That was the case when I started in 2000. Everybody was asking “when are you going for the twin rating?”.
One had to take just one look at the wreckage called “twins” – and apart from the DA42 it has not got any better since – and one got the message.
Then were the costs, and bits which “fall off”… One famous UK pilot posted he was spending 20k a year on his Aztec, about 20 years ago, and that was IIRC just scheduled stuff. He was using a “cheap” company because he had a “spare engine”. IMHO that is atrocious. There is a large implied downtime, so you end up with a “capable” plane but one which is grounded a lot.
Accordingly, twins are incredibly expensive to rent, while being no faster, no safer, having no better ice protection, than suitable singles. If you kill the rental market (which the European annual test with an examiner pretty well did) you don’t have much left. We did that here.
A DA42 should have a much better uptime than the old avgas twins.
For “business flying”… we’ve done that before in various threads. Not really.
The 178 sec thing is very old, and very conditional on many factors.
Peter wrote:
One had to take just one look at the wreckage called “twins”
Apparently it depends really strongly on where you are renting. I rented several in Switzerland during a time when that was still financially feasible. Baron first, then several Senecas as well as a Travel Air. All of them were in mint condition and really lovely airplanes to fly. My “wet dream” airplane to this day is a Turbo Twincomanche, but this will not happen for many reasons.
When I did fly the twins, it was right after gaining my MEP/IR and it was great fun then. Best trips were in a Seneca II which did everything I needed and had a great avionic set up for the time augmented by my then Pronav 100 GPS, luxury. KFC150 AP with the usual set of instruments, no problem at all. But at the time the cost of renting a Seneca II was somewhere around 350 CHF per hour so with 4 folks comfortably on board you could share a Nice weeked for approximately the price of an airline ticket.
Nowadays Senecas rent for double that if you can find one. And to own… not for the faint of heart cash. But you can get an adequate one from 100k upwards with plenty from ok to nice below 200k.
Peter wrote:
A DA42 should have a much better uptime than the old avgas twins.
Jup and it also has the consumption of a single, about 10 GPH. But Jet Fuel. For that, it’s not a bad offering. I tried to find out what it costs to charter, but was no lucky. Apparently they are 99% training airplanes and not chartered out for rent. Which of course rises the question why to do the rating.
To own, 500k upwards toward one big one. For a twin engined prop with 4 seats. Simply insane.
Jup and it also has the consumption of a single, about 10 GPH. But Jet Fuel. For that, it’s not a bad offering. I tried to find out what it costs to charter, but was no lucky. Apparently they are 99% training airplanes and not chartered out for rent. Which of course rises the question why to do the rating.
Here’s a Cheap DA42 for rent
