March 2005

Aircraft

• 1958 Piper Comanche 250 by Staff
• 2005 Mooney Ovation2 GX
• Mooney's Glass-Paneled Ovation2 GX

  The cockpit of an airplane with the soul of a sports car

  Have you ever driven a Ferrari? A Ferrari is like no other, a bit hard to climb into, but once you’re there, you become part of the car. Acceleration, braking, turning, a Ferrari does everything fast, with a solid in-control feedback you feel in your whole body. It looks as fast as it drives.
  
• Piper’s First Retractable Single

  There are a few airplanes that deserve better than they got. The Comanche 250 is one of them.

  by Bill Cox The Comanche was conceived in the late ’50s when Piper and the rest of the industry was playing catch-up with the premier four-seat retractable, the Beech Bonanza. Piper’s Comanche was introduced as both a 180-hp and a 250-hp model, sporting four- and six-cylinder versions of the same engine. The former was planned to compete with Mooney’s wood-wing and tail Mark 20A, the latter with Beech’s successful V-tail, along with the dark horse Bellanca 260 and Meyers 200.