Cessna 207

The Cessna 206, a stretched 182/205/210, has a nose that’s perhaps a little too prominent for some folks. So when Cessna decided to give its backcountry operators an extra passenger seat by stretching the 206, the effect was very odd, like looking at a 206 in a stretchy funhouse mirror. But the plane made all kinds of sense in other ways. The 45-inch stretch at first gave a single extra seat in back, which was later joined by a second additional passenger section. 

The lengthening also gave operators a coveted new feature, a forward baggage storage area, allowing more passenger bags (because there were more passengers) to be stuffed in front. An extra passenger or two might not seem like that big a deal, but to charter operators, it’s huge, expanding margins substantially. 

After a few years, Cessna gave the 207 a turbocharged Continental engine of increasing power and reliability. Turbocharging was, again, a feature prized by charter and tour operators, as it gave better high-altitude performance and takeoff margins. 

These commercial operators voted with their wallets for power over beauty. Cessna built 624 207s in a 15-year period between 1969 and 1984, and true to predictions, they were overwhelming bought and operated by short-haul charter companies that could fill the seats and still get where they were going. 

Wilga

One of the most dramatically shaped planes in the sky, the PZL-104 Wilga was, like the other planes in this lineup, purpose built. In the case of this Polish utility plane, which went into service in 1962, the purpose was to be a multi-purpose sport plane, most notably a glider tug—in the former Soviet Bloc country, as elsewhere in Eastern Europe, sailplanes were big; still are. And it was eyed as a good jump plane, though it’s unclear how often it was put to that use. 

The overall look of the fuselage is compact, but the seating area is quite roomy. The rear fuselage has little side area, so designers gave the Wilga a tall tail. And because many of the runways the Wilga would ply were grass, dirt or gravel, a rugged gear and great ground clearance were also design priorities. Part of the unusual look of the gear is its dramatically forward angle and trailing link gear that reverses that forward line. The wing is fitted with slotted flaps and slats, to make it a true short takeoff and landing performer, with ridiculously short distances needed for landing and takeoff. 

Part of the classic look of the Wilga is its round engine, at least in its original configuration. The Soviet-designed Ivchenko AI-14 nine-cylinder radial spinning a two-blade paddle-shaped prop. Later versions sported opposed engines, including versions of the Lycoming IO-540. 

It’s not known exactly how many Wilgas were produced over the 40-odd-years it was in production, but that number is well north of 1,000. In spite of or perhaps because of its odd looks, the Wilga never caught on in North America, though many have been imported, and a few were sold here by dealers in the ’80s and ’90s. 

Famously, Mike Patey took a Wilga and leaned into the weirdness, modifying it extensively, including by adding a turboprop engine, coming up with a remarkable creation called Draco, which we featured on our cover in March 2019. The plane was heavily damaged in Reno in 2019 in a takeoff accident. 

Ercoupe

One of the most fascinating airplanes in aviation history, the little Ercoupe, first developed in the 1930s as part of a government-backed designed project and first put into production by Erco, was one of those planes that looked odd for a good reason, or, in this case, for a number of reasons. Modern aviation observers often look at the plane, designed by Fred Weick (who also had a hand in creating the Piper PA-28) and think it’s an eccentric plane that missed the mark when it came to the looks department. But it’s so much more than that. The idea behind the Ercoupe was to create a plane that fixed everything about light planes. The intent was to develop an aircraft that was much safer to fly, and toward that end, they made it more user friendly. 

There were no rudder pedals, it had limited elevator travel to reduce the likelihood of stall/spin accidents, and it had a nosewheel, a most unusual feature at the time, to make it easier to handle on the ground, i.e., more difficult to ground loop. The two-control design wasn’t really. The plane has all three usual control surfaces, elevator for pitch, ailerons for roll and rudders for yaw, but the rudders and ailerons are interconnected, so there’s no need for rudder pedals. Hence, you drive it around like a car on the ground and in the air, too, in a way. In fact, the “coupe” in the name was a reference to an automobile type, one having no rear doors, which was considered sporty at the time (and still is, to some extent). The control configuration allowed the plane to be maneuvered well enough while also keeping the controls coordinated enough to mitigate most spins.  

It’s hard to say exactly why the Ercoupe looks odd to many pilots, though the wide-set, twin tail is easy to point fingers at. Though, again, it was done for a reason. Because the Ercoupe mixes ailerons and rudders, it’s important for the vertical control surfaces to be in relatively undisturbed air. When the plane is outfitted with a single (larger) empennage, it’s actually a great-looking plane. 

As far as popularity is concerned, the Ercoupe, with around 5,500 sold, did well despite a string of bad luck. Introduced just before World War II, it had to be pulled from production, and after the war, a glut of entry-level planes, tens of thousands of them, prevented the little coupe from gaining a foothold. And though a few different companies, including Mooney, tried their hands at building the Ercoupe, none of them enjoyed much success. 

Piaggio P.180 Avanti

The ’70s brought us the popular notion that for the past 70-ish years, airplane designers had been building it all wrong, and the twin pusher turboprop Piaggio Avanti, a plane that’s at once beautiful and startlingly awkward, depending on what angle you see it from, was one of the fruits of that belief. The idea wasn’t all because of Burt Rutan, just mostly. Rutan, of course, created the Long EZ and VariEze, two extremely popular canard-configured homebuilt aircraft. A canard is a small wing in front, which acts as a stabilizing airfoil, usually with an elevator incorporated. Canards tend to be efficient and fast at cruise, even on limited power, though most require a good deal of runway to work with, much more than conventionally configured aircraft.

The Avanti, first proposed in the late ’70s and certified in 1990, was a direct outgrowth of the canard craze of the day. Upon first glance, many pilots assume it’s of composite construction, but it’s mostly made of metal, like more conventional planes. While controversy rages about whether the forward wing of the Avanti is a canard or just a second wing, we’ll call it a canard here. Regardless, the Avanti is inarguably as different a business aircraft as imaginable, along the lines of the all-composite Beechcraft Starship (which was designed by Rutan). The Starship, in our estimation, at least, is the more attractive of the two, but the Avanti is faster. With a max speed of 400 knots and a cruise speed of around 320 knots, it’s not as fleet as some small business jets, but it’s close. 

With a seating capacity of up to nine, a max range of better than 1,500 nm and fuel efficiency that light jets can’t touch, the Avanti was an attractive option. And from some angles, it’s an attractive airplane (though no one likes the crazy whining noise it makes as it approaches to land). In flight, it’s a work of art, but in the pattern and on the ground, not so much. Especially on approach, with its gear hanging out and the nose pointing down, the Avanti looks like there’s simply too much going on. Its owners, however, would argue that it’s just the right amount. 

The Avanti has been in more or less continuous production since the early ’90s and has undergone numerous design improvements along the way. The latest model, the EVO, features several performance and quality-of-life improvements, with more promised to come. And while its futuristic looks won’t appeal to everyone, with more than 250 Avanti P.180s in the world, it has clearly appealed to more than a few. 

Cessna 337

By the 1960s, it was clear that twins were problematic. The whole theory behind the safety claims that manufacturers put forward was that in the case of an engine failure, you could still fly on with the remaining good engine. That was a best-case scenario. While we don’t know how many hundreds or thousands of engine failures never got reported, seeing there was no accident to prompt such a report, we do, unfortunately, know that there were a lot of loss-of-control accidents from twins losing an engine and the pilot losing control of the airplane. The most common scenario for this kind of accident was when an engine failed at the most inopportune time, right after takeoff, when the plane was slow and risk of loss of control was great. These crashes still happen, of course, though better training, improved design—including the use of counterrotating engines—and the dominance of single-engine models in light GA have decreased that number substantially. 

But in the 1960s, Cessna, which manufactured many twin-engine models, including its uber-popular Cessna 310, was well aware of the problem and decided to do something about it. That something was a new twin-engine model with both engines, one a conventional tractor engine on the front and the other, a pusher, on the back, providing thrust directly on the centerline, so there was no asymmetrical thrust from the one remaining engine, so there was, therefore, no critical engine-out climb speed. Everything is easier and safer, at least in theory. 

The 337 started life in 1961 as the Skymaster 336, a lower-powered, fixed-gear model. Before long, the original version went away, and the retractable-gear version became the sole Skymaster. At one point, it got turbocharged engines, and Cessna even produced a pressurized version of it—more than 400 of the P-models were built.

And there were issues, including accidents from the rear engine shutting down before takeoff (and the pilot not noticing), and the noise it makes is, let’s just say, less than pleasant. 

Still, Cessna built nearly 3,000 of them during the nearly 20 years it was produced, including several hundred for the military, which designated it the O-2. All of them were ungainly looking, though they did look much better in flight than on the ground or in the pattern, when its spindly gear was tucked up and the gangly appearance made more presentable despite its too-many-engine and too-many-tails appearance. 

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Piaggio Aero P.180 Avanti II
Price:	$6.8 million*
Engine:	2 Pratt & Whitney PT6A-66B
Shaft Horsepower:	850 (derated from 1630)
Max Takeoff Weight (lbs.):	12,050
Useful Load (lbs.):	4300
Max Payload (lbs.):	2000
Empty Weight, Std. (lbs.):	7800
Wing Span (ft.):	46.03
Cabin Height (ft.):	5.74
Cabin Width (ft.):	6.07
Cabin Length (ft.):	14.93
PERFORMANCE
Rate Of Climb (fpm):	2950
Max Certified Altitude (ft.):	41,000
Max IFR Range (nm):	1507
Max Cruise Speed (KTAS):	402
Takeoff Distance (ft.):	2850
Landing Distance (ft.):	2860
*First available delivery position is 2010
Source: Piaggio Aero

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Cleveland Center, ciao! Avanti 180PA checking in, flight level 280.”

It’s almost too easy to call the Italian Avanti II the Ferrari of the skies, and from the moment I floored the Avanti this morning on a wintry runway in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, I was plastered into my seat like I was in a Ferrari 430 Spider with the top down, stiff breeze mussing what’s left of my hair, pealing away from a red light that lasted a few seconds too long. The only thing missing was the squeal of Pirelli tires and the smell of a heated clutch and scorched rubber.

Of course, tires do me no good on the jet route we’re making serious tracks down, and it seems the engineers at Genoa-based Piaggio Aero Industries SpA left one item off the Avanti’s checklist—adrenaline on.

I got my first shot of Avanti adrenaline about a year and a half ago in the skies above Portofino, on the Italian Riviera. The plane I flew then, an Avanti I model emblazoned in Maserati colors, was as much an object of desire as the exotic Italian supercars that share its bloodline.

This morning, when I clambered into the factory-fresh Avanti II in Halifax, I was greeted by a new panel, the Collins Pro Line 21; new and more-powerful-at-altitude PT6A-66B turboprop engines; and a new max gross weight of 12,100 pounds, up from the Avanti I’s 11,550. With this allowable weight increase, the Avanti II’s owner can now fill the tanks, fill the seats, add some bags and go.

The P.180 I’m flying for this report is “green” in more ways than one. Piaggio’s Bill Hauprich, with whom I’m flying today, began his trip a couple days ago at Piaggio Aero’s base in Genoa, and arrived in Halifax yesterday after stops in Edinburgh, Scotland; Reykjavik, Iceland; Narsarssuaq, Greenland; and Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada. Because all Avantis bound for North America get their interiors at Piaggio’s U.S. base in Denton, Texas, the slick bird we’re flying south has no interior behind the flight deck. But this Avanti is also that other green, as in the most ecofriendly and efficient turboprop aircraft on the market today. It’s also the only turboprop to break 400 knots carrying eight people in midsize cabin-class comfort while burning up to 40% less fuel than any of its competitors—but more on that in a minute.

Wanna Race?

The P.180 Avanti II says ci vediamo, or see you later, to all VLJs, besting the Eclipse by a touch above 30 knots and the Citation Mustang by about 60 knots. It leaves the Citation CJ1+ behind by 13 knots and trails Cessna’s CJ2+ by only about 15 knots—and it does that with a larger cabin than all of them. Fly the fastest King Air, the 350, at its optimum altitude and lightest weight, and the Avanti II still dusts it by more than 85 knots.

A lot has happened with the “green” movement since my sortie in the skies over Portofino, just south of Piaggio Aero’s headquarters in coastal Genoa. As I sit to write this, representatives from over 189 countries have recently wrapped a huge global-warming conference in Bali, Indonesia. At that conference, fuel efficiency was one of the top issues. On that front, the Avanti doesn’t disappoint. So while the high-achieving, sophisticated and discerning operator of an Avanti will find the plane compelling in performance and striking in ramp appeal, his or her accountant will be impressed by significantly lower fuel bills.

A snapshot comparison of fuel flows to a Citation CJ1+ shows considerable fuel savings at similar speeds. At FL370 under standard, ISA conditions, the Citation, at midcruise weight and normal cruise power, scoots along at 385 knots burning 787 pounds of fuel per hour. Conditions and altitude being equal, to see the same number as the CJ1+, push the Avanti to maximum continuous power, and the P.180 will clock 380 knots, just five knots slower than the Citation, but burn only 598 pounds of Jet A per hour to do it—an hourly savings of 189 pounds.

I’d expect nothing less from the artisans and alchemists of Piaggio. Perhaps because I lived in Italy for two years, it comes as no surprise that to the Italians—who gave us drool-worthy autos from marques like Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and Alfa Romeo; the achingly elegant Wally Yachts; and the cute little Fiat Cinquecento (500), recently updated and reintroduced—producing a boring and ordinary aircraft would be assolutamente impossibile. If anything, I’ve never known the Italians to do anything in a boring way—at their own pace, yes, but never boringly. That would be like the Swiss running their trains at their leisure and tourists finding only delicious food in London.

If the sky were an ocean, and in reality it is, an ocean of air, and since air is a fluid, then the organic and almost aquatic shape of the Avanti contributes significantly to its efficiency. Though the Avanti reminds some of a catfish, I like to think of it more as a hammerhead shark. Those unfamiliar with the P.180 might think at first glance that the Avanti is a canard aircraft constructed of composite materials, not unlike the Beech Starship, a Burt Rutan design that was literally scrapped not long ago.

On the contrary, the Piaggio is about 90% aluminum, with composite and titanium comprising the balance, and that front flight surface—it’s called the front wing. When I sat down in Genoa with Enrico Sgarbi, head of media relations at Piaggio Aero, and a few company test pilots, I learned that the Avanti was designed as a three-lifting-surface aircraft. Therefore, the front wing isn’t a canard, because it has flaps only and is otherwise a fixed surface.

In another departure, the P.180’s conventional horizontal stabilizer provides positive lift, as opposed to negative lift in conventional aircraft. Sporting laminar-flow airfoils developed using NASA-proprietary methodology in a collaboration with Dr. Gerald Gregorek of Ohio State University, this three-lifting-surface design allows the P.180’s main wing surface area to be 34% smaller proportionally than in a conventional aircraft, thereby increasing efficiency, reducing drag and offering a high-wing loading, similar, I’m told, to that of a Boeing jet.

Piaggio Aero also broke new ground in how the Avanti is constructed—essentially from the outside in, where the outer skin is held fast in a vacuum-powered jig as interior structure is installed. Tolerances are thusly very tight, the external skin is composite-like in smoothness and contour, and fit and finish is what one would expect in an aircraft of this price point.

Sgarbi told me that Piaggio has been ramping up and streamlining production to make more of a dent in their 100-plus aircraft back order. This adjustment to lean manufacturing, for which they were consulted by Porsche, is being incorporated into Piaggio Aero’s new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, set to come online this year in Villanova d’Albenga, outside of Genoa, where final assembly will remain. About 70% of production heads for America with fractional-operator Avantair, Piaggio Aero’s biggest customer. In 2008, according to Eric Hinson, Piaggio America’s CEO, from a total production of 37 aircraft, 22 will be delivered Stateside.

Somewhere over western New York and making a serious beeline toward a pit stop in Bowling Green, Ky., Hauprich mentions that Piaggio spent five years on the design of the P.180, which first flew in 1986. Two decades later, the future is finally catching up with the Avanti II. Besides bolting new, deeper-breathing PT6A-66B engines into the lightweight titanium engine mounts, the incorporation of the Collins Pro Line 21 electronic-flight instrument system (EFIS) brings the Avanti II squarely into the 21st century.

While I have considerable time on integrated flat-panel displays, the Collins system was new to me. Excepting the alphanumeric flight-management computer, the Pro Line 21 system is intuitive and easy to use. It only took a few hours for me to get mostly up to speed on its knobology and find my way around the flight deck. The Avanti’s Pro Line system comes standard with what pilots expect—L-3 TAWS terrain avoidance and TCAS I active traffic systems, Collins turbulence-detection radar, and options for XM Satellite Weather, enhanced map overlays and electronic charts for the MFD. Mix in the Avanti’s fine flying qualities and some time studying the P.180 at FlightSafety, and a pilot stepping up from, for example, a Socata TBM 850, where I have the lion’s share of my turbine time, should have no problem. The Avanti II isn’t a low-workload airplane, but it’s easily single-pilot.

After an ILS to runway 03 at Bowling Green and a quick refueling through the P.180’s single-point pressure fueling system, Hauprich and I say “ciao” to the friendly folks of BWG and taxi for takeoff. The Avanti II has two stearing modes, Taxi and T/O, which are controlled by a switch on the pilot’s control wheel and annunciated on the pilot’s PFD. With carbon brakes (interestingly, ABS isn’t available) that can be touchy but work better when heated, and steering-by-wire that’s rather sensitive in Taxi mode, the P.180 takes a deft touch on the ground. Lining up for takeoff from BWG and cleared to go, I throttle up to ballpark about 90% or 95% torque and click off the T/O steering mode at 60 knots, relying on aerodynamic steering for the rest of the dash to rotation speed, 106 knots. With ram air bringing our power up to 100% torque, I smartly tug the control wheel to about seven degrees and then relax pressure a bit to keep from over-rotating, and we accelerate to our best climb speed of 160 knots indicated and 2,500 fpm through FL150. Our climb rate decayed to 1,600 fpm through FL280. Had I rotated to 13 degrees alpha, we would have been on the express elevator to the flight levels at 3,300 fpm, at the cost of much forward visibility. As it was, we were level and accelerating to cruise speed about 12 minutes after departure. I was limited on my flights to FL280 and below because P.180s flying over from the factory for completion in the States aren’t yet RVSM capable; they get that in Denton.

With that in mind, the new engines in the Avanti make their rated 850 SHP to a higher altitude (FL240) than engines in the earlier model. As it is, the sweet spot for speed in Avantis, and most other turboprops, is between FL260 and FL310, where the P.180 will crack 402 knots true at its lightest weights with 95.4% torque, the power drain of ice protection off and props full-forward at 2,000 rpm, while burning 794 pounds of Jet A per hour. In a turboprop, that’s really moving, but it’s also a bit noisy. When I was down at FL280, in high gear and cruising to Denton, Texas, torque was set at 95%, propellers were turning at 1,995 rpm, true airspeed was stable at 380 knots or Mach .668, and fuel exited the tailpipes at 395 pounds per hour per side.

Back in the cabin, to get jet-like sound levels and smoothness, dial the props back to 1,800 rpm. At FL310 in standard ISA, setting 96.6% torque will get you down the road at 385 knots true burning 736 pounds total, which is still not too shabby. Up at FL410, the Avanti II will still true out to about 325 knots, but burn only 412 pounds per hour total. Contrast that with the King Air 350, which according to Beech, will true out at 310 knots burning 604 pounds per hour at FL310. Avanti pilots consider the P.180 similar in cost per hour to the King Air, but since leg times are shorter, cost per trip is rather less.

In addition to the jet-like speeds and sound levels that passengers enjoy back in the midsize cabin, the Avanti’s 9.0 psi pressurization system ensures passengers and crew a sea-level cabin up to FL240 and a 6,600-foot cabin at the Avanti’s max altitude of FL410.

Bringing the Avanti on home, the P.180’s high gear- and flap-extension speeds, 181 and 170 knots, respectively, facilitate slowing the speedy bird and setting up a stable approach profile. The weather in the Dallas area was clear and calm as the Texas sky transitioned from bright orange in the west to a cobalt dusk. Landings in the Avanti—I went up and did some airwork and a series of touch-and-gos the next afternoon—are a nonevent. The Avanti is as honest as they come in its handling and around the airport. Keeping your speed up at 140 knots on downwind and decelerating on final from 130 to 120 over the numbers will reward the Avanti pilot with sweet touchdowns—it worked for me. The biggest problem I found with the Avanti came after my flight. After about seven hours flying an exotic Italian speedster, there was no Ferrari waiting to whisk me away to dinner in Dallas. Maybe that’s an option Piaggio should consider.

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