There’s too much radiation up there anyway. Flying low is a healthy luxury.
As this topic is about price points is there any 2 million dollar new price plane out there that can offer at least a try to compete with airline travel?
I know a turbopeop makes more sense (range, short field-able, paylod) but they have a higher price.
A pressurized 200 knot DA62 for 1,5 million would be intriguing.
New? M600, M500 pretty much it. 10 year old planes and the market opens up considerably.
It is true that most of us fly for pleasure, but that’s a different discussion.
IMHO to do comparisons between GA and CAT you need to have a plane which has a decent mission capability. Otherwise, that will be by far the biggest determining factor. And then you need at least a pressurised turboprop…
Snoopy wrote:
As this topic is about price points is there any 2 million dollar new price plane out there that can offer at least a try to compete with airline travel?
PA46 Piston. Pressurised. FL250, 210knots. Is closest you can get without going to a turboprop in the 250kt+ area. $1.2mn
You can almost get there with the M500 turboprop version at just over 2mn. FL280, 270kts.
IMHO to do comparisons between GA and CAT you need to have a plane which has a decent mission capability.
Absolutely. To compete with CAT over a typical 500 nm short-haul direct flight, you need at least a C172, or preferably a bushplane with 2-3 hours more endurance and one which is equipped for relaxed cloud flying in lower airspace.
Of course, if you want to get from, say, Selkirk to Nurnberg, you have to change at Amsterdam, adding an hour or more to the CAT direct flight “overhead” of about 4 hours (travel to and from airport, parking, security, spare time for contingencies, car hire at destination…). In that case, any aeroplane which doesn’t need a runway can still beat CAT by an hour or two over seven or eight hundred miles.
Over 800 nm, CAT starts to claw back the time wasted in cars, buses, parking lots and airport queues, but it still lacks the flexibility and cargo capacity offered by a decent bushplane.
Jacko, I used to say that anything below 1000nm was faster in the twin. After that commercial wins in time, door to door.