On 21-Feb-2006, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

How can retractable gear *ever* be "a wash" with fixed gear? There's just
a
lot more "stuff" in there to be maintained.


My earlier post simply noted that the fuel savings over some number of hours
of flight will offset the higher maintenance and insurance bills. My Arrow
and your pathfinder cruise at about the same speed, but your engine has to
burn about 3 to 4 extra gallons per hour to make that happen. Yes, I know
YOU burn cheaper mogas, but most owners will not go to the trouble and
expense of building their own fuel truck. In any event, mogas is almost
never available at airports along the way. So, conservatively, the fuel
cost savings for retractable gear in airplanes of our performance class (200
HP retractables and 235 HP FG) at today's fuel prices is somewhere between
$10 and $15 per hour. Over a modest 100 hr/year utilization, that comes to
between $1000 and $1500 per year, which is most likely much more than the
extra costs for maintenance and insurance.

Put another way, it takes a lot of extra power to drag that landing gear
around at 140 kts.

Put yet another way, comparing performance of your Pathfinder with a
hypothetical Comanche, the power you don't use to drag the gear through the
air translates to higher speed, climb, and ceiling.

As to the issues posed by the OP: The O-540 powered Comanches have a
reputation as strong climbers, particularly when lightly loaded. However,
if I was based at Colorado Springs and had many westbound missions I would
probably want a turbocharged airplane. Have you considered a Turbo Arrow?