they are adjustable….
Presumably. But I’d have thought that a plane that goes for well over 200 times the amount of a shagged C152 (or 25 times a shagged TR182T) came with a slightly more clever dimming circuit than the old rheostat dim bus. But apparently I was wrong.
So the plane seems to either be not targeted at owner-pilots (employee pilots can’t complain), or owner-pilot’s expectations have been ground very low by the certification/conservative NAA treadmill.
< sarcasm >
even the C172SP does not have one rheostat dim bus, but two (or was it four? I forgot). Clearly, for a plane featuring 13 drain valves, one rheostat dim bus wouldn’t have been enough
< / sarcasm >
or 25 times a shagged TR182T
What’s a TR182T?
even the C172SP does not have one rheostat dim bus, but two (or was it four? I forgot)
Four. At age 30 and above, the rheostats mutate into binary on/off switches.
Presumably. But I’d have thought that a plane that goes for well over 200 times the amount of a shagged C152 (or 25 times a shagged TR182T) came with a slightly more clever dimming circuit than the old rheostat dim bus. But apparently I was wrong.
Tom, I think you will find they did that for the ad to make the avionics stand out. G1000 certainly has an auto brightness option. However I still manually adjust mine as light sensors do not always know that I have bright lights in my eyes or am wearing sunglasses.
as light sensors do not always know … wearing sunglasses.
Why should they need to know? They should regulate the contrast, i.e. the ratio between brightest lights to dark spots, and that stays the same whether you have sunglasses on or not.
BTW: do you happen to have polarised sunglasses? How does that work with the (polarised) LCD screens?
Last time I bought polarised glasses I wanted 45deg polarisation – that works with most electronics (except a canon camera that also seems to have 45deg polarisation).
G1000 certainly has an auto brightness option
It didn’t seem to work too well in the 172SP – but that might be because of Cessna’s fetish for rheostat busses.
The PC12 goes into a different market, with nearly all of them flown by a paid crew. It offers a lot more comfort (a short person can stand up inside) at a price of lower speed and more fuel.
One can’t compare these with jets because both can do 500m tarmac which is a significant market in Europe. The TBM has a zero fuel range of about 1800nm which means e.g. Crete is easily reached from the UK.
Yes – it is expensive but all kinds of labour practices have to be sunk into the price.
Yes – it is expensive but all kinds of labour practices have to be sunk into the price.
How is that relevant to a potential purchaser?
I think light jets are their main competition. I think very few TBM owners take them into 500m strips.
The June edition of the Flying magazine has a feature article on TBM900 with nice pictures and a lot of text :)
You can get a good condition TBM700, with about half life engines, for $1M-$1.2M.
That will have the EFIS-40 avionics which are unsupported by Honeywell now so overhauled units are the only option – which is OK.
The operating costs are not to be sniffed at. Eurocontrol IFR charges c. 50 quid an hour to start with. On a 200hrs/year basis (which is actually a lot of distance flown) it’s probably 300-500 quid an hour. Landings rarely below 100 quid. Etc 
What would be interesting is how much of a saving would be achieved by operating it on pure Part 91. I don’t know anybody who does that – I think the whole TBM community just drops them off at a dealer for “whatever work”.
Gosh just seen your example. They are coming down!
As Peter says, the maintenance on the older TBMs is the problem not the purchase price.
A detailed breakdown of it would be most interesting.
I am hangared at a major TBM centre so will try to get some figures.
