I can understand that Anthony.
Hook up and fuel at one point, and I’m guessing somewhere out of the way, vice multiple hookups with hose drags and a couple of different chances to bang up the airplane.

Single point attach is below wing and easy to access

You have a single filler cap up high on the fuselage but you have to get a ladder right up against fuselage and the wing is slippery without a mat. That said, it’s still ‘single point” up there and you can fuel it really rapidly.

That and you can get an extra 120 lbs of fuel in the airplane that way. I just have them put a rubber mat on top of the fuselage and position the ladder well. Also, you don't have to be present to attach the battery so the fuel interconnect valve switch can be turned on. It flows by gravity naturally to all tanks and you can have the plane fueled before you get to the airport.

I dont use the SP at all .... its a pain in the ass, its slow and you cant fill the airplane totally.

Just anecdotal but I asked the line guys yesterday if single point was faster or slower and they said "about the same". These particular guys fuel Avanti's at KVRS a number of times each week. They said on CJ's SP is definitely faster. I wonder if the tank arrangement on the Avanti has anything to do with it not being faster. We were only fueling to just under 2,000 pounds each time for W&B as it was just two of us. Awesome to have a choice.

It’s due to venting and how the sp system connects into everything. Take it apart and it makes sense it’s slow.

Mark - not recommended but the same reason the gravity feed works without interconnect the single point will too. You just have to do a top off. There is a hole near top of venter tank. It fills to there then flows over to other side.

I believe POH recommends opening interconnect for both. Partial fueling if the ramp has any slope can be an issue. More than once I have had to drag plane to level to let fuel balance more before start. I top off 90% of the time so it’s not a big deal. Benefit to big full fuel payload!

True.

The single point refueling circuitry will cut off at the truck though before it goes "over the top". At least Million Air here at Addison's truck does...maybe it senses the fill and has an internal shut off? I have not tried at other locations. This may be a function of the fueling truck they use...

The fuel cap method has no such issue obviously.

It has a little float that does the shutting off. Power is only required to test it.

That said, you are right on adding more from top cap. Probably going to switch to that.

Nice breeze heading east today.

Started training in a P180II yesterday and today. Long days as I drove to and from Tulsa but it was a lot of fun!

I've heard taxiing the P180 is challenging. I did not find that to be the case but it is weird. You push a button to give you take off steering and push again to give taxi steering. Other than that I found it easier to control speed of taxi than the TBM. You are lower to the ground with virtually nothing out front so if feels a bit go kart like. On take off and landing that button is one more thing to remember!

Started with air work of course both days. The sight picture I find a bit weird in turns nailing them today was not hard. Stalls are very benign and you see them coming for a looong time. There's the aural and flashing light annunciation, a very pronounced airframe buffet and finally an actual stall.

We did a fair amount of pattern work yesterday afternoon. After a few patterns it felt fairly comfortable. It is awesome to be trimming like crazy just after take off and still hit 200 by the crosswind turn. Downwind at 180 blows by pretty quickly and I'm impressed with how well the plane handles.

The toughest thing on day one, apart from being painfully slow on checklists while hunting for switches, was PL21. I took a worthless Collins course on the FMS 3000 and read the AFM and Collins book but it doesn't prepare you for how to work the AP or where the heck information is or how to program. Figuring that out while flying like a bat out of hell was a challenge. The Avanti is damned fast even when it's relatively slow.

Today the airwork was much better. But I was in bewilder mode trying to fly an ILS then RNAV approach, run radios, etc. The morning was a bit frustrating just looking for things and trying to maintain SA with an unfamiliar set up. In the afternoon we flew a couple of other approaches after a better briefing job, and doing them in the system and it went much better. I'm looking forward to the procedures sim at Flight Safety.

Overall first impressions are that the cockpit is comfy, the systems are logical and make sense, it flies beautifully and is easy to fly by hand (if you watch climb rate like a hawk in the terminal area), is fast ("Piaggio XXX what is your minimum approach speed? You are overtaking the Piper by 150 knots" ). I did miss the torque limiter in the TBM and need to do a better job of watching that. Loved flying the plane.

I pick mine up from ICJS Thursday and head out on a long cross country with several days of training flying after that next weekend. Can't wait!

Great pirep and glad you are enjoying it so far!

Tony, where are you training and do they provide aircraft? I always wanted to get checked out in it, but never found anyone who could do training except in your own aircraft.

We fueled at KPWA using SP and only got 2650 pounds on board this morning. I didn't know that until we were starting up and my instructor said that was all the truck could get it to take. He'd fueled in Tulsa earlier in the morning and got a full 2800 pound load.

That doesn't matter until it does. It mattered today as we couldn't make it to KWVI against the 50-70 knot winds even pulling the power back. Landed 100 miles short at KFAT for inexpensive (relatively) fuel with a bit over 500 pounds. With the extra 150 we missed in OKC we'd have made it non stop.

Still, it was an interesting experiment in maxxing range and going 340 knots true burning about 450 lbs/hr.

This was my first cross country and flew close to 5 hours all in at a 5k cabin altitude at FL380. Quiet, vibration free and low cabin meant I was a lot less tired than I typically was doing this trip in the TBM.

We fueled at KPWA using SP and only got 2650 pounds on board this morning. I didn't know that until we were starting up and my instructor said that was all the truck could get it to take. He'd fueled in Tulsa earlier in the morning and got a full 2800 pound load.

That doesn't matter until it does. It mattered today as we couldn't make it to KWVI against the 50-70 knot winds even pulling the power back. Landed 100 miles short at KFAT for inexpensive (relatively) fuel with a bit over 500 pounds. With the extra 150 we missed in OKC we'd have made it non stop.

Still, it was an interesting experiment in maxxing range and going 340 knots true burning about 450 lbs/hr.

This was my first cross country and flew close to 5 hours all in at a 5k cabin altitude at FL380. Quiet, vibration free and low cabin meant I was a lot less tired than I typically was doing this trip in the TBM.

Hi,

Can anyone post their cost for the engine overhaul for Avanti and where they got it done? My quotes are all over the place from 700k to 1.5m for both engines.

Seems crazy these quotes are so high before they even get into it.

If anyone else has real world numbers for these engines it would be much appreciated.

The big block PT6's tend to be at least 350K/side, often more. I did extensive research when I was looking and the pricing was all over the place like you mentioned, but never below $700K.

Agreed, 700k seems to be a baseline for a pair of big bore PT6's.