AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2018 - 16

LETTERS

FROM OUR DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE

Clash of the titans
The results of Dave Hirschman's fly-off between a Cessna 210 and Beechcraft Bonanza
had high-wing lovers cheering-and Bonanza fans crying foul.
I just finished Dave Hirschman's
"Clash of the Titans" article and
would like to weigh in. I had
Atlantic Aero modify my 1979
Bonanza A36 with the 550-R
and the new propeller and
redesigned nose bowl. I would
suggest that the results may
well have been different had you
used my airplane. Regardless,
although both are listed as sixplace aircraft, if I were number
five or six, I'd much rather be in
the Bonanza with club seating
than trying to shoehorn myself
into the back of the 210.
Drew Armstrong
AOPA 1054218
Palisade, Colorado

I was greatly relieved to read
Dave Hirschman's article on
the Cessna 210 versus Bonanza
comparison. I've flown a
Skyhawk for 35 years, and
three years ago after a long and
exhausting cross-country from
Houston to Santa Fe, I decided
to upgrade to something faster
and bigger. I did a lot of research
and determined that the Cessna
P210 was what I needed.
My reasons for this selection were exactly the same as
those Hirschman cited in the
article. In addition, I chose the

FLY OFF: BONANZA VS. CENTURION

A drag race over the California desert

There's no consensus within this flying
club-nor the broader general aviation
population-on which of these classy
six-seaters is the superior airplane.

The Beechcraft Bonanza has been in continuous production since 1947, longer
than any other aircraft in the world, and the A36 (now G36) is the top of that line.
The Cessna 210 was produced for 29 years (from 1957 until 1986), and the fixedgear variant (Cessna 206) is still being made. The 210L and A36 have been made in
almost equal numbers (2,126 Model 36 Bonanzas and 2,070 210Ls).

B Y DAV E H I R S C H M A N | P H OTO G R A P H Y B Y M I K E F I Z E R

74 | AOPA PILOT December 2017

www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 75

Great article comparing the 210 and the
Bonanza. Good choice in leaving my 1978
Super Viking out of it, because it would have
cleaned both of their clocks in all divisions!

Don Drummond
AOPA 1064681
San Rafael, California

P210 because I wanted to get
above the weather. Texas thunderstorms are daunting and it is
nice to climb to 17,000 feet and
get above all the chaos.
As a side note, my P210 has
Flint tip tanks, which greatly
enhance performance. Stall speed
with flaps and gear down is 44

What kind of airplane do you prefer?
High wing

38%

Low wing

40 %

No preference;
I fly both regularly

22%

Aviation eBrief poll

16 | AOPA PILOT February 2018

22%
38%
40%

knots. No kidding! My instructor and I did three stalls to make
sure we weren't seeing things.
Mark Williams
AOPA 1054218
Cypress, Texas

Thanks for a great article. One
minor point, from the introduction: Dave Hirschman states
2,126 Model 36 Bonanzas have
been produced to date. The
actual number is more than
double that. I saw Bonanza G36
serial number E-4108 in the
Textron Aviation/Beechcraft
Delivery Center last June, and
GAMA's third quarter report
tells us to add three more to that
number so far. Further, there

were 695 turbocharged model
36s (A36TC and B36TC) in the
"EA-" serial number series.
All told, then, there have been
4,806 Model 36 Bonanzas produced so far, now in its fifty-first
continuous year of production.
That doesn't change any of
the article's conclusions, but it
does set the production record
straight.
Thomas P. Turner
Executive director,
ABS Air Safety Foundation
AOPA 874692
Rose Hill, Kansas

On target

Richard McSpadden's column
on visually acquiring aircraft
on ADS-B ("Safety Spotlight:
Target in Sight") was right on
target. I've had ADS-B in my
airplane for a year and a half
now, and when I look for an
aircraft shown on my iPad I
frequently have difficulty finding it visually unless it's close.
When I do acquire the aircraft
it's often someplace in my scan
that I wasn't expecting to see it,
especially in the vertical plane.
Other pilots I talk to with ADS-B
report the same issue. The problem is that none of us have been
trained on where to scan for
another aircraft in relation to
what we see on our tablets or
panels. We need a training aid
that will provide guidance (e.g.,
if a target is X number of miles
from you and X amount of feet
higher, look up about X degrees).
Pilots also need to realize
that the system has real value.
On one flight I started looking

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2018

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