I hope you get it, Patrick! And I hope to see you over at the Twin Commander forum when you do.

The best thing about Commanders is that they do everything rather well, contrary to most other aircraft who are mainly good at one thing only. Commanders are Escalades - you can take 'em to the Ritz, or to the dirt strip with a load full of filthy goats. They don't care either way.

Thx mate, fingers crossed that I get this or another one.

Except fit in small hangars and cut through turbulence.

Mike C.

Except fit in small hangars and cut through turbulence.

Mike C.

That's the tradeoff.

Don't push the Commander into heavy turbulence going fast. Slow down. There have been breakups from that.

A great way to slow down is to climb. Sometimes there is turbulence at altitude (like strong wave) and they only thing you can do is slow down.


Yeah, them is piston numbers. You will get 2500 FPM, 10K in ~4 minutes.

You don't fly at 10K ft in a turboprop. With the -5 and big wing, you are probably aiming for FL200 generally. Get a -10 and FL250+ is on the menu, and you can get close to 300 knots.

Mike C.

Patrick - I did my UK license at Lydd airport in East Sussex.

My old 680V model and the subsequent one, the 681, had the shorter wings of the old piston 680's. They run good in turbulence and can carry a lot of ice, but run out of poop around FL220. That's when the larger wings of the 690 series and the even longer ones of the Jetprops really start coming into their stride. Did they accept offer?

Finalizing some details but am hopeful at having a deal signed by the end of the week, then pre-buy next week...
Lydd was my first stop on my VFR long solo cross country for my PPL, know it well. Lydd is a welcome sight at the end of the Channel crossing from France. You have to watch out for overflying the power plant and the nearby danger areas. That's quite a long runway for Southern England, almost like you were cheating Adam, rather than learning to fly out of muddy grass strip like Redhill . I learned at Denham and Fairoaks, paved old aerodromes, so I was cheating a bit as well, the UK muddy strips in the winter aren't very conducive to completion of scheduled lessons...

Patrick that is some great news! I have my fingers crossed!

Me too. Love the commanders.

The poop problem is the engine. If they had a -10, they'd climb on up well past FL220. The 680V and 681 have quite a bit more wing area than I do and I have no problem going to FL280 on less wing.

Mike C.

It was fun flying a Turbo Commander with -10, loved how it was a such a non event shutting one down and climbing at a 1000fpm .....

I really enjoyed flying the -10 Commander when I test drove one at Eagle Creek.

A little off topic, but I absolutely love the way that the front engine cowls look when they're stripped and shines like that, I need to do that to my bird. Are the panels chromed or is that just strip and polish?

Craig,

Just strip and polish - we also did the beaver tail on on the MU-2.
Started out by accident on the MU-2 fleet in 1992 :-prop sync box cracked skin on the lower smile. We ( engine shop ) scuffed the paint so bad had to be stripped. Then came to the realization that we could swap engines within the fleet without having to repaint or pull the eyebrow and smile.

The look was an added benefit. By 2000 we had done about 70 Mu-2s like that. The beaver tail was logical as its, always covered in soot.

On can do it with the engine on wing of careful with the stripper on lower smile. But best results the prop has to come off to pull the pair and hand work with a polisher.

Regards,
Nigel

Under contract. Prebuy next week.

Congrats!

I love my MU-2, but the single engine performance of a -10 Commander is a force to be reckoned with.