It carries 40 in the mains, 20 in a auxiliary. We actually had one pilot who, cognizant of degraded handling qualities caused by aft CG, asked his passengers to lean as far forward as possible for takeoff and initial climb. Air Facts was first published in 1938 by Leighton Collins and relaunched in 2011 as an online journal by Richard Collins and Sporty's Pilot Shop. We also had a Cessna 195 with an air ambulance kit but it was occasionally used for regular charter. I put several thousand hours on a P210 and found it to be both dependable and economical (relatively). Certainly every one of the many other airplanes I will mention here had the goal of besting the Bonanza. They might not have been too impressed by the fact that I seemed more enamored with the old than the new. I guess I needed more lumber – I never managed to get more that 120 knots in level flight. The new Commander had a few enhancements, primarily in the way of modernized avionics. The Bonanza had a comfortable four-place cabin with plenty of room for baggage and the Comanche aimed to match that. .”. Earlier I mentioned personalities. I was working for Central Flying Service in Little Rock, a Beech dealer, and most of our charter flights were within the State of Arkansas simply because most businesses then were intrastate. “You still are America’s GA treasure.”. GA safety trends: what should we worry about. I did do enough research to learn that the Model 33 with a conventional tail had just as many loss of control accidents as the V-tail with the primary difference being the 33 breaking up as it hit the ground where the 35 would break before it hit the ground. He and the airplane came to rest at the bottom of the Pacific, leaving the record unbroken, for the time being. The Commander Aircraft Company acquired the manufacturing rights in 1991, and by the next year, the first Commander 114 rolled off the line, now designated the 114B. It’s short-coupled in the yaw axis, though, so it likes to wander a bit in rough air. The inside joke then was that when a Harvard Business School grad showed up to run an airplane company, the end was near. I move heaven and earth to read your articles. You and Bax,along with Bob Parke made aviation enjoyable for millions of my generation. In 1988, the fights for the Commander 112/114 were bought by a new company called Commander Aircraft, which allowed that company to maintain the existing fleet. While I still think Bonanza’s are the top of the line I truly love my Comanche. Sure I would enjoy those VW-Kombi-style doors of the Bonanza or C206, but all-around it´s a difficult airplane to beat. The military also bought the airplane, designated LC-126 for that purpose, but the 195 was short-lived, 1947-1954, with most built early in the period. It was simply not a competitor for the Bonanza. The FLYING blurb on an Eagle story: “A Resin in the Sun.” Barf. The very first production Comanches were late 1957 models and the 180 Comanche was joined by the 250 Comanche in 1958. I own 2 airplanes, one is a 1982 A-36 and the other is a 1974 Bellanca Super Viking. This was a great article not because I agree that the bonanza was the best GA aircraft ever (although it may have been), but because he identified what there was to love about all the other aircraft. Thank you. “With really little kids, you could take out the right front seat, easily done, and put a baby carrier on the floor, right in front of the right rear passenger. The handling qualities did suffer as horsepower was increased and CG limits were stretched out a little past where they should have really been set. Somewhere I’ve still got my MOONEY 301 cap. Richard: The most-built 195 used a 300 hp Jacobs; the few 190s that were built used a lower-horsepower Continental. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooney_301 Hi Dick, That right front seat that was removed would actually fit into the baggage compartment, along with quite a bit of luggage, so when you offloaded the kids with their grandmother and were taking another couple to the Cotton Bowl, the four seat configuration could be restored in minutes. Otherwise the Comanche that was produced looked just like the prototype except the gear was electrically operated and the main gear used oleo struts. I raised an eyebrow but the photographer slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand and said something like “Holy Cow, you have got to be kidding.” His outburst in front of the person who designed it was embarrassing to me but Marvin just laughed. Got my CPL in a Sierra with outward retracting gear, like the B-24 Liberator that you mentioned. early in the break of day, as i like to gain knowledge of more and more. By: Norm Goyer. More straight 1947 Model 35 Bonanzas, 1,500, were built than any other model of the V-tail and more than half the Bonanzas built have V-tails. I flew the 200 a couple of times and it was a pleasant airplane to fly. It was loud to begin, especially in the cabin. Trouble was dummies couldn’t smile for the camera. (My father attended that school for a while and never argued with this theory.). Dunno how many of that model Kerrville produced, but someone had previously converted mine to retracts. V-tail Bonanzas had a safety record that was average at best. Richard Collins said about the Cirrus SR-22 “outsells the retractables by a huge margin and I guess it does so because it offers about the same performance without the complexity of folding wheels.” Same performance?!? Commander 114 Performance Specifications** Engine – 6-cylinder Lycoming IO-540-T4B5D, 260 HP @ 2700 RPM Prop – Hartzell HC-C2YR-1BF, Constant Speed, 2 -Blade The fancier airplanes with the bigger engines could be built for not much more money (the increased cost of the engine and prop) than the 201 and they could be sold (in smaller numbers) for a lot more money. It’s a great flying and traveling aircraft. It was often a high-performance airplane in the hands of a low-performance pilot which put it at a disadvantage. It is a wonder they got it certified at all. It felt like I was in one those V-8 commercials. It was certified when I flew it but there were some rough spots. Only five were built and the airplane was never really “produced.”. Lore had it that he did an outside loop but I don’t think that happened. jim. More Aircraft. It still flew with the 260 hp Continental which I always liked. Personally, I would never call anything designed by Walter Extra “ugly.”. I thought it was a nice thing for the Beech PR folks to do, especially for someone with Bonanza roots. A lot of other companies tried to compete in the retractable single market and Mooney probably tried harder than anyone else. Some airplanes were converted under an STC. • Took my mother solo on a trip out to Denver. Great writing as always Mr. Collins. They were both slower than like-powered airplanes but after a lot of airframe problems in the development and early production of the 112 they finally seemed to get most of that right. Though I never Flew the 210, It was a favorite design. The things that seem to become Classics are nearly always the “Nifty” ones. While I still think Bonanza’s are the top of the line I truly love my Comanche. I flew both airplanes and they were nice to fly but with a difference. See the post about my P210, N40RC, for more information on the latter. The Malibu was and is hands-down beautiful and has a handsome six-place cabin but it lacks the useful load to be a real six-place airplane. For some unknown reason, we had an M-18 at the FBO where I worked for a short while. I remember the highest by far I ever flew in a GA craft was 15,000 feet over the Rockies. The 210 lasted from 1957 until 1986 when it fell victim to the cataclysmic decline in general aviation aircraft sales. There was what was called a “wobble” pump that was combined with the fuel selector to put the pilot in charge of the fuel system. They put the airplane in the hangar to deice it but I told them I would pass on further flying that day. He then went on to work for the leading aviation magazines, including as editor of both AOPA Pilot and Flying. Ever. The mod was for C35 and subsequent models which had wider chord tail surfaces. That first Bonanza did not have nosewheel steering, nor did it have an electric fuel pump. Did you know that most of the articles at Air Facts are written by readers like you? A good friend and experienced pilot was with me but he was apparently as discombobulated as I was. The art of doing this has been practiced almost to perfection in the general aviation airplane business. The Beechcraft Bonanza is an American general aviation aircraft introduced in 1947 by Beech Aircraft Corporation.This X-Plane aircraft was originally created in X-Pane 9 and then updated for v10. I remember once thinking it reminded me of an old Pullman railroad car. It did not feel right to me. The Eagle had a 285 engine and was actually quite pretty to look at. Best bang for the buck in GA, hands down. We were operating four High Desert airports serving as FBOs which included aircraft sales, flight instructions, fuel sales, aircraft repair shop, and tie-downs and hangars for rent. Then I set out to see if I could identify the problem. I am the son of Dick Dotson who was the owner of a Beechcraft Bonanza, wing number N3358V. Bellanca is one of the oldest names in general aviation, dating back to 1927. The 210 was, simply, an airframe that was adaptable to a lot of different things and it offered a lot of utility and performance at a relatively reasonable price. It was about five or eight knots faster than the Piper Arrow III I had for a while but it always seemed to lack spirit, whatever that might be in an airplane. Tom nailed it. I well recall Beech learning that lesson years later with the unconventional Starship composite turboprop twin. One thing that never changed was the flying qualities that most pilots dearly loved. Whoa, time to just fly straight and level. Showmanship was the name of the game at that time and Bevo put on a show (in an A35) at the 1948 Cleveland Air Races. I vividly recall the first time I saw a T-250. Your email address will not be published. Mooney 301 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Beech did build another retractable but it was definitely not a competitor for the Bonanza. Funny thing about it is the fact that the Sierra designation is “Beechcraft B-24R”. While going to Engineering school in Wichita, I worked at Cessna when we upgrade the 210 with Tubular Gear and large swept tail. Over 17,000 have been built. Flew a lot of IFR. To most today, Bellanca is or was the Viking, a four place retractable that, as the Super Viking, had a 300 hp Continental and Bonanza-like performance. Machesney Airport in Loves Park, IL had every “taildragger” you could want to fly and RFD (Rockford) was starting to collect the Bonanzas and Cessna tri-gear. Didn’t the Cessna 195 also have the 245 and 275 Jacobs? Only thing I don’t think he mentioned was, as I recall, the gear problems of the 210. The Bonanza’s Wichita neighbor, Cessna, offered the 190/195 as its high-performance single right after the war. The airplane had sat out in heavy rain for a number of hours before takeoff. Like the Mooney, the airframe was expensive to build and what little tooling they got with the purchase was not of much help. No meaningful research was ever done into what role the degraded handling qualities caused by the CG being aft of the limit might have had in this context even though the passenger/baggage load in many of the accidents suggested that the CG was aft of the limit. My wife’s ex said the A36 was the best airplane he ever flew and he did charter work in a Beech G18 for Hartzog Aviation in Rockford, IL (RFD) in the 60′ and 70’s. 3D gauges Customizable panel for controlling windows transparency and static elements such as wheel chocks, pitot cover and sights props. The last V-tail was built in 1982. He did rolls, loops, snap rolls including one at the top of a loop, and a host of other maneuvers. I climbed to the assigned altitude and knew that it would be a safe altitude in the direction I was flying. 1977 COMMANDER 114… As I think about it, I haven’t encountered even one type that I disliked flying. I was surprised to learn these many years later that Mooney built more than 300 M-18s. If Bonanza was the best airplane name ever, Debonair would be at least close to the worst. You still are America’s GA treasure. Share your experience on any aspect of GA transportation flying, whether for business or pleasure. This was a time when most of us didn’t care whether the airplane had a tailwheel or a nosewheel. The performance figures are very similar, except I can go much further (range). 250 HP, complex, retractable, IFR panel. If the engine-driven fuel pump failed, the pilot had only to use one of his left hands to pump while using the other left hand to fly. are so different that I almost wouldnt call them competitors. It is true that the cabin of a P210 is tight for six but when I got mine it would fly with full (90 gallons) of fuel and six people who averaged 160 pounds and be within the maximum takeoff weight.I never flew with more than five. Thanks for the memories. The many entities that built Mooneys went in and out of business on a fairly regular basis. As with so many other old names, Bellanca wound up attached to an all-new airplane, the Bellanca Aires T-250, in 1977. Although it never saw production, the Mooney 301 did eventually lead to the Socata TBM series of big single-engine retractables, which like the Bonanza, the PA-46, and the big Pilatus birds, still are in production. I never really gave it much thought. I added an electric T&B to augment the vacuum T&B which with it came from the factory. Increasing the horsepower does all manner of things to screw up the pitch stability of an airplane and the things that have to be done to offset that often result in degraded handling qualities. More Info. -I remember my father flying the family around in a Cessna 195. View all new & used Commander Single Engine Piston aircraft for sale at ASO.com. I now realize one of the most emotionally satisfying elements of flying was retractable landing gear. Most jet aircraft and particularly airline aircraft use hot bleed air anti-ice systems on the airfoil leading edges, not boots. Not many folks have flown all the planes you have flown, so I’ll take your word for it… Bonanza is king. Nothing worked until they dried out. The view out front was somewhat obstructed by the hump on top of the cowling that housed the gear box for the big prop. The Commander Owners Group is the private association of owners of the Commander 112, 114, and 115 airplanes. I have always thought that airplane design was similar to violin design. http://www.mooneyevents.com/Mooney301.html

The Rockwell Commander 114 was itself a more powerful development of the Commander 112 of 1970, one of only two new GA designs from Rockwell. I thus paid special attention to what went on in this area. He may have special clearance, but I love when he is “Inspecting”, it is like a Military Air Show. Mooney is running with new investors today and last I heard they projected a gradual return of Mooney production. The drain was clogged so a copious amount of water had dripped on the aft-mounted remote power supplies of the Mark V radios. In relative terms, any difference would be the same as the difference at cruise. Maybe it was the personality of the buyer or maybe it was because Cessna did a better job of adapting their airplane to turbocharging. Looking for Info... Hey Everyone, if anyone out there owns or has recently owned a Commander 114 I would love to hear about what it's like to own one from a maintenance perspective. This metal airplane was designed in Texas, by Anderson, Greenwood and Company and was an FAA-certified T-tail four place with a 250 hp Lycoming. I don’t know how much better it worked but I do know that the vibration level in the Lycoming airplane seemed a bit higher. Here, Mister Collins presented a really comprehensive evaluation. Mooney did not really build a prototype since the built production tooling and were ready to go into production, but orders never came. With the E225, cruise is 170 mph @ 12 GPH. He tried again a couple of months later and made it to Teterboro in just over 36 hours and set a number of records in the process. The B36TC of 50 years later was unquestionably an entirely different airplane than the 35, including a longer fuselage and better CG range. The first version was the Rockwell Commander 112, a 200 hp retractable. New Power to the Commander. The 250 Comanche was ever so slightly faster than the Mooney. Except I love my TR182. I watched Roy LoPresti build the 301 and was there for his first flight in the airplane. Both airplanes were offered with it and in later years the great majority of the 210s produced were T210s. Only Narco radios were offered and that was really the only choice because King Radio had not yet become a big factor in the avionics world. The Commander 114B is a new build, modernised development of the original Rockwell Commander 114. I totally agree with most of your evaluations, though the 195 was always very high on my list of great machines. Designed and built by Rockwell International in the 1970s, the Commander 114 is a variant of the Rockwell Commander 112 which is an American four seat cabin, single piston engine monoplane. It’s really a four. I knew the weather was better in the direction I was going so I quit trying to solve the problem and just concentrated on flying. A total of 9,240 were built so while it was a good competitor for the Bonanza, and outsold it when both were on the market, it fell far short of Bonanza total production. Three of us from FLYING took one of each out for an evaluation, swapping airplanes for each leg, and everyone agreed on which was the most pleasant to fly: the plain old 210. Have pilots lost their sense of adventure? Later model Debonairs dropped that name and became Bonanzas. I was just rereading you fine article on high performance singles when I noted the following message: “The B36TC of 50 years later was unquestionably an entirely different airplane than the 35, including a longer fuselage and better CG range. It was strictly a one-of-a-kind airplane and the fact that it was a relatively large pressurized single (though never actually pressurized) has always led folks to believe the TBM was developed from it. AC11 COMMANDER 114 FSX/P3D $ 29.95. He was skeptical. I think it was because the next steps, instruments etc, turned the plave into a Time Machine, and I felt that was not much fun. There were quite a few of us who were active IFR pilots in the late forties and early fifties. One reason the Comanche came to an end was a historic flood at Lock Haven that ruined the factory and destroyed a whole lot of airplanes. You do not have to be Richard Collins or Ernest Gann--simply a GA pilot with a story you'd share with friends sitting in the hangar. This aircaft was the best trip airplane I ever owned or flew. A few were “ugly,” maybe because of their looks or maybe because of other things such as flight characteristics or poor performance. The official 50th anniversary Bonanza was a 1997 B36TC. The first Comanche flew with a 180 horsepower Lycoming where the Bonanza G35 of that year had a 225 Continental. To me, it is amazing how many components of the earliest and the latest are actually identical other than the gauge of metal used to stamp out the piece. In the 1960s there was a lot of talk about Mooney overstating the cruising speed of their airplanes. It was followed by the 114 with a 260 hp engine. He agreed. Top that. Back in April of this year I bought into a partnership on a Comanche 260B. It went from being a retractable 182 to a full six-place airplane (with enough space and useful load to make that a reality) to a turbocharged and a pressurized airplane. Treat ice like smoke in the cockpit. There is one skin section over the top of the cabin that is different and one forward belly skin that is different.. All of the engine installation components are the same. The Sierra was a retractable version of the original Musketeer design, with a 200 hp engine and a lot of refinements. They were building Bonanzas at a fast pace in 1947 so the age of the two airplanes was likely close. It involved old family friend George Haddaway, a consummate Texan and publisher of FLIGHT magazine. I had a 177 (Cardinal) RG for a while and it served well. And for that matter, could that airman not legally fly an SR-22? You have heard the old saying about throwing good money after bad. When a pilot would blunder VFR into clouds and lose control, the airplane’s speed would quickly move outside the envelope and an airframe failure would often follow. Maybe that helped or maybe it just made him feel better. However, it always managed to run aground one more time. Piper set out to defrock the Bonanza with a brand new airplane, the Comanche. Each kid had a chair, with one to spare, and there was plenty of luggage room (but not more than you can carry, only the pilot got that allowance back in the days of heavy Jeppesen chart books). Most of the fuselage skins are identical other than in the thickness of the metal used. Always enjoy reading the history of aviation and aircraft. For one thing, it had fuel-injection which meant that for the first time I didn’t have to fool with carburetor heat. Round robin travel time on the Commander is 2.5 hours, including a stop in St. Louis, versus 4.8 hours on the airlines. Lightly-loaded in the New England winter, it delivered Lear-like rates of climb – at 44 gallons per hour fuel flow! An example used in the marketing program is a company located in Peoria, Illinois, with meetings scheduled in Decatur and Chicago. Now, I doubt I’ll ever forget it. The main thing I remember about my one M-18 flight was wondering how long it would take me to get it back on the ground. I disagree however that it’s a six seater. I rode in, but did not fly the first production M-20 in 1955, out of Linden Airport in New Jersey. It’s always and so fairly sweet as well as filled with a lot of fun to me personally and my own business office friends to find your site no less than three times in a full week to find out the modern instruction exhibiting.