The same holds true for most light twins: Aero Commanders, Aerostars, Aztecs, Barons,and Cessna 320s, 340s, and 414s. But on long trips (the kind I fly a lot) there’s hardly any practicaldifference in load carrying ability or speed.
The 310’s cabin is considerably more spacious than the 210’s, about 8 inches wider, andoffers capacious space for baggage in its wing lockers and its huge 21 cubic foot nosebaggage compartment. Useful load is only 400 lbs.more-1,600 versus 1,200 pounds-and on long legs that difference is fully consumed by theadditional fuel the twin needs to carry.
Max gross is about 2,000 poundsmore: 5,500 versus 3,500 pounds. The 310 looks like a much bigger aircraft than the 210. John’s fuel tabwas about $120 mine was over $200. The big difference revealed itself when we both refueled at Wichita. John took off from Cinti just a coupleof minutes before me, but I didn’t catch him until we were about 10 minutes from touchdownat Wichita. But Irecall the time a few years ago that John and I flew both of our airplanes from Cincinnatito Wichita, a trip of about 650 NM and 3.5 hours. There’s no appreciable difference intravel time.Īccording to book figures, my twin is about 10 knots faster than John’s single. Sometimes wetake John’s T210 and sometimes we take my T310R. John and Itravel together quite often to teach seminars in various parts of the U.S. My friend John Frank is executive director of the Cessna Pilots Association. One thing I learned pretty quickly is that if you want to go fast, adding a secondengine is not a good way to do it. Frankly, if I were shopping for anaircraft today, I’m not sure it would be a twin. But I’ve learned a lot about twin ownership since then, and ithasn’t all turned out exactly as I anticipated. It also has appreciatednicely since I bought it. It has been very reliable,a great traveling machine, and has treated me very well indeed.
And I counsel most of them to think very carefully before takingthe leap into twin ownership.ĭon’t get me wrong. These days, I find myself talking to lots of pilots asking for advice about buyingtheir first twin Cessna. And I’ve spent the last nineyears learning about the pros and cons of twin ownership. Before I returned to mysenses, I found myself the owner of a 1979 Cessna T310R. I was in the market to buy a nice late-modelT210 and looking through T-A-P when my eyes strayed south. That’s exactly what happened to me in 1987. And you get to thinking "Gee, I couldbe flying a twin!" In fact, for the price of a cleanearly-80s-vintage A36 or 210, you can buy a nice mid-time late-70s Cessna 310 or even anearly-70s pressurized cabin-class Cessna 340. You scan through some of the twin ads and it suddenly dawns on you: hey, these twinsare selling for a lot less than I would have guessed.
0 kommentar(er)
