It could have been the 10 yr. inspection. It is not an AD.

An annual on a 421 can easily go beyond $15k.

At 15 or 20k hours TTAF there is a major inspection. The local 135 operator has to do one of those every couple of years on one of his 6 freighters. Most of the passenger models for sale dont have those high hours.

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood you.

The airplane I am buying will never see 15k hrs. while I own it.

While technically true, that does gloss over the propeller AD on the 4 blade machines. An every 5 year inspection is required that is very close to an overhaul. Many operators have been overhauling while they were in there or because Hartzell required it. Turns out the blade grinding will take the ($10K each) blades beyond spec after 3 cycles. Some ships have been seeing $80K bills to overhaul two props if most of the blades have to be replaced.

There are ways around this now that people are figuring out that overhaul (i.e. grinding blades) is neither required by the AD nor advisable and there is an AMOC that allows every 7 year inspection.

Few in corporate or private use will.

I believe there is one 36 month item, iirc it is the rigging of the flap mechanism. Everything else is pretty much hourly based.

The biggies I was told are the 4-blade Hartzell props and something about some gear in the -10 engines. Some of the older short-bodies have 3-blade props that are not affected by the prop AD, but you may go deaf from the increased noise .

Florian,

I flew a couple MU-2's with average airframe time of around 18,000 hrs. The fleet flew Monday thru Thursday night. Most nights, weather was never our cancelling factor, what was the availability of de-ice trucks @ DFW, TUL, LIT and ATL. We use to joke that DFW center used us to test the lines of weather for airliners arriving in SAT, HOU, DFW, TUL and most of central TX. Call sign has been changed from Central stage to Roughrider.

The airframe inspections are very straight forward MHI planned the program out to 25K hours. The fleet high time airframe in 2001 was N54US with 23K. I believe TAS bought her and parted her out.

The torque sensor has a high speed gear that's been modified on most of the fleet. If it fails you lose the fuel pump and the engine shuts down in the blink of an eye. The FCU has a spline AD, the cure was worse than the problem.

Right now the biggest issue is the Hartzell inspection requirements but MT has come out with a 5 blade prop in conjunction with Air 1st, who bought all the assets and MHI stock of the company I flew for. They also have our P model for sale it has first run blades and hubs done in 1998. Our shop had local authorization to do the inspection for corrosion we split the hubs every 5 years a IRAN but we never let anyone shave the blades.

Tom, congrats in your purchase! Hope you enjoy the Mits as much as we did.

Regards,

Nigel

A couple main categories have some influence:
- Long body (e.g. Marquise) vs short body (e.g. Solitaire)
- -10 engines versus not (1979 or so with Solitaire and Marquise was beginning of -10 engines from the factory, but there are retrofits for the older models)

The short body will have more range than the long, due to hauling around less weight (slightly less horsepower since the engines are derated further). The -10 engines will have better range than older engines, generally, due to better altitude performance. A few of the older airframes appear on paper to lose range due to the horsepower increase of the -10 versus older engines, but generally that's also because you get there faster. If you pull a -10 engined airplane back to its original speed, I think you don't lose range (and maybe gain a little).

All that said, 1000nm is comfortable for most models, though long bodies might be on the margin. I have heard people say the Solitaire has a range of 1,500nm but in my opinion they are smoking something. I think a realistic max range on my Solitaire is 1,200nm with legal reserves, but probably 1,100nm with slightly more comfortable reserves.


No.


Main repetitive parts of the inspection program:
- 100 hour/1 year
- 200 hour/1 year (adds just a few items to the 100 hour)
- 600 hour/3 year (more like scope of a full annual in the piston world)

There are also items at 1,200, 1,800, 7,500, etc. There are a few 10 year items (notably change all hoses). There is a 5 year item for changing the oil in the ACM, I believe. Some others. But the 100/200/1 year and the 600/3 year are the ones that have the most repetitive effect.

In general the maintenance program is not that onerous compared to most airframes in the peer group. That said, it is still a 30+ year old twin turbine!

John
Buy the hangar and get a TBM.

Thank you Nigel! I am sure I will!

Is there a full motion MU2 simulator?
How about a twin commander?

Yes on TC. Simuflite Dallas.

No for the MU2.

Not full motion, but Simcom Orlando has good MU2 sims with high res visuals, which I find more effective than full motion anyway.

Update

I considered a number of airplanes and I came back to the Commander. I found a very nice dash10 690B with new paint & interior, dual GTN 750's and a G600. I got a thumbs up from my finance guy, my insurance guy, my business partner, my hangar guy, my wife (buying her a new car this weekend so that we both get something!) and the maintenance shop where the airplane is being worked on (I know these guys (they are great) - same people who did Russ D's 55 panel)

I'll make an offer on the airplane this weekend and if it get accepted we will probably close in 2-3 weeks. Next up, will be selling the baron and going to school to learn to fly a Commander.

Awesome. Welcome to the club!

Ain't no thang to fly. Easier than the Baron.