"Robert Barker" wrote in message
...
Our club currently flies a 172R and 172SP as trainers and a Diamond DA40
as our 3rd plane. We've put tons of students thru our 172s and are
finally getting some good usage on our Diamond. We've started "long
distance" planning on our next planes. We'd like to get a good low wing
trainer like an Archer and we'd like to get a high performance plane to
get complex ratings. For the complex plane, we're thinking we like
something that can do 150kts or better that we can do a nice panel upgrade
in - say a G540 stack and some other upgrades but still something that the
insurance wouldn't kill us... As we're near the mountains, turbo would be
nice but would incur some other problems with training, etc. That said,
we were leaning towards a Turbo Arrow III... Any suggestions?

It sounds like your primary focus is training. That being said, what you
really need is a complex aircraft because presently you don't have one that
people can get their commercial rating. HP is irelevant towards the complex
rating as it's not needed. The HP endorsement really doesn't do anything
for you from a training perspective. A HP endorsement can generally be
obtained with a couple of hours of instruction, so buying a HP aircraft
solely for the intention of allowing people to pick up the endorsement
doesn't make a lot of sense.

I would highly caution against getting a turbo in a club environment. The
only way I would ever own a turbo is if I owned the plane exclusively or had
one or two partners that I was VERY confident in their engine management
abilities. Throwing a turbo aircraft into a big mix of 172 and DA40 pilots
is asking for trouble and big maintenance bills.

A Cardinal RG might be your best bet, although it's not going to do 150kts
it will come close. They make very good club planes. The same goes for an
Arrow II, although it would be a few kts slower still. A Bonanza might not
be a bad bet if you can find the right one. A 182RG would be quite nice as
a club plane and fits most of your requirements. It would also be a fairly
easy transition to those pilots familiar with the 172SP. I'm not sure if
you can put the Pponk conversion in a 182RG, but that might be a great
option if you can find a 182RG with a run out engine and then do the
conversion. I do know a straight leg Pponk 182 will get you over all but
the tallest mountains and is the next best thing to having a turbo.