The T303 is a great aircraft and a very modern design (only the DA42 could be considered to be more modern).
I looked into it a while ago. Only a few were built and they don't appear on the market very often. The cabin is huge which means that it is rather slow for the fuel burn.
Owners tend to be very happy with the aircraft and keep it for a long time.
From a posting in another forum (owner from Switzerland):
First off a disclaimer: I suffer from owner's blindness - I love my T303 to bits. :-) She's a beautiful aircraft, rock-solid, and her payload and range are perfect for my mission. And she's a dream to fly - engine failures and stalls are benign, intuitive and easily handled. The engines are also rock-solid - they are down-rated from 350hp to 250hp, which gives them a TBO of 2000h. I have not reached there yet, but all the reports I have heard say they will reach TBO if they are not mistreated.
The only real room for improvement are:
- she's not fast
- climb performance could be better (~1000fpm at sea level, ~500fpm at FL200, max take-off weight)
- no pressure cabin.
- the battery is tiny and discharges quickly if you have to wait too long for engine startup
Cruise at 65% Power yields about 170 knots TAS, burning about 24 Gal/h. My first addition to the avionics was a JPI engine monitor, which allows me to run LOP without GAMI Injectors.
Having said all that, we did have our fair share of problems after we bought the aircraft:
- The engine instruments were all unreliable, and required overhaul. I had real trouble getting the tach and the oil pressure indicators working properly, but they are now fine.
- Both waste gates and MP controllers required overhaul after only 400h. We think the previous owner didn't have these overhauled when he replaced the engines at TBO.
- All seat rails were cracked and needed replacing
- We have gone through at least 2 alternators on both sides. We have the heavy duty 95A versions, and these are only available from Kelly Aerospace. Nuff said.
- The landing gear hydraulic pump is installed on the floor behind the panel. There is an overflow outlet at the top of it, which needs to be connected back to the reservoir. The previous owner's shop must have had it out at some stage, and had left the outlet open and unconnected. For 50 hours or so it must have been spattering hot hydraulic oil all over the back of the avionics - all the cables and boxes were covered in a sticky red mess. It took a lot of manpower and a major avionics upgrade to get it cleaned up.
- We found a sizable crack in the aluminium of the nose gear door, around the lever which is connected to the actuator
- We had a leak in the hydraulic brake actuators, which vented hydraulic fluid on to the runway when we braked
- The de-icing boots controller had a really incidious failure: the pressure for the boots is taken from the flip side of the suction pumps, and there is a valve behind the engine firewall which should usually be open so that the pressure from the suction pump is vented to the outside when the system is not in use. When you activate the boots the first thing that happens is that this "de-ice control valve" closes, allowing pressure (18psi) to build up behind the boot actuator flow valves. A partial failure of the boots controller led to this valve being closed permanently => the vacuum pumps had to work against 18psi of overpressure at all times, which led to them wearing out after only about 40 hours! The incidious bit is that the boots worked fine - we had no reason to suspect the boots controller was smoking our vacuum pumps. We went through 2 pumps on the left and 1 on the right before we found that one.
- The left fuel flow sometimes oscillates in cruise - no idea why. It's not the fuel pump because switching on the electric fuel pump has no effect.
- The original autopilot (ARC 400B) was unreliable, and sometimes performed uncommanded turns. We have since installed a new Stec 55x, which is much better.
- We had a bit of corrosion on top of the horizontal stabilizer.
- We had to replace the heater due to a crack in the manifold.
- The engine cowl handles in the cockpit sometimes come loose
Spare parts are also a problem. Cessna only made less than 300 Crusaders, and I have had real problems sourcing parts. Items like the inertia-reel shoulder seat-belt, the original control/gust lock, the cosmetic "T303 Crusader" Tag on the outside of the fuselage and the original tow bar are not available from Cessna, and you will be lucky to find anything second hand. I have also heard of another owner in Germany who damaged his left landing gear and left flap in a hard landing, and is now unable to get replacements. Not good.
This is a complete list of the issues that we have seen. Please don't let them discourage you - I'm sure there are similar issues with all types, and the T303 is such a great aircraft.