Today’s Top Pick is a 1975 Cessna T310R.

Sometimes when shopping for an airplane you find a time capsule—a working example of how general aviation looked decades ago. This 1975 Cessna T310R,  with its distinctive long nose and prominent tip tanks, is an emblem of the GA boom that had been building since the earliest 310s hit the market in the mid-1950s.  With a wonderful period paint scheme, wherever you go in this aircraft, you will be traveling in style.

This 1975 T310R has 3,709 hours on the airframe and 890 hours since overhaul on each of its Continental TSIO-520 engines, which received RAM I upgrades. The panel consists mainly of Bendix/King avionics, including a KMA 240 audio panel, dual nav/coms, KN 64 DME, KT 76A transponder, and a KLN 90 GPS. Other equipment includes a Bennett Avionics ADF and an STEC 55 autopilot. This aircraft’s interior was refurbished in 1996. The paint is original.

If you have been looking for a light twin with serious power that performs more like heavier models, with styling and colors that recalls general aviation’s salad days of the 1970s, you should consider this 1975 Cessna T310R. Whether you seek fast, heavy-lifting family transport or a sleek multiengine time builder, this aircraft with RAM engine upgrades can get the job done and is available for $129,000 on AircraftForSale.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Financial Group. For more information, email info@flyingfinancial.com.

• FLYING Magazine: Things to Think About When Moving Up to a Light Twin
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• Plane & Pilot: Cessna 310
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• The Aviation Consumer: Used Aircraft Guide: Cessna 310

The post Today’s Top Aircraft For Sale Pick: 1975 Cessna T310R appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Today’s Top Pick is a 1981 Ted Smith Aerostar 601B

Aerostars like this one used to fly over my family home when I was in grade school. Looking up, I immediately noticed their swept empennage, short wings, and seemingly huge engine nacelles. They must be really fast, I figured. Indeed, they were at least as fast as they looked, and the design set a number of speed records.

Years later, the Aerostar became a movie star as a supporting character in the 2017 Tom Cruise film American Made. While the story focused on a nefarious corner of general aviation, it was easy to imagine using the Aerostar to cut travel time on your next family vacation. Here was a piston airplane fast enough to compete with airlines.

This 1981 Aerostar has 3,179 hours on the airframe and 1,484  hours on each engine. The engines’ TBO is 1,800 hours. The airplane has the 350 hp turbocharged Lycoming 540 engines that are part of the Merlyn 700. Aircraft outfitted this way could cruise at more than 250 ktas.

The aircraft has a custom panel fabricated last year that includes  two Avidyne integrated flight displays, Aspen EFD-1000 Max primary flight display, and multifunction display, ADS-B with weather and traffic, S-TEC 3100 autopilot, Garmin GI-275 glideslope, JPI EDM-790 engine monitor, and a Lynx NGT-9000D transponder with ADS-B in and out.

If you are ready to take the controls of a truly fast piston twin that harks back to an innovative period in GA, consider this 1981 Ted Smith Aerostar, which is available for $269,000 on AircraftForSale.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Financial Group. For more information, email info@flyingfinancial.com.

• FLYING Magazine: Fastest Aircraft: Top Performers in Their Class
• FLYING Magazine: Aerostar Arrives at AirVenture with a Jet
• Plane & Pilot:10 Most Undervalued Airplanes
• The Aviation Consumer: Piper/Ted Smith Aerostar
• The Aviation Consumer: Used Aircraft Guide: Aerostar

The post Today’s Top Aircraft For Sale Pick: 1981 Ted Smith Aerostar 601B appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

While some of the interest may be rooted in aviation pop-culture fantasy, ranging from the 1950s television series “Sky King” to the 2017 film “American Made,” there are several considered reasons for wanting the extra performance that a second engine brings. These include the desire for increased speed, load-carrying capacity and safety, with added cost as the expected tradeoff.

To see how these factors shake out, I compared the performance figures of a number of light twins with high-performance singles. I also delved into experience to help realistically assess how the differences between one engine and two may affect pilots.

Twins Are Faster, Right?

I have heard pilots say that a twin’s second engine is needed to pull its own weight and overcome its own drag with little power left over. They are joking, but doubling the engines certainly does not double the speed.

It is true that light twins tend to have higher cruising speeds than singles, but often they are only slightly faster, and speeds vary widely among different multiengine models. Some with smaller engines may only reach the 150-knot range in cruise, which many singles can top.

Based on the pilot’s operating handbook, an early 1970s Cessna 310 will cruise at 189 knots at 6,500 feet while the Cessna 210, the company’s flagship fast single, cruises at 170 knots. Cessna built both models for decades, from the 1950s to the 1980s, and performance varied as they developed. But the 310 was always a bit faster.

There is more than speed for pilots to consider. The 210 is 1,700 pounds lighter than the 310 and is likely to perform better in short- and soft-field operations. As always, pilots have to consider which aircraft is best-suited to the mission.

Load Carrying

With standard tanks full, the 310 has a useful load of 1,285 pounds compared with 1,041 for the 210. Yes, again, the twin has the advantage, but the pilot in each six-seat machine will have to carefully juggle passengers, baggage and fuel to keep weight and balance within limits.

Rarely can one fill the seats and the tanks in a GA airplane and still take off legally. The 310 makes it with 145 pounds to spare, based on the FAA’s standard estimated weight of 190 pounds for a passenger and carry-on bag in the summertime (195 pounds in winter). The 210 would have to lose one passenger, shed some bags or make do with less fuel.

Safety

This is a controversial topic. Most pilots are likely to agree that redundancy in general increases safety, whether in the form of dual magnetos, back-up instruments or a hand crank for lowering the landing gear. But when it comes to a second engine, the same people might debate for days.

When an engine quits in a twin, the pilot may have the option to continue flying to the next airport or even to their destination, while the pilot of a single is typically faced with an emergency off-field landing. This gives the multiengine airplane an advantage, especially over water, mountainous terrain, or at night. But the situation is almost never that simple.

Flying a twin on one engine is a demanding task that requires training and practice to get right, especially in full-power situations like takeoff, which is when engines are more likely to fail. You have to adjust pitch to maintain enough speed to control the aircraft on one engine, keeping it straight with the rudder while quickly raising the landing gear and flaps if they aren’t up already.

Next, you have to secure the failed engine, which entails feathering the propeller to reduce drag, then establish a shallow bank toward the operating engine, sometimes called “raising the dead,” to eliminate the drag of any sideslip. Done properly, the procedure takes about 20 seconds or less, but getting it wrong is often fatal.

Cost

While twins are not twice as fast as singles, some owners will tell you they can wind up costing twice as much. Even though multis are often advertised at seemingly low purchase prices, they can get expensive once you start using them. Their complex systems cost more to maintain than those of singles, there are two engines to overhaul and they can burn roughly twice as much fuel.

The hardest hit might come from your insurance company, which will almost certainly require a minimum number of hours of multiengine time and time in your particular type before insuring you to fly solo. You might have to take annual or semiannual recurrent training, which is a good idea anyway. Terms vary widely so it often pays to shop around and compare policies.

Moving Up

I think it is safe to say that for most pilots flying a high-performance single is a more sensible, practical goal than a light twin. But if a multiengine airplane makes sense for your mission and you are determined to have one, you should remember that you are taking a significant step up. You might have to raise your personal standards as a pilot accordingly to avoid being outclassed by your airplane.

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