Today’s Top Aircraft For Sale Pick: 1981 Ted Smith Aerostar 601B

Today’s Top Pick is a 1981 Ted Smith Aerostar 601B

Aerostars like this one used to fly over my family home when I was in grade school. Looking up, I immediately noticed their swept empennage, short wings, and seemingly huge engine nacelles. They must be really fast, I figured. Indeed, they were at least as fast as they looked, and the design set a number of speed records.

Years later, the Aerostar became a movie star as a supporting character in the 2017 Tom Cruise film American Made. While the story focused on a nefarious corner of general aviation, it was easy to imagine using the Aerostar to cut travel time on your next family vacation. Here was a piston airplane fast enough to compete with airlines.

This 1981 Aerostar has 3,179 hours on the airframe and 1,484  hours on each engine. The engines’ TBO is 1,800 hours. The airplane has the 350 hp turbocharged Lycoming 540 engines that are part of the Merlyn 700. Aircraft outfitted this way could cruise at more than 250 ktas.

The aircraft has a custom panel fabricated last year that includes  two Avidyne integrated flight displays, Aspen EFD-1000 Max primary flight display, and multifunction display, ADS-B with weather and traffic, S-TEC 3100 autopilot, Garmin GI-275 glideslope, JPI EDM-790 engine monitor, and a Lynx NGT-9000D transponder with ADS-B in and out.

If you are ready to take the controls of a truly fast piston twin that harks back to an innovative period in GA, consider this 1981 Ted Smith Aerostar, which is available for $269,000 on AircraftForSale.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Financial Group. For more information, email info@flyingfinancial.com.