@Sebastian_G It depends on what one considers a short runway. I’m hearing 800m from the pilots. That is a big improvement over 1500m for the LJ75, which was constrained by safety margins, where every takeoff performance calculation assumed an engine failure. Can’t match the short runway capabilities of a Jetprop of course.
There’s a Piaggio based at Palo Alto (or was anyway). The runway there is 745m.
johnh wrote:
There’s a Piaggio based at Palo Alto (or was anyway). The runway there is 745m.
Wow! I have to say…
While 800m is possible at light weights, with a single brake unit costing €67,000, you wouldn’t want to use <1200 too often.
Is reverse thrust practical and usable? Affected in anyway by the pusher config?
Shanwick wrote:
While 800m is possible at light weights
As we are on EuroGA, the magical limit is probably 900m for LDLO. Any plane which can do this passes the test ;-)
Shanwick wrote:
with a single brake unit costing €67,000
A while ago a customer complained that a new set of brake discs and pads for his C510 Mustang was over 10k€. Seems like a bargain in comparison.
I hope you have a lot of fun with this amazing plane!
Antonio wrote:
Is reverse thrust practical and usable? Affected in anyway by the pusher config?
Using reverse does reduce landing distance but also removes airflow from the rudder making strong crosswind landings on a short runway problematic.
Congrats Loco!
I’ve flown quite a bit in P180’s, as I have a few friends who own them. In fact, I actually will shamelessly take credit for reviving the interest in this formerly maligned type:
I started at thread in 2015 on BeechTalk about these wonderful aircraft, where I actually talked to real owner/operators. Nobody had really done that, they’d just assumed they were charter planes mainly and the only info was from 2-crew operators catering to that category. I pointed out that it’s basically the ideal SP owner/operator plane – no type rating, fast as a jet, biggest standup cabin of just about any competitor, cheap to operate (compared to jet) etc. And as you can see in the progression of the thread over the 8 years if you read it form the start, it went from “that’s a piece of shit that will spend all its time in the shop” to a completely different tune. It started with one guy who bought one, then another followed then another, etc. Now, in that thread, I think we’re up to at least 10 owners of them! All of them are super happy, loving the plane and the performance.
I myself almost bought one a few years back when they were still severely depreciated, but it was just a bridge too far for me financially then. Today, an impossibility as the prices have skyrocketed. They’ve now been “discovered”.
Piaggio P180 thread at BeechTalk
Here’s from a trip just a few weeks ago – it’s an Avanti 1 with the Garmin panel retrofit (which many ar doing – great bang for buck):
We have previous threads on the Piaggio