Most fuel efficient twin?
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One of my personal favourites is the Rockwell 680/685. There's quite a lot of them in use in the Caribbean and Bahamas flying the inter island charter routes. It's fun flying too and the high wing is an advantage in tropical sunshine. I suspect though that you'd have to do a lot of research on the marque in order not to get slightly stung. The simple selection has to be the Twin Commanche. It has it's foibles though so a knowledgable conversion instructor, experienced on type, is a good idea.
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I would suggest accepting the extra 20 litres an hour and just go for a twin version of what you have already!
Find a decent Seneca III. Better than the II in a few ways - extra 20 hp on take-off or EFATO, better cockpit layout, better weights (I think the MZFW of the II is limiting, although I only have a few hours on that so don't quote me).
Basically Piper never improved the Seneca from the III, just made it heavier with gimics.
The Seneca will be lovely and familiar to you. It will be cheap to buy (probably under US$100k) which makes up for the fuel burn over the Diamond or Tecnam, although not as cheap as a Comanche. However it won't be as old as the Comanche either, and it is larger. The cabin will of course be very familiar to you, as I understand will the handling.
The Seneca III is a great aircraft.
Find a decent Seneca III. Better than the II in a few ways - extra 20 hp on take-off or EFATO, better cockpit layout, better weights (I think the MZFW of the II is limiting, although I only have a few hours on that so don't quote me).
Basically Piper never improved the Seneca from the III, just made it heavier with gimics.
The Seneca will be lovely and familiar to you. It will be cheap to buy (probably under US$100k) which makes up for the fuel burn over the Diamond or Tecnam, although not as cheap as a Comanche. However it won't be as old as the Comanche either, and it is larger. The cabin will of course be very familiar to you, as I understand will the handling.
The Seneca III is a great aircraft.
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Still think the the lower running costs of the P2006 will replace alot of old iron. We are still on the mark one version of the aircraft. Things like low service ceiling and range may only improve with further revisions.
I would be very surprised in Tecnam don't put the new fuel injected rotax on the airframe in 912 and all probability 914 form. This will reduce fuel burn further, increase the range and possibly increase the service ceiling.
I would be very surprised in Tecnam don't put the new fuel injected rotax on the airframe in 912 and all probability 914 form. This will reduce fuel burn further, increase the range and possibly increase the service ceiling.
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I agree with you Mickey. Apparently the new 912iSc has a 30% improvement in fuel economy. Granted, this is Bombardier marketing speak, so might not be entirely truthful. But a twin that burns 7gph in total, and can all of a sudden go 900nm on 62 gal of fuel, is going to make some inroads. I'd get one of those when they become available in a heartbeat if I could find the cash for it.
From a dollar vs capability calculation, twins represent a pretty good deal.
For example Barons are selling for less than the same model year Bonanza's, yet are 30 knots faster, carry more, have the redundancy of 2 engines, 2 vacuum pumps, 2 alternators, and many have deice and radar fitted.
Yes the total ownership cost will be more but you are also getting a lot more airplane. The big problem is finding a twin that has been properly maintained. There is a lot of neglected junk out their but a twin in good nick will not cost significantly more to maintain than the equivalent single and so insurance and fuel represent the biggest source of extra expense.
I don't get the P2006 for a private owner. If you are over 55 years old, for the price of a P2006 you could get a nice Baron/Aztec/Cessna 310 and pay for all the fuel and maintenance for the rest of your flying life and still be ahead.
For example Barons are selling for less than the same model year Bonanza's, yet are 30 knots faster, carry more, have the redundancy of 2 engines, 2 vacuum pumps, 2 alternators, and many have deice and radar fitted.
Yes the total ownership cost will be more but you are also getting a lot more airplane. The big problem is finding a twin that has been properly maintained. There is a lot of neglected junk out their but a twin in good nick will not cost significantly more to maintain than the equivalent single and so insurance and fuel represent the biggest source of extra expense.
I don't get the P2006 for a private owner. If you are over 55 years old, for the price of a P2006 you could get a nice Baron/Aztec/Cessna 310 and pay for all the fuel and maintenance for the rest of your flying life and still be ahead.
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I don't get the P2006 for a private owner. If you are over 55 years old, for the price of a P2006 you could get a nice Baron/Aztec/Cessna 310 and pay for all the fuel and maintenance for the rest of your flying life and still be ahead.
I've done the spread sheet.
You would have to spend another 450 K to buy the P2006. Financed, that is at least 3500 USD a month even with a 20 yr pay out. Plus probably an extra 200 USD a month for the higher hull insurance premium. 15 hours a month at 25 gal/ hr is 1875 USD vs 15 hours at 10 gal/hr for the P2006 which is 750 USD. The delta is over 2500 USD a month or $30,000 a year. Yes there is going to be more maintenance with the older twin but over a 20 year life it is hard to see how you come out ahead with the P2006....
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FWIW, I bought a new plane 10 years ago, for £230k inc VAT, and have never regretted it.
The warranty bill came to about £100k (largely because they built the panel out of a pile of "serviceable" avionics which came back from customers, I am 99% sure) but as I say that was met under warranty
And then I had really minimal unscheduled maintenance for 10 years.
So a case can be made for buying something new. It probably depends on how lucky you feel
But the Tecnam twin has a more serious issue of having insufficient performance for IFR long distance flights around Europe. I won't get you high enough for sure, and arguably it won't get you far enough in the often sparse matrix of avgas v. Customs we have here. Nobody is going to pay that kind of money for that capability. By the time you have that much dosh to spend, you will hopefully have been kicking around this business for a few years and you will know what mission capability is required for what. And if you are a fresh PPL with loads of dosh you will do what everybody else does and buy an SR22
They are aiming at FTOs and government surveillance stuff - just like Diamond with the DA42. There are actually relatively few private DA42 owners, and all those I know personally are deeply unhappy with it (mostly because of the Thielert business, but also due to general low QA) and even less happy with the factory and the customer service they get from there.
The warranty bill came to about £100k (largely because they built the panel out of a pile of "serviceable" avionics which came back from customers, I am 99% sure) but as I say that was met under warranty
And then I had really minimal unscheduled maintenance for 10 years.
So a case can be made for buying something new. It probably depends on how lucky you feel
But the Tecnam twin has a more serious issue of having insufficient performance for IFR long distance flights around Europe. I won't get you high enough for sure, and arguably it won't get you far enough in the often sparse matrix of avgas v. Customs we have here. Nobody is going to pay that kind of money for that capability. By the time you have that much dosh to spend, you will hopefully have been kicking around this business for a few years and you will know what mission capability is required for what. And if you are a fresh PPL with loads of dosh you will do what everybody else does and buy an SR22
They are aiming at FTOs and government surveillance stuff - just like Diamond with the DA42. There are actually relatively few private DA42 owners, and all those I know personally are deeply unhappy with it (mostly because of the Thielert business, but also due to general low QA) and even less happy with the factory and the customer service they get from there.
Last edited by peterh337; 9th Mar 2012 at 05:34.
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Rotax have just launched the new fuel injection and ECU control module for the 912S. This is clamed to improve fuel economy by a significant amount so may go some way to solving the range issue. TBO is 2000h, not the 1500 which was quoted in an earlier comment.
Rod1
Rod1
And I am not the only one to distrust electronics even in a car engine, far worse for flying. One of the common factors of success of the current Rotaxen and the older US'an engines is the lack of electronics (with a little exception for the ignition modules and the regulator in the Rotax).
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This is clamed to improve fuel economy by a significant amount so may go some way to solving the range issue.
BRP claims up to 30 percent lower consumption than like-power aircraft engines.
I can't see any claim that the 912iS will have a significantly lower consumption than the 912S. And I would not consider that likely anyway: The altitude-compensated Bing carburetors on the 912S are already pretty efficient. Fuel injection offers a lot of benefits, but significantly lower fuel consumption isn't one of them.
Power output will be 100 HP too, by the way. Exactly the same as the 912S.
So betting on a better future for the P2006 just because there's a 912iS now is not a good idea, as far as I can see.
As far as I'm concerned, the 912 and 912S are great engines for two-seater VLAs and MLAs, and the 912iS will offer a few operational and maintenance benefits over the 912S. (But no significant performance increase.)
But putting two of them in a four-seater twin is just overreaching. Particularly since the whole contraption has to stay in the air if one fails.
Consider this: A realistic four-seater (not a "2+2") single needs about 160 HP. So any four-seater twin should require at least about 160 HP in each engine as well, to have any realistic flight performance on one engine.
And I am not the only one to distrust electronics even in a car engine, far worse for flying.
I would be interested in the ECU though. Did they design something from scratch, or just bolted on a stock standard automotive (e.g. Bosch) ECU, or something in between?
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Well, by now we should all have learned that if we want a 4-seater with mission capability, we need to buy a 6-seater. It's unfair to criticise any aircraft for not being capable of filling the seats, filling the tanks and go 1000nm. There is no aircraft that can do it.
The Tecnam is no exception - it's a 2 seater twin with full capabilities, or 4 with less. That's fine by me as I fly on my own 90% of the time. I feel that unfairly, just because it's a twin, it gets compared to Senecas, Barons and King Airs that have over twice as much power. It's not that kind of aircraft. It's reinvented an old class and should be compared the long forgotten Wings Derringers or Miles Geminis, rather.
The Tecnam is no exception - it's a 2 seater twin with full capabilities, or 4 with less. That's fine by me as I fly on my own 90% of the time. I feel that unfairly, just because it's a twin, it gets compared to Senecas, Barons and King Airs that have over twice as much power. It's not that kind of aircraft. It's reinvented an old class and should be compared the long forgotten Wings Derringers or Miles Geminis, rather.
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BRP claims up to 30 percent lower consumption than like-power aircraft engines.
The old Lycos already outperform any petrol car engine, of any era, on SFC. A higher-RPM engine like a Rotax should be slightly worse than a low-RPM direct-driven engine due to greater friction losses.
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Seems to me some are still convinced we have proved particles can travel faster than light. It is a challenge rewriting the laws of physics and when it comes to the most basic (such as the fuel efficiency of engines and light aircraft) you have a real job on your hands.
You will get some efficiencies from automated and metered injection but even these are not going to be substantial, beyond that the physics of a combustion engine dont change a great deal from one make to another. In exactly the same way, make the fusealage more narrow, bin the spats etc all will have a reasonable impact on the engine(s) required and in turn on the ful burnt, but you get nothing for nothing. Some like sitting shoulder to shoulder in a Mooney and cosying up, others like to keep their friends a little further away and if they are big fat American friends will probably fly a Cirrus!
So in short I am afriad there really is no free lunch, the P2006 achieves its efficiency largely in the ways I have suggested and perfectly good I am sure it is but it is not because there is any amazing new technology that is at work - just the tried and tested, keep down the weight, keep down the drag and operate the engine at LOP or there abouts and anything you do beyond that will not amount to much of an improvement.
You will get some efficiencies from automated and metered injection but even these are not going to be substantial, beyond that the physics of a combustion engine dont change a great deal from one make to another. In exactly the same way, make the fusealage more narrow, bin the spats etc all will have a reasonable impact on the engine(s) required and in turn on the ful burnt, but you get nothing for nothing. Some like sitting shoulder to shoulder in a Mooney and cosying up, others like to keep their friends a little further away and if they are big fat American friends will probably fly a Cirrus!
So in short I am afriad there really is no free lunch, the P2006 achieves its efficiency largely in the ways I have suggested and perfectly good I am sure it is but it is not because there is any amazing new technology that is at work - just the tried and tested, keep down the weight, keep down the drag and operate the engine at LOP or there abouts and anything you do beyond that will not amount to much of an improvement.
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I really don't see this in the real world.
My findings are that the fuel burn is significantly less with a 912 than a continental.
At my local flying school we bank on a fuel burn of about 20 ltrs an hour for the o-200. The 912 about 14.
My findings are that the fuel burn is significantly less with a 912 than a continental.
At my local flying school we bank on a fuel burn of about 20 ltrs an hour for the o-200. The 912 about 14.
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Adam Frish wrote:
The Comanche 260C (and maybe the 260B) will take 4 people, full tanks (90gl), some bags and do 1000nm. The twincom with tip tanks will do the same.
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It's unfair to criticise any aircraft for not being capable of filling the seats, filling the tanks and go 1000nm. There is no aircraft that can do it.
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...and if you have a 260C with tip tanks such as ours, you can trade the fourth seat for adding the tip fuel and getting another 400nm range.
Amazing how so many people simply refuse to see how amazingly efficient the Comanche is, just because it's old and they're blinded by shiny new plastic.
Amazing how so many people simply refuse to see how amazingly efficient the Comanche is, just because it's old and they're blinded by shiny new plastic.