No you can't. If you can please enlighten me. There is a small percentage of that capability that you can install, not most of it outlined above. It involves re-engineering and re certifying the airframe (s).

You can't even take a 2015 Meridian and turn it into a 2015 M500. They have different servos, avionics, software and even a different pressurization system. They are technically both 2015 G1000 P46T's, but the new stuff is not retrofittable.

Either a pilot who can manage or a manager who has a stable of typed pilots he can draw from (e.g. from a local medevac outfit). If you need to airline your pilot in from Florida every time you want to take a trip, it gets old pretty quick.

Either a pilot who can manage or a manager who has a stable of typed pilots he can draw from (e.g. from a local medevac outfit). If you need to airline your pilot in from Florida every time you want to take a trip, it gets old pretty quick.

I do this exactly as described. It hasn't gotten old yet.

I basically have 2 bases. One in Ohio and one in FL. I have a pool of pilots in both locations. Generally, if I am going to FL, I use a FL pilot. If I am going anywhere else, I use an OH pilot. I send a text with my ETD and get a text back with the name of my pilot. The pilot sets up their own travel arrangements.

This is with me managing my own airplane. A group or company would be best to hire a full time pilot (or crew) that is accountable for the operation. It can be easily, safely and economically done. The other option is a management company, but if it were me, I would prefer it to be done with my own crew.

Let's not re-invent the wheel. Some of you are all dooms day about this, when in fact, this type of operation is very common and has been done for many decades. It is not rocket surgery.

[quote="Mike Ciholas"
Coloring the viewpoints you disagree with this way is really inappropriate.


Mike C.[/quote]

Coming from you this particular comment is laughable.

About 40,000 miles.


About ~10 hours/year.

Mike C.

And other turboprops met the criteria without the added complexity of a stick pusher in all flight regimes.

The issue basically stems from the PC-12 having a high torque, low RPM prop setup coupled with a quick stalling wing. The TBM doesn't need it because the prop RPM is higher and the max power is less which cuts the torque down a lot, and it has a softer stalling airfoil.

Still, back to the original question, if you have $750K and want a reliable travel airplane, no SETP qualifies thus PC-12 and TBM are out. You are looking at turboprop twins or older jets. No piston single (like an SR22) is going to work, IMO. A cabin class pressurized piston twin, say 421, might be an option, but it won't be nearly as reliable or fast as the turbine equipment, and not meaningfully cheaper to operate, either, than a TPE331 turboprop.

Mike C.

I basically take it to the shop for inspections. Occasionally there is a squawk between inspections. That's about it.

Why do you think it should take more than 10 hours/year to do that?

How many hours a year are YOU spending managing maintenance on your plane?

Mike C.

You are confusing "same equipment" with "same capability".

You can get the same capability, but not identical equipment, retrofit in just about any aircraft. LPV, ADS-B, synth viz, datalink weather, radar, autopilot, etc.

Ironically, the older airplanes are easier to upgrade than near recent models. There are still some jets less than 15 years old for which there is no approved ADS-B out solution, yet a 1956 Cessna 172 could have had that long ago.

Mike C.

You are confusing "same equipment" with "same capability".

You can get the same capability, but not identical equipment, retrofit in just about any aircraft. LPV, ADS-B, synth viz, datalink weather, radar, autopilot, etc.

Ironically, the older airplanes are easier to upgrade than near recent models. There are still some jets less than 15 years old for which there is no approved ADS-B out solution, yet a 1956 Cessna 172 could have had that long ago.

Mike C.

You obviously have a great situation, mine unfortunately appears to be not as time efficient. I'm only in the second year of ownership of my current aircraft but with a pressure leak in the pilot door alone I've spent more than 10 hours dealing with the shop and flying the plane back and forth to the shop. At annual, which was the 10 year event involving the expenditure of a lot of money I exceeded your 10 hours including flight time. I've spent several hours researching and bidding RVSM upgrade. I maintain my aircraft strictly with manufacturer requirements and placed it on CAMP which took several hours initially to get set up. Hopefully the second year will be less time consuming.

However, I've owned a number of other aircraft and all of them took more than 10 hours a year of my time for management including one brand new aircraft. Obviously some years are less time consumptive than others but I have also observed that the older the plane, and the more complex, the more time required in general.

I track the money cost of operating my planes very carefully as I want to know the true costs, including depreciation, over time. But I haven't done that with my time, so my answer can only be based on a general impression and reflection not records. As I have less time available as I move forward, and it more valuable, I am less tolerant of time spent on managing the aircraft as it is extremely expensive. I suspect that this would be the position of the prospective owners in this case as well.

You always seem to have a highly specific knowledge about the facts you posit so I don't doubt your time estimate, and I may have a highly unusual experience myself but I doubt it based on discussions with lots of other pilots. We all seem to have a propensity for focusing on the time "saved" in our personal flying while underestimating the time costs of aircraft ownership, not to mention training, planning or even taxi (as my wife loves to point out).

Less 10 hours per year managing his Maintenance.
Over 1,000hrs per year telling us all we are wrong about everything.

So if you happen to get disoriented and overbank, pitch up to far, put the nose down into an unintentional dive, does the aircraft like a good copilot nudge you back into parameters?

If it nudges you back into parameters, and you stray again with the leans, does your plane in a clear voice notify you that it is on its own engaging the autopilot and saving you from yourself?

If you are on an approach, and your configuration and power settings don't match up with performance, will the computer notify you that you are too slow?

If you fail to act on that too slow airspeed will it take over and fly the AOA trading airspeed for altitude until you do something with the configuration? While at the time notifying you of the problem in a clear voice?

If you are descending too fast and approaching Vmo will your aircraft automatically pitch the nose up to prevent overspeed?

Will your system fly a coupled go-around so you don't have to disconnect the AP on go-around?

If you are flying in IMC towards a thunderstorm, not paying attention to your radar display, will it CAS you that there is severe weather ahead?

If you are out of trim, which may occur with a fuel imbalance, or lend itself to unporting of fuel will your system CAS the out of trim condition?

If you turn off the bleed air, or forget to turn it on accidentally or have a failed circuit to your dump valve that dumps the cabin, do you have a sensor that detects the climbing cabin pressure and automatically opens up another bleed air source as well as servo the dump valves closed until pressurization is stabilized with appropriate CAS messages?

These and more are standard features of the M-class Piper turbines. You don't get many if any of these features in legacy aircraft.

I am starting to sound like someone that I don't like I am not putting down older aircraft. I hope to own a few one day, bush plane, aerobat... I am just responding to the fallacy that the older birds are the same as the new if you just upgrade and maintain a little. That is not true. The OEM's that are still in the game, Piper, Diamond, Cirrus, Socata, Pilatus, Cessna Jet division, some others left out, are pushing technology to the next level and those pushes have come from analyzing NTSB reports and investigating their own accidents.