It did; Socata bought it but nothing ultimately came from it. Parts are still manageable as apparently the initial dealers had to buy a certain amount of spares to become a dealer, and with so few actually built (around 115, can't remember exactly) parts are still floating around with at least for now plenty of reserves.

MX wise, it's a pretty straight forward bird, so most wear parts are normal off the shelf things. It has two 160HP O-320 Lycomings, so that part is very easy to keep up with.

Hope to keep ours flying for decades to come just like all other 40+ year old birds ha. Just last week put 30 hours on ours without issue traveling the SE, still performing great and reliable. Definitely a fun, roomy twin for 160Kts @ 16GPH that's quite docile if you lose one if your mission doesn't need a 310 or Baron.

We have three here in Elstree, UK. 160kts seems to be a lot better than we see but yours is probably a lot straighter!

Ha, I can imagine some vary a bit but yes, overall I think ours is pretty straight/rigged. But, watching the Aspen readouts and then simply watching the time over several trips, it seems to work out pretty close on trips.... this is with throttle full forward, props 24-25.

Have to ask, as I rarely meet others with experience, what do you guys see/plan?

Take care!

We generally plan for "FL 66F" or "FL 18C" for our Northern neighbors. We may as well be comfy up high with those nice big Grumman/Gulfstream windows and take advantage of the free HVAC outside. That usually nets 6000-8000/8500 feet and 14-12GPH in cruise with 145KTAS at 2300 and the nubs to the wall; sometimes we sit at 2400-2500 for a while. The irony is that I plan about the same speed and cruise fuel flow for the 182 (non-turbo)! Cruise is ~13GPH and 145KTAS at 6500-8500.

Down low, if we push the nubs to the wall on a cool day we can see 165KTAS when we level off underneath the upside down wedding cake headed out underneath the KIAD Bravo. At that speed fuel flow can reach 22-24 GPH dependent upon the altitude. Generally, we dial it back like you do and treat the plane like we own it, even though most rentals get beat to hell. The reason for pulling it back to 2300 down low is to cut back on the noise as we overfly our neighbors and fly the roads between (not over) horse farms. Apparently 2700 is pretty loud when we go over at 1350.

This isn't to the Cougar that I fly but it is a POH to a Cougar.
https://www.scribd.com/document/3429115 ... gar-Manual

Yes we are boring around down low here 2-3k ft as mostly training and going out to the area over built up areas so at 23/23 tend to see 125-135 knots ground speed. It has TKS on it and has had a hard enough life! it is a roomy plane with great visibility out the sides so a nice plane for a trip of up to 2 hours - it has huge range with full tanks!