SR22 vs Twin Comanche

labbadabba said:
I was doing my multi in a PA30 as well. Until it VMC rolled on approach and killed a student and my instructor. At that point, I started digging into the history of the plane a bit more.
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No one ‘VMC rolls’ a Twin on approach. They stall/spin with asymmetric thrust and any Twin (save maybe a c337) will do that.
 
olasek said:
This isn't a very informed statement.
According to NTSB you are more likely to walk away alive from a single-engine piston aircraft when its engine failed than from any piston-powered twin when one of its engines failed. This is true regardless how incredible or improbable it may sound. It is because of combination of higher landing speeds in a twin and amateur pilots unfit to handle asymmetric thrust.
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That is a nonsense 'statistic' as the NTSB is lacking the data to draw such a conclusion. There are plenty of SE engine failures that never rise to aNTSN report and almost all engine failures in ME will end without government involvement.
 
bobmrg said:
But today I would buy the Cirrus, for the same reason that I would buy a current model car instead of a classic: Up-to-date technology.
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I hear you. It is kinda sad, however, that despite advances in aerodynamics and materials, we're still getting about the same speed from the same horsepower at the same fuel burn from today's airplanes that we got from those old airplanes 50-60 years ago. I'm ready for all those new diesels get certified and STC'd on a bunch of existing GA models. At least we'll get better fuel burn, then.
 
weilke said:
That is a nonsense 'statistic' as the NTSB is lacking the data to draw such a conclusion. There are plenty of SE engine failures that never rise to aNTSN report and almost all engine failures in ME will end without government involvement.
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John Collins from FLYING wrote extensively on the subject and with his reputation and knowledge of the subject (GA accident rate in particular) I go with what he said.


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weilke said:
Yeah, if the mechanic calls you and tells you that your reciprocating dinglearm control bearing is out of spec, this will go two ways:

SR22: I ordered it, it's only $956 from Cirrus, it'll be here before 10.
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That’s a steal! If it was a Textron product, they’d charge you at least twice as much.

But, FWIW, I never said the Cirrus would be cheaper....just have a much better dispatch rate.
 
olasek said:
John Collins from FLYING wrote extensively on the subject and with his reputation and knowledge of the subject (GA accident rate in particular) I go with what he said.


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I would suggest you reread his columns on it. John challenged the automatic assumption twins are safer.

The reality is there is not enough data to make any argument or case except one. And it is only a correlation, not a causation or in anyway definitive.

Many twin accidents where there is a crash after losing one engine, the pilots were significantly more likely to be low in number of hours flown in type a year.

Therefore there is what seems to be a well founded belief for a twin, you need to fly about 100 to 150 hours a year to be safe.

Tim

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I know exactly what John wrote, nowhere did I claim it is anything beyond raw statistics, however it is the fact that what drives twin statistics are pilots who fly them too infrequently.


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Fearless Tower said:
That’s a steal! If it was a Textron product, they’d charge you at least twice as much.

But, FWIW, I never said the Cirrus would be cheaper....just have a much better dispatch rate.
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And I never commented on dispatch rate.
 
olasek said:
John Collins from FLYING wrote extensively on the subject and with his reputation and knowledge of the subject (GA accident rate in particular) I go with what he said.
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Garbage in --> garbage out. There is simply no data to draw such a conclusion. No matter how much people opine on it, the data is simply not there. We have overall fatality and major accident rates for both singles and twins, but thats as deep as we can go with this.
 
weilke said:
Yeah, if the mechanic calls you and tells you that your reciprocating dinglearm control bearing is out of spec, this will go two ways:

SR22: I ordered it, it's only $956 from Cirrus, it'll be here before 10.

PA30: Let me check with (The Smithsonian/a dismantler in Delaware/some guy on the run from the feds.....) and I'll see whether I can get the part before flying season is over.
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Bingo. That's why I stopped looking at -24s myself.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Bingo. That's why I stopped looking at -24s myself.
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Now granted, its very uncommon that you need an airframe part in the first place. Avionics, engine, tires, brakes are all standard fare and readily available. With plenty of PA24 and PA30 built, there are very few unobtainium parts in the whole thing.
The bigger issue is that you need to find 'the comanche guy' in your quarter of the country to do some of the maintenance on it. Cirrus otoh. has an entire service network and if you don't have an independent mechanic available, there is always the service center to fall back upon.
 
weilke said:
Now granted, its very uncommon that you need an airframe part in the first place. Avionics, engine, tires, brakes are all standard fare and readily available. With plenty of PA24 and PA30 built, there are very few unobtainium parts in the whole thing.
The bigger issue is that you need to find 'the comanche guy' in your quarter of the country to do some of the maintenance on it. Cirrus otoh. has an entire service network and if you don't have an independent mechanic available, there is always the service center to fall back upon.
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Well, you say that. I had a ludicrous hangar rash incident last year in a PA-28. My AP happens to co-own a -24 with another guy in the field. Even he admitted I would have been toast had that happened on a -24. Some of those wings' internals are effectively unobtanium. Other parts, though not unobtanium, have seasonal batch availability. None of it a good thing for dispatch rate. Now, I suppose plastic damage work would have put me in the same boat, as there's no way in hell my on-field mechanic would have been able to touch that with a 10ft pole in a cirrus.

Our desired upgrade (budget permitting) in the next couple of years will be a Lance, for that very reason. 32s are oversized 28s, and their parts and mx ease dynamics are equally "Chevy Malibu" in nature, which is a compliment in my worldview of airplane ownership.
 
NoHeat said:
Can a twin Comanche maintain level flight with one engine and your family aboard?
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I used to own Twin Comanche , yes can maintain if you now what you to doing , nice plane .
 
hindsight2020 said:
Well, you say that. I had a ludicrous hangar rash incident last year in a PA-28. My AP happens to co-own a -24 with another guy in the field. Even he admitted I would have been toast had that happened on a -24. Some of those wings' internals are effectively unobtanium.
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We had a 1 in icicle fall from the hangar roof and punch a hole straight through the aileron. In the end, a salvage aileron was the most economical solution. But those are freak events and as you said, a composite wing wouldn't have been cheap to fix either after someone puts a toolbox through it
 
labbadabba said:
I'd much prefer a DA42-VI if you're comparing twinks against SR22s. It matches up very competitively against a SR22 in terms of speed and payload. It's also FIKI approved and will burn less of the cheaper Jet-A. Approved Single Engine ceiling is also 18,000 ft which in my mind beats a parachute (almost) every time...
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And when you have a close read of the manufacturers prescribed maintenance frequency and requirements you'll see it will break the bank account. There's not a hope in hell of operating a DA42 in accordance with the manufacturers requirements anywhere near an SR22 or a 50 year old well cared for piston twin. The Diamond certified tech in the maintenance company in the hangar attached to my office thinks they are the most expensive piston airplanes on the face of the earth. And he makes his money keeping them flying.
 
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olasek said:
You would be surprised!
According to NTSB and their accident statistics you are more likely to walk away alive from a single-engine piston aircraft (with or without parachute) when its engine failed than from any piston-powered twin when one of its engines failed. This is true regardless how incredible or improbable it may sound. This is because of combination of higher landing speeds in a twin and amateur pilots unfit to handle asymmetric thrust.
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Three points:

- As incredible or improbable as it may sound the full flaps stall speed of my Aztec is 5 knots slower than a Cirrus SR22, and my gross is 1600 lbs more (the useful load is approximately 700 lbs more, depending on how much jewelry the 22 is loaded with).

- The NTSB keeps no statistics for an engine failure in a piston twin that ends in an uneventful on-airport landing on the remaining engine. As incredible or improbable as it may sound it really is possible to lose (not loose) an engine on a twin and not end up in a flaming wreck.

- We don't appear to be dealing with an amateur pilot in this OP.
 
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Radar Contact said:
I'm obviously a twin fan so take it all for what it's worth. Good luck in your search.
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:yeahthat:

I am of the same view. The SR22 is a pretty nice plane and I have been tempted by the performance, but like RC I doubt I'll ever go back to a piston single for long distance cross country load hauling.
 
olasek said:
You would be surprised!
According to NTSB and their accident statistics you are more likely to walk away alive from a single-engine piston aircraft (with or without parachute) when its engine failed than from any piston-powered twin when one of its engines failed. This is true regardless how incredible or improbable it may sound. This is because of combination of higher landing speeds in a twin and amateur pilots unfit to handle asymmetric thrust.
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It would be nice if people would stop trying to hold on to this old wives tail. Can you please actually take time to read what @GRG55 wrote below and process what it means/how it relates to what you are trying to claim? If you were a member to a piston twin type group, you would have access to several stories (with pictures) of guys that have had to cage an engine and land successfully. To re-iterate a very important point, the NTSB only keeps data (that you are trying to use) on the twin mishaps...there is no reliable data on all the successful single engine landings of twin's.

GRG55 said:
The NTSB keeps no statistics for an engine failure in a piston twin that ends in an uneventful on-airport landing on the remaining engine. As incredible or improbable as it may sound it really is possible to lose (not loose) an engine on a twin and not end up in a flaming wreck.
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olasek said:
John Collins from FLYING wrote extensively on the subject and with his reputation and knowledge of the subject (GA accident rate in particular) I go with what he said.
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I am presuming you are referring to long time Flying Magazine contributor and prolific aviation author RICHARD Collins.

If so, here's an article and a few excerpts, including some comments about the Twin Comanche, he authored earlier this year:

https://airfactsjournal.com/2017/03/whats-wrong-piston-twin-pilots/

MARCH 23, 2017​
What’s Wrong With Piston Twin Pilots?
by Richard Collins

...To me, that basic pilot misunderstanding of the airplanes was a big factor in the unfortunate accident and insurance situation that developed over the years. This was our fault. We, industry, the press (like me) and the Feds (CAA and then FAA) didn’t have a good understanding of the airplanes to pass along to the users. Worse, there was a dangerous level of misunderstanding that was passed on as gospel, at least for a while...

...I got my flight instructor’s rating on 8/24/53 and, guess what, that automatically made me a multiengine flight instructor. Later, when flight instructors got certificates that had to be renewed ever two years, everything was grandfathered and my certificate showed airplane single and multiengine and instrument airplane.

Remember that six hours of dual I got in the T-50? Did anyone really think that would make me a serviceable instructor in the new breed of personal twins that was coming to market?

Because most other multiengine instructors had a similar history, this was a problem, probably about half of the problem. The other half was with the CAA, later the FAA...

...Trouble was not long in coming. One particular required maneuver for a multiengine rating was, in essence, purely dangerous. It required that Vmc (engine out minimum control speed) demonstrations be done as low as possible but not below 500 feet. On many twins, Vmc was not much above the stall so this meant the pilot had to fly perilously low and slow and then have asymmetric thrust suddenly introduced. The reason the FAA gave for the low altitude was to maximize the power available from normally aspirated engines...

...At the time, nobody realized that this was the beginning of what was to become a virtual slaughter caused by the way the FAA wanted Vmc demonstrated in multiengine flight training. That 7/22/58 accident was recreated dozens and dozens of times in the following years, mostly in Beech Travel Airs and Barons and in Piper Twin Comanches. After this had gone on for a while, it seemed as if the FAA was issuing multiengine ratings to the survivors of the training.

The Twin Comanche came out in 1964 and by 1968 it was widely thought of as a dangerous airplane. In normal use, it wasn’t. In the FAA-approved training it was. A third of the fatal accidents in the Twin Comanche occurred on training flights. How many of the hours were flown on training flights? At the time it was estimated that the 33-percent of the accidents happened in about five-percent of the flying time...

...The Twin Comanche was carefully examined by the government and by Piper. The main smoking gun was that in a power stall the left wing stalled well before the right wing. That would make the airplane roll to the left. I can attest to the fact that it did with great enthusiasm and more than one of us quit doing stalls in the airplane because you could quickly have to learn recovery from inverted flight when out stalling.

Piper tested the airplane in spins and found that it was recoverable using standard technique. However, most of the training accidents occurred at an altitude too low for a successful recovery. Also, with the left wing stalling first the airplane would roll to the left but most training spins were to the right. The simple reason for that was that the instructor/examiner/inspector was sitting on the right and usually failed the right engine...

...When fatal twin wrecks other than weather accidents were considered, two things topped the list. There were far more training accidents in twins than singles and there were far more fatal accidents in twins because of poorly flown engine out approaches than were found in the first two or three minutes of the flight. Yet the training concentrated on Vmc as it related to the climb right after takeoff...

...Along the way, I learned something else about twin misconceptions. My father and I had been operating a 250 Comanche that was replaced by a Twin Comanche in 1964. I transferred the insurance and was a bit surprised to see a substantial check to reflect a much lower hull insurance rate for the twin. Training accidents aside, was it really that much safer than the single?

I researched this, found out that it actually at flew higher risk than the single and I wrote about this in Air Facts. It was the first time anything like this had ever been mentioned and it, and much that was to follow, got me branded as being anti-twin. All I was really doing was showing that insurance underwriters were basing premiums on what they thought was true as opposed to what was actually true...

...I flew a lot of twins with no real training or checkout and others with only the briefest exposure to the airplane. My Cessna 310 checkout took an hour, the Piper Apache was 45 minutes, the Aero Commander twin 30 minutes, and I checked myself out in the Beech Travel Air. The moment I was checked out in those airplanes I could start instructing in them. All the training, checkout and proficiency requirements for twins that exist today just weren’t around when the airplanes first came out.

I think the twins were forever tainted by those original problems that started in the late 1950s and peaked in the 1960s. It was slow motion but, much more recently, stringent training and experience requirements to be able to buy insurance on light twins have driven pilots away from the airplanes...​
 

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Radar Contact said:
To re-iterate a very important point, the NTSB only keeps data (that you are trying to use) on the twin mishaps...there is no reliable data on all the successful single engine landings of twin's.
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And neither do they have that data for singles. Plenty of singles just land after an engine failure but it never comes to the ntsbs attention. Plane gets towed to the FBO and someone writes a check to get it fixed.
 
weilke said:
And neither do they have that data for singles. Plenty of singles just land after an engine failure but it never comes to the ntsbs attention. Plane gets towed to the FBO and someone writes a check to get it fixed.
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But these days they almost always make it into the news, complete with the obligatory cell phone picture and commentary about how "dangerous" these things are and how but for the intervention of fate it could have landed on a dozen kids in a schoolyard. :rolleyes:
 
weilke said:
And neither do they have that data for singles. Plenty of singles just land after an engine failure but it never comes to the ntsbs attention. Plane gets towed to the FBO and someone writes a check to get it fixed.
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I mainly agree with your point. However, if it results in an off airport landing many times it is reported to the FAA/NTSB.

I wasn't providing skewed data to try to "prove" that twins are safer in all instances. My point was this comment, "you are more likely to walk away alive from a single-engine piston aircraft (with or without parachute) when its engine failed than from any piston-powered twin when one of its engines failed" is absolutely unsubstantiated.
 
Radar Contact said:
I mainly agree with your point. However, if it results in an off airport landing many times it is reported to the FAA/NTSB.
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There are formal criteria of what it takes to be reported as an accident. And a landing on 'county road 18' with a trip to the airport on a rollback doesn't fulfill those criteria.



§830.2 Definitions.
As used in this part the following words or phrases are defined as follows:

Aircraft accident means an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage. For purposes of this part, the definition of “aircraft accident” includes “unmanned aircraft accident,” as defined herein.
.
.
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Substantial damage means damage or failure which adversely affects the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the aircraft, and which would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component. Engine failure or damage limited to an engine if only one engine fails or is damaged, bent fairings or cowling, dented skin, small punctured holes in the skin or fabric, ground damage to rotor or propeller blades, and damage to landing gear, wheels, tires, flaps, engine accessories, brakes, or wingtips are not considered “substantial damage” for the purpose of this part.
 
Sort of off topic, but I went to a real cool airplane expo this past weekend and they had a new SR22 there. I realize your not looking at a new Cirrus, but man the Cirrus is just downright impressive (IMO). Price tag is insane, but it is nonetheless a sweet airplane. Fit and finish is great, cockpit is very comfortable, etc. I've said it before, but I really want to get a ride in a new Cirrus some day. Would be a hell of a cross country machine.
 
The second engine vs. the chute have advantages depending on where you're flying and what you're doing. If you're flying over mountains out west, the chute probably is actually more helpful to you since the single engine service ceiling of the Twinkie won't be above ground level. If you're planning on flying over water or the flatlands mostly, the 2nd engine is more helpful. Your wife being able to learn the Cirrus easier and pull the chute are other considerations.

Airframe wise, I wouldn't worry about either of them. Everyone I know who has a Comanche of any form loves it. I love flying the things.

Ultimately they're both good airplanes, so it's a question of which pluses and minuses fit your wants.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
The second engine vs. the chute have advantages depending on where you're flying and what you're doing. If you're flying over mountains out west, the chute probably is actually more helpful to you since the single engine service ceiling of the Twinkie won't be above ground level. If you're planning on flying over water or the flatlands mostly, the 2nd engine is more helpful. Your wife being able to learn the Cirrus easier and pull the chute are other considerations.

Airframe wise, I wouldn't worry about either of them. Everyone I know who has a Comanche of any form loves it. I love flying the things.

Ultimately they're both good airplanes, so it's a question of which pluses and minuses fit your wants.
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Report this to the moderators. Logic is not allowed!

Tim
 
I know where there used to be a Twinkie that could be had really cheap. It is a bit of a fixer-upper. @Everskyward had a picture of it...
 
Fearless Tower said:
No one ‘VMC rolls’ a Twin on approach. They stall/spin with asymmetric thrust and any Twin (save maybe a c337) will do that.
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Totally agree.

labbadabba said:
You do if you get low and slow and go full throttle while still below blue line.
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A plane that is below the glide slope and slow on airspeed is the fault of the pilot, not the airplane. Any incorrect application such as full throttles to get back on the glide slope and air speed is still pilot fault, not airplane.

But yes, I understand what you are saying. There are those kinds of pilots out there.
 
I would go SR22 unless:
*I needed more useful load
*I was doing a lot of flying over water and/or I was doing a lot of flying over mountainous or otherwise inhospitable terrain. Basically flying over stuff I wouldn't want to parachute down to
 
Tantalum said:
I would go SR22 unless:
*I needed more useful load
*I was doing a lot of flying over water and/or I was doing a lot of flying over mountainous or otherwise inhospitable terrain. Basically flying over stuff I wouldn't want to parachute down to
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I get the water, but over land? What am I missing?

Tim

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk
 
tspear said:
but over land
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Where I flew in the NE there were very few (if any?) areas where you couldn't glide to a road or some kind of civilization from around 7,5 or higher (probably even an airport). Flying now in the SW in the mountainous areas and open desert is another story. Not all areas have radar coverage either, so if you go down somewhere even if you are flight following or IFR that could quickly turn into a survival situation where if you were in a twin that extra 30 minutes of flying time could probably get you to an airport

I'm probably in the minority when it comes to a fear of engine failures.. but with one engine it's always on my mind at least
 
Not to derail the OP's thread too much, but if we're talking twins and $200K price range the Cessna 340 is a serious option. The OP mentioned his wife (?) was somewhat skittish about flying.. well a 340 would probably help quite a bit on that front as it definitely has that "real airplane" look to it.. and for a 1970s vintage it looks much more modern than many of the other 1970s birds flying around. What you'll save on the $15K repack fee you'll easily spend on overhaul reserves, gear maintenance, etc., but you'll have plenty of payload, good cabin comfort, the reassurance of a good redundancy, pressurization, and they have really nice ramp appeal (although that's subjective).

Personally the 340 is my "maybe-kind-of-attainable-one-day-real-airplane" goal. Mooneys and Cirrus (Cirri?) are real nice (each have their own merits and following).. but in my mind you can't replace payload ability with twin engine redundancy
 
Zeldman said:
A plane that is below the glide slope and slow on airspeed is the fault of the pilot, not the airplane. Any incorrect application such as full throttles to get back on the glide slope and air speed is still pilot fault, not airplane.

But yes, I understand what you are saying. There are those kinds of pilots out there.
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I never said it was dangerous, just that the Twin Comanche has been known to be a little more unforgiving. In this scenario, it was a student pilot on his final lesson prior to the checkride. From what was described to me was that they were shooting a single engine approach, got low and slow and either attempted a go-around or to salvage the approach. The plane never regained altitude, dropped the right wing and clipped the ground. The student and CFI were both killed in the low-speed impact.

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2017/08/piper-pa-30-twin-comanche-n22hw-fatal.html
 
Tantalum said:
Where I flew in the NE there were very few (if any?) areas where you couldn't glide to a road or some kind of civilization from around 7,5 or higher (probably even an airport). Flying now in the SW in the mountainous areas and open desert is another story. Not all areas have radar coverage either, so if you go down somewhere even if you are flight following or IFR that could quickly turn into a survival situation where if you were in a twin that extra 30 minutes of flying time could probably get you to an airport

I'm probably in the minority when it comes to a fear of engine failures.. but with one engine it's always on my mind at least
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I live in the North East now, and spent the vast majority of my life in the Mid Atlantic (my primary airport was inside the SFRA). Maybe we just fly in alternate locations, but considering the heavy traffic and worse drivers, there is no way I would consider intentionally landing anywhere near/on a load in New England. I would think landing on the open ocean next to an iceberg is safer,

Who cares about radar coverage? With a 402 ELT, they have your exact GPS coordinates. All you need to be doing is talking to ATC, then let them know you are going down.

Tim
 
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