I don’t think a LOT is capitalized big enough to cover the operational cost difference. I did a brief dive into it just long enough to find out it doesn’t fit the back account. Not to mention the insurance requirements for the transition to a turboprop with 0 turbine time.
Yeah, it's going to be out of reach of most people. TBO is longer, but that overhaul can run anywhere from $200,000 to $2 mil. Fuel burn is nuts - Dunno what the stock engines burn but the 850shp big case PT-6A will be at about 90gph on takeoff and 52gph at FL310.
With a piston aircraft, you need to be ready to write an unexpected check for about $50,000-$100,000 depending on what engine you have, at any given time, or maybe $10K-$20K for most of the larger non-engine things. With a turbine, the engine could be $2 mil unless you have it on a program, which is basically like an insurance policy but costs you a fixed amount in the hundreds of dollars for every hour you fly, and there are many more systems to be fixed and maintained that are all more expensive and heavier duty, so your checkbook needs to be about an order of magnitude higher than it does for a piston aircraft.
And, of course, one is a brand new aircraft and one is 30+ years old, so that Caravan is gonna need a vanload of care.
I suppose part of my thought process was that if, for example, it ended up costing ten times as much then people would just buy four 206's for a lot of missions to service the same demand.
These are working airplanes, though, for the most part. One Caravan with one crew is probably about the same cost to operate as four 206s with four crews. Maybe less of a difference if the Caravans get run with a crew of two and the 206s are run single pilot, but still - Pilots cost money.
