LeSving wrote:
That’s the true face of poor dispatch rate smiley Some people like this kind of things, but they are usually not in the passenger group. Most passengers will say never again.
Many of them will say that after a trip got cancelled or delayed due to wx the first time and walk off to fly Easyjet or Ryanair thank you very much. Passengers expect airline like schedules, airline like baggage allowance and airline like safety. Anything else, and they walk off.
LeSving wrote:
Widerøe and their experience
These guys are VERY good and they have to be. I’d say if you are doing an operation like the OP here wants to do, having an ex Windroe guy as a mentor might be a life changing experience (possibly life saving as well if you learn from them).
LeSving wrote:
The Dash 8 has 2 engines of course, and if everything go according to plan, there will be Dash 8 -100 series flying here for the foreseeable future smiley It’s already 40 years old, and will fly for at least the next 40 years.<|/blockquote>It’s a great airplane for this purpose. I think Windroe was very clever to go for it and not the ATR. The only airplane which compares is the Saab 340 or better the 2000. But unfortunately the market shunned the latter.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Passengers expect airline like schedules, airline like baggage allowance and airline like safety. Anything else, and they walk off.
To be fair if passengers are paying a lot more money for this service than they would for an airline ticket it may be reasonable, to somebody who is not an expert in aviation, to get a commensurately better service with the standard at least equivalent to what an airline offers. Of course then you’re looking at a business jet or a turboprop at least.
I was once asked to figure out what plane my company should buy for a similar people moving function, plus some R&D work. Nowadays 25 years later the company has a jet and also other planes running what amounts to a taxi service to remote locations, but this was the first one. After a lot of research I made a presentation, which one of the owners listened to patiently. When I was finished he asked “what plane would be best for the job” and the answer was a King Air. High ownership and hourly operating costs but very predictable, safe and no depreciation. There might something to the C90 idea 
GA travel will simply not work for “normal passengers” who are familiar with airline travel.
I see it being used quite a lot in certain locations (which I won’t name) where the airline options are poor but there is a demand, and people are rich. But those are regulars who know how it works.
Most “normal people” will be ok on a nice day but will get scared to death in bad wx even if the flight itself was completely safe w.r.t. the wx. So you need the right kind of people to accept this.
The Israeli Air Force used TB20s for VIP transport but a) they have a lot of good wx and b) the passengers either had a “can do” attitude, or were under orders, or both 
I have an ex IAF engine in my TB20
Peter wrote:
I have an ex IAF engine in my TB20
Hopefully it doesn’t have any bullet holes in it
Parthurnax wrote:
o be fair if passengers are paying a lot more money for this service than they would for an airline ticket it may be reasonable, to somebody who is not an expert in aviation, to get a commensurately better service with the standard at least equivalent to what an airline offers.
absolutely.
Parthurnax wrote:
Of course then you’re looking at a business jet or a turboprop at least.
Yes.
In addition to that, have a look at the airports the OP wishes to operate in and out. Particularly OHD is very challenging in the best of time, but outright dangerous for the normal GA airplane and pilots in bad weather.
In the winter of 1993, a YAK42 of Avioimpex, a Makedonian airline, crashed at night into mount Trojani on approach to Ohrid while diverting from Skopje due to weather, killing all on board. A very somber reminder of just how mountainous that area is very close to the airport. I knew most of the crew by sight as at the time I worked as a load controller and had handled the airplane and crew in question several times.
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/325123
The other accident which keeps haunting me was the one of Palair Makedonia’s Fokker 100, commanded by Fokker’s chief instructor pilot, which crashed on take off at Skopje due to not de-icing the airplane. I’ve been to Skopje many times and in Winter it is quite ferocious with very low temperatures and often fog and snow. I knew that crew as well.
Lots of planes have crashed… At some % of airports it doesn’t matter if you screw up, especially in CAVOK conditions. One needs to assume the pilot is competent.
Hopefully it doesn’t have any bullet holes in it
Hmmm it does burn a lot of oil so maybe that’s why
Silvaire wrote:
the answer was a King Air. High ownership and hourly operating costs but very predictable, safe and no depreciation. There might something to the C90 idea smiley
Yes a King Air will do. Ideal airplane for this kind of operation in the hands of an experienced crew.
Jets imho are easier to handle in the case of an engine deciding to quit… but the King Air series is a very capable platform.
9A_Flyer this one is going exactly like every other thread on “which plane to buy”. You start with an idea, having thought about it very thoroughly, and then all converges to “at least turbine”.
A FIKI DA42 or DA62 is a very capable aircraft – in the hands of a skillful and non-hotrod-pilot.
If the schedule allows for some flights not to happen (dispatch rate below 100%) and most important allow for some flexibility in the time, say if you can delay a departure by some hours if needed potentially, then you get a very reliable platform. No need to enter turbine area (although they are nice-to-have).
My aircraft is a lot less capable than a DA42. But seldom do I have to cancel a flight (actually I don’t remember a single one, but I adapt the departure time to weather etc). I never fly into where I don’t see at least one way out.
If your situation now is for example: 100% of the ways are done by car. And you go to maybe: 70% (or even more) is done by plane, and all are fine with it, then this sounds like the wet dream of any plane-addicted forumite. Then go for it!
You won’t achieve 100% not even in a Turbine, there’s always something and it could be maintenance issues or whatever. We’re not talking about flying from one island to another or bush flying where there is no road.
If it’s OK to just convert a percentage of the car drives into plane rides, then you can choose quite easily where you want to put yourself. It’s like this, in a Cessna 172 you get maybe 60% plane rides, just to give a number, and you have X costs per ride. In a DA42 you get maybe 70 or 80 or even more % plane rides on costs Y per ride. and this goes maybe up to 90-95% in a jet on costs Z per ride.
On the fun side: the actual airspeed isn’t really a big factor to consider. It’s some minutes up or down on such short flights. Yes it enters into the costs (working time of the passengers), but it won’t change the calculation much.
This is numbers any CEO understands.
GA travel will simply not work for “normal passengers” who are familiar with airline travel.
GA includes turbines but regardless my view is that if it’s the company owner or an individual employee flying themselves and maybe one colleague around on business, a piston aircraft might make sense.
If the plane is carrying multiple non-pilots around for business purposes, I think the experience of piston engine flying is too much for passengers who may have no interest in flying and are just trying to do their job.
