A very nice Seneca 1 was recently bought for low teens sterling. Much as the Aztruck is a fine machine, a Seneca 1 is cheaper to spanner, doesn’t attract airways charges, and with the door removed (has two doors) is a viable AtoA AOC photo platform.
Any twin purchase has to be purchase price plus cost of first honest (no pencil whipping) annual.
Well, with both engines obviously close to overhaul and a fairly useless avionics fit (one would need at least a G430 and a GTX330) one has to calculate with a total expenditure of 90.000 to 100.000 Euros. There are twins on the market that are a lot cheaper than that.
blueline wrote:
There are twins on the market that are a lot cheaper than that.
There are better/newer/prettier/faster twins on the market that are a lot cheaper than that. And it’s probably a bad time for selling an N-registered plane in Europe. Let some undaunted hours-builder ferry it to the States and sell it there.
Yes, it appears cheap, but far cheaper, are good examples already with a reasonable avionics fit and more time on the engines – and there are a few.
Even if you take into account the additional costs of fuel and maintenace these aircraft represent a lot for the money. I have a fair amount of time on the Aztec and I like it a lot as a very good honest twin. After all you get full de-ice, a true six adults with luggage, 1,000 mile range, 155 knots cruise, built proof build (well nearly) and all the re-assurance of a second engine, on which it will climb away just fine and with a drift down that will leave you comfortable over most of Europe.
I would buy one over say a Cirrus (as that gets so much mention) if the capital investment was around a third, which is more than likely, and would get you a good one.
There was an Atztec for sale on www.justplanetrading.com recently that had a G500 plus all Garmin avionics and very good cosmetics – all that for something like 50k pounds IIRC. This proves that twins are amazing value these days.
The biggest problem for twins is not avgas, or airways charges it is access to local engineering talent. If you have a pet engineer who you can employ directly then it can be all very manageable. If you have to pay shop rates of £40-65ph then you need a pretty big core business (or pay check) to eat up those costs. If you have a good freelance guy at £20ph and tools, hangar, air, jacks and can help yourself then you could tackle anything.
I’m almost out of the two twins I was involved in and will go back to a tail wheel single until I get a full time part 66 LAE working for me. I’m actually looking forward to the bigger twins becoming affordable to buy. Buying a twin is a bit like buying an aerobatic aircraft. You are buying purely on the basis of how the previous owner maintained it.
William
Appears the add has disappeared again. So maybe something was not quite right or it got snapped up very quickly.
What would make me shy away is the engine hours and the avionic. A twin with two run out engines (according to TBO) is basically unsellable other than as a project, which initself are hardly sellable at all.
At the same time, a dual overhaul is usually more than the value of the airplane, to do both engines are at least 80k Investment.
We had a nice Seneca II here at ZRH which did not get sold for years due to the run out engines it had. Don’t know what happened to it, but I know of two Dealers who would not even list it.
A (superficially) very interesting C 320 was posted yesterday on Planecheck
blueline wrote:
superficially) very interesting C 320 was posted yesterday on Planecheck
My first boss had a Cessna 320 like that and he and I used to take business trips in it occasionally. It was a fantastic plane, although at one point there was some head scratching when heat from one of the turbos damaged the engine support structure. A repair had to be designed and installed. That might be something to look for.
