Thanks Gyrotyro, I must say I am only about 60/40 in favour of the 231 over the 201...there is the balance between maintenance costs and performance above say 12,000ft....It seems that up to around 10-12k ft there is not a lot of difference in speed and climb rate.....above 12k the difference starts to increase...In Europe it seems good long distance IFR is best done at 12-18,000 ft for routing, weather avoidance, remaining in controlled airspace etc...but you're right, is it worth the extra maintenance costs...for me I am marginally in favour of the 231 (or a turbo-normalized 201), but if a decent J model comes along...
btw...MAPA have lots of good articles, including this one:
Ed
Thanks Raiz....Jim's trip certainly dose look epic! Being Australian, I would love to fly grom UK to Australia at some point (if I ever move back)...and the Mooney would be a good plane to do it in... (although I would probably make sure it was an N reg for the ease of getting work done outside Europe)...I wonder how Jim got on for maintenance with his 223 hrs