But not in getting in.

Getting IN is not a problem for 3,000 ft or even less. Landing my 601P seldom needs any braking at all until the last 20 kts. Full flap on landing, then you plant the nose and start pulling the yoke back. It should be full back throughput the roll-out and brakes are usually not needed.

You have full flap, gear down, fine pitch on the props, and the elevator is fully displaced against the weight on the nose wheel. Stops quickly and smoothly. Last 20 kts at the turn-off | use braking if needed.

Takeoff heavy on a 601P needs management until the gear is up. Blue line, flaps retract and you get 1,500 fpm or more fully loaded. 700 is even better. Winglets help a lot on the 601 and are relatively cheap.

Bob

Just thought I'd throw in a cool paint scheme on an Aerostar my buddy snapped some photos of in Birmingham AL.

Apparently someone disagrees. Of course they don't have the stones to say why.

That's Aerostar Owner Association's president Ken Bacon's plane.

That's Aerostar Owner Association's president Ken Bacon's plane.

Not sure what the dislike is all about, must be the reference to relitive cheap winglets??? I found the post to be pretty much spot on.

I fly my 601P out of a 2200'/1860 msl air park in AZ. I go in and out light and pay a bit more attention to airspeed control than normal, but the airplane handles it fine.

Jeff

Dislikes are just "an opinion" - often from someone who has never flown an Aerostar. I lump that into the who cares category.

I agree that very light loads going out make a short TO possible but, I like a balanced field. I only aborted a takeoff once and made the 3,500 ft exit - but I aborted way below V1 / VR. AT that speed - every second is 150 feet you won't get back. So a 2-second decision cycle means 300 feet off the end. Learn to decide fast.

Bob

There is a bit more answer as to why I was descending so fast.
I wanted to see how much usable fuel my bird had in the wings. I have the auxiliary tank and have used it several times so far. It pumps 1.5 GPM. Circling within ten miles of the airport at 12,000 feet I wanted to see the fuel light come on...once. I had around twenty gallons in my aux tank and activated the pump after the low fuel light came on then began descent to airport. The low fuel warning light went off within a minute or so since the aux tank had pumped the main back over twelve gallons.
I put just over 67 gallons in each wing.
67+67+42+15+45= a bit more than two hours of flight

Brad, as you know the fuel warning comes on when there's 12gal left in main tank. In my experience the Aerostars, rightly calibrated, have some of the most accurate fuel gauges I've ever encountered. In fact, they were so accurate that I could see if plane wasn't level or flying dirty before I could see it on the ball.

I'm sure you already know this, but the engines burns 4gal out of the wing for every 1gal they take from main. This ensures the wings burn down to empty before main - it's a wonderfully simple system that needs almost no attention. Ted Smith always made brilliantly simple fuel systems. Only time you need to cross feed ever, and lock out the main tank, is if you have imbalance or a venting problem. There were a lot of accidents in the beginning because people didn't understand just how simple this fuel system is and were flying in double cross feed etc to "save" the main tank. They carried the run-dry-and-switch-tank-mentality over from other aircraft. You literally don't need to do a thing on an Aerostar - set it and forget it.

Adam - I've been looking for that ratio forever and just wasn't asking the right folks apparently! So 4 to 1... I assume that's "4 total" to 1? So 2 per wing tank to each gallon in the fuselage? How about the common head level of the fuselage (i.e. if you start with all 3 full, at what level in the fuselage do you start to draw from the wings?

I guess I probably could gotten there myself eventually doing all the tracking and math.

btw.... I have joined you in slumming it in the turboprop world, but that's another thread....

Steve, as I've been told, and put another way, the left engine will take 75% out of left wing and 25% gal from main. Right engine will take 75% of right wing and 25% out of main. It's not both wing tanks combined, but individually.

What turbine did you buy??

Educate me, I thought in my dads 601P the both engines fed from the main/
Fuselage tank and the wings fed the main tank, unless in cross feed?

It's hard to explain without the diagram, but super easy to understand once you see the picture. Each engine drinks from its own wing and the fuselage tank. The engine cannot drink directly from the opposite wing tank unless in crossfeed, in which case that's the only tank it's drinking from.

The fuselage tank will feed in all attitudes until empty, the wings will not - so the fuselage acts like a header tank when the wings are low.

A Cheyenne II.... which I love, but to be honest I still have Turbo Commander Envy !!