Cessna 337 Skymaster

[vanNostrum]

[JW Scud]

Well, they screwed that one up. The gear doors are open for takeoff. Meanwhile, they are talking about how dangerous it is at 4:00. If it is the electro-hydraulic powerpack, one of the first things you do when entering the aircraft is pull the landing gear CB. Then pump the emergency gear handle to open the doors so you can do a better inspection of the gear area. Then once the walkaround is complete, push in the CB and turn the master on and the doors close.

I don't think pulling the CB is mandatory but it makes sure that those doors won't close if someone else turns on the master switch while you are doing the walkaround.

I fkew one with the Uvalde mod which removes the aft gear doors. Engine failure, positive climb(maybe), gear up.

[Liquid_Charlie]

For the suck and blow fan club - but I just have to say, the gloves make it

https://youtu.be/YIOGik5klB4

[Nark]

I don’t know why the fook that joker is wearing flight gloves?
They’re flash fire resistant. I wear them because I have to by regulation. They aren’t very tactile, and I pull them off a lot of the time to play with my iPad.

I wear my worn out ones in the 180, when it’s cold. Because they’re gloves and do a wonderful job keeping my hands cold, instead of ice cold.

I just find it dorky.

[David MacRay]

Don't they have a Bass Pro Shops logo on them?

There is a guy on YouTube that plays bass guitar, he has some sensitivity thing where he wears gloves. Maybe that pilot has the same thing.

[Eric Janson]

There are some C414's for sale on Controller - not bad prices for a pressurised twin.

Only flown the C402 (same cabin) - nice big cabin and plenty of storage. C402 would also make a nice personal SUV - had one up to 16000' and it seemed quite happy at that altitude.

One C402 I flew had a Robertson STOL kit. Ground roll of 1000' to get airborne.

[Colonel]

Apart from the usual maintenance concerns, I would advise anyone looking at a twin Cessna
to carefully research spar AD's. Lots of aging airplanes, and lots of money to be spent in the
future as all that aluminum ages, cycles and corrodes.

[Liquid_Charlie]

It was a shame to see cessna 400 series drop off the face with the new maint requirements. I think cessna wanted out of that market.

I think the 402C was a far better aircraft than a chieftan and they did get some very high time airframes. I think that was a carrier in Hawaii had the highest time birds.

[Colonel]

I'm sure Cessna regrets not putting life limits into the original type certificates.

After X decades or Y tens-of-thousands-of-hours the economic reality is that it's time to melt them down into canoes. The labor and replacements parts costs (!!) do not pass a basic cost/benefit analysis. You can't
reasonably put a million dollars into an airplane to completely refurb it around the data plate, then sell
it for $300,000

Even warbirds struggle with this kind of accounting reality.

Put one in a museum, and melt the rest down before people get hurt.