How many commanders made?

[jensscott]

How many Commanders were made? It's tricky to keep track of all those that were made as one model but were converted to another.
I'm trying to figure out:

how many total
how many with O and IO
how many with GO and IGO engines
how many with GSO, IGSO, GTSIO engines
how many with Turbo props

Any insight?

Thanks

[Roy]

One word (or name) answer:

barry.collman@air-britain.co.uk

Roy

[Adam Frisch]

Roughly about 2500-3000 in total. About 1000 500A/B's, about 1000 Turboprops and about 500-1000 of the rest.

[donv]

That many 500 series? That surprises me, although on thinking about it, I suppose it makes sense. 500 sales really dried up in the mid-late 1970s. Doesn't Bruce have the last one made?

[Adam Frisch]

Might be a little high, but I was including the straight 500's as well. Probably more like 7-800 in total.

[Bruce Byerly]

  I think there were only a couple hundred 500B?s.  I have an awesome book that gives a one page summary of all the models.  I need to find and post it.  From memory, 219 690C/695, 136 690D/695A?s, 400 ish 690?s. 

I have the 3rd to last 500S.  I think.

There?s also a method to the early serial numbers - number of total Commander followed by number of particular sub model IIRC. 

Someone who knows what they are talking about should be along shortly to straighten us out on this and/or, we?ll look it it up on the production list or similar resources here:

https://sites.google.com/site/aerocommanderproductionlist/

[donv]

I assumed when you were talking about 500s that you included all the variants-- A, B, U, S, etc.

[TimothyNathan]

I am sure that this is a very stupid question, but why are there two numbering systems, the 690/695 designations and the 840/900/980/1000 numbers?

And when is it correct to use one or the other?

[donv]

The 840/900/980/1000 were all marketing designations.

The official type certificate designations were:

690C-- 840
690D-- 900
695-- 980
695A-- 1000
695B-- 1000

However, a 900 (690D) has much more in common with a 1000 (695A) and an 840 (690C) has more in common with a 980 (695).

So, to prevent confusion I always use the marketing designations (840/900/980/1000). For those later airplanes as a group, I refer to them as "Jetprops" since that's what the factory called them.

Earlier airplanes were 690, 690A, or 690B.

Does that help?

[Adam Frisch]

Yeah, good summary by Don.

All the Jetprops had a new longer wing. A mix of bladders and wet wings.

Which ones are best? They're all good, but no doubt the 980 had a good start straight from the factory - 10's, often long range tanks, higher MTOW etc. Killer planes - prob be the best bang for your buck. In the upper echelons, 900 vs 1000's it's a tougher call. A 900 is exactly like a 1000, in many ways. RSVM. But you didn't have to deal with the pesky SRL computers that few can overhaul on the 900. That said, the 1000 has higher MTOW and can carry more - those suckers can load up the cabin and still go 1200nm. Which other twin TP can do that?

Just wonderful planes. I can think of only two other twin TP's that can go further on a single tank of gas:  Cheyenne 400LS (a bat out of hell) or the Merlin IIIB. The rest of the King Air's etc go slower, go less far, burning more fuel.

[donv]

I have a fair amount of experience in the Merlin IIIB. It actually has less range than you might think, unless you are flying it by yourself (which would be a shame, given the great cabin!). If you fill the tanks, you are basically at or over gross before you put a pilot in.

I flew one almost 600 hours, and I don't think I filled the tanks once.

If you want to go far in a Merlin, the one you need is the Merlin IIIC. It requires a type rating, but gives you another 1000 pounds (I think? Maybe only 800?) so you can actually fill the tanks and fly it.

Also, the IIIB (and C) are pretty iffy at hot and high airports... if you insist on doing that, you really need the water injection.

However, in many ways, I loved the Merlin. While it wasn't especially nice to fly, it was fun in it's own way, and had some great features.

And it has SRLs too! As do most of the thousands and thousands of Metros made.

[TimothyNathan]

I get that there are two numbering systems, and I understand what the systems are, but my question is why?

[Adam Frisch]

Timothy - my guess is, these companies with their roots in the 50's, were mainly driven by engineers. And only when it came to market them did someone realize that they might benefit from a simple to understand, marketable system. Commander was never very good or clear with their designations and the piston range was also muddled up. It wasn't unique to Aero Commander either - many manufacturers from the same era suffered from this.

[donv]

The reason there are two numbering systems is that the official numbering systems are based on the type certificate, and that's difficult to change. That's why many companies assign names to their airplanes. Commander did this for a while-- the 681 was the "Hawk" and the 500S was the "Shrike" and the 680W was the "Turbo II."

Cessna has also always done this-- just with their turboprops, the 425 was the "Corsair" and became the "Conquest I" while the 441 was just the "Conquest" and then became the "Conquest II."

In the case of the Merlin/Metro, virtually no one uses the numbers-- the 12,500 pound Merlins and Metros are all SA-226s and the high gross weight airplanes are all SA-227s, yet you never hear anyone refer to a Merlin by those numbers.

So someone at Rockwell decided they didn't like the names any more, and that numbers would be cool. But they couldn't use the official numbers, so they made up marketing numbers instead.

Does that make sense?

[TimothyNathan]

I guess it makes sense - Piper uses Native Americans throughout - but I guess that it's the detail that makes it so odd.  The word Aztec and the word PA27 are not confusing (though I have to say that the multiple tribe names for PA28, 31, 32 and 46 are bizarre  ), but the out-of-sequence three digit numbers do my head in, especially as the 690A and 690B seem only to have one.

They could have stuck to bird names, though do we all know that Shrike comes from the Old English for Shriek?  Just sayin'