I just purchased one of Jim's 702Ps (except with a KFC-200 instead of 225), so I'm new to the world but also recently educated on the zillion different options and models out there. With 700SD, I'd be really focused on the 5.5psi mod. It's expensive, but it extends the windshield life effectively forever (so that's $12k you can deduct from the cost depending on current w/s age), and the comfort benefit is extreme. You get an 8k cabin at FL250---equivalent to an airliner cabin at cruise. If you're making long trips up high, it's a huge benefit.

Also, 0SD has the worst a/c combination: electric + old duct. Depending on where you are planning to fly, upgrading at least the duct (and possibly moving to the engine-driven compressor) might be worth your while. I think JC told me that this change was one of the first they engineered because almost everyone was asking for it. I think I'd consider that stuff before the winglets, but there's no arguing that they look awesome. Just my 2¢.

$.02 Directed at Daniel Blitz's questions (and a few ad-hoc thoughts).....

You may have the wallet and desire for a superlative specimen of an A* (or whatever your chosen ride is), and we all make decisions on what goodies we "have to have" based on our individual tastes, values, and buying power. Some folks would rather have an old worn out Sabre 40 for $250k, some will spend $500k for the best Bonanza on the market.

The only thing N700SD "needs" is a pilot who truly learns how to fly and operate and Aerostar. You would be shocked at how much better real-world performance you get out of understanding how to use power settings, wind charts, and trip planning gets you over winglets and small performance mods (NOT that those things don't have great value, they do).

A couple of brain droppings:

Century IV Autopilots fly the airplane beautifully (better than the KFC-200 IMHO), are fully supported, and will last a long time when maintained properly. The Garmin GFC-600 will eventually be a terrific replacement.

A 700 will do any leg you really want to do non-stop that a 601P can reasonably do if you don't go high cruise power every leg without analyzing it. If you're by yourself in a 601P and want to do a 6 hour leg that a 700 will have to land after 5 hours, then yes the 601P probably wins that one. But that's not reasonable what people actually do. pound for pound the 700 earns it keep for the extra fuel it burns and the best range extending device ever known is the human brain applied to power settings and wind charts. I would routinely use long rang cruise of 25" and 2000 rpm, yielding 200-210 KTAS at about 30 gph. DC to Arkansas against headwinds and land with a reserve? yep. Still enough useful load to carry my family? yep.

Electric A/C - yeah, I'd definitely prefer engine driven. no doubt.

5.5 psi cabin? Yes - I would value that one pretty highly. I only had 4.25, and am know flying a 5.5 psi cabin. Much bigger difference on overall comfort than I thought would be there.

If you want and are able to throw money at radios, winglets, etc. great. The value of an airplane like N700SD is the quality of the mechanical platform you;re starting with. I could fly that one as it is (maybe a newer navigator box) and get great utility out of it. Or, if I had the money, wouldn't feel bad at all putting more money in to make it the way I want it.

Bob, I appreciate the feedback. This is what I’m thinking. JC recommends I come to him for a ground school and in plane check out in Idaho. Check out instructor will continue the check out on way back to DFW area and spend a few more days getting me right. Perhaps I should consider Simcom as my initial training prior to taking possession. I’ll hold on to your email addy for future correspondence.


Brad, glad trip was safe and successful. Did you have to fly any approaches in your weather? Sounds like you had great experience with the plane.

Bob,

If you want max range and run LOP, the 700 can out fly the 601/602. If you pull both planes back to fly around 120 KIAS which is the max efficiency speed; and then run both motors LOP, the 700 with the AUX will fly a lot longer.

Tim

With fuel fully topped off (225 gallons total), the 700 can stay up for nearly seven hours at FL250 doing 205ktas. Your no-wind range (with 60 minute reserve) is just over 1,200NM. This is assuming you're cruising at 25"/2,000RPM and climbing at 35"/2,200RPM. Why anyone would actually want to do this is a bit beyond me, but the option is there if you want it. . . .

Also worth noting is that, at those settings, you're burning about 30gph total. So if you want to save money and slow down a bit, you certainly can. The 700 can be almost (but not quite) as efficient as the 601 if you fly it like this, but you have the power available for takeoff, OEI operations, and climbing through ice. I think the 700 has probably the widest performance envelope of any airplane: you have an enormous band of speeds, fuel consumption rates, and altitudes available to you.

FWIW, I tried slowing it way down like this once on the way to SF. Decided I much preferred going fast. Maybe others have better self control.

Keep in mind, that level and latitude of performance does not come free. You will pay for it.
You cannot escape it.

I did it. Nonstop, western MD from 2G4 to Wyoming KLAR. 1205 NM direct.
Landed with over an hour fuel reserve; what I recall was a fuel burn around 26GPH.
It was faster than stopping for gas.

Tim

Details please Tim,
I B a bit slow N de head,

700 wih Aux tank?

25” LOP??

How much MP should it take to keep pressurization?

As I recall on the 601P they start to lose pressurization if you go below 20-21" MP up high. The 700 might be different.

A 600 will last 7 hours ( no reserve) with 184 g ( overfill adapter) at 20" and 24 rpm 11,000ft.
Personal!y I do not like to stop...it takes up time and work and adds fatigue.

I did it. Nonstop, western MD from 2G4 to Wyoming KLAR. 1205 NM direct.
Landed with over an hour fuel reserve; what I recall was a fuel burn around 26GPH.
It was faster than stopping for gas.

Tim

To any potential A* buyer here are a few thoughts that I have:

I have a 700P and I typically fly around Texas at 15K or so. At those altitudes to make 215 KIAS I need to be at 30" and 2200 on the props. Up at FL 250 I will see 235 kias or so but after the first few years of getting excited about being up high I figured out that it really made no sense for me. It usually never pays for me to get up high because ATC always slams the piston crowd back to the lower altitudes 50 miles each side of the destination and most of my flights are around 200 miles.

If you want to see real world flight ops just go to Flightaware and look up N702RJ. Each of those flights were cruising at 30" and 2200. On each of those flights I burned 46 GPH total and my hottest cylinder would be 350. My TIT is never above 1550 and usually about 1525. Red line on TIT is 1650 and I like to be way on the cool side. Not really looking for other opinions -- its just the way I fly the plane.

In order to keep the engine temps where I like them at FL 250 I usually have the cowl flaps open which also equates to the loss of a few knots. I think that only the 700P's have cowl flaps so this is not an issue for everyone. If I close the cowl flaps at FL250 the CHT will creep up to about 405 on the hottest cylinder -- too hot for me.

If you want economy and low maintenance costs keep a single -- I did. I have a $60,000 Bonanza that is perfect for messing around. My 1955 V-Tail Bonanza, with an E-225-8, burns about 9 or 10 gallons per hour at 150 mph. Most everything in a twin is duplicated so when one vacuum pump quits you can expect the next one to go pretty soon. I have four turbos and keep an extra one on the shelf because those are wear items that can be hard to get when you need it. The Bonanza almost never breaks and is dirt simple.

I have the aux tank in my plane but my fuel burn is much higher (at all manifold numbers) than what i am reading. I burn about 22.5 per hour per engine. I know that I going faster but when I look at the JPI calculating the miles per gallon I have observed that slow versus fast (in my plane) does not seem to make that big a difference. I usually see 4.2 MPG assuming no crazy winds. The Bonanza gets about 12 MPG.

If I reduced my fuel flow to 15 GPH per engine it would be because they have turned off and I am gliding. I am kidding a bit when I say that but I think if I throttled back to that point that my pressurization would get wonky.

AAC is great asset and, unfortunately, the trip from Houston to Idaho is effectively the other side of the moon so I don't get there much. I really like Jim Christy because he takes the time to give me a lifeline once in a while when we can't sort out an issue. John in the parts department is a great asset as well because he really knows his stuff. Nobody at Beechcraft will give me their ear in the same way.

In terms of upgrades, Aerostar does great work but the prices aren't what I am reading here. I think the KFC 225 upgrade alone was around $55K and, in my opinion, that was a deal. My bird also got the winglets, the 5.5 increase, GTN 650/750, G600, GMA35, GTS800 and all of the rest of the goodies associated with that and I think the total bill at AAC was about $225K. I later added a second G600, GWX Radar and a JPI 960 and that set me back around another $100K.

I don't know this for sure but I think flying in the flight levels is harder on piston engines than in the teens. For people new to ownership that always head to the flight levels I get it but unless the mission really requires it I would be more conservative. That air is pretty thin. I have kept cylinders longer than most and I attribute that to keeping the engines cool. One way to do that on climb out is ROP. Look over at my JPI on departure and you can witness 90 GPH leaving my bank account for the first 5000 feet or so until I throttle back.

For those that run down to low limits on fuel I did that once. I got the plane down to 20 gallons in the main tank. As luck would have it I was landing at KHOU and they called a go around. Full throttle back up in the goo and a hard right turn to the MAP. As I made the hard right turn one of the engines stumbled and I said never again. Can't really explain why that happened but it was definitely that the fuel pickup was unported.

I will not be able to solve the yes/no on the winglets but I can tell you that they look cool.

Going up into the flight levels doesn't make sense for short trips--no question there. My typical trips tend to be longer than Eric's (600NM with the occasional 800 thrown in). Assuming winds aren't a huge factor, my rule of thumb is that trips over 2 hours are worth climbing for; under 2 hours, teens make more sense.

Eric is right about engine temps; CHTs get high up there. My hottest are routinely in the low 400s, although it's a very new engine. I keep the hottest TIT probe at 1600. Reality is that, on these sorts of trips, I'm asking a pair of pistons to do a job that is best suited to turbines. They probably won't last as long as they could, but then again, I spent a lot less than the guy who buys a TBM for the same trips. I know I'm hammering a piston peg into a turbine hole, and I'll end up paying for that in five years.

That said, these planes are still expensive. Not "TBM-expensive," but bring your wallet. I purchased a "zero squawk" airplane from the factory, which was quickly followed by a $13,000 bill to fix a heater that only worked below 15,000' (in fairness, the former owner, Hartzell, and AAC helped out on that bill), another $10,000 to fix a bunch of problems discovered right after purchase, and a recently completed $30,000 annual.

Put another way, I'll end up re-purchasing the airplane over eight years of ownership, assuming no major engine expenses (which is unlikely). Assuming my engines don't make TBO because of how I run them, I might not be as far away from the SETP/MU-2 costs as I thought at the outset. Still a cool airplane and probably the lowest-cost entry into the near-300mph speeds that you can find. Flying above most weather in the flight levels with an 8,000' cabin is game-changing.

Tyler,

More important than the first annual are the next four. If it works out this group would enjoy learning your actual experience with this bird over the next 4 years or so.

Yes, technically it was a Superstar conversion of a 602P, with gross weight increase, pressurization increase, aux heat system, and a lot of money spent getting rid of all the leaks. On multiple occasions, I practiced emergency descents with engines back to idle and never had my ears pop from depressurization. So the money was well spent

From what I recall it was between 35-40% power based on the charts from AAC. To maintain the pressurization, I think it was about 22in manifold and 2000 RPM.
I also would overfill the main tank by twenty gallons. You know, fill the aux with gallons. Fill the main, then transfer aux to main, then fill the wings....

Tim