Cherokee 235 vs Trinidad vs Comanche

"Newps" wrote in message
. ..
Beech just announced they are lowering prices on the Bonanza and Baron.
Now a typically outfitted glass panel Bo has a suggested retail of $574K
down from $667K. The Baron goes from $1.186 million to $1.046 million.

Just as I (more or less) predicted in the thread about the Raytheon buyout.

Matt Barrow wrote:

"Newps" wrote in message
. ..

Beech just announced they are lowering prices on the Bonanza and Baron.
Now a typically outfitted glass panel Bo has a suggested retail of $574K
down from $667K. The Baron goes from $1.186 million to $1.046 million.


Just as I (more or less) predicted in the thread about the Raytheon buyout.


The feeling in the Beech crowd is the new owners will generally be good
for Beech.

Beech just announced they are lowering prices on the Bonanza and Baron.
Now a typically outfitted glass panel Bo has a suggested retail of
$574K down from $667K. The Baron goes from $1.186 million to $1.046
million.

That's absurd. What kind of a dolt would pay that kind of money for
what amounts to a brand-new antique? You can buy a perfectly good
used biz-jet for those prices!

It would certainly take an unusual combination of money and gullibility
-- which (I suppose) explains why Beech sells so few of them.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Sour grapes?
Dave
M35

Jay Honeck wrote:
Beech just announced they are lowering prices on the Bonanza and Baron.
Now a typically outfitted glass panel Bo has a suggested retail of
$574K down from $667K. The Baron goes from $1.186 million to $1.046
million.

That's absurd. What kind of a dolt would pay that kind of money for
what amounts to a brand-new antique? You can buy a perfectly good
used biz-jet for those prices!

It would certainly take an unusual combination of money and gullibility
-- which (I suppose) explains why Beech sells so few of them.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

dave wrote:
Sour grapes?
Dave
M35

Jay Honeck wrote:

Beech just announced they are lowering prices on the Bonanza and Baron.
Now a typically outfitted glass panel Bo has a suggested retail of
$574K down from $667K. The Baron goes from $1.186 million to $1.046
million.


That's absurd. What kind of a dolt would pay that kind of money for
what amounts to a brand-new antique? You can buy a perfectly good
used biz-jet for those prices!

It would certainly take an unusual combination of money and gullibility
-- which (I suppose) explains why Beech sells so few of them.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination"


No, I'm guessing just a lack of money and gullibility. :-)

Matt

"Montblack" wrote in message
...

What is your acquisition cap? $80K? $100K $150K? $200K?

Not really written in stone, but.... I started w/ $100K; I've since revised
that to $150K (with an obvious desire to stay lower rather than higher!!).


The reason I ask is, how about something brand new ...with two other
partners?


Love the idea. Problem is, I move frequently--any partnership I got into
would have to dissolve or buy me out in a matter of a couple of years.
Primarily for that reason, I discarded the partnership idea early on.

Thanks for the thought, though!
--
Doug
"Where am I to go/Now that I've gone too far?" -- Golden Earring, "Twilight
Zone"
(my email is spam-proofed; read the address and make the appropriate change
to contact me)

"Douglas Paterson" wrote in message
. ..
Hello, All!

About a year ago, I started airplane shopping.

[snipped my story & request for info on & comparisons between the three
subject aircraft]

Thank you everyone who took the time to consider & reply--I got some great
information. While nothing's written in stone, and I still have some
learning to do before I actually write a check (and time is the issue
there--I firmly belief that "W-O-R-K" belongs in with all the other
four-letter-words), it's helped me reach at least a couple of conclusions:

- I still like the Comanches, but an apples-to-apples comparison between
those and the Trinidads favors the Trins

- I need to learn more about the Bonanza--from Newps' discussion points, I
may have overlooked a winning candidate

- I need to learn more about the Pathfinder--from Jay's discussion points,
it sounds like there are multiple flavors of the Cherokee 235 out there; if
I find that the Pathfinder meets my climb/ceiling/high elevation/high DA
needs, I may well stick with fixed gear after all

Once again, super input from the group. Thank you!
--
Doug
"Where am I to go/Now that I've gone too far?" -- Golden Earring, "Twilight
Zone"
(my email is spam-proofed; read the address and make the appropriate change
to contact me)

A final word, then. You're not getting married; you're buying a
flying vehicle.

If it turns out it doesn't fit your mission or your mission changes,
sell it and buy something else.

Only thing wrong with that advice -- when I got married, I thought the
mission was changing, and I sold the Taylorcraft and bought a Stinson.
Thirty years later, I've still got the same wife, I've got shares in
other airplanes, but I sure miss the Taylorcraft every warm sunny day.

Don

Douglas Paterson wrote:

The Socata Trinidad (TB-20) seems to pretty closely match or slightly exceed
the Comanche's performance numbers. For a comparably equipped Comanche,
they seem to cost (acquisition) about the same. Meanwhile, the Trinidad is
a 20-year-younger airplane, with cheaper insurance and (I'm given to
believe) cheaper maintenance due to (a) ease of access and (b) availability
of parts. Plus, the gull-wing doors are appealing to me (ease of
entry/exit, not to mention "cool factor"). Can anyone weigh in here, either
to confirm these observations or to squash my newbie analysis? Other
thoughts?

I had 2 customers that owned Socatas. One sold his because he
wanted something
faster and the other because he couldn't afford to keep it. Parts
come from
France and they are priced accordingly. Windshield was over $1200 fob
France when
one owner over aggressively tried to de-ice his plane. Most of the
screws are metric on
the airframe, not standard AN hardware. The ailerons are actuated
with a torque tube
and push-pull tubes in the wings. The quality of the torque tube was
lacking where
it was attached to the yokes via a u-joint. Prior to the customer
buying the plane someone had tried to drill out the u-joint rivets and
replace them with bolts. Things wallowed out
again and the torque tube assembly needed to be replaced. The
maintenance manuals
are translated from French into English. Interesting reading at
best. In order to
replace the tube the entire bottom cover on the tunnel between the
pilot and co-pilot seats
had to be removed. The tunnel is made of thin steel - not aluminum!
After drilling out
dozens of rivets the tube was accessible. I don't recall what it cost
but it was an
expensive piece of metric sized chrome moly which had to be match
drilled to the
u-joint. It did not come pre-assembled. . The job was time consuming
because clearly
Socata didn't design the plane with this particular repair in mind.
While it may be a new design, if you pull the tail cone off you will
see a stabilator
trim mechanism which looks EXACTLY like the ones found on a Piper
Cherokee.
Over all the airplanes were not bad to work on. They both had IO540
Lycomming
engines on a tubular mount with removable top and bottom cowl pieces.
Once removed
everything was easily accessible. The underside of the fuselage was a
bit crowded
and required the removal of dozens of easily stripped metric screws to
drop the
access covers.

I never had the opportunity to fly one but the owners told be they
were very nimble
on the controls, especially after the sloppy torque tube joint was
replaced.

Gary Plewa
AP/IA
N4GP

Gary wrote:
Windshield was over $1200 fob
France when
one owner over aggressively tried to de-ice his plane.



So you can't get one from say Cee Bailey like the rest of us? Strike one.




Most of the
screws are metric on
the airframe,

Strike two.




In order to
replace the tube the entire bottom cover on the tunnel between the
pilot and co-pilot seats
had to be removed. The tunnel is made of thin steel - not aluminum!
After drilling out
dozens of rivets the tube was accessible.



Strike three, poor design.