Cessna 441 Conquest II
By Mark Huber - October 1, 2008
Airplanes come apart in midair for a variety of reasons. An errant pilot loses control or flies a model past its design limit, or unrepaired cracks and corrosion cause structure to fail. Fortunately, rigorous pilot training and aircraft maintenance standards make such events few and far between. Even rarer is the case when a design flaw brings down a relatively new airplane. Cessna, however, was facing that nightmare scenario in 1977 with its Model 441 Conquest II.
During the 1960s, the company had developed its 400 series of large-cabin piston twins; then, in 1972, it introduced the first Citation fanjet. But the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the continuing popularity of competing turboprops, such as the Beechcraft King Air, convinced Cessna to morph two of its piston twins–the 404 and the 421–into turboprops. The 441 is the larger of the two; the other is the Model 425 Conquest I. The 441 has executive seating for seven, although you can cram in nine passengers; it also has a top speed of 295 knots–higher with a popular engine modification–and a range of 1,200 to 2,200 nautical miles, depending on altitude and power setting.
Customer deliveries of the $895,000 Model 441 began in September 1977. Just two months later, the sixth airplane off the production line came apart over Greensboro, Ala., killing all seven aboard. The engines were working fine and weather wasn’t a factor. That crash triggered the FAA’s grounding of the entire 441 fleet–twice–between 1977 and 1979. Cessna ended up redesigning key tail-section components, retrofitting the entire fleet and providing customers with loaner aircraft. The program affected nearly 100 airplanes and still stands as one of the largest and most expensive factory field modifications of a business aircraft ever.
The 441 went out of production in 1986–the year of general aviation’s modern nadir–after 362 were built. By then, the price of a new one had risen to $1.795 million. Of the approximately 320 still flying, the average accumulated flight time is 8,000 hours. The average operator flies about 294 hours a year.
Used 441s hold their value well. In good condition, they still command $1.2 million to $1.7 million and many operators lavish their 441s with all the latest bells and whistles, including new paint, interior, video monitors, soundproofing and glass-panel avionics. Those upgrades can easily boost the investment past $3 million–about the price of a new (but smaller) Cessna Citation Mustang entry-level twinjet.
“The airplane is in tight supply,” said Jerry Griffith, a Tulsa, Okla. broker who specializes in the 441. Griffith cited its speed, range, fuel economy and comparably low engine maintenance costs as the chief reasons for its enduring popularity. “When you look at the amount of the investment, operating costs and capability, nothing else will do what this airplane does,” Griffith added. A 441 with upgraded Honeywell TPE331-10 engines can take six passengers and their gear 1,200 nautical miles at speeds up to 311 knots at 35,000 feet–with an hourly fuel burn of 75 gallons. Down at 24,000 feet, it’s even faster. Lighten the load and pull back the power and you can stretch a tank of gas out to 2,200 nautical miles, making 253 knots. The engines have a recommended time-between-overhaul (TBO) of 5,000 hours and cost about $175,000 each to overhaul. Those are much better numbers than the ones for the Pratts that power King Airs and Cheyennes. The Pratts on a King Air B200 have a TBO of 3,600 hours, drink 25 gallons an hour more and cruise 20 knots slower. The Honeywell Dash 10s also give good short runway performance and get to altitude fast, powering the climb at a rate of 2,435 feet per minute.
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