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What Twin

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EatSleepFly said:
Man, that's impressive!

Thanks for the info, Lead Sled.
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Unfortunately, the first Baron that I was ever in was a 56TC. We called it a Tom Cat Baron. Unfortunate? After getting into the other Barons it was something like B.B. King's old song "The thrill is gone."


www.bdkingpress.com
 
BD King said:
Champion Lancer. Yeah. One with JATO. Bet nobody asks what the hell a Lancer was.
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There you go. The Lancer has my vote. I actually saw one in a hangar not too long ago.

'Sled
 
Lead Sled said:
There you go. The Lancer has my vote. I actually saw one in a hangar not too long ago.

'Sled
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Really? I always thought that Champion lost a market by not hanging a couple of O-320's, or something similar, on them and putting them on floats for multi-engine seaplane ratings.


www.bdkingpress.com
 
BD King said:
Unfortunately, the first Baron that I was ever in was a 56TC. We called it a Tom Cat Baron. Unfortunate? After getting into the other Barons it was something like B.B. King's old song "The thrill is gone."
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You got that right. It was the only light twin I ever flew that had a Vmcg that you had to take seriously. As someone once said, it climbed like a raped ape.

'Sled
 
BD King said:
Really? I always thought that Champion lost a market by not hanging a couple of O-320's, or something similar, on them and putting them on floats for multi-engine seaplane ratings.
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No, I've only seen two or three of them and they all had 0-200 Continentals with fixed-pitch props.

Foy you guys who don't know what we're talking about think a twin-engined Citabria with fixed tricycle gear. The Front seat had a wheel, the back seat had a stick. The throttles were overhead ala Grumman Goose. It kinda sorta looked like a little two seat tandom BN Islander.

'Sled
 
EatSleepFly said:
Wouldn't a Duke w/ Baron engines be a better choice? ;)

I thought Duke's were big maintenance hogs because of the engines (are they geared, by the way?).

They look nice though.

If I were buying a twin, and money was not a huge factor, I'd definitely go for something Beechcraft.
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Hahaha...the corporate outfit that had a DUKE based at the Shawano airport is bankrupt because of that airplane. I'd say that if you only had 80K to spend on a piston twin and you bought a DUKE with that money, you or your family will be filing bankruptcy within 1.5 years, if you still own that plane.
 
BD King said:
Champion Lancer. Yeah.
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...mmmMAAN!! I forgot about those. Havn't seen one since the...60's?/70's?
Bet it would draw a pretty penny now just 'cause it's so rare.
Light Sport Twin??
 
Well, from your small, original list, I guess a Seneca is a decent plane. I have over 100 hours in them and it's a straight-forward plane. It might not be the hottest twin around and it might be about as sexy as a station wagon, but it's a decent trainer and good for some cross-country flying.

Of course, if you want a hotter piston twin, the P-38 Lightning would be an awesome choice! :)
 
FN FAL said:
Hahaha...the corporate outfit that had a DUKE based at the Shawano airport is bankrupt because of that airplane. I'd say that if you only had 80K to spend on a piston twin and you bought a DUKE with that money, you or your family will be filing bankruptcy within 1.5 years, if you still own that plane.
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Everybody complains about a Duke. I drove one for almost a thousand hours, and quite frankly had no problems, out of the ordinary, with it. As with most of the Beechcraft products, it was a very nice instrument platform.


www.bdkingpress.com
 
BD King said:
Everybody complains about a Duke. I drove one for almost a thousand hours, and quite frankly had no problems, out of the ordinary, with it. As with most of the Beechcraft products, it was a very nice instrument platform.
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I've only flown a Duke a couple of times; but like I said, I got several hundred hours in a 56TC with the Duke engines. Never ever had a problem with the engines. Along these same lines, I've got nearly three thousand hours in Cessna 421s with the geared Continentals and never had a problem with those either. The key to operating engines is to RTFM - a concept foreign to some pilots.

'Sled
 
westwind said:
I found a picture http://1000aircraftphotos.com/GeneralAv/1359.htm and a story http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/content/2004/feb/it_slug.html on the Lancer. I heard that although it was a fixed gear plane, that it had a handle or switch for the non-existant retractable gear so as to teach retractable gear procedures. Crazy!
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Ha! I love this comment on the lancer:
"... It’s a rare bird and the only multi-engine airplane known to me that, with an engine failure, has a single-engine ceiling below sea level....
 
Semionole! Can't Beat The Mindless Set Up Of Them.. Looks like the designers just regurgitated on the panel and forgot about it...
 
Last edited:
How about a Skymaster. Good cruise, good legs, good payload, safe.
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Wow I passed one of them today with 1 engine. And its a 337, I would pass on that. I did find a Lancer forsale for about 40k
 
I'm surprised no one mentioned this one:

Grumman Cougar (that is, the light twin Cougar)

Performance on par with a Duchess or Seminole, but on 40HP less (it has O-320s versus O-360s).

Great planes to fly if you can find one...

Nu
 
awacs941 - I'm kicking you in the nuts! I warned you!

I have a couple hundred hours of dual given in the Cougar, and I agree that it's a good trainer. Duchess or Seminole performance on 160 per side. Plus, it's wider than either and sits up higher, making it feel like a bigger plane. It's the easiest twin I've ever flown.

But for a personal twin, the Cougar suffers from the same problems that the Seminole and Duchess do - mainly performance. It's a 150 knot airplane, maybe 155 knots if you push it.
 
Flyin Tony said:
Wow I passed one of them today with 1 engine. And its a 337, I would pass on that. I did find a Lancer forsale for about 40k
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Where did you see the Lancer for sale? Im looking for one. Please PM me.
 
Flyin Tony said:
How about the Turbo Aztec?
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Unless you fly in the mountains, turbos are a waste of money. Plus its easy to toast an engine if you don't monitor or operate them correctly.

A Seneca I is good, with a Seneca II or III even better. You probably won't find a decent Seminole or Dutchess less than 100K that doesn't have 10,000 hours of training on it. A well-maintained Twin Comanche provides good performance with the economy of 160hp per side. If you can find a C/R for a good price, even better. Watch these, though, as recurring ADs can kill on mx costs.

You could always go buy an old Apache or one with the Gerinomo mod. Its a spud with wings and negligable SE performance, but cheap AND slow! But you're building time, right?:D

(come fly with me once you get one)
 
BoilerUP said:
Unless you fly in the mountains, turbos are a waste of money. Plus its easy to toast an engine if you don't monitor or operate them correctly.
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Why would turbo's be a waste of money? We flew many hundreds of hours past TBO on our turbocharged 300 series cessna. As far as toasting them? We had oil controlled waste gates; the only thing you had to watch for was on takeoff, because the oil had to be warm or you risked overboosting the engines on throttle up.

Any engine can be toasted by a pilot, if you can't operate an aircraft within the parameters of the operating manual, then you shouldn't be flying it.

Speaking of toasting engines, ask the skydivers at east troy MKE about the rookie pilot they hired to fly their twin otter who toasted both of the brand new PT-6's on it. He had a double flameout and toasted the engines while trying to get a re-light. I had previously offered to fly that plane for them at lunch one day, but I guess they had a better idea about how they wanted to waste their money operating a "turbo".
 
FN FAL said:
Why would turbo's be a waste of money?
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For what I *presumed* his original question to be (asking about twins for timebuilding), turbocharged engines would be a waste IMO. Down low they use much more fuel, and depending on the segments and altitudes flown, that can really be a killer.

Any engine can be toasted by a pilot, if you can't operate an aircraft within the parameters of the operating manual, then you shouldn't be flying it.
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I certainly agree with you on this one!

Speaking of toasting engines, ask the skydivers at east troy MKE about the rookie pilot they hired to fly their twin otter who toasted both of the brand new PT-6's on it. He had a double flameout and toasted the engines while trying to get a re-light. I had previously offered to fly that plane for them at lunch one day, but I guess they had a better idea about how they wanted to waste their money operating a "turbo".
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How do you manage to get a double flameout in a PT-6 equipped airplane? I don't know the twotter, but that sounds like a fuel issue to me. And if the rookie pilot was qualified and checked out to fly it, he should have known the proper procedures for flameout & restart. As you said, the responsibility for that rests on the PIC (and the people that authorized him to fly it).

I'm not saying that turbos are always a waste of money, but considering my relative inexperience, I've seen far too many pilots be caught up in the allure of operating turbocharged with the promise of increased speed without fully considering the mission of the airplane, their capabilities, or their typical flight profile. Operating out of sea level airports, when not flying long distances at altitude or near gross weight, in an aircraft with turbos sounds wasteful to me, if only from a fuel perspective.
 
I guess if you're going to use the plane to do flight instruction as a means of building time, turbochargers could add complexity and cost to the owner's bottom line.

When we bought our twin for the purpose of multi-time building, we were looking at flying Part 91 legs, not flight instruction. A seminole or apache wouldn't have done the trick for us.
 
crash-proof said:
Aha, finally I found the perfect twin for our twin-seeking friend...25gal/hr per side? Perfect!
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Your mechanic will shed tears of joy for his sudden good fortune. Imagine his wife's thrill as he explains his new found job security and how they will now be able to afford that new car and new home, not to mention that their kids will now be able to attend the college of their choice.

'Sled
 
As a side note, the original 50's had bench seating for three, both front and back. It had a throw-over yoke like the Bonanza. In other words, if there was a copilot, he (preferably a she) sat in the middle.

www.bdkingpress.com
 

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