I did not make my point well. While I agree the DA62 climbs well up to its max altitude, my point was you can't go through weather over the Rockies, even in a FIKI plane. You'll spend hours in icing conditions or worse if you try and no plane is designed for that. Instead you need to go over it and for that you need something that will fly at least FL230. That's not the DA62. So it's going to be somewhat weather limited going from SLC to MO. Based on my Cirrus experience, about 85% of the time, it's fine. Coming from SLC you can take I-80 which is V6 and the MEA is briefly 12,000 feet and 10,000 feet the rest of the way.ultraturtle wrote:I disagree. The DA62 has plenty of climb performance to spare at its max altitude of FL200, although you'll typically go at FL180 or 17,000 to avoid wearing a mask. Highest Min Sector Altitude I'm aware of over the Rockies is 16,800'.Paul wrote:...The DA62 will cover this but as others have pointed out, it's not pressurized and can't fly high enough. The only way to cross the Rockies in IMC conditions is to fly over it and for that you need to be able to fly in the flight levels...
The twin vs. single debate is endless and unwinable. Personally I'd rather have a single PT6 at FL280 over the Rockies than two piston engines at a lower altitude but that's just me. It's impossible to use data to demonstrate a King Air is safer than a PC12 when it comes to engine failure. However circumstances are unique to the pilot so I can understand why someone would take one side of the argument or the other.