I was initially confused at why they are worth so much, now I am not. Incredible machine.

I was initially confused at why they are worth so much, now I am not. Incredible machine.

Kelly,

Can you provide more detail on this? Why did the TBM cost more to maintain than your Conquest?

Sure, about the TBM. An example, I broke the pilots Rosen Sun Visor. They make the visors for the TBM in Eugene, Oregon and I was 100 miles away in Portland. I called Rosen and they would not sell me a replacement piece of plastic. I am required to order it from France and it took two weeks to get it. The same was for anything else.

The repetitive maintenance was very extensive and at the time, an annual inspection consisted of a 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 hour inspection including total removal of the entire interior. I have been told that that has since been changed however. For the most part my personal opinion is that by design they want all maintenance done at their expensive service locations.

I kept the plane about three years until I got a C510 to replace it.

Our managed tbm 700 has consistently cost more than our mustang, and more than most of our 525s many years.

-The citation jet exchange

A lot has changed in the last 10 years or so. The gear overhaul is now 5000 landings with no hourly or calendar limitations (there are 5 and 10 year inspections which are not bad). The gear actuator overhauls can be done in the US and most are at 7 years.

The only full interior removal is the 8 year structural inspection.

I've done 1 B+ inspection at the service center, and an A+, C+, and 10 year gear myself and it isn't onerous.

Service Center maint is still the most expensive, but Daher makes all the maint manuals/ipc available for free, and most CMMs. Very practical to do the maint outside of the service center network.

Never the less, as Corey stated and I agree, the TBM was more expensive to maintain for us than the C510, the C525, and certainly the C425.

Others may have different experiences of course.

Now all you have to worry about is maintenance induced failures (MIFs) from having a bunch of stuff disassembled.

In my experience with turbine airplanes, MIFs account for about half of all faults. The bigger the inspection, the more disruption, the more chance something is broke afterward. These airplanes tend to stay working if you don't frack with them.

We over inspect our airplanes because OEMs get to force new inspections on us for business reasons and the general assumption that maintenance is a risk free exercise.

In a fit of sanity, Textron allowed me to get a LUMP program (low utilization maintenance program) which doubles my intervals on my Citation. The expected result will be a substantial cost reduction AND an increase in overall reliability.

The 425 and 441 don't need the SIDs. There are still a few flying which haven't done the SIDs (using a maintenance manual revision prior to the SIDs). If doing so is safe, and the FAA says so, then it is safe for everyone else, too.

In the 425 versus 441 debate, the 441 wins, hands down. Burns less fuel on any given trip, goes way faster, costs less to own (particularly for engines), and carries more.

Mike C.

I'm not sure you can make a blanket statement like that, at least on the 425. Prior to 2008 the MX manual for the 425 was much like the one for a 421. Then the SIDs came along and made it more like other turboprops. Did Cessna go overboard? Yes for sure. Are there too many inspections at too frequent intervals? Yes. But here's an example where a turboprop isn't like a piston. One of the SIDs calls for R&Ring the wing deice boots outboard of the nacelles where the wet fuel tanks are located behind the leading edge. At the altitudes where pressurized turboprops fly the fuel gets cold soaked and on descent moisture condenses on any surface that has freezing cold fuel behind it. I've landed and looked under the wings to see it literally raining. The DOM where I take the plane has been working on 425s since they were new. I was complaining about the deice boot SID and he told me that sometimes when they remove the boots and scrape the adhesive off, fuel squirts out of the sheet metal because it's corroded all the way through the leading edge. That being said I think the SID program on the 425 is way too conservative but at least Cessna allows all of them to be done on hours/cycles vs calendar as long as you comply with the calendar based corrosion protection and control program. The CPCP is not too onerous except that the 5 year inspection (phase 61) should have been a 6 year so it lines up with the 2,3,D that gets done every other year. Doing a phase 61 is $2k cheaper when done in conjunction with a 2,3,D as opposed to doing it out of cycle. But like another poster said, there's no SID police. At the end of the day I know a lot of owners do them when and if they make sense, opting to kick the can down the road when the time comes to sell the airplane. I may or may not have pushed phase 61 to line up with my 2,3,D...

They took my boots off. The aluminum was perfect. Does that mean it was never cold in the flight levels? Granted the airplane always lives in a hangar at night. The outcome at least was new shiny boots. I know there are other program options but just complying with the inspections overall are not much different than other turbine powered airplanes that we own or have owned.

We looked at, and made an offer on a 441 in 2016 that had corrosion under the boot on the left leading edge. There was some (ethical) issues with the (now defunct) broker and supposedly a dealer made an offer just before us and he ended up with the airplane. I was told that it's more than likely that the dealer that bought the airplane was going to slap a boot on it and sell it. It did show up on their website shortly thereafter (with a boot on it) for sale and now has a different owner. Based on the discussions I had with two vendors, it's likely that he had enough time to ferry the airplane to a shop and replace the leading edge.... I don't have the data now, but the dimensions were significantly below minimums for being airworthy.

If I were personally going to own a 425/441 for long term, I'd have it on the Low Utilization Program. We elected to keep the once I bought for a customer on the normal SID program as they have thoughts of upgrading to a jet in the somewhat near future. I doubt they will as it doesn't make sense for their operation. It takes a good shop that understands the program to efficiently run the aircraft on the SID program as there are some efficiencies in combining certain SIDS..

More likely it means the last person that did the boots made sure there were no air gaps in the adhesive and installed them properly. I'm only reporting the news. The DOM said he's seen the problem in some airplanes.

Putting some projected costs together for the owners. For you long term 425/441 owners, what are you seeing for annual maintenance costs over a 5 year period?

For the 425, I spend between $100k and $115K annually to fly about 140 hrs on the air hobbs. That number includes absolutely everything (MX, fuel, hangar, insurance, databases, sim training, property tax, etc) but does not include prop or engine reserves. Your average annual MX budget should be about $40k if you throw out the first year or two.

Thanks Scott, that is about what I would expect. Maybe even a bit lower actually.