Friday, December 10, 1999
By ROBERT GEBELOFF
Staff Writer
The Beech Baron 58 that crashed Thursday in Hasbrouck
Heights is considered a premium aircraft, a plane experienced pilots usually fly for
business purposes.
"This is a plane that handles very well," said
Carl Rosenberg, an aviation buff who runs a Web site devoted to the plane. "It's not
a hot rod -- a Mercedes comes more to mind."
While this Beech model has several varieties, the base
Baron 58 is a twin-engine six-seater with a 1,000-mile range.
Most Barons are used for commercial purposes. Companies
buy them to carry executives from regional offices to headquarters and back. Numerous
charter flight businesses also depend upon the aircraft.
While Rosenberg flies one as a hobbyist, the sticker price
-- $1 million for a new model, about $200,000 for a used plane -- usually discourages
casual fliers.
The plane is manufactured by Raytheon Aircraft of Wichita,
Kan., which promotes the craft's flexibility and range.
"Night departure. Rain showers. Low ceilings and
visibility. The Baron 58 is equipped to assist its owner in dealing with the
elements," the company says in a brochure. "It offers the perfect balance of
safety, speed, comfort, reliability, and style for getting you where you want to go, when
you want to get there."
Compared to the single-engine Beech Bonanza, the type of
plane that crashed into a residential neighborhood in Newark last month, the twin-engine
Baron is more powerful and more difficult to fly.
Yet experienced pilots are quite loyal to the plane.
Raves abound among the plane's fans who log on to
Rosenberg's on-line Baron discussion forum.
"Out of 37 aircraft we've owned, the 7 Barons were
the most versatile and fun to fly," a pilot from Washington wrote.
"I have owned a Baron for about seven years
now," a pilot from California reported. "After flying more than 800 hours, I
feel this is the finest piston twin available."
Another pilot concluded that the Baron is "the best
hi-performance twin that can be flown safely by a non-professional pilot."
While nobody knows the cause of Thursday's crash yet,
Rosenberg said mechanical failure is highly unlikely.
"This kind of plane . . . they just don't fall out of
the sky," he said.
Copyright © 1999 Bergen Record Corp.
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