Taken especially for Adam. Apologies for the poor qualities, I was in a bit of a rush.
Thanks for pic, AFKAE!
Here’s a beautiful 980 model my friend Steve Binnette owns that I went and had a look at at Camarillo airport the other day. Unfortunately, didn’t get to fly it. He bought it with run out engines for a song and a dance. It didn’t have an interior as it was an ex-camera ship with a big hole in the belly. Closed that up, overhauled engines, put new interior, new G600 panel in and new paint job. Plane looks amazing. Not cheap, but he got it the way he wanted it. It’s got the -10 engines, so it’s a great performer. He’ll climb 4000ft/min lightly loaded and it takes him less than 17mins to get to FL280. LR tanks with 484gal, so can go almost 2000nm direct until empty.
Adam that is a beautiful piece of engineering. 17 minutes to FL280 is impressive, do you get an 8,000’ cabin at that FL?
that does look nice Adam. Remind me where your one is at?
Very nice aircraft in the pictures, shows what can be done with the application of money.
The door position is unusual, some might say it invites walking into a propeller…..
RobertL18C wrote:
17 minutes to FL280 is impressive, do you get an 8,000’ cabin at that FL?
Never learned how to do that calculation, but it has a 5.2psi differential, so should be around there somewhere?
Neil, there’s a lock on door that won’t let you open it when left engine is turning. You can override it in an emergency on the door. Owner has quite a bit into it, more than he could get for it, for sure. Prob spent $200-300K more than he could sell it for. Maybe worth it to get it like he wants it?
This beautifully engineered design, has a very minor constraint, the long, relatively low slung fuselage, might not be totally immune if you miss the touching down early on the landing zone at Courchevel.
AdamFrisch wrote:
Never learned how to do that calculation, but it has a 5.2psi differential, so should be around there somewhere?
Nope, it will be well over 10k at 280.
AdamFrisch wrote:
Neil, there’s a lock on door that won’t let you open it when left engine is turning
I thought there must be something like that, I hadn’t heard of problems and the aircraft has been around a while ;)
I wonder why they didn’t just do the simple thing and put the door behind the wing like most propellor twins. I can’t think of a major advantage of having it at the front.
A lot of us indulge ourselves with upgrades that are not strictly speaking necessary, or economically unwise in terms of return on resale. Peter’s TKS, and the panel on my Super Cub spring to mind. However, sometimes theres a bigger picture, and if you have the cash and don’t intend to sell imminently why not get what you want.
A lot of us indulge ourselves with upgrades that are not strictly speaking necessary, or economically unwise in terms of return on resale. Peter’s TKS
I have to answer that 
On resale value, you are right, but you would be right in the case of virtually all upgrades. Fancy avionics are definitely a waste of money – unless something special was involved e.g. you managed to buy the stuff in some very cheap deal (like I did with the RHS Sandel EHSI and the Sandel AHRS) and self-installed it. A €50k G500 install in a TB20 will up the value of the plane about €10k… and buyers know this so they will just take the p1ss.
A TKS will up the value about €20k, based on what I have seen.
On value relative to other options, it’s a different case, because you have to take into account
If you have a say €150k plane and you want to get another one of similar capability but the main reason is to get TKS (and I know several TB owners who moved to an SR22 apparently for this reason) then you will be looking at spending way more than the cost of installing TKS by some company (say €50k) by the time you have reviewed what you got yourself into some years afterwards.
By and large, people sell planes for the same reasons they sell cars. Some are genuine (change of circumstances, spouse pressure (arrival of a child often ends one’s flying), etc) but many/most are because the owner is p1ssed off with a long string of hassles and downtime, missing out on trips because yet another thing has broken, etc. I hear way more than could ever be published, of what goes on behind the scenes… GA is really a dog eat dog business. Planes with major issues are sold without the disclosure, routinely.
So I am sure that Commander owner, who seemingly spent more than the plane’s value on upgrades, did the same calculation and decided that taking on the risk of my above seven-point list is more than he wants to swallow. And the low resale value of his pre-upgrade plane is not relevant, in the same way as the value of your house which you actually want to live in is not relevant either – because you aren’t selling.
