I was at Sun 'n Fun two years ago when a subscriber walked up to me and asked a question I wasn't quite ready for: "Why don't you ever write stories about airplanes you don't like?" As the resident "primary" pilot reporter for Plane & Pilot/Pilot Journal, that stopped me cold, but not for long. The answer is that there are few airplanes I don't like. In fact, I've never personally met an airplane I didn't like.
Certainly, some flying machines are better than others in some or all respects—faster, quicker climbing, easier to fly, more comfortable, more economical and, yes, more attractive—and I usually try to point out those differences in every evaluation.
Fact is, practically every airplane has something to recommend it, if not one thing, then a handful of advantages. A few are charismatic charmers capable of bending minds and endearing themselves to practically everyone.
If you're wondering if the new Baron G58 is an airplane I don't like, then you've come to the wrong place. The current version of the Baron 58 is almost impossible not to love.
Over the last 38 years, Beech has gradually improved the Baron to the point where it's really difficult to find things to criticize. True, the basic airframe and wing of today's Baron 58 are nearly identical to those on the original stretched 58 from 1970. The first Baron (the 55) was born in 1961 when Beech decided that if you took a Bonanza and added a second engine, voilà, you'd have a Baron.
Perhaps the nicest benefit of such a marriage was that all the positives and none of the negatives were transferred directly from the Bonanza to the Baron. The twin-engine airplane had a conventional, three-member tail, so there was less of the V-tail's inherent yaw instability. Roll and pitch response remained excellent, just as they were with the later straight-tailed Bonanza.
In order to create the first Baron, Beech merely stretched the Travel Air's wings six inches, added an additional six inches to the fuselage and upgraded the two 180 hp engines to 260 hp.
That's a gross oversimplification—of course developing a larger, heavier airplane with more power involved far more than "merely" changing powerplants and stretching and adding span. In order to accommodate the thirstier engines, Walter Beech initially bumped fuel capacity from 112 to 142 gallons, adding other changes to handle the bigger power.
The current G58 incorporates all the best features that came before. Aerodynamically, Beech got it right the first time out of the box. In 2006, the company added the Garmin G1000 avionics system to round out the airplane's already considerable talents.
If there's any downside to the newest, most modern Baron ever built, it may be price. If you have to ask how much, then perhaps you don't really want to know. A typical Baron G58 exits the Wichita, Kans., door with a list price of about $1.2 million.
While the Garmin G1000 suite makes the Baron seem as modern as tomorrow, the basic airplane has proven itself over nearly half a century. Today's Baron remains the last of its kind from a class that once included the A55 through E55, the 58TC, the top-of-the-line 58P and the original, "real" six-seat Baron, the straight 58.
With the help of 600 horses out on the wings, the Baron has always had a deserved reputation for scampering across the sky as if something bigger was chasing it. Specifically, Beech places the new Baron's cruise at 202 knots, which puts it at the head of its class, though it's admittedly a very small class.
There are basically four piston twins available today. Two of them, the Piper Seminole and Diamond DA42 Twin Star, are intended as trainers, so they have little need for high cruise numbers. The Seminole is a scaled-up Arrow with an extra engine, and the DA42 is a significantly modified Diamond Star with a pair of Thielert diesels on its wings.
The only true contender to the Baron is the Piper Seneca V, and in terms of sheer numbers, it's indeed a formidable competitor. Born at about the same time in the early '70s, the modern Seneca employs a pair of turbocharged, 220 hp Continentals to protect it from evil, and that allows the newest PA34 to cross the sky at 197 knots, though, admittedly, that speed is only available in the flight levels.
According:planeandpilot
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