If two is good, three must be better.

Temps, FF, torque, power levers all sync’d up. Love that

Congrats (to both you and Jeff) on the new planes

So what do you do with 3 of the same airplane?

Enjoy 100% dispatch availability

Enjoy 100% dispatch availability

We logged 300 hours this year with the MU2s, it will likely increase to ~400 hours next year. Thus it's important for us to have a back up. The MU2 is indeed much more reliable compared to pistons twins, but when flying that many hours maintenance issues do show up. This takes the frustration out of downtime as we can be more relaxed when waiting for parts.

That said, do any of us really need an excuse to buy another aeroplane

Hilgard

Justin, you sound like my wife

I casually mentioned that sometime this fall I need to run up to Kansas City and bring home a Farmall C that was my late father's. My brother was fine with me taking it.

My wife asked, don't you already have a Farmall tractor in your shed? I said, well if you want to pick nits, I have 4 Farmall's. This will be 5.

It's baffling to me why people ask silly questions like that.

Justin, you sound like my wife

I casually mentioned that sometime this fall I need to run up to Kansas City and bring home a Farmall C that was my late father's. My brother was fine with me taking it.

My wife asked, don't you already have a Farmall tractor in your shed? I said, well if you want to pick nits, I have 4 Farmall's. This will be 5.

It's baffling to me why people ask silly questions like that.

CapEx/OpEx ratio on these is so low that if you're hitting the hours for the inspections instead of the calendar dates, there's not much downside in having a few (besides dissimilar panels). And with bonus depreciate being back, you're leaving money on the table not to be buying additional business aircraft!

We have two F's and a -10 P model. P model is 300kts for a little more $$

Hilgard

You can operate 2 F's and a -10P for less than a single PC-12 after you pay for the Honeywell avionics program, gold plated Pilatus maintenance, high hull insurance, high taxes etc. That is without taking into consideration the cost of capital. Me thinks you can buy all of these planes and still have 2M+ to invest and fly for "free." The Mits needs an inspection every 100 hours so if you are running 3 of them and you fly 300 hours a year they will all only need an annual... and given the fact that they rarely break in-between inspections each one will only visit the shop once. The Mits is fully supported but if there is a parts backlog you can always cannibalize from one of them and be up and running the same day while you wait for the new part. If you live where Hilgard lives and you have the hangar that Hilgard has it makes perfect sense to me.

Would be mostly true if not for inspection down time. The MU2 inspection interval is 100 hours, 12 months, which is WAY too frequent relative to the robustness of the airplane. The downtime is annoying.

One of the things I enjoy with my Citation is that my inspection program is 450 hours, 3 years, between meaningful inspections. Not having to tear the plane apart every year is great. There is still a 1 year safety inspection, but it takes half a day with no meaningful disassembly.

Mike C.

Hilgard, you are welcome! Glad you are happy with 228WP, we really enjoyed that plane as an entry into the MU2 world. Coming home yesterday at FL260 doing 300KTAS on 70gph was awesome! Got a few minor issues to deal with, but overall, the new one is really nice. Definitely the nicest plane I have ever owned, and the best equipped. Going to take some flying to get used to Garmin avionics vs Avidynes, but that is getting better rapidly. Did my recurrent training early with James on the way home and he was a wealth of information on how to make the best use of the new panel and navigating the few differences in an F vs M model. Felt okay with the new stuff and dropped him off in Fargo before coming home. For those of you considering moving to turbines, these planes are hard to beat.

Jeff Axel
N54PC

Jeff,

I saw your plane flying overhead while at my local dog park in SE PDX, opened Foreflight and saw it was PC. I'm glad you're still in the MU2 world and that I'll get to see an MU2 at HIO. Perhaps you can bring it to Aviation Day at Horizon this coming May and I can look at it up close.

Cheers,

Ethan

Glad you are enjoying the -10. As Mike said 300kts does indeed change your life! And then there is the safety aspect. Like we discussed at PROP, the -10 climbs a lot better in the flight levels compared to an F, having the power to climb through an icing layer is all your wife needed to hear to help you upgrade, I loved that moment

The Garmin avionics is way easier to learn than Avidyne, you will realize that when you move into an Avidyne after a few months again, and have to think first how to do things, not so with the Garmin. They both do the same but the Garmin is much more intuitive.


This cannot be emphasized enough, these are safe, efficient, robust, fast and simply amazing aeroplanes for less than piston twin money.

Hilgard