… and there is the L3 TR497 Skywatch
Patrick I routinely fly at 10-12K. Occasionally up to 14K. Just have high MEAs and often due to WX. Are you deiced?
c210, I’m flying similar altitudes in the US, good speeds, fuel burns there. Usually I file 9 or 10k, but sometimes have to go higher to get above weather or for legs of trips over the Rockies with high MEAs.
I’m deiced, have had a good number of encounters with icing this winter, the Baron deals well with ice from what I’ve heard and seen myself. Have boots, hot props, heated windshield, pitot…
I don’t have O2 or a portable system, yet, so I’m limited today by faa rules. I’m not sure how much higher I would go with O2, except to get above a bit of weather. I wouldn’t be super comfortable on airways with higher MEAs, which are across the Rockies near where I am now due to icing risk and single engine ceiling. Performance degrades higher according to the POH, due to loss of MP in the absence of turbos, so only advantage would be to be in the clear.
Your forgetting the psychological effect on GA in Europe. If you can afford an airplane your rich so we can throw any # at you and you WILL swallow it whole.
The way I counter that threat is by going into a trans like state when I whip out my Euros from my wallet (which is attached by some mysterious force to an ATM machine) and convince myself Im flying a twin. While the price of AV Gas has gone down 25% in the US (Cheapest price per Air NAv in the NE Metro area to NYC is at KMMK at $4.55/gal.) the needle has barely budged at EDMA it went from 2.77Euros/Lt to 2.48/Lt about 10%. Which indicates most of the AV GAS expense is not related to the price of oil since oil has gone down 50%. Or greed but I belieive in the goodness of people so Im discounting that.
For a guy flying a Baron you will have to go into a much deeper state of meditation and convince yourself you are flying with four engines. It can be done, there are people who can go into a Zen state and walk on burning coals without a blister.
For a guy flying a Baron you will have to go into a much deeper state of meditation
Loved that.
Hi Patrick,
when I look at the Barons for sale here, they usually stay on planecheck or elsewhere for a very long time. The reason is exactly what people say here, way too expensive to operate thanks to the fuel consumption/avgas prices here as well as the Eurocontrol tax. With that in mind, your Baron will loose considerable resell value in Europe.
From where I am sitting, if you are taking the step moving back here, you will probably be better off selling the Baron over there, where it is appreciated and will fetch better prices and find another DA42 or alike below 2 tons. Possibly an NG with the more powerful engines which will at least to some extent retain you some of the Baron’s performance.
Of course, many of us would probably consider staying over there in the first place. I still kick my backside regularly for not taking the opportunity when I had it in the 1990ties. Now I wonder how to get a residence permit over there once I am retired…
the needle has barely budged at EDMA it went from 2.77Euros/Lt to 2.48/Lt about 10%. Which indicates most of the AV GAS expense is not related to the price of oil since oil has gone down 50%. Or greed but I belieive in the goodness of people so Im discounting that. ..
Dude, you are in the WRONG part of Europe: I paid a visit to my local Total AvGas station last week and was greeted by a post of the next AvGas price change : down to 1.78€/Lt from 1.94€/L t Yipeee !!
For a guy flying a Baron you will have to go into a much deeper state of meditation and convince yourself you are flying with four engines. It can be done, there are people who can go into a Zen state and walk on burning coals without a blister.
R O T F L !!!!
@Boscomantico: Have you any idea how much I should care about a noise certificate for my 80HP Rotax-powered ultralight? It won’t be allowed in Switzerland, having no Musterbetreuer either in UK or in BRD (and I won’t fly in Swiss or Austrian or Dutch aerospace anyway, as long as they require mode-S transponder and panelmount ELT) ; and in Germany I have always paid ultralight landing fees, and nobody has ever asked for my noise certificate.
If you do think it could be relevant: how could I get one?
No need to get one. D-registered ultralight must have a maximum noise value of 60dB(A), otherwise they can’t receive their DaeC Musterzulassung. In other words, they all conform to the highest noise standards (side note: this in terms of sheer noise level; they still sound horrible since most have them have Rrrrrrotax engines).
So, all this noise category stuff does not apply to ultralights. There are no operating restrictions based on the Landeplatzlärmschutzverordnung. All ultralights always pay the same (minimal) landing fees.
And even though foreign ultralights might not conform to the same max 60dB standard, when they fly to Germany and land somewhere, nobody will ever question their noise status. So don’t worry.
Mooney Driver,
I’d agree that planes are potentially worth less in Europe due to the ill health the GA market, certainly twins. For a well maintained plane with modern avionics and a healthy secondary market in the U.S. (or somewhere, anywhere else), I would expect the floor for resale value will be the US resale price minus the cost of ferrying transatlantic. Lots of bonanzas have been bought out of Europe into the U.S. from what I saw when shopping for a Bo in Europe. Only offset to this might be something with demand in Europe, which might be worth more if VAT is paid.
A used DA42-NG would cost around $300,000 more than I have in my Baron. By my calculations, that purchase price differential will fund something like 1800 hours of the fuel operating expenses of flying the Baron rather than the DA42-NG. 30 g/h of avgas v 18 gal/h of no vat jet-a (were one to be able to not pay vat, which is probably not going to happen but just using the listed costs at EGTF today, they quote jet-a ex-vat as I understand…) adjusted by the speed differential. No adjustment for the maintenance cost differential. And I realize the DA-42 may retain some portion of the higher purchase price… But maybe not, given the steep depreciation of prior vintage da-42s. Seems to me a g1000 might be viewed as pretty old technology in a few years, given the age of the system and the features you get with the Garmin GTN series.
I’m pretty sure my risk in taking the Baron to Europe is limited to the cost of round trip ferry costs. [edit: my risk relative to the risk of owning the Baron in the US is the transport costs and potentially some portion of the higher opex/maintenance costs. The overall risk to owning an older twin anywhere in the world is close to the whole amount of sunk capital costs they may have little salvage value…] Maybe in a worst case scenario, if my Baron were to somehow worth zero in 3 years, that would be a smaller capital hit than I would expect the buyer of a new da-42 IV to face from three years of depreciation. [edit: I also have substantially less capital at risk than anyone in a newer, non-depreciated plane, with a higher purchase price. Annual depreciation in any newer plane than outperforms the BE58 will Be at least 0.5-2.0x my capital at risk. Except maybe in a PC-12, which don’t seem to depreciate.]
Most of the Barons I’ve seen for sale do seem to be for sale for years and years… They also mostly seem to be low priced planes with lots of deferred maintenance, which have been sitting for a while, with old avionics, which are going to cost some multiple of the purchase price in their first annual if you want to bring things up to spec… Lots of old practically abandoned barons for sale out of Italy…
