Beechcraft G36 Bonanza - Price, Speed, Fuel Burn & Specs

‍‍‍The Beechcraft G36 Bonanza is a high-performance general aviation aircraft built for six. This overview looks at its performance and features for future owners.

The Beechcraft G36 Bonanza was released in 2006 and costs between $950,000 and $1,300,000, new. It weighs 2,605 lbs and has a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 3,650 lbs. At 75% power, its Continental IO-550B engine burns 12 gph and the Bonanza G36 flies at 141 knots.

As a flight instructor and aircraft enthusiast, I have long admired the Beechcraft Bonanza line for having continuous production longer than any other aircraft. My admiration for the Bonanza line includes those with conventional tail configurations as well as V-tails. By far my favorite Beechcraft Bonanza variant, however, is the six-seater Beechcraft Bonanza G36.

‍Background

The Beechcraft Bonanza G36 is a low wing, conventional landing gear, single engine, six seat aircraft designed and built by Beechcraft.

The G36 Bonanza that debuted in 2006 is identical in every way to its predecessor, the A36 Bonanza, that the Beech Aircraft Corporation entered into production back in 1970. The entire Beechcraft Bonanza line has been in continuous production longer than any other aircraft, since the original design was put into production in 1947. No other airplane even comes close to that lengthy of a production record.

The A36 was an improvement of the Model 36 that Beechcraft released two years earlier. The Bonanza platform proved to be a robust design that Beechcraft capitalized on and both pilots and the flying public loved.

The A36 was designed as an upgraded version of the Model 36 with a plush interior to cater to the high-end clientele that Bonanza was targeting. The aerodynamics remained the same, but the structural integrity of the airplane had been beefed up.

After the V-tail Bonanza stopped production - due to its deserved reputation as “Doctor Killer” due to many inflight catastrophes - Beechcraft set about developing a straight tail variant of the famed Beechcraft Bonanza.

The new conventional tail Model 36 had a stronger empennage structure and heavier feel. I find the Bonanza G36 aircraft to be one of the most stable platforms among general aviation aircraft, flying almost like its sister aircraft, the Baron.

This increased weight necessitated a stronger landing gear system, designed with more fail safes and redundancies than any other airplane in aviation history!

The greatest difference that I find with this aircraft is the full glass cockpit that Garmin teamed up with Beechcraft to create. That was the reason behind the name change from the A36 to the G36. The G was added to the aircraft’s name to really hammer home the connection between the two companies and the fact that the core of the flight deck is powered by Garmin systems.

Its spacious interior, long fuselage and reinforced airframe allows it to see service with a variety of operators for a variety of tasks, from flying passengers, to cargo to performing general aviation flights.

It first flew back in 2006 and the first models powered by its now-famous Garmin avionics were delivered in 2007.

How Was The G36 Bonanza Certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)?

The Beechcraft Bonanza G36 was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the utility category in 2006. This enabled it to fly in US airspace (subject to other FAA regulations) and for operators to access FAA databases.

In other parts of the world, certification of the G36 took longer, taking until June 2010 to be certified in China, for example, which somewhat delayed its production and delivery in those areas.

Since then, the Bonanza G36 has been produced not only by the Beech Aircraft Corporation as an independent company, but also by the Hawker Beechcraft Corporation and by Textron Aviation.

Specs

What Are The Flight Characteristics of The Beechcraft Bonanza G36?

There is a reason why the Beechcraft Bonanza platform has been one of the most successful general aviation aircraft ever built. And it's primarily because of its flight characteristics. It’s fast and agile, yet easy to handle. It’s a workhorse yet it looks stylish. It’s a truck and a Cadillac all rolled into one.

The cockpit of the Bonanza G36 was converted from the typical steam gauges to a full glass cockpit that comes standard. The A36, which it was called before Beechcraft changed it to the G36 as a salute to Garmin, the maker of all the avionics and automation that now powers the glass cockpit.

The Bonanza G36 is fast thanks to its low drag profile and powerful engine. Even though the G36 comes fully integrated with navigation and automation that literally allows you to punch in a course and sit back till you get to where you’re going, the natural feel that you get when hand-flying the airplane is unparalleled and will compel you to hand-fly your way to wherever you are going.

As good as it is to hand fly, it is also a great aircraft to just stretch out in the luxurious seating for  passengers in the rear. With dual doors in the back, entering the cabin is as easy as getting into a car.

With four club seats in the back, decked out in luxurious leather, and an unprecedented air conditioning system which can be controlled by an individual air vent, the latest Bonanza G36 aircraft keeps passengers in cool comfort even on smoking hot days. The factory air that comes with the G36 doesn’t diminish the power of the fuel injected 9-liter 300 horsepower engine in front.

What is the Price of a Beechcraft G36 Bonanza?

The price of a Beechcraft Bonanza G36 is not a set-in-stone number. Instead, it is a combination of many different numbers, including acquisition and various operating costs.

Acquisition Cost

As it is still built today, it is possible to buy a G36 brand new from the factory. The Beechcraft G36 Bonanza is currently priced at $950,000 for its base model and can reach over $1,300,000 if a buyer chooses to take all the factory has to offer in options. Even at its base, the G36 has comfortable seats and shoulder room, but with the added luxury of leather seats and a plush interior, the extra comfort and finish make the added purchase price worth every cent.

The one STC potential owners should consider when purchasing a Bonanza G36 is the Hartzel upgraded propeller. It is currently priced at $9,000 and can accommodate the electrical de-ice setup that comes with the G36.

Another good addition that new owners should consider, whether buying it new out of the factory or picking up a used one is to add the vortex generator kit. Installed, it will raise your purchase price by another $2,000.

It is also possible to find the Bonanza G36 on the pre-owned market. Being one of the longest-running aircraft designs in the world, the Bonanza is popular and it's not difficult to find at least a dozen for sale at any given time on the Trade-a-Plane site or one of its competitors. The Bonanza G36 is just the A36 upgraded with a glass cockpit and came out in 2008.

A 2008 model with low time averaging 90 hours a year, with factory air, and a leather interior is priced around $800,000. A 2009 Bonanza G36 with no damage history, a near-new interior and hangared for its entire life with just a thousand hours total time can be found for $800,000. A 2010 model also with zero damage history, equipped with a full avionics package and a 3-blade Hartzell prop can be found for $1,000,000.

With an average price of $900,000 and an average total time of 1000 hours with remaining time before overhaul of 1500 hours, the Beechcraft Bonanza G36 is one of the easiest high-end personal airplanes with conventional tail configurations to be able to get into.

Financing for the Bonanza G36 varies between 7% and 9% depending on credit score. A 20% down payment would require a loan of $720,000.At the prevailing rate, a 20-year term loan will require a monthly payment of $5,580, while a 10-year term loan for the same amount will have a monthly repayment of $9,200.

Operating Cost

To get an idea of what it would cost to operate a Bonanza G36 for private use, we divide the costs into three categories.

• Fixed Costs
• Direct Operating Costs
• Reserves

Fixed Costs for the Bonanza G36 include the annual insurance, hangaring, and the monthly payments you make in that year. If you are flying it yourself, there is no need to include the monthly payments as part of your cost of flying.

Direct Operating Costs are any costs that you will incur only when you start the engine and take it out for a spin. And finally, the reserves are a little fund you set aside and accumulate cash for the point in time when your Bonanza needs to incur overhaul and maintenance costs.

Fixed Costs

Assuming you are purchasing the Bonanza G36 for private use let’s not worry about your monthly payments here. In which case, we now have to think only about insurance and hangaring.

Insurance for a Beechcraft G36 Bonanza can be divided into two broad categories. Considering that it is a high-performance complex aircraft, insurance providers like to see that the pilots who will be flying this aren't getting in over their heads.

There is a possibility they may not choose to insure a low-time pilot. And when they do, they typically decide who is qualified and who is less than qualified.

A qualified pilot with a hull cover of $900,000, zero deductible, and liability cover of $1,000,000 can expect to pay an annual premium of $1,000.

A less-than-qualified pilot for the same hull and liability coverage can expect to pay up to four times that amount, or $4,000.

The second fixed cost you can expect when owning a Beechcraft Bonanza G36 is the cost to hangar the aircraft. Most insurers will probably give you a break in the premium if you hangar it, and you will also be able to stretch the paint job intervals as well as enjoy savings on sealants and bushings during the annual inspection if you keep it hangared.

Hangaring versus tie-down costs can be substantial, but the cost comes back in one way or another. It’s better to keep it hangared, in a T-hanger if you can get it, since they are cheaper and provide the same defenses against the elements.

The national average for a T-hangar is $700 a month. That translates to $8,400 a year.

Set aside another $400 for charts and software upgrades for the GPS and any subscription services you may have for navigation.

As such, your Fixed Costs add up to $12,800 assuming the worst on the insurance premium.

Direct Operating Cost

Direct Operating Costs, or DOC for short, captures everything that you will need to spend as soon as you fire up the engines.

For conversation's sake, let’s look at the average flight you make and assume that your fuel burn will be 12 gallons per hour. The national average for 100LL now is $6 per gallon which will result in an hourly cost of $72.

The next DOC you can consider is the oil burn. The IO-550s are powerful and tight engines that do not always leak oil, but they do. Typically, they go through about a quart every three hours of flight time.

At $10 per quart, you can break this down to $3.33 per hour.

Even though you do not rent your G36 out for hire, it is always a good idea to do a 25-hour oil change, or at the most, a 50-hour inspection that comes with an oil change. If you do it every 25 hours, it will cost you $100. That’s $4 an hour.

Then there's the 100-hour inspection that should cost you another $300 without including the oil change that will take place at the same time since that cost is already captured in the 25-hour changes. That’s another $3 an hour.

In total, your DOC adds up to $82.33 per hour.

Maintenance Reserve

Maintenance reserve is almost mandatory for every aircraft owner. Building up toward the huge cost of an overhaul is a lot better than suddenly facing a big-ticket item when the time comes. A brand new engine will come out of overhaul relatively inexpensively as it is just likely to need cylinder head changes, while the core can be retained.

A typical overhaul for the IO-550 engine costs $40,000. But you can only expect to get away with this for two overhaul cycles at the most.

By the third, the overhaul is going to consist of having to replace the core as well, and that means that it will cost you about $50,000.

A good way to account for all this is to add up the costs across the three overhaul cycles. The first and second ones just being for head changes will cost a total of $80,000 and the final one will cost $50,000 for a brand-new engine.

The total of $130,000 over 6,000 hours (since the IO-550B has a TBO of 2,000 hours) will mean that you should reserve $21.60 per hour of flight.

You should also set aside $2,000 for a prop overhaul that should occur every 2,000 hours. That works out to be $1 per hour.

You need to also set aside costs for Annual Inspections. This could be in the region of $2000 a year. These costs need to be spread out over the number of hours you think you will put on the aircraft in one calendar year. G36 Bonanza owners average about 100 hours annually. But it can go as much as 300 hours. We’ll use 300 here.

$2000 hours for the Annual spread over 300 hours is $6.67 per hour.

Figure on sending the aircraft into the paint shop every five years. It will cost you about $15,000 for a good paint job. Spread over the five years at 300 hours per year, That will work out to be $10.00 per hour.

Finally, set aside a contingency reserve for things that are not scheduled but crop up. Like a tire change or a flat strut, for instance. $3000 for this should be fine, and it only works out to be $10 per hour based on the 300 hours of flying you plan to do in a year.

All this adds up to $49.27 per hour.

If you now add up all the three costs we have laid out, it adds up to $174.30 per hour.

What is The Speed of The G36 Bonanza?

The flight manual of the Bonanza G36 aircraft sets Vno and Vne, the maximum speed in normal operations and the never exceed speed, respectively, as 167 KIAS and 205 KIAS. Vno can be maintained in smooth air for the entire journey without making huge attitude changes or abrupt control surface deflections.

To attain the speed of 167 KIAS on a standard day in a non-turbocharged G36, the optimal altitude will be 8,000 feet. Setting your manifold pressure to 23 inches and your RPM to 2300 lean your engine to peak EGT, then adjust the mixture lever forward gradually till the EGT needle retards by two notches.

Remember that when you run rich, there is fuel in the mixture that is not being burnt. Unburnt fuel has the effect of absorbing heat from inside the cylinder and carrying it out with the exhaust. In the middle of summer, running rich is a good way to keep your cylinder heads a little cooler, but if you are up at altitude, it is not entirely necessary. Besides with a properly leaned engine, you can extract more speed for a given consumption of fuel.

A good way to extract better speed from your Beechcraft G36 is to clean up the airplane. Close the cowl flaps. The extra drag reduction is good for an extra 2 knots for the same thrust and RPM setting.

For the take-off roll, the IO-550-B develops power quickly so there really isn’t any need for a full power setting with brakes engaged. Unless you are doing a short field takeoff, you are not going to gain any considerable advantage in acceleration to rotation speed.

What About Vx?

Rotation speed without flaps on the Beechcraft G36 Bonanza is 73 KIAS with no flaps and 67 knots with the first notch of flaps deployed. With a positive rate of climb, pitch for a 10-degree nose up, and the aircraft will rapidly achieve Vx of 84 KIAS. You can choose to maintain this with a pitch while keeping your power as it was on your take-off roll, or you can adjust your power above 50 feet AGL and reconfigure for 100 KIAS (Vy).

How Much Fuel Does the G36 Burn?

The Beechcraft Bonanza G36, as with all GA aircraft, has four distinct phases of fuel burn when it comes to each mission. The G36 aircraft burns 1 gallon at full throttle and full RPM at sea level on a standard day to go from brake-release to clearing a 50-foot fence. Airspeed accelerates to 100 KIAS.

This is the first of the four phases and it generates maximum horsepower. This should not be sustained for more than the take-off phase of the launch.

At the climb phase, after gear retraction and clearing the fifty-foot fence, the throttle is retarded to 25 inches of manifold pressure and 2500 RPM. It will take 14 minutes to climb to 10,000 feet from this point. Total burn during this phase of the flight is 5 gallons.

The third phase of flight is the cruise phase. Total burn here depends on a number of factors. Mainly those factors are your decision on fuel conservation or speed. It also depends on atmospheric conditions and gross weight.

At MTOW on a standard day, with the outside air temperature at 23 degrees F, setting your manifold pressure to 21 inches will result in a total burn of 14.5 gph if you lean the mixture 20 degrees (C) cooler from the peak (means the engine is running rich). This results in a true airspeed of 171 knots.

Leaning it differently will make a lot of difference. Under the same conditions, on a standard day at 10,000 feet, leaning the engine to 20 degrees (C) lean from peak EGT, will result in a fuel burn of 12 gallons per hour and result in 166 knots (TAS.)

The difference in fuel burn, however, is significant. At a saving of 2.5 gallons per hour, a four-hour trip will save you ten gallons of fuel which at the current price of AvGas, works out to be $65.