The $4000 hamburger… dinner in Nantucket by Twin Commander

What do three pilots do for fun on a Saturday night? Fly to Nantucket for dinner. We were apparently in a hurry, because we opted to take a Twin Commander 1000. In the 1970s, corporate managers thought it would be the height of luxury to ride in the back of a plane that could seat 8 people, cruised at 300 knots up to 35,000′, with a range of 1800 nautical miles (good to go to Europe with a stop in Iceland). The typical number of passengers carried on a private jet, then and now, is less than 2. In response to this demand, Gulfstream manufactured the Twin Command from around 1973 through 1985. Corporate managers, having figured out that there was nothing to stop them looting an extra $50-100 million from their shareholders, abandoned these planes for bizjets closer in size to a Boeing 737 and Gulfstream followed that market, leaving the Twin Commanders mostly to private owners.

We walked out of Jet Aviation in Bedford around 5:30 pm. The interior of the Twin Commander is cavernous by general aviation standards. Four people would have plenty of room to stretch out in the back all the way to Europe; six or seven would be comfortable on a trip to D.C. Starting the plane’s Garrett direct-drive turbine engines is more or less automatic. Taxiing the plane is famously difficult and the copilot’s seat has limited rearward travel due to a cabinet. My shins were up against a sharp metal piece of the panel and it was hard to work the rudder pedals and toe brakes. Winds were less than 10 knots and more or less straight down Runway 23, the 5000′ crosswind runway at Hanscom. I advanced the throttles to about 80 percent torque and, with about 1400 horsepower on tap, we hurtled down the runway towards a rotation speed of 100 knots. Rotating the Twin Commander requires a heroic tug back on the yoke that would flip a Cessna over on its back. We probably weighed close to 11,000 lbs. and with a plane that heavy, you have to be alert with the trim. Fortunately, thanks to the twin-engine nature of the beast, there were no issues with left-turning tendencies. I was instructed to climb at 120 knots, but was holding closer to 140 and still we were climbing at closer to 1000 fpm.

We contacted Boston Approach and were quickly cleared through the Class Bravo airspace to an altitude of 10,500′. I was “behind the airplane” at all times, just barely able to keep up with attitude, heading, airspeed, and power, while the owner worked the radio. The workload was high, but seemed like it could be manageable. Like the 2006 TBM-700 that I had flown the day before, this 1982 Twin Commander does not offer much integration of information. There are about the same number of switches, dials, and lights as in the TBM.

The weather was severe clear, but it was pitch black and we were over the water. Between the lack of visual references and the limited visibility over the high panel, I found it easier to fly the instruments than the real horizon. Removing headsets, it was remarkably quiet in the cabin, which had been passively soundproofed the last time that the interior was refurbished. It wasn’t that hard to slow the plane down for a 120-knot approach speed on a right base to Runway 24 at KACK. With the gear and full flaps down, we crossed over the threshold at 110 knots and touched down at close to 100 knots (the stall speed in this configuration is 77 knots). The specs say that the plane can be landed in 1300′ with reverse thrust, which we did use; we probably chewed up 3500′ of runway (out of 6000′ available).

Over some cod cakes (the Nantucket equivalent of hamburger), we talked about airplanes and children (the good pilots tend to be successful husbands and fathers as well). I almost always feel good after hanging out with pilots, but these guys were especially impressive for the level of responsibility they are willing to take for their passengers’ safety and also, in the Twin Commander owner’s case, for the level of flying skill evidenced.

We headed back to the airport and fired up. The weather was beginning to come down in the Boston area. We departed VFR and contacted Cape Approach to ask for VFR advisories into Bedford. The controller seemed confused, never got our tail number right, and kept asking us to press the Ident button on the transponder. Finally he said that we were out of his airspace and to talk to someone else, but he didn’t give us a frequency. We used the “nearest center” function on the Garmin 530 to bring up the frequency for Boston Center, the controllers of higher altitude aircraft. A sharp-minded woman answered and gave us an instrument clearance to return to Bedford at 12,000′. At almost 270 miles per hour over the ground, I was just getting organized when it was time to descend towards Bedford. The wind was about 6 knots right down Runway 23 and the controllers were proposing a non-precision VOR approach to 23. That would have involved a bit of extra flying to the NE side of the airport and it is safer and easier to fly an instrument landing system (ILS) approach, so we asked for the ILS 29 instead. We entered the clouds at around 7000′ and kept getting closer to the final approach fix without getting clearance to a lower altitude. Finally we were cleared down to 2000′ and we pulled the power back to idle and nosed over for a 3000 fpm descent. To my piston instincts, it felt wrong to be hurtling towards the ground so fast, but because the Twin Commander is pressurized, I didn’t feel anything in my ears. We slowed down to 120 knots and dropped the gear as we intercepted the glide slope. The ILS was uneventful and we broke out at 1300′, about 1200′ above the runway, then continued visually to land. Despite cutting the power and aiming just beynd the numbers of 29 rather than for the 1000′ markers, our touchdown speed of close to 100 knots kept us moving all the way to the intersection with Runway 23, i.e., we used about 4000′ out of the 7000′ runway. It was easy to keep the plane straight against the light crosswind.

This is a great airplane that is beyond my current level of piloting skill, but the owner, a Twin Commander expert, thought that I would be able to fly it safely by myself in reasonably good weather after 25 hours of flying as a copilot. It is quiet and comfortable in the back, good enough for anyone not spoiled by a Gulfstream GV or Boeing Business Jet. It has the speed and range to go anywhere in the world.

What are the practical aspects of owning a Twin Commander? $1-2 million to buy. 100 gallons of jet fuel per hour (approx. $400) plus maybe another $500 per hour for maintenance. Insurance would probably be $40,000 per year. Better to take JetBlue if you want to go somewhere obvious like San Francisco or Los Angeles…