I think the main point here is having a good shop on your field. That's the difference between a convenient, no hassle ownership experience and one where you're endlessly running the airplane back and forth to a qualified shop to work on the squawks. Unfortunately, the mechanics I have here on the field are nowhere near qualified to work on 4XX series Cessnas, so I would likely be subject to the endless mx flights from what I'm gathering. That would drive me bonkers.

Excellent feedback. Thanks much Gerald.

Don you are close to the 421 savants at
http://www.tas-aviation.com/index

That might make things tolerable. Do 100 hour inspections there and have Tony talk your home guys through the rest. Specialty shops generally offer pickup service on the plane too. There's a lot of stuff (oil changes, alternator, CHT leads, etc) that a typical A&P can do just fine on a 421.

Yes - I've heard that Charles. I understand Tony is Mr. Cessna Twin guru of N. America. If they do pick up service, it would certainly make the prospect of regular MX that much more tolerable.

What an incredibly useful thread. I am just looking at exiting a partnership in my 414A, am going to look at buying one of my own, and wanted to look seriously at the 421C. Thanks for posting such sobering but useful information.

I've been very happy with our 414A, but after discussion with a couple of 421 owners, i wanted to revisit my thinking earlier about avoiding the 421C around engine issues.

I think i am going to add the 421C to my shopping list. Yes, Dan's postings are very sobering, but nothing in there that was surprising.

Can anyone recommend a good pre-buy shop for 421s on the east coast?

dan

Dan - I believe TAS (Tony Saxton) and for sure DFWAM (Juan Oviedo) will travel with their inspection team/mechanics to where the airplane is and perform a pre-buy for you (unless of course, it is close (1 hour) and convenient to their shop). Talk to them and see how they can help you. Juan will even relocate the aircraft for you after you close. I am partial to DFWAM because I have worked with them for a while and they have been honest, knowledgeable and will bend over backwards to keep me in the air. That does not mean Tony's shop wouldn't do the same - I just have never worked with them.

Depending on your knowledge of the market/aircraft, I would also recommend enlisting the help of a knowledgeable broker like Jerry Temple or someone like him.

Good luck if you do decide to buy a new (to you) plane.

After spending a weekend with Tony, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better Twin Cessna tech.

Alex,

Excellent advice. I'll explore further. Thank you!

Dan

Tony Saxton is the Twin Cessna guru of the world, not just North America.

To expand on my prior post, I have found that my involvement in maintenance does not save me appreciable money. Whatever I save by reducing my mechanics' hours, I inevitably offset by increasing the scope of the work, i.e. wanting to perform the job in a way that is not customary or finding other things in the vicinity that I want improved.

For all of my maintenance expense, my plane is remarkably reliable. In ten years, I have been stranded or needed maintenance away from home base about 5 times:
1. electric starter failure
2. electric starter failure (both of these were Kelly)
3. leaking oil pressure transducer
4. bad spark plug
5. heater igniter


I have had the following failures returning to home base or leaving home base:
1. manifold pressure sensor erratic
2. Alternator wire broken
3. cracked drain line on fuel spider
4. fuel flow transducer failure
5. leaking brake line with brake failure on that side
6. leaking NLG hydraulic line (enough to empty the hyd reservoir with 5 minutes of taxi time after landing).
7. Nose strut deflated on landing
8. HSI failure


Some examples of inflight failures that left the plane flyable with some operational restrictions:
1. air conditioning compressor belt
2. air conditioning blower motor for the condenser
3. prop deice timer
4. prop deice leads on one side
5. rapid decompression when at 15,000'.
6. Rapid decompression FL210.
7-8. A couple of heater problems.
9. wire to deice boot solenoid valve


The above list is obviously not anywhere near my expansive 10-year squawk list, but I think it is reasonably small for a list of unscheduled squawks that had operational significance.

For the squawks away from home base, only 2 caused delay (both starters) to my travel plans. The others were addressed without changing my departure plans.

For the squawks leaving/arriving home base, only one caused a delay to a scheduled trip: a new fuel drain line delayed a departure for an hour or two.

Note there is nothing on my list that applies only to a 421C and not a 414A.

In terms of 421C specific maintenance, the only special area of concern is the starter adapters/shimmy dampers. These require a very quick and simple backlash check every 100 hours. Every 400 hours, they have to be removed from the engine to inspect the gears for wear. My experience is that starter adaptors will need to be replaced once midway through the engine TBO cycle. Part # is EQ6642R, about $4k each - not much in the overall scheme of things.

I plead guilty to being sober. Mark (OP) had the misfortune of meeting me at the St. Louis WXBrief class and can confirm my sobriety.

I am willing to share costs with Twin Cessna prospects who PM me.

I hope I am not violating any BT rules by denigrating the class of airplanes that encompasses my own (pressurized piston twins), but you really have to be dedicated to own one of these. For someone looking to take the 414A or 421C plunge despite the big picture responsibilities, my advice is 421C.

I'd like to add to Mr. Herr's sobriety check on Twin Cessna ownership. I'm entering my second year with a 414A RAM 7 with winglets and hubcaps. I won't go in to why I chose the 414A over the 421C because I believe in an aircraft review, some things are more important to some people and some things are less consequential, but I am happy with my choice.

However, what I would like to add to the discussion is not so much the complexity of maintenance and ownership, but the complexity of flying the airplane compared to my Baron, particularly when it comes to engine and system failures.

I just finished my three-day recurrent training at SIMCOM in Dallas. While I feel that three days is overkill, I can't say it wasn't good to refresh my memory of all those systems. Here's a list of some of the more important:

Fuel System
Hydraulic System
Environmental System
Pressurization System
De-ice System
Electrical System

While most aircraft have fuel systems and electrical systems, it's much more important to have a good mental picture of those systems while flying at FL230...in December...at night...in a 33 year-old airplane...when you get an amber light on your annunciator panel...with your family on board. I won't say it's a difficult plane to fly, but to fly it properly you pretty much have to know how to build one without instructions. If you don't stay dedicated to maintaining proficiency, some day it could sure jump up and bite.

When I was working through my five-day initial check-out a year ago my instructor explained the "aircraft complexity mountain" (my phrase, not his). As you move up in aircraft complexity from fixed gear to retract, single to twin, non-pressurized to pressurized, the pilot workload increases. But once you crest over that hill and move in to turbine world, the complexity of flying the aircraft begins to decrease. Turbines vs. pistons, props vs. fans, brings back a certain simplicity. Which pretty much means that a pressurized Twin Cessna, and quite possibly the 414, is about the most complex airplane you can fly (although I'm sure there are exceptions).

Having a clear understanding of this before diving into Twin Cessna ownership is a prerequisite to a good ownership experience.

Reviving this old thread as I'm now contemplating 414A or 421C plus a few others. Anyone else echo Gerald's costs here? These are surprisingly manageable for me.

His numbers match up with the twin cessna flyers survey. But the costs are lumpy. And there are a lot of doo-dads that will kill $1000 here and there.

That seems high to me if DOC means fuel and maintenance (that is, not insurance, hangar, etc).

45 GPH of 100LL is about $200/hr, so that leaves $400 for maintenance. I don't think it will take that much, even if you include engine reserve (~$80/hr give or take).

Mike C.

I just don't get why someone would want a 414 over a 421. But that being said I have had my 421 going on 16 years. Just my thoughts. I liked reading the above post from 2014. You really have to be dedicated to own one of these. That is the truth. Anymore I would not recommend a twin Cessna to most pilots I know. Too much stuff that can break. Go P Baron or skip the rest and go to turbine.

Mike the 600 per hour DOC does include hangar and insurance but nothing for finance costs or depreciation.