bucksmith
Did you lock the doors?
Wow, that's a tough plane to beat.
Piper Navajo for sale $ 1.500.000 ??!!
- Thread starter melax
- Start date
jynxyjoe
Queso King
What's in town miles? Flight training and pattern work?
"Please by my M model 172, landing light burned out in nose but I let it go because that's a stupid place to put a landing light Cessna. Beat the hell out of the pattern with this thing don't wanna deal with overhaul and all my dog crap landings damage. $1,500 obo."
phill1174
Well-Known Member
lol I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of this when I seen "Mike Jones".
bimmerphile
Sidestick Wiggler
moxiepilot
Well-Known Member
Panther conversion is nice
Helps with all you mentioned
Baronpilot244
Killick Stoker
To be honest this airplane has so much competition in its field. It's slow, unpressurized and from what I remember about the Ho it burns quite a bit of 100LL.
A late model Cessna 421C could be bought for 1/3 of the price and do the job so much better, geared engines or not. Plus you still get approximately 2100#s of useful load.
On the other side, I always thought the Chieftain was a fine aircraft to fly, it had a big airplane feel to it. The downside was it's lack of performance on one engine.
$1.5m though....hmmmm!
Bp244
A late model Cessna 421C could be bought for 1/3 of the price and do the job so much better, geared engines or not. Plus you still get approximately 2100#s of useful load.
On the other side, I always thought the Chieftain was a fine aircraft to fly, it had a big airplane feel to it. The downside was it's lack of performance on one engine.
$1.5m though....hmmmm!
Bp244
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
j4seymor
Well-Known Member
I know, I think I have my own phone number memorized, my wife's, my dad, and Mike Jones. Thats it.
Something tells me this thing, if bought, won't be doing any real charter work. I could see a low level exec, who owns a company buying it. Or a lottery winner. I'd buy it if I won. I've had a Panther Chieftain in and out of some short strips. It did really well. Plus, with all the avionics it has.......
JeppUpdater
Well-Known Member
If I had a mil and a half laying around there's a lot of really cool airplanes I'd consider buying.
A Navajo isn't even kinda close to one of them. It's a slow, inefficient, loud, dying old breed that's only going to get more costly to maintain.
This guy is no different than people who restore cars, boats, guns, houses, etc. You take a junk frame worth X and add Y amount of crap to it, you don't get X+Y+even more just because you think it's nice.
The Baron and Diamond while similar price wise won't hold the same amount of people in the same comfort. but when it comes down to it, there's nothing this thing will do that a twin Cessna can't do in pressurized comfort for far less money. Any cabin class piston with a 430W is just as capable.
A Navajo isn't even kinda close to one of them. It's a slow, inefficient, loud, dying old breed that's only going to get more costly to maintain.
This guy is no different than people who restore cars, boats, guns, houses, etc. You take a junk frame worth X and add Y amount of crap to it, you don't get X+Y+even more just because you think it's nice.
The Baron and Diamond while similar price wise won't hold the same amount of people in the same comfort. but when it comes down to it, there's nothing this thing will do that a twin Cessna can't do in pressurized comfort for far less money. Any cabin class piston with a 430W is just as capable.
gotWXdagain
Polished Member
It could be argued in some places that houses will get you X + Y + Comfortable ROI but with everything else, yeah. There's a reason new airplanes in this cabin class have switched to turbine engines and done away with the spare engine. You can buy 10 year old TBM 700s for less than what this guy wants out of his 'jo.
knot4u
Repeat Offender
If someone with the money decides that a refreshed version of an old airframe suits their needs who are we to discount their decision? Perhaps a person with a sense of nostalgia and time in type. There are a few DC-3s flying around, not to mention Beech 18s. Perhaps for the right buyer this airplane fits the bill, there's been more than one V-tail Bonanza upgraded to almost new specs. Sometimes the money isn't an issue and it's more about remembering a time that doesn't exist anymore but looks sweet through the rose colored glasses we all seem to see our past through. I highly doubt that airplane would end up on someones 135 cert. Perhaps it would be someones version of my J-3 Cub.
Edit: I don't own a J-3, but having one is a bucket list item.
Edit: I don't own a J-3, but having one is a bucket list item.
milleR
Well-Known Member
While I don't disagree with you, it's the asking price that really gets me. Let's do a couple comps:
The next most expensive Navajo on Controller
A comparable 421C (add $150K for two new motors)
Lockheed nostalgia
Douglas impracticability
My Grumman dream toy
The list goes on. My only point being, you can buy an awful lot of airplane for $1.5M. On that budget you can purchase any of the above aircraft, IRAN, and operate them for quite a while before hitting the mark.
knot4u
Repeat Offender
Fair enough, but I suspect there might be a few owners that just prefer a certain airplane, Merle Norman comes to mind, still running a G-II, and it's not even a G-IIB. There are going to be people that are willing to throw good money after bad just because they like it. It might seem like lunacy to you, but you're not writing the checks.
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
yeah, but that won't carry pilot plus gas plus 1900 pounds all day long like the Ho will. All the people championing a 421 are looking at a different mission, because I don't care what you say, operating and maintenance costs on a pressurized airplane running geared motors are going to blow away a Chieftain, and carry less payload while doing it. The Ho with an upgross kit will carry ~2700 useful load and it'll do it for 2200 hours on a pair of motors (I don't know what TBO on a pair of GTSIO520s, but I'm sure it ain't 2200 hours, if you even get there). The Ho ain't gonna cruise comfortably in the flight levels but if your mission is shorter hops with a (almost literal) ton of stuff in the back, AND YOU REALLY WANT A SECOND ENGINE, it's still a mighty good airplane 30 years later. Oh also, pretty much every structural integrity AD on the chieftain has a terminating action, vs the Cessna SID program.
Now, for 1.5 mil acquisition cost, you're in caravan territory and if you're cool with one spinny thing it blows the Ho out of the water both in performance (other than cruise speed) and operating cost (depending what engine and maintenance program you're on, and assuming that you're not paying pump prices for Jet A).
That said you're all correct that 1.5 mil is absurd. Maybe it's one of those deals where his old lady said he had to sell the airplane so he's got it up for sale at a ridiculous price just to say he's working on it.
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milleR
Well-Known Member
I completely agree and I'm not trying to be argumentative, but ...... the majority of people I know that have the fiscal wherewithal to indulge in these kinds of things also have the common sense to run the numbers. For example, if dumping money into their dream Navajo were on the list they would probably buy this one with 2125 hours on it and then spend $600K on new motors, panel, interior, paint, corrosion, et al that's involved with a plane of this vintage. Hell, to play it safe let's call it $800K for funsies. You'd have a "brand new" Navajo with 6K less hours on the airframe and you'd run it for free for years compared to dropping $1.5M on this OP's. The more I think about it, the more baffled I become trying to imagine the extravagances required to ask a million five for a Navajo. There must be 24kt gold somewhere in there.
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