West coast to East coast in one day.
I could never understand why anybody would do this kind of trip in a torture machine like a Merlin (or any other propeller driven thing or light jet). Already the six hour trip in business class, which costs less than the first half hour in the Merlin, with hot meals and coffee and a lavatory (instead of peeing into a bottle with one hand on the yoke…) and movies and room to stretch your legs would be tedious enough. My employer never flies trips longer than two hours in his own Citation – he always takes the airline for that.
I could never understand why anybody would do this kind of trip in a torture machine like a Merlin
Sounds like you are a happy Swearingen customer ;-)
But I agree sacrificing all other features to get a plane which can do over 2000NM usually does not make sense. In the US you can easily make a fuel stop have a cold drink, relax a little and fly on. It could do the North Atlantic crossing from St John to Shannon direct but would someone really want to fly out so far over the ocean with a vintage GA aircraft? It has got the range but all kind of other things could go wrong. So maybe it could be used in Africa and similar regions where every landing can turn into a handling fight but unless such a flight is done every day some mainstream GA plane with a ferry tank might be the better choice.
or any other propeller driven thing or light jet
I think that depends on personality. Some including myself get great satisfaction going places with our own little plane. I can only speak for myself but being in New York and knowing that the whole distance from Europe was travelled on our own plane was a very special feeling and made the world feel a lot smaller than before. But I agree buying a business class ticket would be cheaper and unless we upgrade to a big jet also faster.
Having just completed a multi leg long haul trip, I have to say apart from the satisfaction of the flights themselves, the joy was in the experience of each stop. 1,300 NM delivers you into a completely different world each time.
The unique sights, sounds and smells of a different country, are what makes that type of journey in a small plane so memorable. Sure there are hassles along the way, but having the freedom for a small aircraft with minimal support to achieve these long distance trips is something I cherish greatly.
On reflection, there was only one overnight stop which a longer range machine would have avoided that I in all honesty would have happily taken and that was- India, purely because from a paperwork point of view it is the most complicated place to tech stop at compared to all the others. But given how infrequently I need to stop there, I am happy not to be flying something much more complex and expensive to operate the rest of the time, just to gain those odd stops when it would be useful.
Of course flying business class is easier and cheaper, but I am flying for the fun and adventure experience , not efficiency.
E
It’s not the sitting on the plane in first class that’s the hard part, it’s all the stuff leading up to it. And after. That’s what just saps all the will to live out of me. I’d rather spend 3x times as much and take twice as long in my own plane. But I can certainly see the argument for both.
A serial entrepreneur I know is looking at this outfit.
http://revolutionaviation.net/tango-xr/
1500nm range, presumably no reserves, for a two seater is going some.
The four seat XR with a 350hp lycoming seems to give the Cirrus a run for its money.
Here’s a Cessna 441 (TPE331 engines) guy who just flew direct Seattle to Charlotte the other day. That’s 2000nm direct. Pretty impressive for a bog standard TP twin.
RobertL18C wrote:
A serial entrepreneur I know is looking at this outfit.
He could always burn his money instead thus providing at least some warmth before it is gone….
what_next wrote:
I could never understand why anybody would do this kind of trip in a torture machine like a Merlin (or any other propeller driven thing or light jet). Already the six hour trip in business class, which costs less than the first half hour in the Merlin, with hot meals and coffee and a lavatory (instead of peeing into a bottle with one hand on the yoke…) and movies and room to stretch your legs would be tedious enough. My employer never flies trips longer than two hours in his own Citation – he always takes the airline for that.
I think there is a difference between your employer and an owner pilot. Owner pilots typically enjoy the getting there as much as the being there. It is also probably different for many professional pilots who do not want to be flying in their spare time.
My friend Erwin who owns a Merlin IIIC regularly flies between Paraguay and the US and Canada. He chose the Merlin because it simply has unbeatable range. The other day he flew back, did BRO to MEC direct. For those of you who haven’t memorized every identifier in the world, it’s Texas to Ecuador, basically. 2200nm direct, and he landed with almost 2hr reserve. They’ll do about 2700nm. On top of this they have a really good 7psi cabin diff, which makes for a comfortable ride up high. Pretty cheap to run as well, he says – quite a lot of bang for the buck. I never cared much for how they look, but they have spectacular range and seem to be very sturdy aircraft (no in-flight breakups ever).
AdamFrisch wrote:
(no in-flight breakups ever).
R U sure? (https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=31386)
This was just what I’d heard, but the Merlin II in your accident example was a derivative of the Beech Queen Air. Ed Swearingen started out modifying Beech product through his Excalibur line and that’s why the early models had the Beech tail and Beech wing, pretty much. With the III model, they had their own new tail and wing. So, as far as I’ve heard, the IIIA/B/C model has not had any breakups. I have not researched this, it’s just a biased data point from owners.
