So, there's a market for leasing out ground-up restored, fully SIDS'd 200-series Cessna's with steam and carbs. Surely a couple of LAMEs could get together, rent a hangar somewhere and start cranking them out?

Here in Aus, you could also whack in a couple of Dynon glass thingys as well to make them look all modern to match the shiny paintwork.

Should be able to do that for less than the price of a non-existent new aircraft, surely? Maybe the hangar could be located in Guandong province too...

Mick and Folks,
Why the fixation on the C-206, what about the GA-8 Airvan??
Tootle pip!!

Cause its ugly as a hat full of a@#*holes? :E

Dr :8

And as slow as a Beechcraft Bonanza :E

LeadSled, have an open mind looking at everything at the moment, leaning towards low time, less than 5 year old 206's, mainly due to some of our work involves longer legs of 2-3 hours. 206 is a bit quicker and that bit of TAS over a year saves a heap of maintenance time as well as not running up TT on the aircraft.

Do admit though looks like the G8 is cheaper to maintain, so what you loose on one you pickup on the other. Lot of other operators I know are heading towards the Air van, they seem to have good reports so far.

Drift alert...

Gonna be pedantic here, Rats. PA-31's don't have vacuum pumps.:E

Mick, I have flown one of the new ones......jeeez it even makes me look good....at flying that is. I was very surprised and impressed. I can put you in touch with a good guy if you like.

Good cabin and doors and pretty tuff.

Leadie has a good point, if that is what the job entails it is a nice unit. The one I flew was a TC unit and ran beautifully LOP at 57 LPH or something like that.

The N/A one would be better for short hauls, TC for big ones.

Again I offer help in some of the area's that everyone else is not much use in. (look at the company fuel burn for a start) Of course I am useless to you in all the areas others are useful in ;)

You can get my details from the website Advanced Pilot

Thanks Jabba, know APA and the legends in the states, been running LOP on every thing for about 8 years, think that's why we are still in business. This is next round of economics.

My pilots don't like the idea of an air van as they are used to the bit more TAS and I can hear them all saying "are we there yet." However had a few chats to other operators they say they are very forgiving to fly don't have any bad traits so good for newbies, they said the biggest difference is you don't have to wait for a couple of weeks with the Airvan to come back from a 100 hrly like you do with a 200 series.

Talking with lames 100 hrly takes about half the time as you don't have an AD,s list as long as your arm to check each time. However I haven't checked as yet to what the current AD list is like for the 206H or the restart Cessnas that's going to be my reading for the weekend.

Are Gippy Aero even manufacturing at the moment?

I know they lost a Supreme Court ruling over monies owned to a contractor. I wonder how they are going :ouch:

Whatever they're doing, they're doing it under a black cloud...

Are you talking about race or weather? :ouch::ok:

Talkin bout coal fire, I reckon!