If money was no object in your life up to a point, say maybe where a million and a half U. S. dollars wouldn't strain you or thereabouts, and you were going to buy or lease a piston twin, what would you get?

The Beechcraft Baron G58 is awfully nice in the vicinity of $1.5 million, with all the Garmin bells and whistles.

If I wanted to spend less, the Diamond Twin Star is kind of intriguing at around half a million.

So what's yours?

Cheers!

Rick...

Grumman Goose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_Goose

Mosquito
Dunno if you could get one for a measly 1.5 mil though. probably have to use £, $1.5 is chump change

Piaggio P-180


Not sure how much it costs. But if you have to ask..

So here I am, Ward Cleaver, admiring the Baron G58 with the Garmin gear, when all off a sudden along comes a parade of non-conformists.

I think I'll go have a cup of hot milk and get to bed early.

Cheers!

Rick...

De Havilland Dove.

But the Grumman Goose is so versatile.

And you can't beat it's romantic and nostalgic factor.

http://www.controller.com/listingsdetail...6B/1145822.htm?

Thought you'd been coming here long enough to know you wouldn't get a sensible answer Rick.
Hot milk's so boring, have a Horlicks.

No doubt it's a classic, breathtaking stuff!

But is it practical?

When's the last time you jumped from a Super DC-3 variant?

Remember the sound of those big radial recips? How long could you listen to that, as the wind blew through the fuselage? And nothing adds spice to life like the occasional ill-timed mag drop, or a delaminating prop that didn't show up until you were far, far from home. Those big Hamilton Standards are pricey and can be hard to come by.

And of course, if you have to do airframe repairs, you'll go into the hangar to dope the fabric and no one will notice that you've been gone a long time until you come stumbling out with your eyes counter-rotating in their sockets, looking like Timothy Leary on a bad weekend because you breathed the fumes from that crap.

Not to mention that in addition to all the other aircraft ownership headaches, you now have a ride that makes a bilge pump a useful piece of gear.

"Hey! My airplane sunk!"

I don't know. That Baron G58 could be awfully comfortable and relatively trouble-free...

Cheers!

Rick...

It's also not piston.

And it was built backwards.

It has the spining pinwheel thingies.

Curtis AT9 , always thought it was a cool looking bit of gear, unforgiving but a sweetheart once you have mastered it apparently






or maybe a junkers 52 , slow and painfully loud , but i could paradrop whenever i wanted to go shopping plus if i ever got the sh/ts with it i could simply dewing it and turn it into a cool retro look caravan. Of course i would still paradrop out as i turn up at camping spots , an Otto Skorzeny sneer on my dial and an mp40 in hand for the wild fish.

OG, I love the Goose, and the Albatross. Like I said, buy one and I'll come fly it for you

Tarnsman, the Piaggio Avanti is not a piston twin, it is powered by PT6 turbines

Myself, I'd love to own a Cessna 310. That's a beautiful tourer. Flies smooth as a jetliner, and it is one of the few light twins that lets you stuff in six people, full tanks and some luggage. Plus, it's beautiful!



While the 310 is a somewhat realistic dream, other piston twins I'd love to own if money was no object is a Mosquito, a P-38 and a Beech 18

My all time favorite turboprop. Competes with the Cessna Citation.

I can't remember the make & model of this thing (help me again,oldgrognard?), but it was parked on our ramp for a while a couple months back.

Few things to think about.

The guys making the engines for the twinstar went belly up so you'll have parts issues when something breaks or overhaul time.

Look carefully before buying a C310, if the AD's are not up to date it will get.very expensive really quick.

My favourate will be the Piaggio P.166 Albatross. Lots of room and a toilet and cheap! About US$81K. It's got thirsty motors but the rest of the money buys plenty of fuel for a looooooooong time.

If money is no object it'd have to be a Cri-Cri

It'd probably bust the budget, but I'd be looking to see if a Beech 18 was possible...radials, very classic look, small enough to get into modest size airports, yet still a possible workhorse for the small business maybe? Kind of like a mini-DC3 Dakota!

Closer to the real world, Piper Navajo. Why? Small enough, simple enough to actually own as a "toy", yet with enough performance and capacity to actually do something with it. Meaning you can actually carry a payload that makes money! Two of the local charter operators used these daily for a very long time, so they must be inexpensive to buy, inexpensive to maintain and operate. The same aircooled flat-6 like most other light piston planes these days...so it won't bust the budget. Simple cockpit layout, like any other light plane really. These small charter operators often had extremely junior pilots who were working to get their ratings, so they'd fly cargo only, while their more experienced pilots would fly passengers (like the company owner who also flew L-1011's for another airline, Air Transat...at the same time!).

Yea, the Navajo's not pretty really, but it's functional and likely affordable, and if you need to have it pay for itself, you could use it to make money (lease it to a local charter, or start your own charter, hire a junior pilot to make the runs you don't want...). Plus, if you want to actually go on a vacation, you can actually bring friends AND all your luggage, something you might not be able to do in the smallest of twins.

Then again, I'm no pilot, and just talking out me butt!

NH2112, it's a Partenavia P68. Sweet little plane.

http://www.controller.com/listingsdetail...-TC/1191717.htm

I'd buy a Champ and a Cub and park them side by side in a hangar.

Our company just bought a new(ish) Baron 58 to shuttle corporate folks around in. For longer trips they still have the King Air 200, but the Baron makes good sense for short hops to Raleigh and stuff. The G1000 panel in the Baron is nicer than anything we have in our other King Airs or Citations.

If it was just for myself I would have a Westland Whirlwind but as there are none left in flying condition that point is moot.
Or a Grumman Widgeon for that go anywhere aircraft

when I saw "piston twins" in the thread title I was thinking about something "completely different" the airplanes are nice though

Two pages and no one mentions the P-38? For shame.

Wow thanks Mark you've just reconnected a few synapse for me, I'd totally forgotten about Horlicks, something me mum would give us as kids.

B-25

C340

Twin Mustang

Diamond, the makers of the twinstar build their own engine now and have done so for quite some time (austro engine). I beleive thielert is still selling engines and operating but the supplier / demand + reliabilty issue saw diamond quickly develop their own engines.

The Austro engine is heavier than the thielerts, provide a bit more beef, but diamond have beefed up the landing gear to compensate.

For me, i would go with the twin star. It doesn't have the largest payload, nor is it the fastest (actually its quite slow compared to some twins). But to have a single engine service ceiling of around 14,000 ft on a twin is very impressive not to mention very safe. It also runs on jet a1 which is more abundant than Avgas and far cheaper to run. Engines are watercooled, so no shock cooling. Full fadec (which includes prop pitch as well) and its a very good IFR tourer with impressive range.

For me, that would be the one to take.

Actually.................... I would just love to be ABLE to own my own plane, instead of flying others. lol

Those are some nice points. And I like the way it looks, too. I've got a pile of them in X-Plane 9 and like it in the sim.

Well, if my ship comes in, who knows? But as Jim Croce once sang, "I keep waitin' for my ship to come in, but all that ever come is the tide."

Cheers!

Rick...

I was trying to keep it under the $1.5M mentioned LOL

But, since we have no limits now, without a doubt...

A P-61 Black Widow. I built one of those as a kid.

I thought this was going to be a thread on 2 hot cheerleader twins for the Detroit Pistons! Imagine my disappointment...

Fokker G1, with some decent engines:

Now I do like the look of the FW189 A /B

Or then the PBY5 Catalina would also be nice and it has room for a few friends to come along on the trip

Yeah. They're just there to let you know the engine is running...those big exhaust pipes pointing at 'em will spin 'em real nice.

I'd like a Citation Ten thanks.

But seriously ..... out of all the piston twins I ever flew, the nicest was the Piper Aerostar 601P. I'd love to have flown the 700P as it's got more grunt and that's what they needed getting off the runway and up to a safe speed.
Managed to get the 601P up to 27,000' once.