Our tbm has cost us more in maintenance than any of our c525s or c510s in the past few years. This is not uncommon speaking with multiple other operators.

I'd buy a mustang hands down.

-The citation jet exchange

Be serious would ya.........Baron is 5 times less to operate.

Your paint job alone on the Twinbo is my yearly operating for the PC12..

The market is pretty smart. There are many reasons old Citations are almost free and $20k/yr in Mx costs is not one of them. If someone could guarantee me I could run one for twice your Meridian, I’d have one yesterday but:

If you buy an old turbine, there are just some really expensive things that can happen. You may get lucky and just be flying a very expensive plane. You could get a little unlucky and you’re flying a very very very very expensive plane. Not much difference between fish stories and turbine cost stories. The meridian option for option, year for year is the cheapest factory turbine to acquire and operate. There’s always bigger, higher, faster, but they are all more expensive, apples to apples. There seem to be some good deals, but having a plane where I have to source parts, or refurb parts, Doesn’t sound appealing to me. Some people enjoy that. The last thing about those planes, they are very complex, not really set up for single pilot operations. If you are on your A-game, on an A-day, fine. But if you are having a bad day, in bad weather, and systems start shedding, they are a handful.

For most general aviation pilots, being in a simpler plane is just far far safer. Especially single pilot IMC. Which is one of the toughest least forgiving jobs on the planet. Just better off being in a simple single engine turbine.

This can happen on new turbines, too.

And when it does, less choices to resolve it.

On an older machine, more choices to resolve it usually such as buy used/surplus parts/engines.


In bad weather, I'll take the Citation over any turboprop.


Propellers are complex.

Having one engine is very complex should it fail.


Don't agree.

A twin jet is all the benefits of a twin (redundant thrust, redundant power, redundant systems) with none of the issues of propeller twins (Vmc roll over, feathering the wrong one) or a propeller single (no redundancy). Plus the high altitude capability means less weather overall.

The one place turboprop wins is contaminated runways. My V will stop in 5000 ft with no brakes at all, but a 3000 ft runway with ice or snow will be an issue that the turboprop handles easily.

Mike C.

Be serious would ya.........Baron is 5 times less to operate.

Your paint job alone on the Twinbo is my yearly operating for the PC12..

The single pilot citations are very simple to fly. Things happen faster (both horizontally and vertically) but other than an uncommanded TR deployment in a legacy citation there aren't any more gotchas. Managing the airplane in both normal and emergency procedures isn't any more complicated. I guess one could argue syncing the engines is a little more work but that's about it. Really very comparable from a workload standpoint to a SETP. Generally, the more capable the plane the more complex to fly, but that isn't the case with the single pilot citations.

The market is pretty smart. There are many reasons old Citations are almost free and $20k/yr in Mx costs is not one of them. If someone could guarantee me I could run one for twice your Meridian, I’d have one yesterday but:

The Citation allows you many options.

For service, wide variety of choices from the mothership at KICT, factory service centers all over the world, to independent shops. My MU2 needed a specialty shop, but I am getting a fair amount of little work done locally, which is great. There are also MSU, mobile service units, which will come to you and fix the plane on site. The whole service ecosystem is geared around keeping the plane flying.

For parts, the Textron online parts system is fantastic. I've order a number of things and they are almost always in stock. There are also a large number of well stocked surplus and used parts places.

As an owner, you can choose to select your money versus time strategy. If you want to spend the least, you can work the used parts and surplus markets, including eBay, and find a lot of stuff. If you are the "here are the keys, call me when done" guy, then take it to a service center and let them go. Your choice.

In my case, I like to do the debugging of issues. So I don't say "the power brakes are not pumping up", instead I say "replace pressure switch S168". But I'm an engineer and I can figure out what part has failed through testes and deduction. Indeed, initially when this problem was reported, the shop replaced a relay. I asked why and they said "it was the cheapest part, so we start there, we move on to the next expensive part if that doesn't work". Uh huh. 5 minutes with a voltmeter and I knew that wasn't the issue.

Ask me in a few years how this is all working out, but for now, having a great place to get factory parts quickly, and a local shop that lets me direct the work and provide parts, is wonderful.

Mike C.

Which should make it a fair bit cheaper per nm.

Which should make it a fair bit cheaper per nm.

, just don’t tell Silverthorne.

The market is pretty smart. There are many reasons old Citations are almost free and $20k/yr in Mx costs is not one of them. If someone could guarantee me I could run one for twice your Meridian, I’d have one yesterday but:

No way I would rather have a Meridian or TBM over my 501sp Eagle II

Cheaper to buy, On program, faster, safer, way larger, more range, more payload, and cool factor.

I was max gross out of Van Nuys climbing 4000fpm with huge power. At FL350 we were going 390 knots.

Nothing like twin jet performance when heavy and hotter. The Eagle II does not care. So nice to not be worrying about a single or twin prop failing. Just fly the plane and shoot for the moon.

I can’t imagine paying triple for a single turbo prop and having to leave half my family behind, going slow at FL280, and less than 1000nm range.

Sorry but I don’t get the expensive turbo prop market. Too many great jet options out there.


Mike

Sadly, I agree with the above. The TBM850 is a 320ktas airplane but for $1.8M, you can get a lot in the CJ market. It’s a real jump to go from a meridian to those prices….

Val