P337

[JimC]

1400 miles....that's a lonnnnng flight. 8 hours at least. My butt won't do that. I do a 1400 mile roundtrip x-c flight reasonably often, but it's always at least 2 legs.

What's your expected price range?

[flyag1]

Originally Posted by JimC

1400 miles....that's a lonnnnng flight. 8 hours at least. My butt won't do that. I do a 1400 mile roundtrip x-c flight reasonably often, but it's always at least 2 legs.

What's your expected price range?

Hi Jim nice to meet you here on the forum, hope to someday actually get to hand shake! Get this damn CV19 behind us.

Anyway yeah its a haul moving our butts 1400 miles, but hey try the drive it's 28 hours. I was flying a Malibu back and forth, there are times even @ FL 250 that you can't glide beyond the next rock so I finally decided enough is enough. Looked at the 340, the P Barron and a few others and came to the conclusion the 337 is a better choice.

As far as pricing, well it depends.

Cheers!
Dale

[JeffAxel]

The P337 is a 5 hour airplane with an hours reserve flown at 65% power, you won't do 1400nm unless you have a really strong tailwind. How much you need to carry? A 148 gallon P337 won't hold over 500lbs in the cabin when full of fuel, some will hold less if air conditioned and with intercoolers for example. There is a 1977 P337 for sale with Dan Howard in Tulsa, asking price is $115K.
https://www.controller.com/listings/...77-cessna-p337

[JimC]

You'll do 1400 nm only sometimes in the winter. You'll have to be at 19,000ft, 55% or less and get a pretty good tailwind - 40-50 knots or more. It'll happen, but not every trip. I don't think you'll ever get 1400nm in the summer.

I've flown a 340 back and forth x-c many times and I'd prefer it over a P337 for that trip. As mentioned earlier, you'll have to have the 337 decked out to have the capability you want (radar, deice, the works) and you're not going to have much load left over.

For a 1000nm trip, I'd pick the P337 - you'll non-stop it often enough to make it faster than a 340. At 1400nm, I'd go back to the 340. You're going to be stopping most of the time anyway.

[flyag1]

Thanks for the input from everyone!

Flying the Malibu Mirage:
Let me first say our long trips have not been that bad as we typically don't have to adhere to a tight schedule. Several trips going west we would just overnight picking a cool town to visit, sort of a mini vacation. When headed east we played the winds aloft, if today is the best winds go... if not then we might wait an extra day. KGOO to KVBT is the route and we are batting 250 for east bound no-stop flights in the Malibu. We don't push fuel, so if we made a 1400 mile trip non-stop we definitely had more than an hour reserve.

Based on book numbers the P337 is very close to the Malibu in max flight times @ 65% power. Malibu tanks are 120 gal whereas the 337 with big tanks has a 30 gal advantage. The 350 HP Malibu is going to burn around 20 GPH once you reach cruise altitude. Speed dependent on chosen FL, but once again the books speeds of both the P337 and Malibu are very close @ FL 200.

Payloads with full tanks are also very near the same with both airplanes. Near nothing... LoL

I like the 337 over other twins for one simple reason "inline". I just don't fly the hours per year to feel comfortable in the right / left configuration if we lost one on takeoff. Don't get me wrong I'm a high time pilot and managed to acquire a shit load of hours, but I'm not flying everyday or even every week. I don't want a VMC roll determining my faith when it's not necessary, but I do want a twin.

Maybe there is a P337 that fits the bill, I'm on the hunt.

[JeffAxel]

The P337 only goes up to FL200. It burns 24gph LOP at 65% power there and will do 185KTAS at that power setting. It isn't a bad aircraft by any means, actually very easy to fly and very stable in IFR conditions, but it will not have the range of a Malibu. The inline thrust is a big plus, and why I bought one as well. No 337 is FIKI, and they lose quite a bit of speed with any ice buildup beyond a 1/4" or so. Just putting this out there so you don't buy one and find out it won't do what you want it to do, but if 1000nm is okay, and you find a good example, it is the least expensive pressurized twin you can own. I still miss mine.

[flyag1]

Originally Posted by JeffAxel

The P337 only goes up to FL200. It burns 24gph LOP at 65% power there and will do 185KTAS at that power setting. It isn't a bad aircraft by any means, actually very easy to fly and very stable in IFR conditions, but it will not have the range of a Malibu. The inline thrust is a big plus, and why I bought one as well. No 337 is FIKI, and they lose quite a bit of speed with any ice buildup beyond a 1/4" or so. Just putting this out there so you don't buy one and find out it won't do what you want it to do, but if 1000nm is okay, and you find a good example, it is the least expensive pressurized twin you can own. I still miss mine.

Thanks Jeff,
Do you know the climb rate @ 20K?

[JimC]

Don't forget your Mirage had 5.5 psi differential, and the 337 has 3.35. That means much more fatigue buildup per hour The Mirage runs an 8,000 ft cabin at FL250 and the 337 runs a 9,200 ft cabin at FL190. You'll also get less of a tailwind 6,000 ft lower.

Published max climb at FL200 for a T337G is 870 fpm at gross. You're going to have pretty hot engines trying to get that rate on anything warmer than an ISA day.