Highly variable by airframe. There are plenty of JP with double digit full fuel useful, but plenty with reasonable UL.

Get an early airframe with a -21 and you can have two adults, two kids and plenty of fuel.

Yes, always flying ove r gross is sketchy but you don't have to do that

A B90 or MU-2F are very good and stout airplanes that make a Meridian look like tin foil.


Engine out SHOULD be a big part of a Meridian training course. It is a very complex situation when you simultaneously lose thrust, pressurization, bleed air, and electrical generation. The situation is so complex that it is often ignored in training which isn't the same thing as saying one shouldn't train for it.

Meanwhile, the twin pilot hasn't lost any of those vital things, he just operates with reduced amounts and keeps going.


That's better than having a life limit of ~10,000 hours.


The fact the twin TPs are even close in cost is stunning. Much larger cabin, more range, more speed, two engines, and yet the cost delta is pretty small.

Mike C.

Mike - I'm not saying the Meridian is superior to the MU2. Simply that it can fairly be included in the competition for lowest cost reliable turboprop.

Oh and I don't think electrical power loss is really an issue if the engine fails. Surely the battery will last to the ground.

Ah, yes, the lack of any propulsion on engine out is a design feature to make sure you will reach the ground before the battery is gone.

I agree the Meridian is a contender for a low cost turboprop. My point is that the twins are far more economical than people assume, which is unlike the piston world.

Mike C.

Agreed

Yeah, I don't get that either. 95% of the posters in this thread seem to think money is a) free and b) useless. Completely bizarre considering that turbine owners are the 1% of the 1%.

A plane built with more metal than required is just poor engineering. There have been more MU2 and KA in flight breakups than Meridians, even though more Meridians have been built and far outfly MU2's in flight hours. Now there are more King Airs flying than Meridians, There are also more KA IFBU's than Meridian's as well. And yes KA's do bend wings as well. In fact there has only been one Meridian IFBU, and it was not the fault of the plane. The pilot lost control in a thunderstorm, and it was not the TS that killed the plane, but the LOC that eventually broke the plane, he was dead whether the plane hit the ground in 1 piece or 2 pieces. The plane only gave up after exceeding Vmo by over 70 knots in a death spiral while pulling over 5 g's before the data logger quit recording. Don't you hate when data blows a perfectly good hypothesis. The Meridian is plenty strong, and 100% guaranteed to perform as designed when flown as designed.

I don't think he funded the purchase of the plane he flies, so it is easy to talk about "cost of money" when you don't have to pay it yourself.

Mike C.

Like I said previously, if you need to finance a $1m plane, and your house, and your car, you need to be pulling in $500K/year in taxable income on paper, or else they won't touch you with a barge pole. Make that a new $4.5m PC12 and you need a taxable income of $1.5-2m+/year.

How many have that?

I don't think he funded the purchase of the plane he flies, so it is easy to talk about "cost of money" when you don't have to pay it yourself.

Mike C.

Mike and MU2's
Chuck and Charles and Meridians
Michael and Jason and PC 12s

They've all got hammers and everything is a nail...

There are no MU2 breakups not in thunderstorms. By that metric, a tie, but with the MU2 fleet having far more hours.

I don't know much about King Air breakups. There was some sort of spar strap thing I vaguely recall.

Now, about Commanders and IFBU... hmmm.


MU2 has no life limited structure. Some have 35,000 hours of doing rough service like check hauling every night. Short run, heavy cabin loads put a beating on airframes.

PA46 does have life limited structure, around 10,000 hours. It simply wouldn't stand up to the abuse an MU2 can handle. It just is in a different class as far as robustness.

Have someone walk on top of a Meridian wing from root to tip, and then do that for an MU2. That will settle the issue.

To put it in perspective, an MU2 is about the same size as a 421. The MU2 has 2000 lbs more aluminum in its structure than a 421. Think about that, a TON more aluminum slathered all over the airframe.

If you say that means it was incompetently overbuilt, I agree, but the flip side is a super robust airframe that will age very well.

Mike C.

What about this one?

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... ring-storm

Thunderstorm.

Thought you were excusing such accidents for the PA46, so I did the same for the MU2.

There have been only two MU2 break ups, both occurred a week apart of each other in 2006, both in thunderstorms, both in Florida. None before, none since. Damnedest odd thing.

NTSB probable causes for each:

The pilot's inadvertent encounter with thunderstorms.

The pilot's inadvertent flight into thunderstorm activity that resulted in the loss of control, design limits of the airplane being exceeded and subsequent in-flight breakup. A contributing factor was the failure of air traffic control to use available radar information to warn the pilot he was about to encounter moderate, heavy, and extreme precipitation along his route of flight.

Clearly the first investigator believes in brevity.

Mike C.

I'm not sure what you are asking here? If you can afford it, then you have the income. If you cannot afford it, then you don't have the income. I assume everyone who flies a Meridian for example has a taxable income in at least the 500K a year, or more like 750K a year neighborhood. Whether salary, pass thru, dividends or investments, taxes are getting filled and paid for. There really is no good way of being rich enough to afford a plane like that and avoid taxes or jail+taxes+penalties for any period of time. Treasuries don't look kindly on people living outside of their stated means.