recommend 4-6 seat plane

[Lowmick]

Hi,
I would like to ask everyone, what do you recomend as lets say 4-6 seat airplane for aerotaxi/traveling in EU? Or airplane in this category you are satisfied.

Cessna 340/421/414 are little bit old, so I worry about technical stuff, inspections etc.
C208, Cessna Mustang, 525, TBMs700/850 are expensive.
Piper Seneca, Saratoga cant fly well loaded. Cirrus is small.

Some used C90s looks nice (for me) and prices are not bad. Beech Duke is also interesting, but I heard something about expensive inspections.

Thanks for any opinion...

[FrankR]

In this category, I recommend you choose the aircraft with the fewest, simplest systems. If you need to pressurize, deice, or fly faster than 160kts, get a bigger aircraft! These systems are not really designed well or very robust on the 4-6 place aircraft.

And it always comes down to how much you have to spend!

It's hard to argue against the venerable King Air. The Duke will eat you alive with inspections and AD's.

FR

[suhoi27]

We had some C90B before going to C525s...It was roomy, a bit noisy and very docile aircraft....Became a maintenance pig after it was staying outside for 2 months -some connectors didn't like the moisture...I am pretty sure the WEB is full of reviews:ok:

[avionimc]

EXTRA 500 is the aircraft you need!

[magnetic-north]

Extra 500, looks nice and good range, Malibu,or Meridian would be a choice too.
It all depends on your Mission, and $

[FrankR]

@Suhoi27.
As your company discovered, the cost of a hangar is always "Too high", but the cost of keeping an aircraft outside is even higher!

Always hangar your airplane, regardless if it is a 152 or a Global!!!!!

[Lowmick]

ok, thank you guys! :-)

Extra 500 is not so much wide used aircraft. What are for example operating costs comparing to Meridian or Socata?

[suhoi27]

Frank, You are right, however this .."2 months ahead" thinking is not quite popular amongst manager's society-it tends to eat their bonuses....so they simply don't follow ithttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/badteeth.gif

[flynowpaylater]

Lowmick, depends on where you're based and where you want to fly to.

As previous posts, King airs are about on the money.

PM me if you want some info.

[Lowmick]

PC12 is definitely nice and good to operate, I have theoretical training on it and it is really smart aircraft. But even used airplanes are quite expensive (2 mil USD and more)...

C90 is little bit more thirsty, bud there are some of them less than 1 mil USD.

ok, lets set top at 1 mil to 1,2 mil USD. What type would you prefer?

[suhoi27]

I would not buy 1.2M King 90! It will be such a maintenance burden for this price. Forget it!

[jxc]

Technam P2006T

145kt cruise

might not be fast but very cost effective to use

[Tinstaafl]

You need to define what running costs you can afford,range, payload, speed & runway performance you must have and would like to have, as well as comfort issues eg pressurised or not, toilet. Perhaps a spreadsheet laying out those factors and then slotting in various types. It would make it easier to compare & trade-off features.

[madlandrover]

Also look carefully at your target market - eg any useful AOC air taxi would need to be ME rather than SE, so that knocks out not only SEP aircraft like the Saratoga but also SET types, so sadly no TBM, PC12, etc...

For the lighter end of the market one or 2 operators are having success with DA42s if you don't need 4 seats and range. Otherwise start to think about cabin class twins with scary fuel burn - C303T, PA31, etc...