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The Navajo PA31-310 is one of my favorite twin engine planes around (Possibly because thats what i have most of my hours in), especially with it's more-than-decent cruise speed, phenominal climb rate, and loads of payload.

My personal favorite features:
Avg ground speed: 200kias
Avg initial climb rate: 1400fpm

Unfortunately I lost my pictures of my Navajo and it's beautiful (brand-new) paint job, but next time I'm at the airport I'll take a few.

Just thought I'd share that bit of useless rambling with you guys.

The only 310 I've flow has been with the Panther conversion, but I have a hundred some hours in the 350. It's a nice airplane, nothing really amazing about it. I don't really care for the way it flies (you have to retrim it every few minutes) and I dislike the way it lands. It's very roomy on the inside (ours is configured with club seating and the potty seat across from the door). I've never seen 200 knots indicated in it and have rarley seen 1400FPM, but all the flying is done at, or a little below, gross and we use 500FPM just to keep the engines cool and the speed up.

......... I don't really care for the way it flies (you have to retrim it every few minutes) and  
I dislike the way it lands......    

That's a very nice way of saying that it lands like a dumpster with wings(the expression that I always use to tell people how it flies). You don't land a Navajo, you just fight it to the runway! I'd like to talk to the genius that put that giant spring in the elevator control linkage. I do disagree on the cruise flight comment though. I used to fly a Chieftain and I thought it was a nice airplane in cruise. 1400fpm/200kts?!   On what planet? I used to fly near gross and couldn't manage more than 500-700fpm! And 160-170kias is pretty much the max you can squeeze out of any of the Navajos at 19gph/side.  
Give me a 400series Cessna or Baron any day.....

200 is groundspeed. And the 1400fpm is initial climb rate, usually with a light load, after that we slow it down to about 700fpm. I agree that it does sometimes feel like you're landing a refrigerator with both doors open.

200kias

Just for future reference, I don't mean to sound like a jerk.

200KIAS = 200 knots indicated airspeed (the speed you see on the gauge)

You can't have a ground speed of 200 KIAS.

160-170kias is pretty much the max you can squeeze out of any of the Navajos at 19gph/side.

If you can remeber, what power settings did you use? I think our settings are 35/25, but I may have that mixed up with another aircraft. We normally see 160-180 at 3,000 feet in relatively warm temps with about 23GPH a side.

Oh. Duh. Silly me.

We were running 75%  (Per the mechanics orders, the right side is a new overhaul), also we had that storm yesterday pushing a 50 knot quartering tailwind  

If you can remeber, what power settings did you use? I think our settings are 35/25, but I may have that mixed up with another aircraft. We normally see 160-180 at 3,000 feet in relatively warm temps with about 23GPH a side.

 Can't recall........memory ain't what it used to be.   The only thing I do remember is to "never run it leaner than 19gph!"  I was fortunate enough when I started flying the Chieftain that I had a very experienced pilot/mechanic/MEI to go to for advice and pointers.This guy told me that if you run it any skinnier than the magic "19", you'll be practicing your Vmc demo unintentionally! The Chieftain that I flew had a nice digital meter on it and with the engines synched the leaner would run 19.2-.5 and the fatter one would be around 20-21. Of course the  "porky" engine was the right, so when I ran the Janitrol, things got real bad(probably closer to 26!) Can't recall the rpm/mp but seem to remember the mp being closer to 33 to achieve that burn.  As far as altitude.......7-13,000 optimum. I climbed to 17,000 one night(it was really late and I was bored) and the burn and tas didn't seem to change.

Those Janitrol's sure do get the job done!!   When we bought our Navajo, the heat would roast you out on the low setting. Okay, we thought, that must be the "Alasaka Version"  ;D but when we recently had to replace the whole thing, we found out that it had been stuck in the full-on position.

It's nice to be able to pick a temperature and set it instead of going hot-cold-hot-cold as you cycle the heater the keep from cooking!

WOW. So much Navajo/Chieftain bashing......  :'(

O.K.

I've never personally landed a PA-31 yet, but I am close friends with pilots who have flown these aircraft like 10 landings/takeoffs a day for a local commuter (which is now defunct) for upwards of 10 years. With that much experience, landing becomes very easy. Infact, it is fun to land with this plane when you figure out that it is a PA-31, not a Cessna or a Beech.

As for trimming......

Uh, your plane is broke. Once these things are trimmed, they STAY there, unless you change something, or you have turbulence. Having symetric power is also good, cause that will mess things up sometimes. I have taken complete control of more than one PA-31 aircraft in my life.

Handling characteristics:

The PA-31-300/310/325 tail likes to wag. After a few hours in the aircraft, if you are able to adapt, you learn to be better than any yaw dampener they ever put in one of these aircraft, and pax won't feel it.
During a turn, the nose has a slight dropping moment to it, so you have to correct for this, but that is the same with many aircraft.

The PA-31-350 (PA-31 T1020) is a bit more like a bus, the tail stays pretty much put because of the 2 foot extention to the fuselage. Again, with adept flying, any yaw factors are not noticable by the pax.
The nose on this aircraft has a slightly more noticable nose drop during a turn, but again, not uncommon.

The PA-31T3 T1040 (basicly a Chieftain with turbines, a longer nose, anf control surfaces of a Cheyenne) flies like a train, but a really fast train. This sucker has two PT6A-11's at 500 SHP each, it flies faster and climbs better than any piston derivative. Vne is not hard to get during level flight with this bird.
The nose drop on this aircraft is heavy, and must be correct for.


I can go off for hours, because the PA-31 series is my favorite aircraft. I grew up on these, and I will continue to strive to be around them.

With that much experience, landing becomes very easy. Infact, it is fun to land with this plane when you figure out that it is a PA-31, not a Cessna or a Beech.

It may become easy after doing it for years, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a bitch below fifty feet and with full flaps.

If you take two pilot's of equal experience level and skill and through one in an Aero Commander 560 and the other in a Navajo and have them both fly in the same conditions for 50 hours, I can guarentee you that the Aero Commander pilot will have more "perfect" landings then the Navajo pilot simply because the Navajo isn't the greatest landing airplane in the world.

Uh, your plane is broke. Once these things are trimmed, they STAY there, unless you change something

Change somthing....as in fuel burn? When planes burn fuel they're CG changes and you retrim. I've found that it's very noticable in the Chieftan. I guess it doesn't help much that our passenger normally likes to move around.

Yup. When people move around, it kinda changes the CG!

As for the outer tanks of the PA-31 series, yes, it changes the CG slightly foward after they have been depleted vs full, but that takes longer than a couple minutes.

Talking about the PA31, I recently flew on a trip from 42A-HOT-42A-JKA, and uploaded my pics to here: http://community.webshots.com/scripts/e ... =237672558

(there were too many to put here)

And theres some showing a brand new C182, and what happens when you mix water, below freezing temps, and gear switches.

O.K.  I just talked to my pilot friend about this thread, and here is what he had to say in short:

The short Navajos (300,310,325) are sporty airplanes, not as much as a Cessna 310, but it is also a lot larger. The Chieftain (350) is like driving a truck. The T1040 is like driving an 18 wheeler, fast. (note: I didn't tell him what I said, these were his words)

Landing any PA-31, he told me, was very nice. It doesn't take much to grease the landings of this bird, as opposed to a Cessna 310, which requires A LOT of finess. The Navajos would make some pilots look better than they were landing. As for the elevator return spring, it is a little stiff, but shouldn't be any trouble with it as long as you have not skinny forearms (ie it may require a little more than the Cessna 172 finger-and-thumb pressure to hold it).

These are basicly his words, so if you disagree, you have just disagreed with a multi-thousand hour Navajo (310,325,350 and T1040) pilot.

........The Chieftain (350) is like driving a truck................ As for the elevator return spring, it is a little stiff, but shouldn't be any trouble with it as long as you have not skinny forearms (ie it may require a little more than the Cessna 172 finger-and-thumb pressure to hold it).

These are basicly his words, so if you disagree, you have just disagreed with a multi-thousand hour Navajo (310,325,350 and T1040) pilot.

The Chieftain is the only one that I've flown and I'll stick with my "dumpster" analogy.  Calling it a  "truck" is far too kind!  Forearm strength isn't the problem, control feel IS.  I've got over 4,000hrs flying Lear Jets and can land one so that the only thing you'll feel is the wheels spinning when it hits the ground but I can't land that Chieftain to save my A$$!! I've flown every twin Cessna in the book and Barons as well and have no problem with them(re: transition between jet and prop). I've got about 150hrs in the Chef'. After about the first 10 landings I figured out how much of a pig that thing was! I went to a friend of mine who flies  older straight-wing Navajos, to get some pointers on landing the thing and he told me that it was just the nature of the airplane. Basically, you're not going to convince me otherwise. And that's just landing! The thing was a runway hog and a slug in the climb.....Even compared to the 401(underpowered beast that it is) that I was flying during the same time!
I have to say that, until I flew a Navajo, I always thought it was a good looking airplane. When I finally got a chance to fly one though, I was very dissapointed.

I find that very unfortunate. Though I kind of understand. I've ridden Polaris IFS equipped snowmobiles since 1990, and when I get on an A-Arm Arctic Cat, I feel like I'm gonna fall off or crash all the time. I have to fight for control of the snowmobile, and I feel uncomfortable on it.

I've flown probably 75 to 100 hours of time IN a Chieftain (not in control), with an average flight time of 18 minutes (thats a lot of takeoffs and landings), and have only experienced about 10 landings that I would consider fought for, and that was during heavy gusting crosswinds and turbulence (and they weren't that bad of landings either). All of them. I've never been in a bounced Chieftain landing. I've never been in a severely asymetrical main-gear landing in a Chieftain. I've never been in a hard landing in a Chieftain. That is A LOT of landings in a Chieftain with those results. Not all the pilots were as experienced as my friend, some were rather fresh if you asked me, but they always seems to line her up, flare nicely and touch down smoothly regardless.

In contrast, I have in 2 takeoffs and landings (2 different pilots) had a bouncer in a Dash-8, an asymetric main gear landing (landing one wheel before the other in a non-crosswind situation) in a Twin Otter, and a very obscure bouncy hard asymetric landing in a Metroliner (I hate Metros, the only plane I won't fly on anymore).

I just find it hard to believe you had that much trouble landing that plane! maybe another 4 or 5 kias during landing would have smoothed it up?

Other advantages of the Navajo series:

Long TBO's on engines, I've seen 2400 hours and more per the FAA's permittance for a 135 operator (as opposed to most Cessna twins 1200 and 1400 hour TBO's, if they make it that far).

Looks cool! I mean come on Cessna! Those things are hideous! Beech did better, but it looks like a lot of wasted metal in a lot of places to me, big fuselages and carries how many? 4? 6?

Payload and Seating capacity. Ranging from 6 to 9. (since 9 is the max for a 135 operator, why go any higher?) You can actually fill the seats, AND have fuel for the trip in these planes! What a concept! yeah, it may take off long, but that is expected from an object that weighs 7000 pounds and cruises about 180 KIAS at that load.

Speed. A PA-31 is usually faster than your guy's aircraft you have been flying. I've seen a couple Chieftains that suffered slow flight in my hours in them, but more often than not they hold pretty close to published numbers. I'm USED to seeing 184-187 indicated on the dial.

My life is aviation, I grew up with it, I live it, I breath it, I love it. My favorite aircraft? The Navajo. Why? I've seen (and experienced) some pretty amazing things with this aircraft. Ever loop a Navajo?