Flying through frontal weather (IFR)

Industrial electronics (datacomms). 100% B2B.

Turbine and unpressurized do not go together.

That is a generalisation based on the poor jet engine SFC at low altitudes, but

• people who want jet reliability will happily pay for the extra fuel (helicopters, Cessna Caravans, etc)
• unpressurised flight to FL200 is viable, for a certain (small) market sector

I think the real “join” of the two things comes from marketing. The engine costs so much money, that anybody screwing one on the front of a plane needs to make that plane look like it’s worth a million, so they make it cost a million (or two) by loading it up with goodies.

We see this behaviour everywhere in marketing. In a €30k VW you get a crappy satnav with a crappy touch screen. To get a nice satnav (which still costs about €100 to make) you have to buy a 50k car. It’s called “product differentiation”

It’s a valid (cynical) customer shafting technique, but you can’t use it in sectors which are vulnerable to attack because a newcomer can wipe out your whole business, with a single product which does 90% of what your top of the range one does, selling at 10% more than your bottom one. That is what I have been doing the last 25 years

There’s someone on here who operates his Jetprop in Thailand off grass

He is on EuroGA

and without any aviation knowledge decided that if he started flying he would get a turbine PA46 (Jetprop or Meridien)

That’s completely logical. Once you discover how “IFR” and “weather” works, you need radar, deice, and a FL250+ ceiling, and thus pressurisation.

There are just 2 issues. You need the money, and the mission profile is narrowed because prop strikes (and other runway related damage) are more easily done on the PA46, and it isn’t so good for sightseeing due to the thick windows, which also means you can’t normally get half decent photos through them.

Oh and you need an IR, and in post-2015 EASA-land you need the HPA, etc.

If I had the right situation i.e.

• always good runways
• available hangarage for that size aircraft
• doing mostly long trips
• not interested in getting nice photos

I would buy a Jetprop tomorrow.

You can operate a Citation from grass and plenty of people do. But it has to be “known good grass”, and how many people drive there first and walk the runway, and have a means of making sure it stays that way? Technically there are ways to achieve such grass, especially with the covert plastic reinforcement, but very few people are willing to put in the effort because assembling an airfield syndicate with enough deep-pocketed people is almost impossible. At most grass strips, half the people just bicker