin, but would need to get certified and maybe need a pilot for a little while.

looking for at least a 200kn cruise, if that helps. I’ll admit, I’m not very knowledgeable and the last time I flew was more than ten years ago. Business needs kind of bringing me back to it now.
Click to expand...

“Low experience in singles, none in twins”. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Best to start with something simple like a 172 or 182 until you get experience with trying to use a plane for business travels.
 
PPD said:
... I have an airport about 6 miles from the house, so I’m optimistic that it could cut my 4 1/2 hour drive (one way) down to two hours by plane including pre/post flight, but I haven’t run the numbers yet.
Click to expand...
"Time to spare, go by air." Assuming your meeting is not at the destination airport, add time to call and take a cab from and to the airport, or to rent and drive a car. Time to drive to and from the home airport. Time to fuel. Expect that a large fraction of your desired trips will be impossible due to IFR and potential icing and that occasionally you will spend a night in a motel because the going-home trip is not possible or not safe. Really, for this kind of travel in New England, a FIKI twin is probably the right tool, flown by an experienced IFR pilot who is getting recurrent training. Sorry to say.

We had a fatal accident at our airport when a relatively low time Cirrus pilot spent a long day flying between a couple of meetings, ending up quite exhausted. TRACON radar had him near cruise speed on approach. He simply forgot to slow down. So there is that factor when trying to mix business and piloting. YMMV of course, and hopefully it will.

Sorry to rain on the parade.
 
I've seen multiple Cessna 340's for sale for under $200k, and they're a 200-knot airplane at altitude.

Probably not the best choice for short one-person trips, though, and of course the training, insurance and operating costs are much higher than a single.
 
Anything that doesn't seat 50, will be iffy, in. the winter in New England
 
um, in New England, we don't wrap the airplane to winterize them like done with boats at a marina. Still plenty of flying can be done. It's not San Diego or Arizona, but sheesh
 
While the short trip door to door time savings may be negligible or worse, I find flying versus driving much more palatable to my overall sense of well being. I routinely flew 12-20 minutes instead of driving 45-90 minutes in and around the greater Baltimore-Washington area.

Airdale makes good points above, you need to be disciplined and make good decisions.
 
I had a very similar mission when I first started to fly my own plane to support my business. I needed something to get me around Florida to see vendors and clients and for Association business. What I quickly discovered is that my mission quickly changed as I gained more experience and the business grew.

Someone mentioned fatigue related to flying for business and that is a legitimate issue. My personal practice is that I try to leave myself plenty of time prior to my first meeting and I plan to stay an extra night if I know it will be along day. That allows me to fly when I am fresh in the morning.

I had a couple of Aztecs for a while and they are great airplanes, but I decided to move away from light twins, as I did not feel that I was able to practice single engine work enough to be proficient. For the type of experience and mission that you are describing, I really like an older Cirrus. It is very fast, fixed gear and an excellent IFR platform. I also owned a Saratoga II TC that was great for travel and a solid IFR performer, although it handles like a truck.

The airplane has been an invaluable tool for my business and enabled many things that I could not have done without it. On top of that, it has become an important mode of personal travel for me and my family.

I wish you the best in your search!

Abram
 
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