Ways to improve despatch rate?

The Meridian also has a whole lot of systems that work better than the Jetprop. Peter, don't believe everything you are told.

Interesting in Europe, there is a real Jetprop crowd including amongst maintenance people. They are good aircraft but funnily the sentiment is the exact opposite of the US where the Meridian is regarded as far superior.

No way I would get a PT6 overhaul done in Europe.

I spent the last few days at a large PA46 turbine shop. They tell me the Meridian is significantly more expensive in maintenance than the JetProp (while being slower, thirstier, heavier as well).

I've just phoned up where I am based, where they do PT6s stuff all day long.

The PT6-42A (Meridian), P&W approved overhaul shop, $280k-$320k for the 1st overhaul after new.

Subsequent overhauls cost an extra $80k or so.

No decent shop will do it for $150k, I am told.

There are ways around the 3600hr TBO, with P&W approval, in certain ops, though apparently not available on the Meridian.

So as usual there is more to this than appears at first.

I was quoted $300k for the 3600hr overhaul on the TBM also, by a number of sources.

Whether you want to go past the manufacturer recommended overhaul in the first place, is another matter. Same argument with a piston engine. I wouldn't. Not even on a twin, because most twins only just fly on one engine.

US$150,000 at 3600 but on condition. Most last a lot longer.

PT6 overhaul $ and TBO?

So, how do the costs or running a PA46 (which one?) compare?

On the piston, over 96 hours, I ran at £150/hr for fuel plus I would say £5000/yr for maintenance. A bad year could be 10k I suppose but I only had it for 9 months.

After 25 hours, the Turbine is costing £160/hr (fuel+airways). Maintenance prob same.

There is some definition of known and forecast ice (I'm digging around for the Swedish one) but in the end, does it really matter to us as pilots what the definition is? From a legal standpoint yes, but from a practical go no go decision, it's a question of survival.

I agree, but I was asking if there was some definition of "known ice" around.

This is a very old topic, which was done to death on US forums in years past (rec.aviation.* in Usenet). It would be generally difficult to define it in Europe due to the relatively crap weather services. For example, in the UK, the Form 215 which all PPLs are taught to use, used to have a phrase saying there is icing in all cloud (regardless of temperature). This is now gone, but I see they now forecast icing for nearly every individual weather region.

That is not necessarily wrong, in that you can expect ice in any IMC between 0C and about -15C (non convective cloud) and you will always pick up ice in such conditions eventually, but it would also make the entire non-deiced GA fleet legally unflyable for IFR for most of the winter at low level and most of the year in all of Europe (including Greece/Spain) at Eurocontrol IFR levels. In fact I would say an IR would be completely useless unless you had a legally-deiced plane, which is obviously a silly position to take because high altitude IFR is perfectly workable, with carefully chosen conditions. They had this problem in the USA, with "known ice" being thus defined for a while, IIRC, but it was then revoked. I am sure NCYankee will have the details; he's an expert on US regs.

We do have icing SIGMETs but almost nobody uses those, with weather briefing having moved to more modern internet sources which present stuff in a graphical format.

I think the most important thing is to always have an escape route, and usually this means a descent into warmer air, obviously above the MSA. If the 0C level is on the surface, it would tend to mean an all-VMC flight, but for example if you are flying OCAS, which in the UK is likely to mean flying in cloud all the way, a deiced plane will be exposed to icing conditions for the whole flight, and no plane can take icing conditions indefinitely. So there are many strategies...

Non-deiced types have to stay on the ground a lot of the time in the winter, in the UK, unless one has an IR and can climb up to VMC. Actually that is one of the few situations in the UK where the full IR is worth having; the extensive Class G and the IMC Rating mean that one can fly pretty well everywhere using IFR, without an IR.

Costs vary a lot according to how you manage your maintenance, how old it is (shagged airframe parts), whether you like to drop the plane off at a company with a blank signed cheque on the seat (as many do, especially with certain well known aircraft types, and they pay maybe 2x more than they should) etc.

so around £11k for annual etc plus 100hrs

There is no 100hr check, TJ, on Part 91, unless you carry paying passengers or train others in your plane. A G-reg has the 150hr check regardless.

I would be interested in knowing the alternative to flying a SR22 such as the PA46. I just became a member of MMOPA but have a hard time figuring out what the advantages are. A new one I simply cannot afford. Second hand, I end up with older avionics. Then others say to go for a TBM700.

So, how do the costs or running a PA46 (which one?) compare?