Talk Me Out of a Cirrus

Racerx said:
Channeling my inner @Pilawt .... The testbed for the Seneca was a tri motor Six. Which is really a fixed gear Lance. So it's probably just an STC to bolt on the engines.
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Ah, shades of the LearBaron...
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Define your mission *including* budget. Sounds like lots of... 600nm? ... solo flights, some compassion flights, very cross country.

Meh... You want real speed in a turbo, use the dang turbo and go to FL250. Just be aware that you may trade 5000 feet and a 120kt groundspeed with a 30 knot headwind for 25,000 feet and a 120kt groundspeed with a 100 knot headwind. You'll sure look cool while you're not going any faster though. :D

But, while I won't talk you out of an airplane, I will talk you out of a turbo, at least if there's an equivalent plane without a turbo (ie, don't not buy the Seneca because of what I'm going to say here).

1) Turbos are only useful on longer legs. In my Mooney, it takes 8nm per 1000 feet for the climb and descent. Rule of thumb, you want at least half your flight to be in cruise to make the slow speed and high fuel burn of the climb worthwhile, so 16nm per 1000 feet is about where your max cruise altitude should be on any given leg. Below 10,000 my airplane is faster than its turbocharged equivalent, so on a 160nm leg we'll tie in performance and the turbo will just cost a lot of money (50% higher fuel burn, plus of course maintenance, lower engine longevity and higher overhaul costs). So really, if you want to get some significant advantages out of the turbo, you want to be flying in the low 20s, which means a minimum leg distance of 320nm. Less than that, they're kind of a waste.
2) Breathing oxygen sucks. It's completely dry, 0% humidity, and will turn your sinuses into the Sahara desert, except lit on fire, within a half hour. And pax aren't going to like it any better, so you'll end up at lower altitudes and once again your turbo is a waste. The only exception to this is to be pressurized so you don't have to wear O2. In a piston single, that means Malibu or P210.

While I'm here, let me talk you out of A/C. It's nice during taxi, and it's nice for the time that you're below 5,000 feet. By the time you hit 5,000 feet you should be in cooler, drier air, no matter where you are in the country. Reminds me of when I was in Texas in July in a normally aspirated 182, turning the heat on because the OAT at 12,500 was 0ºC. A/C is extra weight, money, and lots of other bad things. If you're in a hot place, get a swamp cooler if you have to, so that you can easily ditch it the rest of the time.

For your mission, that P210 makes a lot of sense if you're always flying long legs. Or the Malibu, if you can find a hangar big enough. A36 Bonanza if you want to go faster and stay normally aspirated but keep the pax-friendly big door. Older TBM is gonna be $$$ to fly but will outrun all of the above and still give you that big back door (and maybe only that back door). You can buy King Airs for that $600K but they'll probably eat you alive.

Otherwise, just be glad you already have such a great airplane! Or pair up with @Jim K and get that Seneca. You can each buy one engine. :rofl:
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Kent,
I see you also have an Ovation. Your comments are spot on.

In the last 3 weeks I’ve made 2 XC trips from Vegas to Amarillo and back and then Vegas to Houston and back. Amarillo was a 4.2 hour leg and Houston was 2x3 hour legs (stop at Roswell). I fly these 12-16k. O2 sucks but my ox saturation isn’t what it used to be so I generally don the cannula above 9k or so just to be safe.

On the return trip from Houston, it was pretty heavy IFR from Roswell through Grand Canyon. Then the turbulence once we broke out of the weather was typical desert bounce. A turbo would not have helped as the tops were 39k and I had to slow down once clear because of the chop. I really anguished the decision between a turbo or NA and I don’t fee as though I’m missing anything. And you are right, 10k and below the Ovation will be faster than just about anything certified with one piston engine. That said, I dont think it would meet the OP’s mission.
 
FastEddieB said:
Ages ago I had a fair amount of time in a student’s P210. At the time it was a virtually new aircraft and was almost magical in its ability to cruise in comfort in the flight levels.
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FastEddieB said:
That said, don’t they have a reputation for being maintenance hogs? I think Richard Collins got so disillusioned with his in the end that he scrapped his. It’ll see if I can find that article.

Edited to add: https://airfactsjournal.com/2014/09/logbooks-long-wonderful-flight-beginning-turbulence/
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Yeah, a good article, but he didn't scrap it because he was disillusioned, he just felt it was worn out at 9,000 hours TTAF. He was probably right.

I don't think a P210 is more of a maintenance hog than any other single-engine piston pressurized airplane (cough, Malibu). They're both putting a helluva load on one engine - I'd hate to know how much power is lost to pressurization and accessories on those things and never makes it to the prop. That's probably why Collins complained about its slow climb rate.
NealRomeoGolf said:
I may have to change the title of this thread to "convince my wife I need a Seneca"
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If it's really a Seneca you want, do not put her in the back of a 414 or other pressurized cabin class twin. :D
Nick Geber said:
Kent,
I see you also have an Ovation. Your comments are spot on.

In the last 3 weeks I’ve made 2 XC trips from Vegas to Amarillo and back and then Vegas to Houston and back. Amarillo was a 4.2 hour leg and Houston was 2x3 hour legs (stop at Roswell). I fly these 12-16k. O2 sucks but my ox saturation isn’t what it used to be so I generally don the cannula above 9k or so just to be safe.

On the return trip from Houston, it was pretty heavy IFR from Roswell through Grand Canyon. Then the turbulence once we broke out of the weather was typical desert bounce. A turbo would not have helped as the tops were 39k and I had to slow down once clear because of the chop. I really anguished the decision between a turbo or NA and I don’t fee as though I’m missing anything. And you are right, 10k and below the Ovation will be faster than just about anything certified with one piston engine.
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It's a damn fine bird. My favorite leg in it was from Santa Fe, NM back up here to Wisconsin. It took 4:37 and burned 53.1 gallons of fuel. In cruise I was truing 172 KTAS on 10.1gph at 13,000 feet. That's really hard to beat.
Nick Geber said:
That said, I dont think it would meet the OP’s mission.
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Long solo cross country flights, it definitely would. "Get people of limited mobility in and out of it" part, not so much.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
...

Yeah, a good article, but he didn't scrap it because he was disillusioned, he just felt it was worn out at 9,000 hours TTAF. He was probably right.

I don't think a P210 is more of a maintenance hog than any other single-engine piston pressurized airplane (cough, Malibu). They're both putting a helluva load on one engine - I'd hate to know how much power is lost to pressurization and accessories on those things and never makes it to the prop. That's probably why Collins complained about its slow climb rate.

If it's really a Seneca you want, do not put her in the back of a 414 or other pressurized cabin class twin. :D

It's a damn fine bird. My favorite leg in it was from Santa Fe, NM back up here to Wisconsin. It took 4:37 and burned 53.1 gallons of fuel. In cruise I was truing 172 KTAS on 10.1gph at 13,000 feet. That's really hard to beat.

Long solo cross country flights, it definitely would. "Get people of limited mobility in and out of it" part, not so much.
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Yeah.. Vegas to Amarillo took 4.20 and burned average of 11.4 gallons at 12k. Also TAS 172-174. Loves LOP for sure! I said probably wouldn’t fit his bill because of his space requirements
 
I second the motion on a P210. But as others have mentioned the factory engines are overstressed. Look for one with the Vitatoe conversion (TSIO 550 w/ intercoolers), or buy one runout and have the conversion done (~$120K). It really makes the plane what it should have been all along. Amazing airplane if you need that capability. It's not hard to find them with a/c and ice protection, also.

C.
 
Racerx said:
Channeling my inner @Pilawt .... The testbed for the Seneca was a tri motor Six. Which is really a fixed gear Lance. So it's probably just an STC to bolt on the engines.View attachment 132873
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There's a similar shot of a Navion kicking around. All Twin Navions started out singles and were converted. Someone grabbed a shot of one with the wing engines installed and the nose one not yet removed.
 
jbarrass said:
Show her club seating and A/C...worked for me.
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We already have club seating and the Seneca doesn't have A/C. That being said, my wife doesn't fly with me anyway. She gets no benefit from the plane unless we can fully overcome her motion sickness issues.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
We already have club seating and the Seneca doesn't have A/C. That being said, my wife doesn't fly with me anyway. She gets no benefit from the plane unless we can fully overcome her motion sickness issues.
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Have her sit in the Seneca on the ground and compare the motion sickness to the Lance in flight.
 
flyingron said:
There's a similar shot of a Navion kicking around. All Twin Navions started out singles and were converted. Someone grabbed a shot of one with the wing engines installed and the nose one not yet removed.
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You mean the GA community was robbed of the opportunity to continue the legacy of triple engined-planes? That's a shame.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
I may have to change the title of this thread to "convince my wife I need a Seneca"
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apropos of nothing, that was the plan of the guy who sold me the arrow way back when pepperidge farms remembers. Upgrade to "fEekY" Seneca to fly his traveling CRNA wife to the MI UP....thankfully they put the money for a comm real estate downpayment instead. Failed hotel venture, she stopped the traveling gig and opened a ketamine clinic, he does the building mx is the last I heard. They did the right thing tbh, guy had no business gambling with the breadwinner like that. Airline dreams died in 9/11 for that one, people should know when to fold 'em type of thing.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
I've been dabbling in changing planes over the past 8 months. That's what happens after you drop tons of money into avionics. You waste it and go to another plane, right? Currently I fly a PA32R (Piper Lance) and I do so because of how much it carries. However, as I've switched companies and can now fly myself for work, I wish I could go faster and have some ice protection. My biggest limitations are hangar width and opex. I'd love to have an Aerostar but I'd be bankrupt in 5 years and don't have a hangar big enough to store it. I'd love to have a PA46 (Malibu....not Meridian) but the hangar issue comes into play again. They don't make them that wide here. I looked at Senecas but everything on the market is junk and I'm not convinced I want to be in a twin.

So now I'm looking at SR22T G5s. The problem is I don't want to give up the useful load. I could go without the T but flying up higher gives better speed. Those usually come with AC and that helps kill the useful. I'm seeing mostly 1100 pounds. My current plane gets 1430.

I get torn between my mission. 60%-70% of the time I don't need 1430. But sometimes I do need it for LifeLine Pilots flights and they specifically call me when they have a heavy one that is harder to fill. But on the flip side, I mostly fly solo. Having the AC would be nice too. As I get older, I hate sweating when flying more and more.

I've actually never flown in a Cirrus (well...not a piston. got to fly in the jet twice) so I need to do that. Really this post is just me rambling on. You're welcome to reason me one way or the other. Heck I was looking at a $900k TBM 700 the other day. I've hit full on midlife crisis really. :cool:
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Always late to the party...

NealRomeoGolf, I wouldn't presume to try to talk you out of, or into, anything. But if you don't mind one more perspective...

I have about 100hrs in a SR22, and if I were shopping for a traveling machine in the form of a late-model piston single, a SR22T would be my first choice.

Prior to flying the SR22 I was 1/2 partner, successively, in two Bonanzas. When my Bonanza partner and I dissolved our partnership and sold the second Bonanza, he bought an early SR22 and invited me to fly it anytime he wasn't using it. I learned and quickly adapted to the Cirrus and came to like flying it. Having had one just-barely successful off-airport landing after a catastrophic engine failure in a single, I greatly appreciated having the CAPS installed and took several flights along routes that I might have avoided in the Bonanza. Control feel and response are idiomatic but not dramaticly so. The differences are mostly noticeable when moving the stick on the ground, and the airplane's inflight response to control inputs is quite conventional. I would feel confident flying the SR22 in the same conditions that I would have flown a Bonanza. As for the turbo, there have been MANY occasions in which I was flying a naturally-aspirated single and wished that I had a turbo, and ZERO occasions in which I was flying a turbocharged single and wished that I had a naturally-aspirated plane. The pros and cons of CAPS and turbocharging are well hashed-out, so you have plenty of factual info and individual perspective to draw from.

As for the Seneca, I've flown a Seneca I and a well-equipped III that had FIKI, but I have never had any desire to own one. It would be...amusing...to decry the handling of the Cirrus while recommending a Seneca, which feels all too much like flying a bathtub. However, aside from its less-than-inspiring flying qualities, the Seneca does get the job done. As does the SR22.

Good luck.
 
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NealRomeoGolf said:
We already have club seating and the Seneca doesn't have A/C. That being said, my wife doesn't fly with me anyway. She gets no benefit from the plane unless we can fully overcome her motion sickness issues.
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Plane selection can help with motion sickness.
1. Look for planes with higher wing loading, like a Cirrus. Higher wing loading reduces how much the plane gets bumped around by wind/turbulence. Get one which climbs fast to get out of the bumps (SR22T), get A/C to keep cold air blowing on her face.
2. Go pressurized and get out of the bumps ASAP and stay high as long as possible, practice slam dunk approaches.

Tim
 
Roger Wilco said:
It would be...amusing...to decry the handling of the Cirrus while recommending a Seneca, which feels all too much like flying a bathtub.
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First time I have seen Senaca described as a bathtub. Somehow it is a very visual and easy to understand comparison while not at all logical.

Tim
 
The SR22 with a yaw damper is a very stable aircraft, even through bumps. The 22 realistic ceiling is 14, maybe 15 thousand. Once again I’d get the cirrus.
 
With a budget of 600k get an old twin like a cessna310 deiced. You will have lots of money left over for opex. No need for parachute. The 310 has loads of character and is a joy to fly.

Capex v opex
 
EdFred said:
What's your definition of standard that a 310 won't fit?
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I don’t know what the standard is and suspect it’s the word people use in place of average or typical, but the length from the rear end of the tip tanks to the front end of the nose can exceed what’s available in many T hangars. That’s particularly the case for the 310R with its nose baggage pushing the beak forward.
 
If you’re spending as much money to get a Cirrus or Seneca, why are you limiting the money in getting a larger hangar?

And… has anyone mentioned a Pilatus?
 
WDD said:
If you’re spending as much money to get a Cirrus or Seneca, why are you limiting the money in getting a larger hangar?

And… has anyone mentioned a Pilatus?
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Larger hangars don't exist here unless I build it.
 
StraightnLevel said:
The last few years of the 310 (310R?) had FIKI as an option. I read somewhere that it could be retrofit onto those specific serial #s, but only a specific model of the boots.

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Not all 310Rs were FIKI. I don’t know how easy it is to find one for sale. I know the difference between the FIKI and “full de-ice” planes and it isn’t enough to change how I operate.
 
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