He does have a point about capital cost Chip. It IS a real expense that has to be accounted for. (Or not if you just want to pretend like me ).

Then why aren't you flying around in a BBJ with a staff of 15 to take care of it?

For the rest of us where money actually matters, if you are frugal, you can be flying an airplane one class higher than otherwise. That means jet when you have turboprop money, for example.

Mike C.

I think Mike is just trying to say that you can accomplish the same mission with a less expensive plane. Even if money was no object there are still reasons to go with the older plane. When it comes to downtime, serviceability, flexibility etc… There are plenty of CJ owners that are sitting on their thumbs for months and spending an arm and a leg right now with the window corrosion debacle. It isn’t all about paint and big shiny screens (both of which can be had on an older plane). In 10 years some of the older planes will have some sweet retrofit contraption that garmin comes out with that will make the G1000 that is integrated into the Mustang into an antique. It’s tough to be tied to Textron/Williams/Pratt for all maintenance. Cirrus can sell stripes to a zebra…I wish other manufacturers could take some pro tips from them. The vision jet crowd has to wait crazy amounts of time for service center maintenance and a lot of them are AOG waiting for inspections. I share a hangar with a guy who has a brand new 2025 Cirrus. It is cool and it smells nice but he looked like a ghost when I told him how much I am into my disposajet for…a plane that is more capable under every metric. I also have a friend with a Mustang..he would switch if it would fit in his hangar. We all have our reasons.

Then why aren't you flying around in a BBJ with a staff of 15 to take care of it?

For the rest of us where money actually matters, if you are frugal, you can be flying an airplane one class higher than otherwise. That means jet when you have turboprop money, for example.

Mike C.

Richard,

Your mission really hits the sweet spot for the Mustang. I partnered with another pilot and bought one last year. Here are a few thoughts:

Your pathway is actually pretty common for Mustang pilots. In fact, a disproportionate number owned and flew either SR22s or TBMs, and moved to the Mustang. Insurance cost and mentor requirements will be stiff the first year, without any prior multi or turbine time, but should level out afterwards. My partner, in fact, flew about 600 hours in a Cirrus before he bought another Mustang about 10 years ago. (I came up through the more traditional Bonanza - Baron - King Air route.)

The size, to me, still feels a bit small. Our trips are usually me, my wife, and 3 kids. They're school-age and thin, so we can generally load up with light luggage and full fuel, and stay under gross weight. And we can load a week's worth of clothing, drinks, groceries, and two sets of golf clubs, and be on our way. If you fly with big adults, there will be some compromises in terms of space and fuel load. Also, I'm biased about size, because I came from a King Air B200. That plane was bigger than we needed. I could put stuff into it that wouldn't fit in my Yukon XL at the airport.

Turbine engines are so much smoother than piston engines, and this really has an impact on your fatigue level at the end of the flight. It's hard to describe the importance of this. With the Baron, I could fly about 2 legs of 3 hours each, per day. I was done after that. In the King Air, we flew a number of trips that were around 5 hours (coming home nonstop from Phoenix, Reno, SLC, etc.) and I felt great. The Mustang is even smoother and quieter. After a year of ownership, I realized I can take my headset off in flight and just put the speaker on. According to the DecibelX app, the cockpit sound level in cruise is about 74 dB, about the same as the inside of a small car on the highway. We can speak without raising our voices. The cockpit is as comfortable as any plane I've flown.

As far as the cost comparisons go, pay really close attention to what people write. The Mustang costs are based on paying for engine programs, and completing the HSI and overhaul when prescribed. These programs are offered by Pratt and Textron. Whatever the plane comes with is what you get. The previously paid program price is baked into the sale price of the jet. In effect, you're buying it with zero-time engines, but to retain that value you have to keep paying at the hourly rate. This is going up well faster than inflation, and is a common complaint among owners right now.

If you buy a legacy jet and fly past TBO off programs, it's less expensive, at least per hour. You should also look at the hourly and block fuel burn. The Mustang comes out way less than a 560, but it's a good deal smaller. If you buy a turboprop, the engine overhauls are advisory, not mandatory, and many people do not include these in the hourly operating cost.

Compared with my prior planes, the maintenance costs are closer to the Baron than the King Air, which was considerably higher than the Mustang. The windshields are a big ticket item. One failed the prebuy inspection, and I think the replacement was $70k. Deicing boots can add up too, and the nose gear shimmy damper seems to last about 12 years. It's worth considering ProParts, at least for the first 3-year cycle.

Being a younger fleet, the Mustangs generally have less history and other stories in the logbooks than do 30-45 year old legacy jets. It also has a fraction of the number of parts in a 525, which helps. And the cockpit design is modern. The King Air had about 3x the number of switches.

Bottom line, Chip's title for the thread is spot on. It's not the right plane for everyone, but it's fit our mission perfectly, and you may well find the same. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk. You should also join CJP, which has a lot of additional information, and a number of people who can offer insights.

-Alex

I think one thing people ignore or forget is the is my perception that older planes have a higher risk of catastrophic failure: we had our own BT go down in a V; trim failure as i recall; my D55 had a potential fuel line catastrophe, saved only by a BT alert to the issue. We just had a 310 with probable rudder trim failure go down in south florida. Maybe Im wrong, but thats a perception I have built. YMMV

I'm talking my book here but I do not believe that a well-maintained old plane is any less safe than a well-maintained new plane. The good news about older planes is that we have learned the weaknesses over time and can watch for them. Newer planes potentially bring new failure modes (although I think Citations, KAs, TBMs, Meridians, etc mitigate some of this by keeping a lot of commonality through the series). Also, I cannot stress enough the availability of yellow tag parts for older planes vs newer. When a part breaks on my plane, I call Tarver and he sells me one for a fraction of Textron's cost. Over 4 years it's only been a few things: flap (shop damaged it with a jack), strobe bulb, oil temp gauge (those mechanical tape-based engine gauges are a weak spot), and an AoA gauge.

For a laugh I searched Beechtalk for mentions of "SWMBO" and got 3,198 matches, so at least some of us like to talk about it.

I think Mike's point is reasonable here. With the appropriate combination of grind and luck I might make it to a 501 budget a few years from now but there's no way I'd be cross-shopping with a Mustang. I literally can't "afford either". If I sit SWMBO [3,199!] in a 501 (with a nice interior) and other airplanes in the same TCO bracket I don't think it would even be a conversation.

I know there are a lot of people that want the new airplane smell, turnkey service, leather with contrasting stitching that matches the Bentley and carbon fiber sill plates that match the GT3, and I'm happy for them because it means used jets for the rest of us. I just want to go as fast as I can afford. BT has opened my eyes to the fact that turbines aren't quite as far out of reach as I assumed.

Alright so slightly new scenario. an earlier serial # low time Mustang, or a Vision Jet?

Personally other than some jet concierge mx offerings Cirrus has, I do not see the fun in bouncing around in or around wx at FL310. So my choice is Mustang. But I am curious to see what others experiences are.

Fun to observe this discussion. I just flew over 3,000nm round trip Fri night through Sunday in the Phenom 100. I’ve been flying her around for 25 years now in everything from a Mooney to a CJ2 and I know that my SWMBO is not going back to an old plane nor a turboprop. Props are for boats, etc.

As a pilot, I like my G1000Nxi. As a maintenance provider, I love the reliability of a modern plane. A fuel stop at 3 hours is a price the wife is happy to pay for her Phenom 100. I’m sure she’d like a Mustang too. Either way, I win.

There is no free lunch.

Just don’t let her fly in the back of a Piaggio Bruce

Just don’t let her fly in the back of a Piaggio Bruce

Speaking of toys Chip…AI is great.

This is KA200 territory (FL310) which I have a good amount of time in. I personally would not be put off by the ceiling of a SF50 if I could afford one. Yes, getting above weather is great, but in the 200 I only wished for higher once or twice. In thunderstorm season I found it easy to circumnavigate them at FL310 and below.

Now fuel burn is a different question (altitude in 510 v 560)…

TANSTAAFL stands for "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." I first saw it in a Robert Heinlein book.