1979 Beechcraft Skipper

The 1970s boomed in general aviation, and each of the major manufacturers—Cessna, Piper, and Beechcraft—jumped in with a two-seat training aircraft that echoed their house style. While Piper had the Tomahawk, and Cessna the 150, Beech made a stately entry with the BE-77 Skipper.

The Skipper was set up for both private and instrument instruction with a reasonable panel at the time. This California-based 1979 model hasn’t seen much additionally since those days, though it does have a SkyBeacon for ADS-B compliance. The Skipper has 2,370 hours on the airframe and 250 hours since its major overhaul in June 2023, when the annual was also completed.

We’ve rated it a fair deal in our PlanePrice beta test at $69,500.

READ MORE: Beechcraft Skipper

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1958 Beechcraft J35 Bonanza

It’s easy to drop a lot of change on one of the most popular single-engine models ever built, but every once in a while an early version of the Beech Bonanza comes up on the market.

This 1958 J35 model has the striking V-tail, with an average amount of total time on the airframe (4,821) for its age. The insight into the price? A relatively high-time Continental IO-470 engine, with 1,747 hours since last overhaul, and an annual due in June. 

But for $52,900, you can budget a certain amount for the future engine update, as well as a few items picked up during the annual or pre-buy inspection.

READ MORE: Plane Facts: Beech Bonanzas

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We need to take care of these aviation treasures—their kind will not be seen again. They were developed during America’s post-war boom by designers and marketers who gave pilots what they wanted at a price point within reach of a large percentage of the flying population. In their day, competition encouraged innovation, even while design compromises between performance, cost, and quality provided a variety of choices in the marketplace.

Because of these vast numbers of airplanes placed into service 50 or so years ago, we still have a relatively large pool of legacy equipment available. How long we can keep them flying is anyone’s guess, but the cost of maintaining, equipping, and flying these old birds is much higher than their original builders could ever have envisioned. And yet, they can do the job for a fraction of an equivalent airplane built today—if one even exists.

Attrition is inevitable since some of this elderly fleet disappears from the active register each year. Losses from accidents, neglect, impractical upkeep, and aging structures will eventually take their toll. To preserve what’s left, we must be ready to place increased resources into their preservation and encourage production of parts for overhauling and maintaining continuing airworthiness. And we must be ever more careful in how we operate and store them. This aging fleet is too precious to ignore.

Where Did They All Come From?

The answer is: It depends.

In 1960, a total of 7,588 general aviation aircraft were produced; in 1970, an anomalously similar number, 7,508, were built. An astounding 98,407 airplanes went out the door between those years. After another 10 years, the industry had added another 150,220 aircraft to the fleet. Then, the bubble burst in the ’80s, with only 30,908 airplanes built in that decade. The ’90s saw just 17,665 airplanes produced. The nearly 250,000 general aviation airplanes built in the ’60s and ’70s, therefore, were the origins of our still-existing legacy fleet.

During nearly 65 years of industry observation, I was fortunate to have been around at the birth of many of these legacy airplanes. I remember walking around one of the first Cessna 210s parked at our field in 1960, trying to figure out where the gear went. When a Piper dealer came by to show us a brand-new ’62 Cherokee, we could scarcely believe it was a sibling to our Tri-Pacers. And, compared to the twin Beechcraft Bonanzas on the field, I thought the ’60 Beech Queen Air was the most beautiful mini-airliner I had ever seen when I climbed aboard one of the first, not realizing that in four more years its sister ship would become the turboprop King Air.

A Cessna 336 Skymaster showed up at an airport opening I attended in 1964, attracting all sorts of attention since it was unlike any Cessna we had seen before. By then, Brand C had added the 185, 206, and 320 models, and the cabin-class 411 was coming. Piper’s new 1963 Twin Comanche struck us as cute, compared with the pudgy Apache and Aztec, while the Pawnee was our first look at a purpose-built ag plane. In the mid-’60s, new aircraft models were popping up everywhere. One of my friends bought a brand-new Citabria in 1964, which we thought was a vast improvement over the old Aeronca Champion.

As the years passed, I became associated with airplane dealerships, and then started covering a beat as an industry journalist. I saw Cessna’s abortive attempt to enter the helicopter business with the CH-1 Skyhook in the early ’60s, and later in 1967 we picked up one of the first Cessna Cardinals at the factory. In 1973, I attended Beech’s November sales meeting in Wichita, Kansas, featuring the introduction of the big Super King Air 200. About the same time, Cessna was dropping into our airport with the new Citation jet. Back in 1961, I had seen a mock-up of a civilian version of Cessna’s T-37 jet trainer, perhaps a response to Beech’s short partnership with the Morane-Saulnier Paris jet. The Citation 500’s fanjet engines made all the difference.

All through the ’70s and early ’80s, we news hounds were kept busy attending rollouts and first flights of new models. Airplane companies were in full production and eager to expand their market, trying out every novelty and adding improvements. Mooney stretched and muscled up its M20 series, Maule constantly reworked its Rocket models, Rockwell added more Commander types, and Grumman gave us “cats” of every size, Lynx to Cougar.

It All Started in the Late 1950s

In my earliest flying years at the end of the 1950s, Piper was producing only the Apache, Comanche, Tri-Pacer and Super Cub models. Cessna had the 310, 182, and 172, and was just adding the 175 and 150. Beech built the Model 18 Twin Beech, V-tail and twin Bonanzas, and a new Travel Air light twin. Mooney basically sold one model, as did Bellanca, and Aero Commander competed solely in the twin market. As the industry and I matured during the ’60s, dozens of new designs and variations appeared in the marketplace.

This era’s fertile incubator brought forth steady innovations. Piper adopted touches from the Comanche, such as the swept tailfin and stabilator pitch control, for its Aztec and Cherokee models introduced in the early ’60s. Cessna not only swept the tail on most models in 1960, it copied Detroit automotive marketing by introducing “deluxe” versions loaded with standard options—all-over paint instead of partially bare aluminum, gyros and radios in the panel, landing gear fairings, and showy interiors. Beech, on the other hand, expanded its line downward, first with a Debonair economy version of the Bonanza and later the entry-level Musketeer singles with (gasp!) fixed landing gear. The Baron was introduced in 1961 for buyers needing something smaller than the hulking twin Bonanza but more capable than the Travel Air.

The secret sauce enlivening this banquet of expansion in the ’60s and ’70s was the involvement of ownership and management dedicated to personal aviation. William T. Piper and his sons, Bill Jr., Thomas (“Tony”), and Howard (“Pug”), made the decisions at Piper Aircraft. Mrs. O.A. Beech and her nephew Frank Hedrick held the reins at Beech Aircraft. Dwane Wallace, Clyde Cessna’s nephew, would walk the factory floor at Cessna. Rather than being subject to a corporate board of bean counters and legal advisers, these leaders had grown their companies with a vision of what little airplanes could do and took risks based on the love of the game.

Amazing products resulted, not from committee decisions but because of a guiding hand at the top who was likely a pilot and aircraft enthusiast. At the industry press conferences and sales meetings back then, one could sense the devotion and dreams in the presentations. All of this changed in the last quarter of the 20th century, as the old general aviation firms were sold and wrapped under conglomerate, non-aviation management. This brought cautious decision-making and design compromise by consensus, with legal, sales, engineering, and bookkeeping departments making sure all interests were represented. Lockheed engineer Kelly Johnson once said, “From now on, there will be no more great airplanes, just adequate ones.”

The Sizzling ’70s

The 1960s had seen heady expansion of product lines. By 1970, Piper had largely made the switch from building fabric-covered airplanes at its old plant in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, to all-metal designs streaming from a bright new complex in Florida. Labor problems and a disastrous flood in 1972 ended the Lock Haven era and the Comanche line, although the Aztec and Navajo twins continued. However, there were plenty of other options in the product line. The Piper Cherokee, also known as the PA-28 platform, had been expanded to at least eight variants, being added to six twins and the Pawnee ag planes. Cessna was building half of the world’s GA airplanes in its Kansas facilities, offering no less than a dozen singles, eight twins, and a new bizjet on the horizon. Beech, meanwhile, now had 12 single-engine models, seven twins, and three turboprops in its fleet. And the 1970s were just starting.

Vertical integration seemed to be important, in that each major manufacturer wanted to offer a two-seat trainer, four-seat family airplane, higher-powered business cruiser, and complex retract. Twins were similarly ranked—as light, medium, and cabin class—with pressurization and turbine engines being the ultimate goal. Piper took the Cherokee Six heavy-single into a Seneca twin in ’72, followed by the Lance retractable in ’76. Tapered wings and stretched fuselages improved the smaller Cherokees, and a true two-seater, the Tomahawk, came along in ’78, followed by the Seminole light twin. At the top, the Navajo cabin twin became stretched, pressurized, and turbine-ized.

Over at Cessna, a plethora of preferences had been promulgated by 1970. Tubular landing gear legs replaced older flat springs, manual flaps were changed to electric, the 210 Centurion’s wing struts had been removed, and by the mid-1960s stylish back windows had been installed in nearly all models. Engine turbochargers became an option, starting in ’62 with the 320 twin, then in ’66 for the 206 and 210. Cessna joined Piper in the ag plane business that year, and in ’69 the 206 was stretched into the 207. By the end of 1970s, there were three models of the 210—normal, turbo, and pressurized—the Skylane RG joined the fixed-gear 182, and even the Skyhawk went retractable with the Cutlass RG. On the twin side, the “push-pull” centerline-thrust Skymaster was available in three performance categories, the 310/340 was similarly outfitted, and the 400-series twins offered models with utility, executive, and pressurized cabins. It took until the late 1970s for Cessna to move into the turboprop business since it was occupied with the Citation jets earlier in that decade.

Beech was busy introducing the stretched King Air 100 in 1970 and the flagship Super King Air 200 for ’74, adding the longer Baron 58 in ’70, a pressurized Baron 58P, in ’76 and the Duchess light twin in ’78, while continuing to build piston-engine Queen Airs and Dukes. Still, Beech found time to put retractable gear on the Musketeer and add an extra cabin door to the light airplanes, and to develop the two-place Skipper trainer at the end of the decade.

By no means was all the action in the ’70s limited to the “Big Three” airplane manufacturers. Mooney was innovating like crazy in that time frame, with the introduction of the cleaned-up 201 and the turbo 231. Other short-line manufacturers like Bellanca/Champion, Maule, and Grumman American enlarged their offerings, and Rockwell jumped into its own single-engine Commander business after first trying to acquire smaller companies in the 1960s. The ’70s were full of enthusiasm for aviation, despite an oil embargo setback in 1973-74 and a disrupting air traffic controller strike in 1981. By the mid-’80s, it was all over.

Did CAR 3 Play a Role?

What may have made all these developments of new airplane types possible was the continuing use of Civil Air Regulation Part 3 certification, a holdover from the Civil Aeronautics Authority, predecessor to the Federal Aviation Administration’s creation in 1958. With the changeover to the FAA’s Federal Air Regulations, FAR Part 23 became the new certification basis for light aircraft, gradually evolving into a fresh start with some new requirements added to the old CAR 3 rules. As this regulatory meshing took some time to accomplish, established airplane companies rushed to certify as many new models as possible under CAR 3, filing applications that could grandfather them into existing rules while product development continued into the ’60s.

Using these old CAR 3 certifications as basis, most of our legacy fleet was built using amendments to the original type certificate, even though the airplanes were marketed as “new” models. Hence, the 1968-introduced Beech Bonanza 36 was certified as an addition to the CAR 3-basis TC #3A15, which was originally issued for the Bonanza H35 of 1957. Cessna’s Bonanza competitors, beginning with the model 210 certified on April 20, 1959, were also certified under CAR 3 except for the pressurized P210 because its original application was dated August 13, 1956. Even the ’64 Cessna 206 was certified as a CAR Part 3 airplane, as the original application was dated November 9, 1962, continuing right up through the end of legacy 206 production in ’86.

For its part, Piper introduced the PA-28 Cherokee in ’61 under CAR 3 certification basis from an application dated February 14, 1958. Even the PA-32 Cherokee Six was born as a CAR 3 airplane in ’65 with an application dated ’64. Similar modifications to original CAR 3 certifications took place at Mooney, Champion, Rockwell Commander, Lake, and Maule. To be fair, subsequent model changes through the ’70s frequently complied with FAR Part 23 amendments applicable to their dates of certification, even though they were built as CAR 3-certified airplanes. On the other hand, the four-seat Grumman AA-5 airplanes were certified under FAR Part 23 with an original application dated July 2, 1970.

As is typical of the mission creep inherent in any administrative law, FAR Part 23 certification grew in complexity from the boilerplate inherited from CAR 3. Much of this was inevitable as new construction methods and materials were developed, and equipment unanticipated in CAR 3 was placed on airplanes. However, grandfathering in earlier type certification, rather than pursuing entirely new FAR 23 approval, meant less time and money was required to produce a new aircraft.

Are FAA Part 23-certified airplanes any better? It depends on which level of amendments they complied with. Certification under Part 23 in the ’60s was quite similar to the CAR 3 certification of a decade earlier, but Part 23 amendments of the ’80s had evolved to a greater degree. When it comes to engineering small unpressurized general aviation aircraft, however, structures are typically overbuilt simply for durability and manufacturing ease. The basic criteria for CAR Part 3 and FAR Part 23 remain much the same. CAR 3’s stipulation that stall speed for single-engine airplanes shall not exceed
70 mph is simply restated in FAR 23 as “61 knots.” However, as mentioned, there have been multitudinous minutia added in FAR 23, often in response to newer materials and devices never contemplated in CAR 3 days. Each of these must be given consideration when developing entirely new designs, taking up engineering time and documentation.

Most significantly, this prodigious adaptation and modification of basic CAR 3 aircraft designs, along with introduction of entirely new FAR 23 ones, continued through the ’60s and ’70s. Each of the major manufacturers wanted to make sure customers were able to remain loyal as they upgraded into higher-performance airplanes. They accomplished this by increasing the number of types offered and seeing that any small opening into an unserved need was met with a new model.
And so it was that fixed-gear models received retractable landing gear. The fuselage stretched to accommodate extra seats. Four-cylinder engines became six-cylinder powerplants. Turbocharged models complemented normally aspirated offerings. Even twin engines were grafted onto single-engine airframes. Pressurization, turbine engines, tip tanks, cargo pods: if you wanted it, engineering and marketing departments made sure you could get it.

Market saturation eventually brought down the number of aircraft types, and production rates plummeted in the ’80s to match the lack of buyers. Contributing to the collapse of the ’80s was a lingering economic malaise from double-digit interest rates and inflation, and the increasing cost of product liability insurance against the growth industry of tort suits, divided by the fewer and fewer units sold.

Why can’t we just make new old ones?

Challenges on several fronts make reviving old type-certificated aircraft difficult. Small production rates mean handcrafting what was once mass-produced, so each unit costs more. Rebuilding the market requires making enough people want what you have to offer. The numbers of active pilots and qualified, motivated buyers are down compared to the bustling days, and consumer expectations are much higher now, requiring airframes to be bloated with quality accessories. Back in the day, comfort and ease of use took a back seat to the thrill of flight. We didn’t expect to have air conditioning in our airplane because it weighed half as much as a passenger and it wasn’t needed aloft. Plush seating, Wi-Fi, sound deadening, single-lever power control, and wall-to-wall glass instrument panels weren’t a priority or even dreamed about 50 years ago. We were just glad to have an engine, wings, and freedom to fly. Legacy airplanes today need considerable upgrading to bring them up to speed with current buyer desires.

Airports were social communities during the last third of the 1900s. Security was almost nonexistent, perceived threats being remote, so coming and going was less restricted and hurried. Pilots spent time at the airport. Airport lounges were often untidy but welcoming places that encouraged hanging out, not polished palaces to pass through. If you parked outside with your new 1970 Mooney, someone would come out to admire it, not shepherd it away to piston-engine row. Today’s aircraft owners are far different. Many are users of airplanes, not flyers for the sake of flying. They are more satisfied to possess their flying machines—less so to be companions with them.

That said, the great fleet of general aviation aircraft built in the two decades of the mid-’60s to mid-’80s still represents a wonderful opportunity for acquisition and preservation. We must not underestimate the continuing rise in maintenance and operation costs. But these remarkable old birds serve their purpose as well as they ever did, if we’ll just take care of them.
Let us rise to the challenge. 

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of Plane & Pilot. 

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Not everyone believes that beauty is a mystery. For the past couple of decades, mathematicians have been attempting to quantify what we find beautiful, notably in human faces, by probing the relationship of parts and their arrangement to the whole and trying to arrive at some kind of equation of beauty. Other scientists who are interested in the question of what we find beautiful are teaching computers to learn to replicate the judgments we make in finding things beautiful, so far mostly in photos of nature and people’s faces and not airplanes. At least not yet.

In the process, we’ve surely picked a few that hardly anyone would disagree with. You’ll see. At the same time, it’s almost certain that we’ve picked a couple that you might disagree with, perhaps strongly.

And as you’ll notice, too, we’ve only selected conventionally certificated GA planes, so you won’t see any P-51s, Constellations or Lancairs here, even if they are sometimes under the GA umbrella. We’ve also stuck to piston-powered planes, so bear that in mind, as well. 

So, without further ado, we present nine of the most beautiful airplanes in GA history.

Cessna Cardinal

One of the most beloved singles in the company’s long history, the Cessna model 177 Cardinal is proof that beauty isn’t necessarily synonymous with utility. Cessna introduced the Cardinal as a replacement for the somewhat ungainly-looking 172 Skyhawk, but it never came close to that, in part because the Skyhawk is a remarkable airplane, though admittedly one that didn’t win many beauty contests. The Cardinal, on the other hand, is the opposite: a gorgeous plane that’s limited in terms of utility. Like its older Cessna hangar mate, the Cessna 195, the Cardinal makes use of a cantilever wing, and while the Cardinal was intended by Cessna to be the replacement for the 172 Skyhawk, the plane never came close to competing with the Skyhawk as a do-everything flyer. Instead, the 177 became an iconic personal airplane, one that’s adored as much (or more) for its beauty as it is for its utility.

While the wing is definitely the thing that sets the Cardinal apart, Cessna designers did a masterful job of integrating the silky-smooth lines of the wing into the rest of the bird, to the point that the tail on early models was pretty but not particularly effective. Other distinctive features include the forward placement of the front seats, the low-slung gear, the wraparound windows—the Cardinal is perhaps the best sightseeing Cessna ever—and the cool wheelpants. The retractable-gear version, while a bit busy-looking on the ramp, is a true beauty once airborne, and opinions vary on which of the models is the prettier.

Cessna 195

The Cessna 195 is one of the oldest planes in our lineup, and its beauty is inextricably tied both to the technology of the era and Cessna engineers’ ingenious attempts to find ways around those technologies. The look of the Cessna 195—dubbed by the company the “Businessliner”—is dominated by a handful of features that are impossible to miss. First is the big seven-cylinder Jacobs 300 radial engine up front (and the gorgeous annular cowling that surrounds it), which gave the plane a lot of juice and a serious attitude. Second, the plane is unmistakably and unapologetically a taildragger, which was by the mid-1940s, when the nosewheel began to dominate, as much a statement of philosophy as a configuration choice.

Though inspired by designs from the 1930s, the 195 didn’t fly until after the war, in 1945. As such, it’s an amalgam of prewar thinking and WWII-era materials. Despite its vintage (even then) radial engine and taildragger configuration, the plane features modern sheet-metal construction both inside and out. Another signature feature of the 195 is its beautiful cantilever (strut-less) wing, the last high-wing Cessna to go without struts until the Cessna Cardinal in the late 1960s. While the ’40s were giving birth to new music and new fashions, the interior design of the 195 is Art Deco classic. Featuring beautiful branding details and a number of luxury-level flourishes, the generous cabin of the 195 is done up with an eye to craftsmanship and beauty as opposed to the bare-bones look of Cessnas to come.

Luscombe Silvaire

The Luscombe Model 8 Silvaire was produced in an era where there was no shortage of affordable two-seat light planes, including the prototypical example, the Cub. The Silvaire was different, though. In terms of configuration, the plane is nothing unusual. A two-seat taildragger with cozy side-by-side seating, the Silvaire, if anything, was a bit harder to land than its close competitors, thanks to its narrow gear and slightly higher center of gravity. Still, with its sheet-metal design (the wings were originally covered in fabric), the Silvaire was slipperier than its rivals by as much as 20 knots. People loved the plane and flocked to it—nearly 6,000 were built over the years—though its attraction wasn’t just for its performance, and it certainly wasn’t for the elbow room.

For many Luscombe Silvaire lovers, it was the beauty of the thing. The Silvaire name resonated, and while many were bare metal birds, and hence were literally silver, many others were painted, and fans of the model make convincing arguments for each approach. Either way, the beauty is undeniable, though admittedly it’s hard to know just where to give credit. The plane is just a beautifully balanced delight, a shiny sheet-metal dragonfly of a plane, light, agile, silvery and!timeless.

Beechcraft Duke

A pressurized twin with good speed and great range, it filled a coveted niche and competed directly against Cessna’s pretty 421 Golden Eagle. The pilots who bought a Duke were inspired by its looks. They were the kind of customer who might have a Porsche 911 in the garage at home. They were people who liked fast machines that also looked fast. Designers of the Duke achieved its striking look by taking the concept of “swept back” and applying it everywhere, and it worked. The combination of the swept tail, swept winglets, elongated pointy nose—like that of a hypersonic jet—and angular windows created a look that sold many a Duke before the buyer even climbed inside.

Cessna 310

It’s hard to make a twin look pretty. By definition you’ve got to hang those engines somewhere, and sticking them on the wing is about the only thing that makes practical sense with a piston-powered multi-engine model. So the design achievement of Cessna with its archetypal 310 light twin is remarkable. Unlike some models, the 310, which was produced from 1954 until 1980, seemed to look better with each passing model upgrade. The long, low-engine nacelles, the pointed nose and rakish tail all added to the allure. Like many twins, the early 310 suffered from a lack of range, so tip tanks were added.

As opposed to some planes, on which wingtip-mounted tanks look like tacked-on afterthoughts—which they pretty much are—on the 310, the effect is pleasing. They somehow improve the appearance of the plane. Even more, the effect is to take the Buck Rogers spacecraft feel of the 310 and amplify it, making it one of the slickest-looking planes you’ll ever meet on the ramp, even with those engines hanging off all over the wings. Inside the 310 is arguably even cooler, at least those rare ones with their original interiors intact. Over the years, Cessna interior designers worked their magic on the plane like none other in the inventory. There were plaid interiors, Western-themed ones and even butterscotch tweed versions. Many of those masterful time capsules have been sewn over in the intervening years, covered with simulated leather for what is perhaps a more saleable used plane but one that lacks the time stamp and personality of the original.

Globe Swift

The genesis of the Globe Swift is an odd one. Developed from an existing design, the Culver Cadet, the Swift somehow bore only a passing resemblance to its inspiration. While the Cadet was a decent-looking airplane, the Swift is a true beauty. Introduced in the postwar era, the Swift was, in a few important ways, the embodiment of the most famous fighters of the day in a miniaturized, and to be honest, an underpowered, package. An all-metal taildragger with a sleek low wing, the Swift mimicked the shape and style of planes like the American P-51 Mustang or British Supermarine Spitfire. And the Swift was up for the comparison.

Though it wasn’t intended to go fast—the first model had an engine of just 85 hp—the Swift had a lot of style. With spry handling qualities and a big glass canopy (that looked like a sliding canopy even if it wasn’t), the Swift is an airplane that makes it easy to check your six, if you’re so inclined. In the end, Globe, with the help of fellow manufacturer TEMCO, built more than a thousand of the little two-seaters, though within a few short years it was building far more of them than it could sell. Today, the Swift is a hot used plane for pilots looking for flying fun on the cheap. Many modify it with a true sliding canopy and a more powerful engine while swapping out, in true warbird fashion, the classic yokes for arguably even more classic sticks.

Beechcraft Bonanza

What a difference a few years make, especially when those years were the era of World War II and the world had changed irrevocably. In terms of aircraft design, there’s no better dichotomy to illustrate the change than two Beechcraft products separated by about a decade in calendar time but by eons in terms of approach, mission and aesthetics. When it created the Staggerwing in the early 1930s, the design team at Beechcraft came out with an Art Deco masterpiece, all finely figured wood and excess. The Bonanza, in contrast, was minimalism, efficiency and performance personified. The all-metal speedster was and is beautiful, but in such a different way than the Staggerwing that it seems impossible the two came from the same century, never mind the same side of Wichita, Kansas.

With its all-metal design (there was a little fabric on the early models), cool V-tail and retractable nosewheel landing gear, the Bonanza was more modern than any production light plane that would appear for the next decade. It didn’t rival the most modern automotive design standards; it foresaw future approaches. On the Bonanza, the V-tail is the defining component. Indeed, it’s hard to come up with another aircraft feature that so immediately confers the essence of the machine. The tail isn’t without its critics, though few find fault with its style. When Beech came out with the straight-tailed Debonair model in the early 1960s, some pilots went in that direction while others pointed at the vertical tail of the new offshoot, shook their heads and pronounced, “That’s not a Bonanza.”

Staggerwing Beech

Technically designated the Beech Model 17, this beauty from a bygone era is known almost universally as the Staggerwing Beech. As only a few other planes, it’s named after a design feature—the placing of the lower wing staggered ahead of the upper one. Designed way back in 1933, the plane was born during the era of high-stakes air racing, where speed was pursued at all costs. The Staggerwing, with its dramatic lines and short-coupled fuselage, looked for all the world like it would be right at home at the Cleveland Air Races, rounding pylons with the fastest air racers of the day.

Unlike some designs with radial engines, the Staggerwing’s look wasn’t dominated by the radial engine—the plane was outfitted with a number of different radial engines, from 280 to 710 hp, over its lifetime. If anything, the shape of the plane underplayed the powerplant, making it something other than the driving element of the look of the craft. With small, short-rise windows, the fuselage, as was common in the day, looks more like a fortress than an observatory, but again, somehow that adds to the mystery and intrigue of the design. Some think of the Staggerwing as a rare bird, but Beechcraft actually sold nearly 800 of the planes in its lifetime, which stretched out until the last delivery, in 1949. Beauty dies hard.

Piper J-3 Cub

You might be asking why we would choose the Piper Cub as one of the most beautiful GA airplanes ever. Good question. By all objective metrics, the Piper J-3 is all knees and elbows, a plane that looks like it was designed by committee, with a boxy fuselage, a too-long wing, its belly low to the ground and its nose sporting engine parts sticking out here and there. But when pilots see a Cub, we see a thing of beauty, and that might be because the plane is so central to our identity as pilots, whether we’ve flown one of them or not.

And the parts, far from looking thrown together, complement each other, the big, long glider wing providing shade for a pair of seats set in tandem, its horizontal Dutch door providing as much a maze and obstacle as a portal, and the cowling not ill-designed but intentionally showing off its buried treasure, 65 horses of just the right kind of sound. And then there’s the best part, the Cub yellow, the lightning bolt, the little Cub logo, all of which are odd on their own but blend together to create an identity that sings like a clear Pennsylvania morning as the tires clip through the tall grass headed airborne. Beautiful? Beautiful beyond description.

Now it’s your turn! Tell us which beautiful GA plane we missed by leaving a comment or emailing us at editor@planeandpilotmag.com.

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The post The 9 Most Beautiful GA Airplanes appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

When Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Premier Aircraft Sales introduced its Premier Edition Piper Dakota in late 2017, the company was understandably curious to see how the market would respond. In theory, there would be great interest. The idea was compelling: By taking low-time PA-28-235 airframes and performing an extensive restoration, Premier could offer buyers an airplane that does what a new Dakota would do and then some, if you could buy one, which you can’t, and at a fraction of the cost. Who wouldn’t like the sound of that?

Fred Ahles, president and founder of Premier Aircraft Sales, explained that in his view, there’s “no good used equivalent for the Dakota” at near this price point. Premier sells the refurbished Dakota for between $260,000 and $325,000, depending on avionics. Ahles suggested that an equivalent model would cost $500,000 or more. While a figure north of $300,000 sounds like a lot for a 40-year-old airplane, the truth is, it’s cheaper than many new planes of less performance.

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Piper introduced what it called the Cherokee 235 back in 1963 to compete against what is, till today, the plane’s most natural rival, the Cessna 182 Skylane. With a Lycoming O-540 engine and a longer wing (and with tip tanks), the 235 could carry more than the 182 and go farther, too. In the early ’70s, Piper stretched the fuselage to give the rear occupants more legroom and changed the name to the Pathfinder. In the late ’70s, Piper swapped the beloved Hershey’s bar wing for the newer, tapered wing. The final Piper version of the Dakota featured the Continental turbocharged TSIO-360-FB engine, the same engine as in the Turbo Arrow of the day. It is this airplane, and there weren’t that many built, that Premier finds and extensively refurbishes.

While there has been healthy interest in the Premier Edition Dakota, according to the company, and while it has made several sales, some, especially those operating at higher elevations, want the added performance benefit of a turbocharged engine. Premier has responded to the interest with a Turbo Dakota, a plane that Premier says has all the beauty of the original with a much-improved engine.

The original Piper PA-28-201T Turbo Dakota had a very short production run. In fact, it was only available for the 1979 model year. The biggest issue was the use of a rather problematic, fixed-wastegate controller on the original, 210 horsepower Continental TSIO-360-FB engine.

According to Barry Rutheiser, regional sales manager with Premier, with the original fixed-wastegate, even if you were down at 4,000 feet and didn’t need it, the unit was still going full speed, and that made the turbocharger less reliable and managing the engine a lot more challenging. It was just hard to nail down a manifold pressure at cruise. It was always changing. Because of that, the engine/turbocharger combination got a deserved bad reputation.

To eliminate those issues on its refurbished model, Premier replaced the old fixed-wastegate with a new Merlyn Automatic Wastegate Controller. Now, all the operations are handled automatically, so it’s a lot easier to manage. Plus, as so configured, the engine delivers a number of other benefits, including faster cruise speeds, quicker climb rates, lower temperatures and more economical fuel burn at cruise.

The “Mother Of All Annuals”

Aside from the engines, turbo- or non-, every Premier Edition Dakota undergoes a super-detailed inspection by the experienced Piper technicians at Premier Aircraft Services (the company’s in-house MRO arm)—or, as Rutheiser describes it, “The first really good annual inspection any of these airplanes have had in at least 10-years.”

Rutheiser said that what Premier has found is typically these older airplanes have been in the hands of owners and mechanics who were doing the minimum needed to pass FAA muster every year. Because of that, its policy is to follow the Piper factory-recommended guide and do everything in the book, which takes time and isn’t cheap.

Premier said that the in-house annuals have been running between $20,000 and $30,000 on these airframes—and that doesn’t include the engine rebuild. Most of the repairs are due to the array of age-related issues in the airframe, and nothing is left unfixed.

One of the oft-overlooked (ignored?) items that Premier addresses is the long-standing Piper Service Bulletin on the inspection of the fuel lines that come out of the backs of the fuel tanks.

“The fuel tank inspection is recommended to be done every 15 years, so that’s what we do,” Ahles said. “You may not have a visible fuel leak, but we find seepage in the little lines at the back of the tanks that feed the fuel system. It’s small, but over time it can build up and cause corrosion on the wing spar. So, of course, we inspect the spars for any signs of damage.”

As Ahles explained it, after the fuel tanks are removed, the entire system is cleaned and inspected. It’s not an isolated issue. Premier says that it has yet to find one that doesn’t have some type of leak.

“These are simple little $8 rubber hoses that cost around $2,200 to change, but it has to be done,” Ahles said. “Who wants to buy an airplane with a leaking fuel line? Not me. And I won’t sell one, either.”

After the airframe is inspected tip-to-tail and repairs are made, the control cables are all recalibrated to factory-new specifications, and new stainless-steel hardware is installed.

Interior Enhancements

Since the Premier team dedicated such an effort to the engine and airframe, it’s no surprise that it upgraded the interior to match. If anything, the interior treatment is even more complete than the airframe or the engine. Premier’s interior shop experts take the original seats and strip them down to the bare frames and then add high-end seat foam, reshaping the bottoms and backs, resulting in a finished product that Ahles says is not only “much more comfortable” than the original equipment but also comparable, he concludes, to what you’d get “with a new Meridian.”

When it comes to the avionics package, Ahles said each owner specs out the panel to their liking, and there’s a wide range of potential combinations. Premier offers everything from a basic six-pack of steam gauges to a glass panel built around Garmin’s new 500TXi glass and GTN 750 touchscreen GPS units. In the process, the plane leaves the shop fully ADS-B compliant and with ADS-B in, as well.

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Finish

As you would expect, while the true measure of a quality rebuild is what’s under the paint, it’s that glossy finish that everyone sees.

Premier partners with nearby paint shop Ormond Beach Aviation in Ormond Beach, Florida, and as with the avionics, the customer gets to spec out the paint colors, though Premier models its paint schemes current-model PA-28. Before it gets its first coat, every Dakota is stripped to bare metal and acid washed, including all the areas around the window surrounds, door edges and access panels, all with the singular goal of being prepped so it can be painted to the highest quality. Ahles is a believer in the high quality and compares the finish with those on brand-new planes, saying that, “Twenty years from now, these airplanes will still look terrific.”

The Process

While Premier Aircraft Sales started the Premier Edition Dakota program to stimulate sales of legacy Dakotas, Ahles said that if you’re lucky enough to already own one of these exceptionally capable airplanes, Premier is ready to work with you to upgrade it to your specifications.

“Should an owner bring us their Dakota, we can do any or all of our upgrades on their aircraft,” he said. “It’s totally up to the owner’s wants and wishes.”

As for the price, again, that’s totally up to what you want done. “I’d say it’s best to start with one of our detailed annuals and go from there,” he said. “That way the owner will know what condition the aircraft is really in and determine their upgrade path.”

The Premier Dakota can carry four full-sized adults and 72 gallons of 100LL while still having enough useful load for 100 pounds of bags so, yes, the Premier Dakota maintains the model’s reputation for being a great load hauler. As far as performance is concerned, the Premier Dakota compares quite favorably to the original. Premier has done some unofficial performance checks—remember, though, that these are essentially one-off refurbishments—and got some great numbers. At 4,000 feet, the Merlyn controller delivers a five-knot cruise boost while lowering the fuel burn by a half-gallon per hour. It also helps keep critical engine temperatures down below book numbers. That goes a long way to increasing range and cutting down on fuel costs.

While Premier isn’t likely to sell dozens of like-new Dakotas a year, it seems likely to keep a steady flow of business with an airplane that’s in many ways like new while being more comfortable and even better performing than the original, an airplane that owners tended to love in the first place.

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This is the 70^th anniversary of the Bonanza, and it’s a worthy milestone to mark. This is not lost on the folks at Textron Aviation—both Beech and Cessna are under the Textron Aviation umbrella, but the company has wisely left both names to their own storied brands. They mention the Bonanza as the longest continually produced model in aviation history, and they’re right, in a way.

That first Beech Bonanza was the model 35, the V-tailed predecessor of the surviving Bonanza, the G36. That first Bonanza was a very different ship than today’s model. While it was all-metal and had the same general profile as all Bonanzas and Barons to come, it was a four-seater, had a V-tail and was light, really light, weighing in at around 2,500 pounds max takeoff weight, more than 1,000 pounds lighter than today’s model 36.

Beech built the last V-tailed Bonanza in the early ’80s and since then has been building only straight-tailed models, the Model 33 Debonair (in later years called simply “Bonanza”), and starting in 1968 and continuing to today, the Model 36, a straight-tailed, stretched version of the Debonair that features a big, roomy rear seating area for four in addition to the pilot and right-seat occupant. Beech stopped production of the Model 33 in 1995, so for the past 20-something years, the Model 36 is the Bonanza.

My point being for all this history is that the Model 36 Bonanza was first delivered in 1968, so next year will be its 50^th anniversary, a more fitting and accurate tribute to the plane, of which Beech has delivered nearly 4,000 models in that time. Still, if you consider the brand and the name Bonanza, well, that part of it is true. It has been 70 years since arguably the most important high-performance single of all time rolled out the factory doors and took to the skies, which Bonanzas are still doing today.

The Beechcraft Feel

Everything about the Beech Bonanza feels different after you’ve been flying more recently designed airplanes, like the G36’sWichita counterpart, the Cessna TTx. If the TTx is a racing machine—it is superfast—then the Bonanza is a luxury performance sedan—sporty, elegant and spacious all at once. And classy, too, it is, and not in the way people call silly shiny things “classy.” The Bonanza is the real deal.

For decades, Beech has been a brand that pilots associated with speed, quality workmanship and comfort. At a time in aviation history when new designs, even fixed-gear ones, have gotten faster than the Bonanza, when their insurance costs are lower and their operation simpler, all while still somehow being exceptionally roomy, the Bonanza occupies a special niche in the market.

It’s a plane for a pilot who wants a combination of more seats, classic construction, very solid speed and range, and the kind of heritage of style that stands alone in this market segment. It’s not just a feel, either. There are numerous features that stand out in the Bonanza’s construction, including the all-metal construction, the quality of interior materials (though its rivals have caught up with it in this regard), and the multiple little branding touches, emblems and signature logos here and there throughout the interior, that in any other plane might be seen as pretentious. Again, the Bonanza reminds me of a quote by Hollywood legend John Wayne, aka, the Duke (another Beech model, by the way): “No brag, just fact.”

G36 Further Refined

As is or will be the case for every new airplane that features Garmin G1000, the Bonanza has the new NXi version of the avionics suite. Without making this another review of NXi, which we’ve flown in four different airplanes now, there are a number of features and strengths that bear a quick overview. The system comes standard with ADS-B Out and In, which you’d expect in a new airplane. NXi is much faster, brighter and cleaner than plain vanilla G1000, thanks to better hardware all around, so things like panning and zooming are pretty much instantaneous.

There’s also a game-changing technology, the Vertical Situation Display (VSP), which shows your airplane’s progress with a simple side view. While this is good for cruise flight, with terrain awareness built into just about every display, from iPhones on up, we should all have a very firm idea in mind at all times of our situation in relation to terrain. No, what the VSP does best is showing your progress along an approach, something IFR pilots have been dreaming up for many decades. This utility eliminates—or should—any uncertainty about where you are on the approach, so you don’t fail to descend to an altitude and wind up too high and too close or, more importantly, so you don’t descend prematurely and inadvertently fly into an obstacle, or the ground, neither of which is an acceptable answer when the controller asks, “How would you like the approach to terminate?”

In addition, there’s comm frequency decoding, which shows you a text identifier of who you have in the active frequency, visual approaches for brew-your-own VFR arrivals at just about any airport, and optional wireless database and flight plan loading via the Garmin FlightStream 510 interface. There’s a lot more, but suffice it to say that NXi is a huge upgrade to G1000. Is it reason enough to buy a new plane? In some cases, the answer is yes. Safety is everything.

The front seats of the G36 are accessed in very old-fashioned style with a single door on the passenger side, so you need to climb in and work your way over, which luckily isn’t a difficult task. Once there, you’ll be delighted at the bizjet level of fit and finish of the G36, which more than one aircraft sales rep has told me is a requirement with today’s high-end buyers. After all, they have sky-high expectations when they purchase a $100,000 car. Why should they settle for less with their airplane?

With the addition of NXi, the front space of the Bonanza is remarkably high-tech, and the passenger section—there are, in this airplane, two distinct zones—has gotten a number of technology improvements, too, including USB ports, music jacks, LED lighting and great seats, upholstery and leather to combine for a high-end seating experience. As with the Baron, and really just about every club-seating six-seater ever, the best seats are the rear-facing ones, as you get a lot of headroom, a great deal more shoulder room, and the view out the big side windows of the world passing behind is hard to beat in a piston single.

And with the big double doors in back, passengers, even less than nimble ones, can board with ease and with the assistance of the pilot, if need be. You can also remove the rear seats and load cargo back there, but I’d be hesitant to throw my mountain bikes in back without very carefully protecting every inch of the leather and cloth upholstery.

Going Bonanza Flying

It was a broad, cloudless Texas day when I went flying with Textron Aviation’s Lance Bartel from my home airport, San Marcos Municipal in Central Texas, just south of Austin and just north of San Antonio. It seemed like a perfect day to go flying, but it was getting hot by the time we were ready to hit the airwaves, and heat, as you know if you’ve studied weather even a little, is the prime engine of meteorological change.

If you’ve never flown a Bonanza—indeed, if you’ve never flown a Model 36 Bonanza—you’re missing out. There’s no one remarkable thing about the experience, yet somehow it winds up exceptional in the whole.

It starts even before you start the engine. The entry door has an unusual latching system; the door bottom slides on a metal rod until fully open, at which point the rod clicks into a detent, so the wind won’t whip your door closed again as you’re trying to get in. To close the door, you need to pull down on the rod, which releases it. You can tell when someone is familiar with Bonanzas (or Barons, which have the same mechanism) by witnessing them not having to figure out the mystery of closing the door. The door itself feels really solid, and the latching mechanism is equally beefy and positive. As I said, it’s just one of the many little features that sets the Bonanza apart from other singles.

Once in and settled, I ran through the pre-start checks, progressing to the start itself. There’s no key; the ignition switch is a round, metal, keyless switch that, again, is substantial and feels a bit like something from the Art Deco past. Love it.

Once we’d fired up the big IO-550, we started the air conditioner. It was early spring and, no, it wasn’t just to test the system. We needed it. Like the TTx, the Bonanza features a set-it-and-forget-it environmental control system. Just dial in your desired temperature in the digital controller just below the power quadrant and you’re good to go. I set it at 60 degrees and hoped that it would cool things down quickly. To my surprise, it actually did.

I got a taxi clearance, released the brakes and headed out. Unlike many of its near competitors—there’s really only one airplane in the Bonanza’s distinct niche, the Piper Matrix—the Bonanza taxis via nosewheel steering. Interestingly, the first few years, the Bonanza 35 was a steer-by-brake plane. Once you start the plane, the nose lowers and the visibility out front is pretty good. The seat isn’t adjustable up and down, so for shorter pilots, it’s a good idea to bring a bolster for better views over the top of the panel. Otherwise, the seat is nicely configurable, with recline and lumbar support.

As I got cleared for takeoff and rolled into position, I thought (briefly, of course) about the power quadrant, too, with its sturdy, prominent levers, thought about them because I was pushing them all forward as we powered for takeoff. We were taking off on Runway 26 at San Marcos, and the controller asked us if we could accept an intersection takeoff with more than 4,000 feet of runway to use, and while I’m normally not a fan of intersection departures, in this case, requesting full length would have meant a long back taxi on a busy day, which would make nobody happy. And even with the noontime heat, we needed much less than half of the available runway to get off the ground.

As soon as you start to rotate, it’s clear that the G36 has a control feel as substantial as its pedigree. Hand flying the plane requires a more businesslike approach to the act than some other popular high-performance singles. Control forces, even at slower speeds, are noticeably higher than, say, in a Cirrus SR22, but the control harmony is exquisite. You learn to use the elevator trim as you maneuver to lighten those loads, which is just good flying practice, but unlike some other planes with forces light enough to get away with some sloppy trim technique, the G36 politely requests your full attention. What you get in return is a ride that’s hard to match in this segment—solid, smooth and positive. You can almost feel the Beechcraft wing as you maneuver, lending its own particular character to the endeavor.

One quirk, and this might just have been me, but I accidentally disconnected the autopilot not once but twice in the turbulence when my thumb bumped the trim switch. It was easy enough to re-engage it, but my technique clearly wasn’t ideal. I’m sure I’d adjust my grip on the yoke to accommodate this quirk if I were to fly the G36 on a regular basis, but it was the only airplane I can recall that ever happening in, and it happened twice.

On climb, the Bonanza is, as in all things, a really strong but not extraordinary performer. We were relatively light, as is ever the case for these kinds of flights, and we saw initial rates of climb at just above sea level of nearly 1,000 fpm settling down to 700 fpm as we headed on our way up to a low-cruise altitude. Folks who’ve spent time flying the Cirrus SR22, with its prop and throttle controls combined in a single lever, will notice right away that the G36 has conventional power controls, with separate throttle, propeller and mixture controls—totally old school.

While we love the simplicity of the SR22’s power management, keeping an eye on the power in the Bonanza is no great chore. There’s the lean assist feature on the Garmin G1000 engine page to help the pilot adjust the mixture to either rich or lean of peak, and for quick reference for the climb, a helpful little blue dash recommends a fuel flow setting that makes the continuous leaning process in the climb a piece of cake.

The G36 is equipped with the normally aspirated Continental IO-550-B six-cylinder engine that puts out 300 horses while turning a three-bladed metal Hartzell constant-speed prop. As with any non-turbo-powered plane, the Bonanza cruises most comfortably at lower altitudes. Still, with a service ceiling of 18,500 feet, it does fine in the teens when the need arises to fly high, but most operators will stay low and take advantage of the plane’s higher speeds at anywhere from 3,000 to 8,000 feet, where the IO-550-B still produces a high percentage of its rated power.

It was almost a perfect flying day, with the “almost” part being some worse than moderate turbulence once we got higher than about 5,500 feet. When we first hit it, we were climbing, and it was bad enough that we discussed calling off the flight and heading back to San Marcos. In the 15 seconds it took us to have that conversation, the turbulence subsided to actual steady, moderate bumps, and before long, as we climbed, settled down to light-moderate chop.

The G36 isn’t as fast as its four-place fixed-gear near competitors, but it’s plenty fast. At 6,500 feet, we were truing at better than 175 knots at 17.5 gallons per hour, which was our rich-of-peak fuel flow. Pulling back the power to an economy, lean-of-peak cruise setting, we were looking at better than 165 at a tidy 14 gph.

At lower fuel flow settings, the Bonanza can go for a good distance, around 920 nm with reserves. Another choice Beechcraft made for the G36 at some point was to offer it only with standard fuel, which is 74 gallons usable. While big range numbers are sexy, when you think about it, the endurance number is the more important one. At 165 knots, it takes around five and a half hours to cover that distance, and in my experience, that’s plenty long for any single leg. I’m guessing at some point Beechcraft engineers and designers came to the same conclusion.

One thing nice about retractable gear, besides it feeling like you’re really flying a complex, high-performance airplane, is that the gear is a great speed brake or really three separate speed brakes with a single lever. Descending at 1,000 feet per minute or even faster is easy, and having a manual prop control gives the pilot another tool to slow things down for descent and approach to landing. It’s also a great way to establish the three-degree rate of descent after intercepting the glideslope on an ILS or WAAS approach with vertical guidance. And that’s not to mention the very effective flaps. With so many tools from which to choose, speed control in the G36, while not automatic, kind of feels that way.

Heading back into San Marcos, I hand flew the RNAV approach to Runway 26 and despite the slightly gusty conditions, it was a no-brainer. There’s probably a reason why you never hear stories of all the trials and tribulations of landing a 36 Bonanza. The plane is easy to land, probably because it combines the best landing traits of any light plane: great visibility, smooth handling, a low wing for smoothing out the flare and just the right amount of wing loading to give the pilot a great shot at making most touchdowns straightforward affairs. I could so get used to this kind of landing behavior.

Even though the G36 Bonanza is a six-seater, its price point, just over $800,000, is competitive with the four-place Cirrus SR22 and the Bonanza’s cross-town cousin, the speedy Cessna TTx. At that asking price, a buyer would expect a premium product, one with top-notch performance, great creature comforts, high-quality design, both inside and out, and a pedigree that’s arguably the best in the business. In just about every one of these areas, the Bonanza doesn’t deliver; it over-delivers.

2017 Beechcraft Bonanza G36 Specifications

2017 Beechcraft Bonanza G36

The airplane we flew for this report was an early model production Bonanza G36 outfitted with the Garmin G1000 NXi flat-panel avionics suite with redundant dual-color displays, Garmin GFC 700 integrated autopilot, dual ADAHRS, standard ADS-B In and Out, enhanced digital HSI, Vertical Situation Display, Visual Approach capability, Surface Watch ground operations utility, SiriusXM Weather and much more.

Price As Typically Equipped: $850,000

Base Price: $805,000

Check out the G36 Bonanza and other fantastic single-engine airplanes in our latest Piston Singles Buyer’s Guide.

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Price As Typically Equipped: $850,000

Base Price: $805,000

Main Construction: Metal

Engine: Continental IO-550-B

Horsepower: 300

Propeller: Hartzell, 3-blade, metal, constant speed

Avionics: Garmin G1000 NXi

Landing Gear: Retractable

Seats: 6

Doors: 1 front, double doors in rear

Empty Weight: 2,625 lbs.

Maximum Takeoff Weight: 3,650 lbs.

Max Payload: 1,025 lbs.

Useful Load: 1,038 lbs.

Fuel Capacity: 74 gal./445 lbs.

Wingspan: 36 ft.

Length: 26.5 ft.

Height: 8.6 ft.

Cabin Width: 42 in.

Maximum Climb Rate: 1,230 fpm

Top Cruise Speed: 176 kts

Service Ceiling: 18,500 ft.

Maximum Range: 929 nm

Stall, Landing Configuration: 59 kts

Takeoff Distance: 1,913 ft. (962 ft. groundroll)

Landing Distance: 1,450 ft. (920 ft. groundroll)

Check out our Bonanza G36 Pilot Report.

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Seats: 6

Main Construction: Metal

Engine/Hp: Continental IO-550-B/300 hp

Propeller: Hartzell, 3-blade, constant speed, 80″ diameter

Avionics: Garmin G1000

Top Cruise Speed: 176 kts

Stall, Landing Configuration: 59 kts

Maximum Range: 920 nm

Maximum Takeoff Weight: 3,650 lbs.

Payload: 594 lbs. (full fuel)

Useful Load: 1,038 ft.

Takeoff/Landing Distance: 1,913/1,450 ft.

Check out the G36 Bonanza and other fantastic single-engine airplanes in our latest Piston Singles Buyer’s Guide.

The post 2017 Beechcraft G36 Bonanza appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

Seats: 6

Main Construction: Metal

Engine/Hp: Continental IO-550-C/ 300 hp each

Propellers: Hartzell, 3-blade, constant speed, 75″ diameter

Avionics: Garmin G1000

Top Cruise Speed: 202 kts

Stall, Landing Configuration: 73 kts

Maximum Range: 1,480 nm

Maximum Takeoff Weight: 5,500 lbs.

Payload: 330 lbs. (full fuel)

UsefulLoad: 1,494 lbs.

Takeoff/Landing Distance: 2,345/2,490 ft.

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Premier 172
SPECIFICATIONS
Engine:	Continental CD-135 turbodiesel
Horsepower:	135
Propeller:	MT composite, three blade, constant speed
Cruise Speed (kts.):	129 (10,000 feet)
Takeoff Ground Roll (ft.):	869
Takeoff Over 50-Foot Obstacle (ft.):	1794
Rate Of Climb, Sea Level (fpm):	690
Fuel Burn (gph, 85% power):	6.2
Range (standard tanks):	44 gallons usable Jet A
55% power at 10,000 feet (nm):	898

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