Sorry to post a Cessna question on our forum, but I know several of our members have experience in the Golden Eagle.

I have time in my partner's. It is an excellent bird. However, I do not have enough experience to educate a prospective buyer.

What can you tell me? For those who also operate a 58P (Richard...), would you mind comparing and contrasting the two as far as the ownership and maintenance experience is concerned?

Gotchas?

Best,

I owned a 421C with the trailing link gear for about 4 years. Came out of a D55 when I bought it, K35 before that.

This may be heresy on this forum, but IMHO it's the nicest piston engine plane in the sky. No, I've never flown a Duke or Queen Air. It's big, comfortable and quiet. Everyone talks about the engines, but treated properly they're fine. Speed is about 200 kts in the flight levels LOP at about 35 gph. Book speeds and fuel flows are a little higher. Annuals ran about $20K with usual amount of repairs, insurance was about 7K, hangar is whatever the local going rate is.

The biggest potential gotcha is the SID on the main spar that is now in effect for the Conquests and the 402's. It's a 6 figure job and it can ruin the airplane. It's not required now for the 414's and 421's, and less likely to be required for the trailing link gear, but still looms. Cessna is now very aggressive about requiring increased maintenance for aging airframes, but it's not clear what the required maintenance will be for the airplanes that haven't already had the SID issued.

The Cessna Pilots Assn. has a very active Twin Cessna board with some very opinionated posters. They've discussed 421's ad nauseum including comparing them to turbines, which is a whole other subject. Might be worth a look.

I owned one as a corporate aircraft for about 4 years. This particular 421 was not a reliable aircraft. It was fairly expensive to operate and dispatch reliability was not good. We also had an A36 as a back up aircraft.

If you're buying one make sure you get a twin cessna guy do the inspection. There are some corrosion issues on all the cessna twins.

Jesse call Tony Saxton at TAS aviation. He is THE expert when it comes to Twin Cessnas. Last numer I had for him is 419-658-4444. He is in Ohio.

Jerry Alves has one, I think he mentioned total costs are about $10 per minute.

Join the Twin Cessna Flyer. They have a pretty good online forum with comments from 421 owners. You have to join the organization to get to the forum.

+1. The forum isn't very active but a lot of good information there and helpful owners.

The -421 has the nicest cockpit in class. (including the King Airs) IMHO of course.

It is roomy, (lots of leg room) quiet, comfortable, an ergonomic example of excellence! Your hands fall effortlessly on the correct controls without reaching for anything. The visibility is excellent, and did I mention it is quiet? The old tip tank airplanes are wonderful landing in x/winds, because when you close the throttle they sit down and stay down. No float or bounce. These arrivals are firm unless they are made by carefully, but that is not necessarily difficult. The straight wing birds float a little more, and the trailing link gear is soft as warm butter.

If they are flown with tender hands on the throttle levers, and maintained by mechs that understand them, they can be dependable machines. Violate either rule above and they can be an expensive hangar queen.

The numbers on a -421 are very similar to a Duke in every way except.... The -421 hauls ~1000# more and costs twice to 3 times as much to buy.

Not will familar with the C-Model, but flew a B-Model to TBO without any problems. You do have to baby the engines, but that is normal with geared engines and Turbo. Spar SID would always be on my mind.

Great airplane to fly and comfortable for Pax and Crew.

Mike

oh I've got to disagree with Doug on that one...the King Air cockpit is light-years ahead of the 421/Conquest. The Conquest II is a better overall performer than most King Airs of course, but when it comes to human factors and man to machine interface, and overall professional design/build, the King Air wins in my opinion. No contest.

The Twin Cessna Flyer magazine reported on costs for flying the various models including the 310, 340, 414 and 421 last fall. The November issue had the costs reported by owners for the 421. They did not say how many 421 owners participated in the survey. I think it was about 200 for the total survey so I wouldn't think that many 421's are represented. But who knows?

The average reported cost to fly a 421 was $643 an hour based on 142 hours a year and 42 GPH fuel burn. Avgas price per gallon of $5.60 was used. The reserve estimate was based on calling shops for actual prices. The cost without OH reserves was $570 so OH reserves are $73 per hour and include props.

The hourly includes all maintenance, overhaul, insurance, hangar ($550 per month average) and fuel. Amazingly 23% of owners report doing some or all of their maintenance.

Total cost to fly 100 hours was $56,950 without reserves. 65% of survey respondents are flying C models and the rest A & B models. Since fixed costs represent $24,970 of this figure it's obvious that flying more has a dramatic impact on hourly cost. If you fly 200 hours per year then you knock $125/hr off the rate and are in $525 range with reserves.

Everything costs more than a 414 and 421 owners fly about 1/3 MORE hours than 414 owners.

The costs of flying the plane seem to vary quite a bit when you look at the forum where owners tend to report less per hour. My neighbor told me his 421 B ran $550 per hour last year all in flying about 100 hours.

I have not had the pleasure of sitting in a KA cockpit but my neighbors 421 B cockpit is the cat's meow!

A 421B I maintain is flown at 32 GPH. Throttled back to about 65%

We have exerted effort the engines to run LOP.

Spoilers allow addtional 1000 FPM descent soone can keep the engines powered up while letting down.

Very nice ride.
I have several hundred hours in Barons, and in Twin pressurized Cessnas.
I don't place them in the same class.

Not much I can add that hasn't been said already. I love mine.

One comment that I make to people is that going from a Baron to a Golden Eagle you feel like you went from a big small plane to a small big plane.

For passenger comfort it doesn't get better without burning JetA, and even then I'm told it's comparable to a King Air.

I'll upload some photos for the curious.

more

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