The best twin-engine piston aircraft for personal and business flying

The Baron is the airplane the rest of this list is measured against, and the one to start with if you want the benchmark rather than a bargain. It inherited the Bonanza’s crisp, sports-car handling. The aft double doors and club seating make it easy to load, and because Beechcraft still builds it as the G58, parts and type expertise turn up at almost any service center. The honest trade is that filling its long-range tanks leaves the cabin to a pilot and a passenger or two, and at forty-two inches it is narrower across the front seats than the Piper it competes with. For an owner who will pay to keep two big Continentals healthy, the reward is polished handling and a support network that follows you almost anywhere.

The Travel Air is the gentle, economical way into multi-engine ownership, built by mating a Bonanza fuselage to a Twin Bonanza wing spar behind two modest Lycoming O-360s. The result burns closer to a thirsty single than to a big-bore twin, around seventeen gallons an hour total, while still giving you a second engine and the smooth, crisp handling Beechcraft is known for. Its limits are the ones common to light twins of its age: single-engine climb and ceiling are marginal when heavy or high, so it is a redundancy-and-comfort airplane rather than a true engine-out performer. Beech-specific parts can be expensive when they turn up. For an owner who wants two engines without big-twin fuel bills, the Travel Air gives you the second engine and a smooth ride for not much more than a thirsty single costs to run.

The 310 is the one with presence, the airplane people still call a Learjet with propellers, and it backs the looks with genuine cross-country speed on two big fuel-injected Continentals. The wingtip tanks that give it that silhouette also concentrate weight outboard, which steadies it in cruise but makes it roll lazily in the flare, so it rewards a pilot who manages energy honestly on approach. Plan on roughly thirty gallons an hour, and an insurance quote that steps up sharply if your multi time is low. For a buyer who wants 1970s ramp appeal and real speed, and is willing to learn the airplane’s habits near the runway, the 310 trades a little forgiveness on landing for speed and presence in equal measure.

The 340 is the one that flies above the weather. It is the most accessible way into a pressurised, cabin-class twin, with a full airstair door for walk-up boarding and turbocharged Continentals that take it into the low flight levels in a comfortable cabin. That capability is the whole point, and it comes with the bill to match: a pressurised, turbocharged, retractable twin asks for serious maintenance budgets and recurrent training, and like most of its class it makes you choose between filling the seats and filling the tanks. For a buyer who flies long legs in real weather, the 340 cruises in the flight levels, above the weather the unpressurised twins here have to thread through.

The Aztec is the load-hauler of the group, carrying a useful load generous enough that you can fill the tanks and still take meaningful payload, where most of its class makes you choose between people and fuel. That capability, plus a famously docile, stable feel on instruments, is why it spent decades as a freighter and bush twin long after faster designs aged out. It is unhurried, and the normally aspirated Lycomings give it a modest single-engine ceiling that demands real weight planning on a hot day or over high terrain. Aging fuel bladders are the ownership item to check. For a budget-minded buyer who values useful load and steadiness over block speed, the Aztec hauls what its faster rivals leave on the ramp.