Ideas / suggestions for a twin
Hello,
I work for a company who is going through the motions of upgrading our (very nice 800 hour old) Cessna 206 to something faster and with better payload. My boss has a liking for things that go fast and are new, and will no doubt end up with a CJ1/2 or similar one day. The problem with a jet at the moment is that the new aircraft will be the first twin added to an AOC and i dont like my chances of getting a Chief Pilot approval to operate a citation or kingair with my hours.
My boss is quite sold on the Vulcanair P68 as they are quite economical and the only aircraft out of the 3 piston twins in production that is certified for 7 seats to fit his family of 6 and myself (yes the rear seat is available as a bench and will fit the 3 smallest children).
The other options for a new piston twin are the G58 baron and Seneca. Im endorsed on both and with The G58 costing $1.5M+ and having less useful load than the P68 and burning over 130 Lp/h it doesnt make any sense. The Seneca is a Seneca and that is enough said.
We are based in Mildura and there is a lot of legs between 100 and 250NM that are done privately with only 2 or 3 passengers, but for charter operations it would be nice to carry up to 5 passengers to Essendon/Adelaide/Albury/Canberra etc. and perhaps Bankstown. The P68 wont allow this and also with a TAS of around 150Kt is no faster than the C206 which will get 150+ on a good day.
So after a lot of research and number crunching, im still quite lost and have started looking at older piston twins as the answer. A good B58 or C310 will cost $250,000+ and i understand that they are older and require more maintenance and have recurring problems (SID's for the Cessna, maintenance costing a bomb for the Baron) but for the $1M that a new P68 costs you could buy a lot of maintenance.
I am just after some real world numbers for the older piston twins from any operators or owners; things like BEW and MTOW's, Fuel burn numbers, actual TAS, and most importantly maintenance costs and reliability. Feel free to message me if you dont want to post these things on a public forum. I'm willing to look into anything from the 310/B58 up to PA31/C421 size.
Interested to hear some (hopefully) non biased opinions, thanks in advance.