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Mike, If you get back into town by Monday morning I have a 91' Bravo that is based at FNL (just recently moved from LMO) you could sit in. Ironically I'm taking it down to David and Jimmy at All American Aircraft Monday as I have purchased a 58P Baron. Sorry I didn't get to you sooner but I don't spend as much time on social sites these days and just stumbled on your post. I think the Bravo is a great bird especially for the western U.S. It pains me to sell mine but I'm willing to pay at the pump for the mission capability and performance. I don't like oxygen masks, or cannulas for that matter, and if you want to take advantage of the real capabilities of a Bravo that's a fact of life for you and your pax. Below 12,500' its faster than the plastic airplanes but the fuel specifics aren't great. I'll p.m. you my number If you want to visit. Best, Brian Postle

I would suggest Dan Garzelloni www.milehighmoney.com. He's a loan broker which i would highly recommend for a couple of reasons: 1. they work with a number of different banks and can shop your loan around (best rate/terms) 2. He will only run your credit once vs. applying at different banks yourself and each running a credit search which could ding your score 3. Alot of banks only look at your monthly income/expenses and don't consider assets. If you're a business owner and reinvest income to grow your business while minimizing income taxes they consider you poor and won't lend. Brokers know and work with banks that are willing to look at your whole financial picture. 4. They get paid to represent you and a good one should and will. As far as minimum loan amount, if i'm not mistaken with alot of lenders its 80,000, some maybe 50,000. I will vouch for Dan, he's a good guy.

You bet. In the bravo you can even speed back to up 165 KIAS once the gear is extended. Is it sloppy airmanship to drop the gear 13 miles out?...not in this case.

Sure. In the case of an approach into Aspen if crossing Red Table at 12,500 you are less than 1000 agl so you can't establish radio contact with the tower until that point, at which often times the tower will clear you for the visual to 15. At this point you are roughly 12 miles from the threshold and over four thousand feet above the airport elevation...which requires a descent rate well in excess of 1000 fpm to be able to make the descent and slow to Vref and execute a normal landing. On most days this would require a rapid power reduction and increase in airspeed to make it. Ideally what I wanted top see was the pilot anticipate this descent and begin to slow and dirty up before/as reaching DBL. I was often surprised too see folks get taken completely by surprise on this one. But that in itself wasn't a bust. If the pilot did get him/herself caught high, I wanted to see him/her come up with a solution other than just chop (rapid power reduction to idle/prop drive engine) and push the nose over to VNE. Tower controllers can be terse and impatient. Often times they have jet traffic coming down the valley and they don't want us little guys getting in the way. What I want to see is the PIC exercise command authority and tell the tower that S-turns, a 360, or maneuvering is required to make the descent at this point. Its basically an admission that 'I screwed up by not planning effectively, but I'm not going to exceed the limitations of my aircraft, so help me out a little'. You may have a tailwind coming off the Mesa, you may find some strong updrafts hindering your ability to descend. It happens. Finding oneself on a one-mile final with a shock cooled engine and too high to make it with a Learjet 2 miles in trail is the scenario I wanted to help them avoid. Because now were in a situation of having to perform a go-around with rapidly rising terrain with an engine we've just abused. Make sense? I once had a guy in a fixed gear 182 on the very same checkout i just described... He big-time forward slipped the airplane almost all the way down, but he made incremental power reductions, never went below 15" MP, caught the profile from above, remembered his GUMPPS, and made a safe landing in the touchdown zone...we taxied to the ramp and shut down and he said "Man I really got hung out to dry there, that was really sloppy wasn't it?" My reply was "I loved it, you Pass, lets go get a hamburger." Brian

I went Aspen with the Lifesaver gyro, lost 10+ pounds (the airplane... but my wallet is lighter too), and eliminated my vacuum system and its associated ADs (significant in the Bravo) entirely. Vacuum systems suck. ha ha For what its worth my Aspen hasn't missed a beat in 18 mos now. My old, low hour, electric standby system is available for sale cheap...somebody paid big $ for that a few short years ago. Brian

I instructed at BDU in the early 90s and taught mountain flying. We required a mandatory mountain checkout for all renters regardless of experience. Shock cooling was one of the reasons for this. I'm not going to bore anyone with the details of some of my experiences with some of these checkouts, especially going into ASE via DBL, but i will say this... The reason for implementing our required mountain checkout regardless of experience was the result of numerous cylinder replacements on our rental aircraft, among other things. So, I'm gonna have to go with Lycoming on this one 100%. If you wanna chop and drop, I would suggest you switch to burning kerosene. On a side, I flew from LMO to C08 and on to ALS today. The colors are amazing right now and the weather today and tomorrow is ideal for enjoyable mountain flying. Cheers. Brian

So, after a sleepless night wondering if my hangers are flooded out or not (I still don't know) I check the Longmont Airport facebook page for information and see this company has found it necessary to make a post there joking about seaplane ratings. LMO is an entirely GA airport full of the most passionate aviators in the world. Such a remark in the midst of a natural disaster I find absolutely unacceptable. If you can't figure out how to do a title and records search on your own maybe you shouldn't be buying an airplane, or perhaps you just don't care. Boo Hiss, Plane Fax, Newport beach, CA

Good to hear John. Sounds like you're doing it right. The 601P is a very sweet airplane...i'm jealous. Post some pics would ya? Brian

True. If you get on the list Avidyne is guaranteeing a $2000 upgrade for current TAS owners for ADS-B in. ADS-B out, which will be required in 2020 at the earliest if I'm not mistaken, will require me only to replace my transponder because I already have a WAAS GPS. I hope sometime before its mandated to upgrade to the GTN750 or IFD540, with a remote transponder, which will free up the extra space needed needed in the panel for the bigger unit compared to my 430W. The Avidyne system will work with the ADS-B in and the active interrogation signals, decipher the inputs and paint one target, as I understand it. That covers all the bases except for non transponder equipped aircraft, and of course the one that didn't get turned on. Most importantly it works when either I and/or the threat aircraft are below radar coverage, which is often the case as I fly in, around and over mountainous terrain constantly, living in Colorado. A passive system can't and won't. How well will ADS-B traffic actually work? When will it be available with full coverage? How reliable will it be?...I'd be interested to know. For my families safety I wasn't willing to wait. I don't think you would be wasting your money investing in a TAS. Its here now and it works. I think with the advent of ADS-B it will just work that much better, not become obsolete. I would bet even with ADS-B the airlines will still be required to keep TCAS. Its just amazing to me this kind of technology is available and affordable for GA. Easily, in my opinion, the biggest safety achievements for GA I've seen in my lifetime. Brian

After an actual fatal midair in close proximity to my home base a year or so ago I decided to make the investment in the TAS-605 active system for my Bravo. At the time I considered it to be the best investment in safety that any potential upgrade could provide. After having it installed for over a year now I will say that sentiment has multiplied tenfold. Last week I had a warning, scanned where the callout said, instantly found a cherokee on a collision course at my altitude, initiated and aggressive avoidance manuever, and averted a very close one. Time after time the system has called out traffic that I may or may not have seen otherwise. Often times when being followed by ATC I'll see a target on my system and wait to see curiously if or when the controller calls it out. I'm sure other companies active systems work well too, i'm not trying to just pimp Avidyne. But I will say now that I won't leave home without it, period. In hindsight I would have installed that system before any of the gee whiz boxes that marginally improve situational awareness and/or decrease workload. That stuff is fun and looks cool, but the active traffic system is effective and will save your bacon. Even without the Aspen to display it on, or even on the 430W, as in my case, I'd put one in and worry about the TV screens later. I feel that strongly about it. Brian

I'll PM it. I'm just afraid the crooked SOB would try to sue me if I posted it for all to see. I don't doubt that this shop treats their own customers fairly, but apparently doesn't play well with others including others MSCs.

The 2nd annual since my purchase of N800MS was recently completed at Arapahoe Aero MSC. I'm pleased to report it was another rather trouble free year. The only single MX downtime I experienced was when my Planepower LW stater blew itself up unexpectedly. Luckily that happened at my home base, LMO, and so i just shoved it back into the hanger and dropped off the keys at Air West, who had the starter replaced the next day, thanks guys. The annual itself again didn't uncover any major discrepancies, and as usual, I told Scott to fix everything period. We elected to overhaul the prop on time in service as a precaution. It was done by Rocky Mountain Propellers, and it was dynamically balanced by Arapahoe Aero. I must say that I was pleasantly suprised with the noticable improvement in vibration. I mean it's almost 'turbine smooth' now...Lovin it. We also replaced the alternator belts and prop deice contact brushes while the prop was off. This was the first big AMU part of the annual. The second big AMU part of the annual still has my "manifold pressure" up a bit. I reported that the fuel pressure indication was erratic at times...and they determined that my fuel pressure transducer was Tango Uniform. They contacted Mooney and were quoted...Are you sitting down???...1,652 AMU for a replacement fuel pressure transducer! Oh yea, and they were six weeks out too. Soooo, we elected to try and find an alternative and we ended up with one. Actually to be fair to my MSC here, I took it upon myself to find it. It came from another MSC which will go unnamed, although i will say I see it Raved about on the site all the time. It was 600 AMU and change. When we recieved it I was told it just wasn't going to work, non TSO'd, whole different animal, etc. So we checked to see if the unnamed MSC would be willing to take it back minus a restocking charge, of course, and I would eat the shipping to boot. Said unnamed MSC would not return emails or phone calls. So to make a long story short we ended up buying the one from Mooney, which somehow magically found one that was ready to ship. The unusable part was returned to unnamed MSC with a note, and again no response. I take full responsibility for that snafu, but Boo Hiss to unnamed MSC. There is no excuse for not being willing to return correspondence to say 'no, I won't give you your money back'. So due to a partially self inflicted hiccup, I now have a fully function fuel pressure guage that all said and done cost...oh forget it, it's shameful. Anyway, I guess it's now fodder for the Beechcraft forum. Anyway, other than the two biggies, just some progressive stuff, hydrostatic O2 test, some gear hardware, some tail tightening, the ever persistent fuel quantity indicators, but it all adds up. I ended spending about 6,900 AMU on this annual, so not bad. I did not include the prop overhaul in that figure as I elected to do it, it wasn't required..and I didn't include the fuel pressure fiasco either, that's just from another world. Every once in a while you just get kicked in the shorts and you gotta take it like a man, that's how I rationalize it. I will say that I'm thrilled with my Bravo. It was a bit of a sleeper when I found it. It had been inactive for a spell, which was well documented... but after 3 consecutive open checkbook MSC annuals I think I've got a real winner, my families little Air Force One if you will. And although we've had clean up a bunch of little stuff, the ship has been incredibly reliable and I've had no big ticket downtime yet. I'm looking forward to seeing a whole lot of country go by at 200kts this summer! I would like to say thanks to Arapahoe Aero. They are in my opinion a first rate shop and a pleasure to deal with. Give them a try, I highly recommend them. Cheers, Brian

There were earlier models before Piper bought them I believe that were non-pressurized too, and substantially cheaper to operate.

I did look over the fact that 'non-pressurized' was part of the parameters...but wouldn't it be nice to get rid off the rubber jungle?.., except for emergencies that is. A nice 601P or a Superstar 700...zoom, zoom! Brian

John, If you still wanna go fast and your thinking big twin, have you looked at a Piper Aerostar?