Saw this on Controller. Was wondering if anyone knows about this conversion.
Looks very interesting even with though the fuel burn looks a bit high.
This is what Beech should have built. I know they built some prototypes like the Harpoon.
How does this plane differ?

Best,
Jeff

https://www.controller.com/listing/for- ... t-aircraft

This one is based on the b55. There are at least a couple of built on p-barons. One sold for 400-450k in 2019 or 2020. Pretty cool. Apparently conversions no longer pass muster under e-ab regs as you can’t count factory parts towards e-ab even if it’s a mix master.

I agree they are awesome. I wish I had bought the p-baron conversion now…

Edited to add: I’ve heard there are something like 4-6 of these in total.

I agree that a 58P would be a better 'donor airframe' for this sort of thing.

There are only a relative handful of planes that started out as piston twin certificated airframes and were converted to SETP experimental amateur built airplanes. The most amazing one I've seen is the one built out of an Aerostar 601P, using a TPE-331 (Garrett/Honeywell) powerplant.

(edit/update) Here's a link, they called it a SpeedStar 850, https://youtu.be/KSoGQJSirLo

Pressurized, fast, robust airframe, experimental rules for maintenance and avionics... wow!

It even comes with an insurance quote!

The wing tip tanks are well named…..

Jim

If the owner of the speedstar 850 ever sees this and wants to sell it, pls PM me, it's pretty much my dream plane

I was the keeper of 1 of the 2 58p Harpoons for about 500 hours. It was a great plane, carried a ton(literally), but not overly fast. I sold it to the guy that has the other 58p, he flys over 500 hours per year and wanted 100% dispatch reliability. Look up N3VV.

Quintin at Turbine power tech has one of the other 55's, and just did an amazing restoration on it, in fact that might actually be his?

I think the 55's would be a good compromise. Quite a bit lower weight and no bleed air pulling power. I would believe those speeds, that's about what Quentin told me he was getting. The 55's are about 2k lbs lighter than the 58p's. When I flew around solo, with half tanks, it was a very fun plane to fly. But mine had a 2500lb useful load, when it was full, it was a pig. 205kts at 17k-FL210. Light I could see 220, occasionally. Plus that engine really doesn't have enough bleed air to pump up a 40 year old leaky cabin past about 15k. It would take the edge off (10k cabin at Fl200) but barely and it was a 5-10ktas penalty.

This one also has more of a pressure recovery cowl than mine had, I have heard that helps quite a bit.

If you are serious, I'll be happy to chat.

Davidson solid rock insurance, they insured mine, it was insured for $500k and was about $8k a year.

if you want to know who owns it etc, talk to Ken Bacon at the Aerostar Owners Association.

he would know the contact.

That was built by Oscar Taylor in Tulsa, OK. He had an other PT6 Aerostar conversion in the making when I last saw him (about 6 years ago), but I think his age might have caught up with him. The SpeedStar was a beautiful build with an oxblood red all-leather interior. Just gorgeous. But the TPE couldn't be mounted far out front enough, so he had to add lead shots in epoxy as a counter-balance in the tail, which made it rather heavy. Still, it would do 300kts, pretty much.

He knew a DER very well in the area who helped him all along the way with compliance - not even sure you could do something like that now.

You must have bought yours (3VV) from Scott D.

The one advertised is Quinton’s. I just looked it over in Deland a couple of days ago. He did a nice job on it it and the cowl is a big improvement. He also installed a large baggage door.

I still have this one for sale

https://motoplaneparts.com/czechmate/

It has a pitot style ram air cowling with inertial separator.