Overall impression - love the plane. Love flying it, love landing it, and am enjoying flying down low again (had been flying a Piper M600 in the flight levels for several years, which we just sold last week - loved that plane too!). Definitely prefer the G3000 to the G1000, but that’s really a quibble as the functionality is similar (waiting on Phase 3 and visual approaches like everyone else). Have been without a radar since delivery but getting a GWX75 installed during the annual and will get the GWX8000 upgrade once Phase 3 is out (prepaid for both). I didn’t mind flying without them but would prefer not to go through another spring/summer storm season in Texas and the southeast relying solely on ADSB and XM radar …
Reliability and dispatch have been excellent. Oil consumption has been low but steady (did the 100 hour oil change, no issues). I think since I took delivery, I’ve added a total of 1-1.5 quarts/side during normal ops. Note that my engines were not on the SB list of engines making metal so no issue there. No issues with the interior, switches, lighting, climate, seats, etc. Build quality and finish have been great. A bit of the striping on the R aux tank filler cap has started to peel back which they will fix. Also, had a paint chip come off on the top of the R engine, which they will address at the annual.
I’ve had a few squawks along the way, including 3 sensor failures that are being fixed during annual: left aux tank fuel sender is inop (shows 1 gallon in the L aux tank at all times but the tank operates normally), passenger door sensor intermittently and then continuously displays the R DOOR OPEN error message whenever the weight is off the wheels (although its fully closed and latched and operates just fine), and most recently (last week during an Angel Flight which caused me to abort shortly after departure with pax and RTB), a R ENGINE COOLANT TEMP warning message (with the gauge showing red but no R COOLANT LEVEL LO message and no leaks). Had to put my pax on a Southwest flight to Memphis while I troubleshot the issue and determined it was, in fact, a bad sensor. Fortunately, that was just a few days before the annual so I flew it up to Fort Worth with it bitching at me but no actual engine issue. A few other minor squawks, most notably the cable disconnected from the GDU keypad so that’s been inop for some time (I didn’t really use it anyway but it was a “nice to have” item). That will also be fixed.
We had to reprogram the G1000NXi a few months ago because it was sent from the factory with the wrong codes and I was unable to update the databases. That necessitated a trip to KFTW to sort out - done with the oil change.
In short, there have been a few teething issues, not uncommon to have some with a brand new plane and its just wrapping up the first year of its warranty so I expect the annual cost to be relatively low (certainly better than the $65000 annual we had in August with our M600, but that included a prop overhaul, FCU overhaul and the optional NLG upgrade). The flying experience, including comfort and low noise levels, has been outstanding. I’m so happy that I bought this plane. I’ve done a few long trips in it (800+ nm legs) and it’s really been awesome to fly. Pax love it too - I get lots of compliments from both pilots and non-pilots alike. Had an M2 pilot crawl all over it with “ooohs” and “ahhhhs” in El Paso not long ago (great guy and we had a great pilot bull session for over an hour; one of the pluses of our aviation community!). My Angel Flight pax tell me its very comfortable and that’s even with the non-reclining back seats designed by those grumpy Austrian nuns with an upright posture fixation!
My sheepskin covers made a big difference, I think.Overall very happy. Would have preferred no “new plane squawks” but there will always be some and Premier has been very responsive. Haven’t had to deal with DAI on the plane yet. I will report back on how the annual goes including cost once it’s all sorted out. But so far, I’ve been a happy camper/pilot!
Cheers
