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Old 07-10-2007, 11:02 PM
bwillmore bwillmore is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 3
bwillmore
Aerostar

My last 600 hours were in an Aerostar 601P and it is a sweetheart of a plane to fly. Not difficult at all. It has a stall shudder that's something like 10knots wide so if you don't see it coming you're asleep at the wheel. For training we'd put the plane nose high in the shudder and fly around all day like that, no problem. Flew many trips off dirt and sand runways in Baha, loaded to max gross, no problem. Once lost the left engine at rotation, field elevation of 4,000ft, 90F day, 3,000' runway and the plane totally saved my bacon, climbed out nice and easy enough to make pattern altitude.

The plane easily cruised at 235-240ktas in the low twenties on 36gph or would do 210ktas on 24gph! It was probably the only plane I've flown that did what the book said it would do. 1100nm trips weren't hard at all. The 601P has better fuel economy than the 700P.

The cabin is quiet and comfortable, and it is true that it's more about the pilot than the passengers but all my passengers were in love with the cabin and the short trip times.
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