An affordable twin???

[ika]

I would unreservedly recommend an aztec

I used to fly a single comanche (and still do). I wanted something that would carry 6 people occasionally, and was thinking of getting a bonanza or cessna 210 but wanted peace of mind when flying with small children across to France for the day. I got an aztec for the same price as a basic single (under £50k) and it flies wonderfully, happily in and out of 600m boggy fields (it will stop in a couple of hundred metres lightly loaded, very docile landing), it feels like a grown-up plane compared to most singles but is fun to fly with 500hp, although obviously a bit less sporty to handle than some singles, nice and stable even in nasty weather (it's the first plane I've had with an autopilot and I never use it after the novelty wore off), carries anything you put in it in terms of both volume and weight (lots of fuel,6 adults and several cases of wine, or 2 adults, 4 children and back of an estate car full of baggage for a week's holiday) and it's almost impossible to load out of C of G. I happily flew to Sweden 350nm over water non-stop landing at night, which I wouldn't have dreamed of doing in a single. Yes my annual bills are a bit higher, say 50% more and fuel is 90-100 lph at 160-170 knots which is 50% more compared to comanche's 60 at 150 but not that much worse mpg than many typical singles - if you work out what portion of the cost of flying fuel for a typical private pilot doing 50-100 hours a year is, it's not that big a deal - with all the flying I'm likely to do, it will never match the capital cost of say a £100k single. It only took a few days to do my ME a couple of years ago and since then I've done 50-100 hrs multi, got my multi-IMC. Doing the ME renewal, flying on 1 engine is a non event in the Aztec compared to e.g. the Seneca I did my ME on (might be more interesting at gross weight, but that's a lot of weight). The only complaint I have is that if I ever want to trade up, I'd have to spend close to 20 times more for something a bit nicer and faster and then I won't be able to get into short grass fields. Try one!