Hugh:

I've got a very similar story to Larry's. I had about 200 hours and a private license and wanted to buy my first plane. After CONSIDERABLE research, I decided on a Skymaster.

Everyone tried to steer me away from a twin, even CLT just because of additional speed, tasks, etc. The conventional, and probably best wisdom, is to build about 500 hours in complex high performance singles. First it will make your insurance a bunch cheaper, and also, you just get used to things going much faster. However . . .

Against better judgment and conventional wisdom, I bought my 66 337A, got a ME CLT limited rating within a couple of weeks, and then got my instrument rating in it about 3 months later.

Honestly, I wouldn't do it any differently now in hindsight. The differences between you and me from what I understand is that I had a bit more total time in a single than you currently do and had done a number of 2+ hour cross countries with extremely experienced pilots in differing conditions. I also had a single lose an engine on takeof at about 200 agl. That honestly pushed me more in the direction of the CLT twin.

I've been putting 200+ hours a year on it and use it for business, and the insurance costs were cut in half this year because of everything finally coming together, total time, hangar, instrument rating, time in last 90 days, etc.

My 2 cents worth.

Keven
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