Helping a close family friend find the right airplane for his mission.

Looking to go from New England to S. Florida in 1 stop.
Flown about 100-125hrs/yr.

I’ve run numbers on the costs of a Malibu/Mirage and seems more than doable. Just wanted to see if anybody with Meridian experience thinks a 1 stop would be possible southbound in the winter with the Meridian/jetprop.

Any and all info is greatly appreciated and thank you in advance!

Depends on the city pair and winds. Boston to miami is over 1800 nm. That is one stop with a light tailwind at reasonable cruise speeds. But not going to make one stop headwind. The Mirage more likely to make that 1 stop, but given the choice of the turbine vs piston might lean towards the turbine if cost is no option. The Meridian is an easy real world 800 nm plane with IFR no alternate reserves. To get more than that you need to pull the power back or have a little help from the winds.

Dr Ivester, always enjoy your posts, enjoy learning about the PA46T, would like one.

Where are you coming up with 1800 nm on that route? Even with crummy ATC routing and avoiding blue water, I’m having a hard time coming up with anything over 1200.

I ask not to nit, but because the Meridian might in fact do a great job fulfilling the OP’s mission. Of course, I could be missing something re: distance - if so, please call me out.

Charles, it would be from Boston to the Palm Beach/Fort Lauderdale area. With a stop in Wilmington, NC and using over land routing on the leg to FL, I’m showing about 1150nm.

Also, money is a factor. I believe I have gotten together somewhat realistic if not conservative values for the operating cost of a Mirage. I haven’t dug as much into the Meridian/jetprop as I wasn’t sure it could do the mission. Do you have a rough idea how much more per hour i should anticipate over the Mirage?

If you’d be willing to take a look, I’d be more than happy to send you the numbers I came up with for the Mirage. Just want to make sure I’m at least in the ballpark.

At 100-125 hours, fixed costs and luck are going to dominate the discussion. Interest, Insurance, Hangar, subscriptions/training will be a large if not dominant part of total cost.

On the maintenance side ... it'll be 500 hours at least before bad luck or good luck years even out a bit. 15 years ago, the windshield was a $20k part that required 100 hours to R&R and had a reputation for short service life. Regardless of which plane costs more, unlucky cheap is gonna hurt more than lucky expensive.

How much is cost of capital a consideration? That alone will be a couple hundred dollars/hour more for a Meridian at that use rate. ($500K delta at 5% = $25K = $200/hr)

My recommendation (biased by having owned a 1986 Malibu) is to get a continental powered Malibu with 140 gal fuel tanks. Couple reasons

1) It will make that route nonstop if desired, over land, with ATC (yes really - 10-15 nmpg)

2) 15,000-FL210 is the sweet spot for Malibu. Also the sweet spot for east coast ATC. 180-190 you can fly right over JFK and DCA and nobody cares. You get dropped to 7000 50nm before fll your fuel burn goes down not up. The turboprop soft spots align with ATC practice for the route.

3) Cost - not familiar with the market now, but figure $500-$1000K more for a meridian than an older Malibu. Cost of capital and insurance will totally dominate your outlay. FBO costs for piston vs turboprop in south FL can be significant as well.

Regarding maintenance costs - a Malibu is not cheap. It's basically a Cessna 340 minus one engine and prop but still has all the engine accessories, boots, heated doodads that cost INSANE prices. People try to compare to a bonanza, but it 1) has a lot more stuff 2) doesn't share parts with anything cheap or common or older.

On the meridian maintenance, the market for newer planes at one point strongly favored maintenance that had been done according to non-regulatory factory recommendations - all service bulletins complied, flux capacitor replaced at 6 years even though it worked fine, etc. That is an X factor to consider. I don't know if the early meridian market now accepts maintenance perfomed to FAA requirements only as acceptable.

Jetprops and Meridians - you'd think they're similar. They aren't. Think PC vs Mac (jetprop is pc). Too much to type here - join MMOPA it's worth the $$. I personally favor the jetprop but others don't

I did that route a bunch of times in the Meridian. Our usual mission was KBED-KCRE(660 miles with routing) and the Meridian would do it every day as long as the headwinds weren't above 60kts. KCRE to KFLL was always non-stop even with Florida step downs and routing. Since you can land NC for your trip it will allow you to go up against some heavier winds and still make it to Florida in one stop.

Chip-

It is?

I get 1160 nm total stopping in KFYA for fuel and flying via SSI to stay dry.

One fuel stop makes this easy.

Mike C.

At 100-125 hours, fixed costs and luck are going to dominate the discussion. Interest, Insurance, Hangar, subscriptions/training will be a large if not dominant part of total cost.

On the maintenance side ... it'll be 500 hours at least before bad luck or good luck years even out a bit. 15 years ago, the windshield was a $20k part that required 100 hours to R&R and had a reputation for short service life. Regardless of which plane costs more, unlucky cheap is gonna hurt more than lucky expensive.

How much is cost of capital a consideration? That alone will be a couple hundred dollars/hour more for a Meridian at that use rate. ($500K delta at 5% = $25K = $200/hr)

My recommendation (biased by having owned a 1986 Malibu) is to get a continental powered Malibu with 140 gal fuel tanks. Couple reasons

1) It will make that route nonstop if desired, over land, with ATC (yes really - 10-15 nmpg)

2) 15,000-FL210 is the sweet spot for Malibu. Also the sweet spot for east coast ATC. 180-190 you can fly right over JFK and DCA and nobody cares. You get dropped to 7000 50nm before fll your fuel burn goes down not up. The turboprop soft spots align with ATC practice for the route.

3) Cost - not familiar with the market now, but figure $500-$1000K more for a meridian than an older Malibu. Cost of capital and insurance will totally dominate your outlay. FBO costs for piston vs turboprop in south FL can be significant as well.

Regarding maintenance costs - a Malibu is not cheap. It's basically a Cessna 340 minus one engine and prop but still has all the engine accessories, boots, heated doodads that cost INSANE prices. People try to compare to a bonanza, but it 1) has a lot more stuff 2) doesn't share parts with anything cheap or common or older.

On the meridian maintenance, the market for newer planes at one point strongly favored maintenance that had been done according to non-regulatory factory recommendations - all service bulletins complied, flux capacitor replaced at 6 years even though it worked fine, etc. That is an X factor to consider. I don't know if the early meridian market now accepts maintenance perfomed to FAA requirements only as acceptable.

Jetprops and Meridians - you'd think they're similar. They aren't. Think PC vs Mac (jetprop is pc). Too much to type here - join MMOPA it's worth the $$. I personally favor the jetprop but others don't

Regarding fuel burn - the nominally 310hp Continental was designed (and mandated) to be run LOP at cruise. The lycoming was 350hp and conventional. Some people have success running the lycoming LOP, others not. Seems idiosyncratic engine to engine. There are some conti 520's that have been upgraded to 550's and can run higher HP at cruise. LOP to LOP at equivalent HP (ie cruise speed) the fuel burns are similar.

Neither of the engines are particularly reliable financially. (From an engine safety standpoint both planes are very good) My impression from 10 years ago was that they lycoming cost structure and event rate was more expensive overall. But for 10 years/1000 hours it's still luck that will determine your costs.

Meridian will do that all day long. However, be mindful that Jax Center and Miami Center will make you descend early causing a much higher fuel burn.

FWIW, I have had my 2013 Mirage for about three years now. The dispatch reliability has been 100%, and I have not needed any super expensive repairs. Figure a typical annual at 13-20k and another 5-10k in between for stuff that comes up(not factoring in oil changes). It is definitely a plane you want to stay on top of maintenance wise because of all the systems. By way of example on the range, I have made it from Minneapolis to Long Island, New York and Long Island to Atlanta, both with an hour or more of reserves. As mentioned above, ATC directives particularly on the northern portion of the eastern seaboard hinder the outer limits of feasible range.

Insecond the emotion on continental powmered malibu.

I flew a brand new Mirage KELM to KAPF for two years. That’s 1050 nm with the same winds aloft you will experience. Never had to stop twice. After numerous Lycoming problems I gave up and moved to the Meridian. The Meridian is much more than a PA46 with a turbine engine. It’s a different wing for more fuel. Many different and superior systems. Ride in turbulence much better. Night and day more reliable than the Mirage because you don’t have a vibrating piston engine trying to destroy itself. Long run the Meridian will cost less to operate.

Never a problem making that trip with one stop in the Meridian. Rare occasions I made it with no stop. Very happy with that airplane. Moved to the Mustang for more range and weather capability.

I would rather own the oldest and rattiest Meridian than a brand new piston anything.

Useful load?
You should do some checking into the Meridian / Jetprop empty weights and full fuel payload. The early Meridians without the vg’s had some payload challenges.

If the OP’s friend isn’t flying solo for business, he may be surprised at the numbers with 4 people and bags.

I enjoyed my time flying the continental powered Malibu but it wasn’t ‘fast’ by any stretch.
I wanted the Meridian or TBM to work for me but ended up ultimately with more utility and speed of a TPE331 twin turboprop.