As anyone who's followed me at all knows, I'm passionate about aviation in general and about flying. I acquired my pilot certificate in 1981 and have been flying ever since. Until 2001, my flying was all in rental airplanes but that year, my former business partner and I purchased a Piper Saratoga, a six seat, single piston engine airplane. I've posted about that airplane before and, in 2006, I came to own it alone as my partner experienced a health issue that caused him to stop flying.
I flew N8409Y from 2001 through 2020, at which time I had a significant financial windfall. I sold the Saratoga and purchased a 1980 Cessna 441 Conquest II. This is a pressurized, twin engine turboprop airplane and easily flies to Colorado non-stop, and even to Chicago. One flight, with favorable winds, was from my base in Long Beach, CA to Orlando, FL non-stop! There is no need for supplemental oxygen (barring a loss of pressurization), and I flight plan for a cruise speed of 290 knots (about 333 m.p.h.).
N779CC has seats for 9 people, though it's not practical to fill them all due to weight limitations(just as it was not practical to put six people in the Saratoga).I loved the Saratoga and flew it as far as Illinois, Washington, Texas, and on many trips to Colorado, where my brother and his family live and where we have an office. To fly to Colorado or Texas, I'd need a fuel stop and, in many cases, would need to fly high enough so that I'd need supplemental oxygen since the Saratoga is not pressurized. Thus, I'd have a nasal canula with which to deal. I'd flight plan for a cruise speed of about 168 knots (about 193 m.p.h.).
All this capability comes at a price though. To start, the Conquest burns about 75 gallons of Jet A fuel per hour in cruise, vs. the Saratoga burning about 19 gallons per hour. Hangar space is about 2.5 times as costly for the larger airplane. Insurance is about three times as high, though part of that is due to my age. And the insurance requires documented recurrent training (which I'd do anyway). The requirement is one training session per year, but I do two, each at about $5,000 not counting travel, rental car, lodging, and incidentals. The Saratoga required an annual inspection that, on average, cost about $5,000. The Conquest requires multiple "phase inspections," some based the calendar, some on hours, and others on cycles (i.e., takeoffs, landings, pressurizations). A typical year costs about $40,000!
It's a ludicrously expensive pursuit, and I sometimes question whether it's something I should be doing, and there's no question that I'm blessed to be able to do so. And, on many occasions, I'm using it to fly to our offices in Sacramento, Concord, Boulder, and Tampa. But I've wanted to fly since, as a young child, I learned it was a thing people can do. I don't know what the future holds, as insurance underwriters are not happy about old(er) pilots in complex aircraft. But I'll keep flying and training as long as possible.
