i current have 2261 hour on my 2001 sn72 and am thinking if I can put 550T in it I may do it just for better performance? The plane is in great shape and I love everything about it. I am also going to at the same time switch from the six pack to glass just not sure what package to use on that front either. Any suggestions would be great and pricing if you know it.
I don’t believe you can change the engine without an STC.
Yes you may. A friend has a 2010 TN the he is replacing with the factory Continental turbo. They do have STC for this and is ~85K. There may be additional cost for built in O2 and Composite prop. It might be a better play to sell and buy what you want.
I discussed this with George Braly a few years ago. He said while it technically “could” be done, there is no room for intercoolers under a G1 cowl. He would have to try and fit a G2 cowling onto it first (read lotsa $ and possibly crappy looking). G2 and later models also have a slanted lower firewall that allows for the dual exhaust used on turbos and TN’s. My takeaway was it’s much cheaper to either trade for a turbo or go with the FAT supercharger.
Possible and practical are very different things. I would say just sell it and put the money toward a upgrade to a plane that has what you want. Or limit your scope on the G1 upgrades. For example put a FAT Supercharger on it rather than a turbo and upgrade to affordable glass. That would keep it reasonable and worthwhile. It all depends on your budget and your mission. But it is possible to put a turbo in it.
After 85k and other items u will easily hit $100k…
The big issue is 3 years down the road when u want another upgrade and u invested into something that will have a low return on resale .
Todd,
Now that you’ve made the decision to buy a Vision Jet, do you plan on keeping the SR22?
Perhaps you mentioned it in another post and I missed it.
Yes I will be keeping the 22 and it will be used for flights less than 1 hour away and the SF50 will be used for over that. It does not make a whole lot of sense for us to take a jet less than 1 hour flight when all you will do is go up and then right down. Would it not look funny to see a jet at 9,500 VFR. 
I will also be using the 22 on weekends for flying around in. I just really like the 22 a lot and want to bring it up to date and get another 15 years out of it.
It won’t take long before you sell the 22 once you figure out that it is cheaper to fly the jet a few short flights a year than it is to own and maintain a second airplane. Even with the higher fuel burn down low, it wills till cost you about $1,250 a trip for those flights. You can do 1 a week for the cost of owning a SR22. Plus it is faster, nicer and more comfortable. I say this because when I moved up to the TBM from my Cirrus, I had the same intention. About 6 months later, the Cirrus was still in the same spot in the hangar.
If you are looking for fun flying, buy something cheaper like a taildragger. Different experience. But the Cirrus is really a travel plane and you are getting a big upgrade for traveling.
Even today, with a taildragger in my hangar, if the flight is longer than 75 miles, I take the jet unless I really have nothing to do and I’m burning time.
You’ll sell the SR22. Everyone who buys a jet and says they’ll keep their piston single sells the piston pretty quickly. Like Joe said, for fun, perhaps a taildragger, but you’re going to enjoy the jet and won’t want to “travel” in anything but.
Well here you have a former TBM, now Mustang owner, an Eclipse 700 deposit holder, and a recovering former Eclipse owner, now Mustang flier, ALL agreeing on this!
it must tell you something!
I thought the same with the Cirrus and the Eclipse. When the Cirrus didn’t sell fast enough it felt like a chore going to putt around to keep it going.
Plus, it’s not as if the SF50 is a Gulfstream!
I am thinking of a toy plane to complement the jet, like Joe has done, but it ain’t a Cirrus.
Gordon - that’s a pretty blanket statement! Everyone?
Todd, in my case, I DID sell my Cirrus at the time of purchase of the Eclipse but purchased it(yes, the same plane) back two years later so that my wife could learn to fly. She started the process then but never got there.
I sold a piece of it to my friend and CSIP, Ed Watters. Having the 2nd plane around isn’t a bad thing. We use it for very short trips, extra training among ourselves and just poking holes in the sky. Ed uses it more for trips.
Happy to talk with you about it if you are interested.
Having said all of this, I suspect if it is just you, you won’t want to fly the piston enough and WILL sell it.
Ed continues to try to get me to fly the Cirrus for some short trips but if there is any questionable weather etc, I am so much more comfortable in the jet and I use that as an excuse every time! (Shhh, don’t tell Ed).
Thanks guys! Your responses make a lot of sense and you probably are right. It is sort of that thing that if your wife say to give up something to get something that I won’t get that something back if I sell this? I maybe will start a flying club with it so it gets used and try to get some other planes in the club?
When you guys do use the jet for shorter flights I would imagine that not all flights you go above FL180 and maybe sometimes even fly VFR? That just seems weird in a jet but so does me flying one!
It depends on the weather and distance.
Sometimes I like to fly VFR just to “sneak up” on the people I am meeting and surprise them… No flightaware there!
One of my runs is Missoula (KMSO) which is 80 NM and I fly at around 14,500 (ground here is at around 3000 MSL).
Another one is Spokane (KGEG) is 140 NMs and there I would go either at 16,500 or as high as 22000.
The only negative to flying low in a jet is that you will have to debug it after the flight!
If I go VFR, I can still climb so quickly that it usually makes sense to go to 16,500 or 17,500 unless it is 30 miles away which at that point, I probably drive. [:P] I have a flight I do frequently that is 124 NM and it still makes sense to go to FL210-230 usually. If I’m flying below FL180, I usually pull the throttle back to around 75-80% which seems to slow the fuel burn some. Again, in my case, if the flight is less than 75-100 NM, I usually take the taildragger unless my wife is coming. She won’t fly in anything with a prop or 1 engine. [:S]
For the occasional flight from Santa Barbara to Santa Monica or Van Nuys or San Luis Obispo, yes, I’ll be lower than FL180 and often VFR. But like Joe said, it climbs so fast and is so much more efficient that even for short trips you typically climb high.
Here’s a table I use as a general guideline for choosing an altitude.
But an occasional VFR putt works fine for me. I did one a couple weeks ago to orbit at 16,500 near Vandenberg AFB to watch the night Falcon 9 launch!
Todd, for altitude, I use something very similar to Gordon’s. Today, I flew 3 legs to do a PALS medical mission. Legs were 383, 280 and 48nm.
It was a trip into the DC area so it gets difficult to get all the way up. Today I was given FL310 first leg and FL300 on second leg.
The last flight -48nm - I chose VFR at 4500 feet. Used 260 pounds for the final leg.