Hey Ken welcome to BT! Cool paint job.

Thanks, I don't usually lose it in a crowd.
Fly Safe!
Ken

There must be a story behind that paint scheme; do tell.

The paint scheme was my request to an artist friend. I told him every airplane I have owned has stripes from the front to the back. Could you come up with something different.

Lloyd agreed and came back in a couple of days with several designs. This one was the winner. Lloyd had a picture of the space shuttle re-entering the earths atmosphere. The squares on the shuttle were glowing red to orange to yellow to blue etc. due to heat.

For my plane, Lloyd reversed the idea of squares so they are blowing off due to excessive speed.

The plane was painted (1996) in Ada, OK by Red Bren. He has quite an attention to detail.
Red was given a two dimensional drawning to create a paint job on a three dimensional object. Red retired six months after painting my Aerostar.

Fly Safe!
Ken

Pretty cool. Though I have to admit my first reaction was that it looks like the holodeck in the starship Enterprise...

Beechtalk helps sell another Aerostar. We closed yesterday on a 1978 601p.

Nice looking bird!

Congrats!

I stepped up from an old Commander to a 601P and the main reasons for me were:

Economy. The Aerostar low drag makes it fast, but it also means it's economical when you pull back. For me these were the most important factors: I wanted economical twin redundancy and I wanted long range capability. It goes 60kts faster than my old Commander on the same fuel burn. And if I really want to go long distance, the POH shows 10.4gal/hr at 25K doing 184KTAS. That's less than 21gal/hr total ROP, could be even less at LOP. A Malibu/Meridian/Matrix would show that burn just trying to keep up...

Support. Aerostars are also well supported aircrafts, thanks to Aerostar Aircraft Inc in Idaho. They continually develop modifications and improvements for the aircraft. This means I can grow with the aircraft and make it adapt to my needs. I have a ruinous list of improvements I want to do.

Design. I'm an old high wing guy, so I like seeing the ground and both the Commander and the Aerostar has the wing behind the cockpit window, giving a great view below. I love the eyebrow windows on the top, as they give me the opportunity to spot traffic above me, although they make the cockpit a sweat box at times.

Structural integrity. Aerostars were designed to be jets originally, so the structural integrity is impeccable. The tail was stressed to 14G before it broke during certification. The main wing to well over 6G. And it has 3 main spars in it. Not only that, the surface skins on the wings are almost 3 times thicker than on normal spam cans. As far as I know there has only been one in-flight structural failure in an Aerostar recorded, so I feel much safer should I ever encounter really bad turbulence, icing or (god forbid) a thunderstorm cell.

Those are the main reasons. There are some tradeoffs, though.

Tradeoff 1. They need a lot more rwy than the Commanders. In fact at home airport, I could be between 700-900ft in altitude in a Vx climb with the old Commander as the rwy end slipped beneath the airplane. Forget that in an Aerostar. As they rotate, they have this mushy, shallow climb that takes some getting used to. That wing doesn't like to fly slow and it becomes an effort in getting rid of drag quickly to get to a speed where it likes to climb, which is around 117kts. By the time the rwy end slips beneath me in the Aerostar, I'm barely at 4-500ft. Naturlally, this could have something to do with the old engines she came with, but looking at other 601P's taking off, I can't say they look much different. After 117kts, the wing climbs great and you easily see 1500ft/min, but it's just that mushy transition period between rotation and 110-120kts. It's designed to go fast, not takeoff fast.

Tradeoff 2. I will also miss going into smaller grass fields, camping etc and all that stuff I used to do with the Commander. It's still possible to go into a grass field, but it has to be long and it has to be smooth or else you might end up breaking stuff. The bush aspect is gone, if you wish.

Looks. Lastly, I don't think the Aerostar looks that good in normal paint schemes, to be honest. That wasn't one of the reasons I wanted one. That bulby, pointy nose doesn't lend itself to horizontal lines and dividing paint schemes. And to be honest, that's 99% of the paint jobs out there, including mine. Another board member here has the right idea when it comes to paint schemes for the Aerostar, I think. This swoosh thing works really well on its lines:

Hate to tell you a Malibu will do 190 KTAS at 25K on 12gph. See attached

Charles,

POH are often as influenced by the marketing department as the engineering department. The numbers in the Aerostar POH have been generally found to be reliable especially for those of us with relatively minor (??) modification such a inter-coolers and GAMI injectors.

A lot of factors affect actual performance but has anybody here actually seen a Malibu (modified any way you want) do 190KTAS on 12.5GPH?

Glenn
P.S. Adam...welcome to the Aerostar contingent here at Beechtalk. As you know the Aerostar forums are great, Beechtalk is as well but with a lot more activity.

Adam,

I'm not sure from your post whose airplane you posted but it's beautiful!

No, but I've seen a little over 200 at 14GPH in my totally stock Malibu. I have every expectation I'd have seen 190/12 if I throttled back to that.

These are not crazy numbers. The POH shows 135 KTAS at sea level on 55% power. That's not unreasonable. Gain 2.4kts/1000' and you get 190 @ FL250. The numbers just look high because we're not used to seeing typical single engine performance extrapolated to FL250.

The Malibu is as efficient an airplane as you could hope to find. The wing was designed for high altitude. Not to say it's the best plane, but if you want to travel a long way on a little gas, it is astoundingly efficient.

I don't doubt that Charles. The Malibu looks like a slick and efficient airframe. I just threw that number out there from second hand info. :thumb up:

Thanks Glenn!

(190/200)^3*14 = 12

If you assume:
Power is proportional to fuel.
Speed is proportional to cube root of power.
Efficiency stays constant across such a small airspeed/AoA change.

Unsurprisingly, your math checks out to 4 significant figures.

No, but I've seen a little over 200 at 14GPH in my totally stock Malibu. I have every expectation I'd have seen 190/12 if I throttled back to that.
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