None of them is pressurized, thus pretty useless for commercial use over the Alps or for specialized roles (i.e. air-ambulance) I guess.
Obviously that leaves enough roles for them to make series production commercially viable (other than the Cessna Conquest, Piper Cheyenne, Mitsubishi Mu2, Rockwell Turbo Commander and whatever other twin turboprops were once built).
I find the
EV-55 a beautiful little thing but...
Yes, certainly. And practical as well. Wikipedia knows that only one of them was ever built but does not give the reason for that. Maybe the 200kt cruise speed is one of the factors?
So...why are they regarded safer than something like a PC12?
You compare a type of operation (desperate cowboys flying wrecks through deadly weather) with a type of aeroplane.
I see it differently: If
I would operate a piston twin the way I have operated them for more than 2000 hours (including 3 engine failures) I would see my statistical life expectancy higher than if I flew a turbine single for the same number of hours. Because every other risk being the same, an engine (or propeller or prop governor) failure in any single has the potential of killing me. And turbine engines do fail as well (I already experienced one in my 2.500 hours of (twin, luckily) turbine time). My choice stands.