A few of the guys I fly for are looking into buying a Conquest II, I'd like to get a Pilot / Management perspective on the airplane. If any of you had time for phone conversation that would be wonderful.

They are comparing the Conquest II and a B200, I'm leaning toward the King Air, but we will see what happens.

Cheers,

Rog

I don't know anything about the Conquest other than its got stupid Garretts on it, but it's hard to go wrong with a 200.  If money was no object, I'd have one.  I loved flying it.

The Conquest has a wider cabin and with -10 engines is hard to beat performance wise.
From a maintenance standpoint it has the same system flaws as the rest of the 400 series Cessna. If your boots are inflating in flight, if the cabin goes to max diff on rotation, if the oxygen system is leaking in the headliner? Its all because cessna ran all the heat and a/c ducts without insulation and it has steel spring stiffened spring wrap. All of the vacuum and oxygen plumbing is aluminum tubing and crosses the ducting in many places which causes corrosion and system leaks from duct sweating. Seen a few conquest and 414A's with oxygen leaks from this and inflated boots because the cabin pressure was going into the vac system and one with a pressurization problem. That just off the top of my head.
From an owner operator view the king air wins, tougher aircraft flys smoother and still has strong manufacturer support since they still build them. Cessna 400 series parts start getting scarce, I have 5 414A's on our certificate, a couple 414A customers and a couple king air customers.
A friend of mine has been in both a conquest 2 and ka200 with some special equipment that is more sensitive than the aircraft flight Instruments and says the ka200 with raisbec strakes is a more stable flight platform than the Conquest with aft stakes installed.

This is almost exactly what I was going to say.  Love me some B200.

You will get better fuel burns with the garrett than the PT6

Mover over beach boys. Conquest II is way better than a B200. Get RVSM and fly stupid 2000 mile trips at 300 knots. It has obscene range.
 

Also the Garretts burn less gas and have 5000hr TBO's that run about 150K. The PT-6's on the -200 have 3600hr TBO's, 1800h hot sections and easily run 400k a pair to overhaul.

Those SID's don't forget about the Conquest SID's. If it's selling cheap it may have one of those high dollar phases coming up like the remove the vertical and horizontal stabs for nde inspection.
The Garrett engine ain't what the problem is with the Conquest.
Talk with a local cessna service center and see if they can fix you up with a copy of the phase and SID's program and cost associated with the inspections alone.

Do you know any Honeywell approved engine shops that will do overhauls for 150K? Thanks.

We are taking those into consideration, there is a lot to know before pulling the trigger on one of these airplanes.

Thanks!

so much hate on garrett's.  I love them bitches

can't help you with the plane itself though, sorry

Yep, the Conquest is the fastest TP between two Cessna Service Centers.

Yes it is. It's speed, range and load hauling ability is what killed it. Cessna wanted to dominate the business jet market. Beech wanted to dominate the tp market. Cessna finally killed the Conquest because it was competing head-to-head, and in many ways dominating their new jet, the Citation. How were they gonna sell Citations when you could buy a Conquest II for far less? Had to kill that beast to make room for more expensive jets.

One of them is pretty much the most popular business turbo prop of all time.  The other is not.  I wonder why?