Twin Prop Plane for Sale

Mixed reviews on the maintenance of the twins Cessnas.

Grand-Junction airplane sales. Grand Junction, CO.

President of Grand Junction Sales, Larry Nunnery, has been engaged in the purchase and sale of aeroplanes since 1981. There is a big advantage between us and other traders in that we will include your airplane in the deal. We give you top dollars for your trading with aircrafts! Although we own most of our aircrafts, we ship your airplane and have it for sale at the best possible rate.

All Grand Junction Aircraft Sales employees are recognized airline drivers who have extensive knowledge of the aircraft we are selling.

You really want a twin?

This is a brutal open debate about the minus points and the advantages of twin possession, relying on Mike's own nine-year history of owned and operated his 1979 Cessna T310R. Mike is a 6,000 hour professional jet and CFI flight attendant with aeroplane, dashboard and multi-engine qualifications, has been a 36 year flyer and 33 year hold.

In the last 14 years he possessed and flew a Cessna T310R twin with turbocharger, which he runs himself. Here you are, look through the Bonanza or Cessna 210 or Mooney advertisements in Trade-A-Plane to find out how much your recoverable singles valued - or maybe to find out what it would take to deal in your solid one.

All of a sudden, without prior notice, your eye is pulled down by a strange power line and caught by the Aerostar or Baron or Cessna 310 section. Scanning through some of the twin advertisements, it dawned on you: "Hey, these gemini are sellin' for a hell of a lot less than I thought.

Indeed, for the cost of a A36 or 210 of the early 80s, you can buy a beautiful Cessna 310 or even a Cessna 340 of the early 70s. You' re like, "Man, I could fly a twin! But before I came to my senses, I owned a 1979 Cessna T310R.

I' ve been spending the last nine years trying to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of twin possession. Nowadays I talk to many aviators who ask for help on how to buy their first twin Cessna. I advise most of them to think very hard before making the jump into twin-possession.

I had a beautiful plane with my 310R. However, I have learnt a great deal about twin possession since then, and not everything turned out exactly as I expected. Honestly, if I were to buy a plane today, I'm not sure it would be a twin. John Frank is the managing secretary of the Cessna Pilots Association.

My twin is about 10 knot quicker than John's singles, according to my characters in the books. 310 looks like a much larger plane than 210. The payload is only 400lb. 1,600 versus 1,200lb - and on long leg ends this gap is completely offset by the extra petrol the twin has to bear.

This is also the case for most lightweight twins: Aerocommanders, Aerostars, Aztecs, Barons and Cessna 320s, 340s and 414s. When you want to transport significantly more cargo than a Cessna 210 can transport over a longer range, you need to look at a large, heavier twin like the Cessna 402 or 421 or Piper Navajo.

It' s not far from the reality to say that the main task of the second motor of a lightweight twin is to surmount its own resistance and bear its own load and the extra load of extra petrol it needs! Gemini are more safe? Asking whether Gemini are really safe than single will certainly spark a fierce discussion in any group of aviators.

Recently, I completed processing a Cessna 310 Security Audit Report for the AOPA Air Security Foundation. Within the framework of this research I have taken a close look at the Cessna 310 and a group of similar aircrafts (Aerostar, Aztec, Baron, Commander, Crusader) over the eleven years from 1982 to 1992.

Trauma ratios between high power singlets (like Bonanzas or 210s or Mooneys) and lightweight twin (like Aerostars or Barons or Commander or Cessna 310s) are surprisingly high. Gemini have a slightly higher casualty per 100 planes and a slightly lower casualty per 100,000 hrs, but for all practicality the casualty is the same.

About one third of all injuries in both high power singles and lightweight twin babies are considered severe. Approximately three fourths of all incidents are considered "pilot caused" for both individuals and Gemini. Whereas weather-related crashes eclipse all other pilots in the single-engine crash statistics, the twin model seems to be very different.

However, a number of other non-weather-related causes are of great importance: failed take-offs and landings, off-road flights, inadequate IFRS techniques, propellant consumption and gearbox landing, to name but a few.

The group of lightweight twin engines we considered had about 3% of all casualties due to motor or prop breakdowns. On the other hand, around 8% of all incidents involving high power singlets were due to motor or prop failure: 17% of the incidents were due to mechanic causes, but almost 50% were related to the motor or prop.

Stats showed that a lightweight twin is about as likely to have a mechanically induced crash as a high-performance one. The likelihood of a singles crash is about two and a half time higher than that of a twin due to motor/prop failures (8% versus 3%). Assuming that a twin is twice as likely to have a motor/prop fault (since it has twice as many failures), we can deduce that a motor/prop fault in a given twin is five more likely to lead to an incident than a motor/prop fault in a twin.

So, are you more confident to fly a lightweight twin than a powerful singles? However, your own personal exposure to risks changes somewhat: in the twin you are less likely to be injured by an accident and more likely by something else. When you have to ask, don't even think about purchasing a twin.

There is an old general practice that says that you can get a crude approach to the operating expenses per h for the flight of an aircraft 200 hrs a year by taking the per h charge for gasoline and multipling it by four. 00/ gallon and that the gas olineurs for the Cessna are 182, 210 and 310, 13, 16 and 30 gal/h, we come up with running expenses of $104, $128 and $240 per hour. What is more, the Cessna is equipped with a battery of petrol.

In fact, these numbers are not far removed from what a more stringent financial assessment brings. However, please be aware that the calculation of running expenses has many variable factors and your expenses may vary significantly from the numbers shown here. Our numbers, for example, disregard write-downs (or increases in value) and fund opportunities charges.

My ratings on the service of the Cessnas Gemini are varied. I have had a lot of experiences with my 1979 Cessna T310R. The first two "years of catching up" (each costing about 7000 dollars) were followed by a period when I found the servicing of my aircraft unexpectedly economic. As I began swiveling keys on my 310, I found (to my amazement and joy) that most Gemini are very simple to work with - often much simpler than high end ones.

Gemini are large, spacious planes and service accessibility is generally excellent. At the other end of the medal, I have seen many cases (including some good friends) of people who have gone from a powerful singles to a lightweight twin and have been flooded with ruinous costly service issues that have eventually compelled them to resell the plane in some cases.

That applies to every airplane, but especially to twin airplanes, where the surprise can be very costly. And some of the twin parts are terribly costly. Some years ago I had to change my windscreen heating panel and was provided with a floor covering to find out that an exchange costs 5,000 dollars. This is nothing in comparison to a half-wind screen heater for the Cessna 414 or 421, which last price was $25,000!

Spare chassis parts such as torsion bars, push rods and hook rods also costs tenfold what you would expected. But the thing to keep in mind is this: Although you bought your "used" twin for $100,000 or $200,000 (or maybe much less if it was an older model), this plane would be selling for $1 million or more if Cessna or Piper or Aero Commander built it today.

When it comes to spare parts and service costs, you own a million-dollar plane. Theoretically, a complexe plane like my well-known one, fitted with icy turbo-charged twin engines, the turbo powered twin model type 310R, should have much more trouble than a simple plane like the Cessna 182 (my first plane). Zwilling has so many complicated systems...so many more things that can go sour.

If I open my plane a year and look at it with all its entrails, I am sometimes surprised that such a complicated plane works at all. However, many twin possessors do not divide my luck, and some of the twin are true ladies in hangars. When you need a dependable plane, but are not willing to become obsessive about preventative servicing, it would be much better to own a more simple plane.

To fly in bad wheather is the season when I am happiest to be a twin possessor. This additional metric tons of heavy cargo and the "Big Plane Feel" gives you a great deal of self-assurance when you fly in turbulent conditions. Two motors are soothing when you fly over rough ground or rough seas, especially at nights or in the IMC.

However, the parasitic resistance will vary with the squared airspeed, so that at lower speeds (take-off and ascent) a twin will have a big benefit in relation to the available overpower. That means that a twin often has the climbing ability to get out of a downwind or over an icy surface when an individual doesn't get along very well.

However, after almost a dozen years of flight in all weathers, I have found that the benefits of the de-icer are overestimated. It' not that the boot and warm support do not work - they do - but they are so rarely needed when you' re in the air racing a turbo-charged plane. When you' re having a good storm, the air radars are beautiful and twin radomes offer the Radom area and panelling room for a first-class radars system.

A disadvantage of using a traditional twin (other than cost) is the bad short and low yield. In the first years after buying the 310, I shunned any airports with less than 4,000 ft of takeoff and landing strip, and I would recommend other new twin riders to do the same.

Now that I've been on the 310 for almost ten years, I'm still very hesitant to use an aerodrome that' s less than 3,000 ft. From time to time I will operate from an airfield that is only 2,500 ft long but lightweight (one passenger, minimal consumption). I always felt at home single flies on dirt stripes and even on unpaved streets, especially in Mexico.

It is not simple to reach and retain the capabilities of a twin butt. Therefore, I strongly suggest a simulator-based first and repeat education for two pilot of our program. FlightSafety International Simcom offers outstanding twin plunger simulation capabilities. I am confident that regular simulation education is an important requirement for the safe operation of a twin.

When you have difficulty to justify the cost, you would probably be better off not to fly with a traditional twin. If you are a twin for the first want, you will probably find it hard to take out a policy. Regardless of how many reviews or accident-free lessons you have, insurers are hesitant to cover you in a twin until you have at least 500 lessons and 50 lessons in your class, and have a tendency to demand painful rigid premia until you have a few hundred lessons in your class.

A pilot with a flying duration of less than 1,000 flying hrs or 100 flying hrs is far more likely to be involved in a serious crash than a pilot with more flying skills. So, in component to preparation additive flow planning for an costly change of magnitude annually during your point gathering of stand-in relation, set message of additive medium of exchange for particularly brawny point gathering security interest.

Undererwriters love a pilot who regularly completes simulation courses. Although a lightweight twin is costly to run and service, hard to assure, not particularly quick or particularly good at carrying heavy weights, and not proven to be as safe as a powerful singles, you may prove to be one of those persistent people who choose to buy anyway.

Don't delay purchasing a Twin with High-Time motors, provided the prices are right. Be careful not to buy a Twin with low timing motors, unless they are factoryremans or they have been refurbished by a first class store like Mattituck or RAM. But before you throw your cash away to buy a twin, speak to your insurer and make sure you can insure it.

If you do all this, you can count on worthwhile twin owners for years, with a minimal amount of nasty surprise. Discussing twin possession would not be full without Cessna' s unorthodox twin, the skymaster model 337. A lot of what we said about the winged twin also holds true for the Skymaster. Indeed, the Sky Master is one of the most maintenance-intensive aircraft Cessna has made.

In contrast to most winged twin models, the Sky Master is not easily machined, and its motor compartment is particularly densely packaged. However, the Sky Master is an ultimate pleasure to ride and does things no other twin can do. With no Vmc issues, it is perfect for those who don't do much flying and can't afford the expensive recurring practice required by a traditional twin.

It has the best power output of any piston-powered lightweight twin. When you are looking for twin motor redundancy, but are deterred by some of the drawbacks of traditional twin engines, the Sky Master is definitely worth considering.