I've only owned Beech products until buying a Cessna turbine product recently. I find the Cessna product equally well made. A friend showed up this weekend with a Cessna 310 and I compared the build quality to a Baron. Not bad. Metal work seemed good, fit and finish not bad. Stock interiors on either plane not so great. Is this a myth that Beech products are better than all others. I think it might be a myth?

Compare the empty weight of a 310 to a Baron; a Conquest 1 425 to a KA90; a 441 to a KA200; the Beech all are significantly heavier. By hundreds of pounds. Why? Difference in strength and quality?

Myth.

I own a Cessna 310. It is a much better engineered airplane than the Baron in many ways.

Despite having a cabin 7-8 inches wider (and significantly bigger internal room) the cruise speeds and stalls speeds are similar, as well as cost to keep either running.

Comparing the Cessna vs Beech pressurized twins, it isn't really a comparison. The cessna twins were designed from the ground up be twin engine aircraft vs shoe-horning an extra engine, bigger winds and empanage on an already tight single engine airplane design.

The Cessna line of piston twins C-340, C-340A, C-414, C-414A, C-421 are THE epitome of GA pressurized piston planes.

Cessna aircraft are efficient, aerodynamic and well built...don't believe the hype.

So a high empty weight is a desirable quality in an aircraft? Adam Aircraft must have had some amazing engineers. Didn't their aircraft come out so have that the full fuel useful load was a negative number

It’s a myth... and it’s a valid difference.

Both manufacturers make strong, well built aircraft. A poor design wouldn’t make it as far as the Cessna 1XX series planes have. And the Baron/310 are also proven designs that are made for the long haul.

Designing a light aircraft is an art of balancing the desired parameters around tooling/manufacturing costs, and the final sales price/profitability.

The Beechcraft Bonanza is probably the easiest to point to and describe it “superior” aspects compared to its competitors. With the Baron, it’s competition is much closer to its own strong suits. The further up the food chain you get, the more level the build quality will be. The biggest difference between models and manufacturers is now with the initial design and marketing plans.

OMG... Dude, you just farted in church!!

OMG... Dude, you just farted in church!!

Cessna equal smoking rivets. Multiple cracks in places for no good reason other than it seems no one paid any attention to resonance issues?

Cessna design can be very brilliant. From the strut braced wings, to the protected fuel vents, clean nacelles, 182 wing, best pressurized twins, and the original 310.

My Beech is 37 years old. Hard to find one smoking rivet. Skins tight. Just more attention to detail. Someone thought through a lot of things including sound, Flight characteristics, and seat comfort.

Both brands have their lemons.

It's an odd feeling... I have flown a bunch in C310 and B58s, I feel like you sit on a 310 and snuggly in a Baron. They are both good platforms, but I really felt like I was in the Baron.

I really liked the 425, If I won the lotto, I would find a 425 ahead of a 90 for a family truckster.

The 525c was great to fly, It would take a hell of a lotto win to go there.

I liked the Deb and the 36 Bonanzas...( never flew a V tail , don't tell anyone)

The only reason I brought this up is that there's a nice 310 turbo sitting at my house and I've never once considered buying a Cessna or poked around a twin Cessna closely. However, after examining it closely, it looks like a really nice machine. I totally reversed my thinking on Cessna products.

There are flight school 172's with 20,000 hours. You don't get there without a robust design and quality. As a counter example, I have worked on an experimental sheet metal LSA with a friend. No way in heck will that get even 5000 hours. It would shake itself to death before then.

Any of the highly produced GA designs are good ones. By the time they made my Bonanza at s/n 8412 at year 20 of production, they had the bugs worked out. Same for the popular Pipers, Cessnas, etc. Things that were flimsy or would crack or were hard to maintain were resdesigned.

Factories that crank out 500 airplanes a year have enough volume to get very good at making the planes. Much harder to do when a few workers make a few planes a year, and nobody is super proficient at any particular step.

Cirrus just passed five thousand planes delivered. Ill bet the build quality is much better now than in the early years when the doors wouldn't close and the nosewheels would shake like a wet dog.

Oh good lord no. If you're a Cessna single engine owner and I say seat rails, shimmy dampeners or engine cowling you just got a shudder. You know how bad these are. Cessna paid to install a seat belt, for the seat itself for gods sake, because they couldn't make a seat rail that would hold the seat. There are any number of aftermarket seat stops as well.

I have never had a real preference for one brand over another, in anything, including airplanes. Over the years I have owned most of the offerings from the major manufacturers and for the most part feel they are equally well designed.

Yes, each company seem to have had a design issue with one component or another that the others didn't. I have often wondered why they simply didn't just copy what worked with the other guys instead of re-inventing the wheel? For the SE Cessna line, the nose gear and seat rails are a weak link. For Beech the choice of magnesium for skins and the abhorrent mess they called instrument panel/cockpit layout that continued for years after the rest of the industry figured it out. Want a shitty cowling?? Find an old Mooney or Lake! No company was immune from the occasional design turkey.

I see posts about Cessna's poor build quality with smoking rivets, etc. Utter BS!! I inherited a 170B from my father with over 18,000 hours of hard Alaska flying, no paved airport to paved airport stuff. No smoking rivets and the original cowling. Same for Piper, there are Navajos and the Cherokee 6's still working in AK today that have passed the 30K hour make. You don't get that kind of service out of a poorly designed/built airplane.

Beech builds good stuff, I have owned their products for a number of years. The C45H is closing in on 28K hours and going strong, I expect it to last at least another 10K hours. But to say that the other manufacture's offerings are inherently inferior is simply untrue.

My personal vote for the company to produce the best built SE airplane? No question, North American Aviation.

As a side note, if weight equates to quality, go to the "Show us your Cat" thread and check out my "high-quality" cat!!

Jeff

For me it comes down to high wing vs low wing. In a low wing I feel like I am driving down the highway with nothing to see. In a high wing I feel like I am flying with the entire world below me.

Vince

Oh, if that is the measure, then I have a bunch of G650s laying about my house.