Used Aircraft Guide: Columbia/Cessna 300 Series Offers Slick Ramp Appeal

For buyers shopping the used composite single market, often overlooked is the Columbia/Cessna series.  These niche aircraft have modern styling, an exceptionally good cockpit layout, and they go fast.

But like all used composite aircraft, look hard at any repairs made to the structure, and consider the eye-widening cost for replacing the big Continental engine.

This Article First Appeared in FLYING Magazine

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Kitplane DNA

The Columbia/Cessna models started life around the year 2000 as the Lancair Columbia 300, which was a certified model from Lancair. That created somewhat of an identity crisis because Lancair was well known for its experimental kitplanes in the day.

Equipped with a normally aspirated 310 hp Continental IO-550N powerplant, the earliest Columbia 300 (officially a model LC40) had a list price somewhere around $340,000. Today, the current Aircraft Bluebook puts the same airplane in the $350,000 price range, and good ones with fresh engines and newer avionics sell for more.  

Lancair didn’t stop at the 300 series. The turbocharged, fire-breathing Columbia LC41-550FG/400 with a 6-cylinder Continental TSIO-550-C engine came out around 2004 and had a new glass cockpit developed in part on NASA’s own Columbia 300. Even prior to the LC40, NASA launched its Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE) program in 1994, which was designed to breathe life into a deflated general aviation market. That airplane’s integrated avionics panel was incorporated into the 300 airframe/engine combination, which became the LC42-550FG, or Columbia 350—type certificated in March 2003. 

When shopping, consider the major difference between the Columbia 300 and 350 is avionics and gyro power. The earlier 300 models had dual vacuum pumps. Standard equipment included round-gauge flight instruments in front of the pilot, with a radio stack full of UPS-AT avionics. A pair of Avidyne multifunction displays were available options.

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Predictably, Garmin’s integrated glass eventually came along for the Columbia 350 in 2007—around the same time that Cessna acquired the line in 2007 after Columbia ended up in bankruptcy partly because of fierce competition from Cirrus.

The model 350 Corvalis (priced around $535,000) came along in 2008 wearing a Cessna nameplate. After offering the 300 and 350, Cessna produced a single version of the Columbia 400 and called it the TTx. It was powered by the TSIO-550-C twin-turbocharged engine with dual intercoolers. 

A TTx can smoke along at around 235 knots max cruise, and with Garmin’s G2000 Intrinzic touch avionics suite it priced out north of $800,000. But Textron ultimately pulled the plug on the TTx in 2018, leaving the market speculating on the future of the company’s piston single line. Today, Aircraft Bluebook puts a 2018 TTx in the $800,000 price range and around $700,000 for a 2013 TTx. 

Composite Construction

For the Columbia 300/350, the fuselage shell, wings and most control surfaces are a honeycomb sandwich of pre-impregnated (pre-preg) fiberglass around a honeycomb interior. (For a thorough tech report on fiberglass aircraft and pre-preg construction, read the March 2023 issue of The Aviation Consumer).

For the Columbia line, the result is a strong, light airframe, certificated in the utility category instead of the less-demanding normal category. In fact, when the wing was loaded to demonstrate its strength, it exceeded FAA requirements. One of the changes from older certification rules contained in Part 23 is an airframe life limit. The Columbia models’ limits are 25,200 hours—plenty for most buyers, in our estimation. 

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The ailerons and elevators are one-piece construction, with rods and bellcrank—like a Mooney. The left aileron includes a servo tab, which decreases control force and likely contributes to the ease of control with the side sticks. When The Aviation Consumer flew an early Columbia 300 as the type was being rolled out, we noticed a slight breakout force to actuate the ailerons. It’s initially disconcerting in turbulence, resulting in overcontrolling in the roll axis.

The Columbia’s rudder is of one-piece construction, actuated by cables running through plastic tubes. No pulleys are used, and there’s little discernible control friction. But it does include an item not usually found on light singles—a rudder limiter. The limiter snaps on when power is above 12 inches of manifold pressure and after the stall warning has sounded for two seconds. The limiter restricts rudder travel to 6 degrees either side of center, rather than the normal 12 degrees.

The roll and pitch trim system is all-electric (no manual reversion) and actuated by a coolie hat atop the side stick. Rudder trim is controlled by a switch on the lower center panel, with a graphic display of blue and green lights showing trim tab position. It’s intuitive. Prior to takeoff, the various switches are moved until the trim lights show only green. Once a trim tab has been moved from the takeoff position, the respective light turns blue so the pilot can see not only how far off center it is, but it has a quick reference by color once the tab is back to the takeoff position. 

When the 350 came out, it used the 300’s systems and panel. For one, it was an all-electric airplane, with a dual bus and dual alternator/battery electrical system eliminating the twin vacuum pumps in the Columbia 300. Continental’s FADEC (full authority digital engine control) engine management system, employing a single lever to control power, mixture, and propeller, was available as an option.

Fuel capacity is a generous 106 gallons total, with 102 usable, carried in a wet wing, between the spars, so it’s reasonably well protected in a crash, and quantity doesn’t affect the center of gravity (CG). The fuel lines run to the selector valve under the center of the fuselage, in front of the forward wing spar. From a crashworthiness standpoint, the lines are exposed for only a few feet in front of the spar. The fuel valve’s selector handle forms the forward portion of the armrest between the front seats. It’s shaped to make it clear to which tank the valve points, making it one of the better human-factor designs we’ve seen. 

Not so good for human factors is the circuit breaker panel that’s positioned low on the left cabin sidewall. Good luck reading the labels without getting vertigo. Still, the Columbia 300/350 scores well on safety and crashworthiness, in our view, with good seat belts, crushable structure, and energy-absorbing foam seats. 

As stock, the Columbia 350 typically came with a solid, yet dated avionics suite: Avidyne Entegra PFD and MFD, dual Garmin 430s, and  S-TEC 55X autopilot. Many have been refreshed with aftermarket avionics. Do a thorough purchase check on ones that haven’t—especially the health of the S-TEC servos.

While the fit and overall quality is generally good, a group of 350 and 400 owners started a class-action lawsuit for paint cracking around the window frames, apparently from expansion and contraction. The last we heard, Cessna had acknowledged the issue and said it was coming up with a fix. 

The 300-series fixed-gear airframe is a sleek, sturdy, and smooth design with minimal fasteners, screws, or rivets—everything in the airflow is faired over. Inside, the back seats are comfortable with decent legroom for the average person. Up front, the seats need to slide forward to reach the rudder pedals, which can feel just out of reach for shorter pilots. Headroom is the biggest drawback for taller pilots. 

Flying Them

Both Columbia models have a maximum gross takeoff weight of 3,400 pounds. In working several sample weight and balance problems with an early 300, we noticed it’s quite easy to load the airplane out of its aft CG limit. Four 200-pound people and 120 pounds of bags put the airplane over its max landing weight without fuel and a couple of inches aft of the CG limit. 

The Columbias come with a maximum landing weight of 3,230 pounds. That means just over 28 gallons of fuel—or roughly an hour at takeoff settings—will have to be burned following a gross weight, full-fuel departure before a landing may legally be made. Run the numbers on the model you plan to buy based on how you plan to fly it.

The Columbia is straightforward to fly, but the free-castering nosewheel takes some getting used to. Taxiing requires dragging a brake to turn, though taxiing faster around 20 knots brings the rudder alive for some aerodynamic steering. Takeoff is a breeze—just make sure the nosewheel is pointed straight down the runway. Rotate at 75 knots and pitch smoothly to 7.5 degrees and the airplane accelerates briskly. At 400 feet, retract flaps, hold the pitch, and it settles into a cruise climb at 120 knots and 800 to 1,000 fpm. 

In flight, the controls are crisp and the side-stick trim, operated by a coolie hat, feels odd initially but becomes intuitive quickly. Stalls are gentle, as it’s tough to get a full break, with the most we’ve managed being a strong buffet and a blaring stall horn. As airspeed bleeds off, the controls get mushy—this plane prefers to go fast.

Speed management is critical. Transitioning from cruise to the terminal area isn’t like flying a Cessna or Piper. The Columbia is slick, with minimal drag and embraces a jet-like mentality that you can’t go down and slow down simultaneously. In a 500 fpm descent, true airspeed easily hits the mid-190s. 

Speedbrakes are surprisingly approved through landing, but poor descent planning still makes hitting the 129-knot flap speed a challenge. Pattern work requires early power reduction—before reaching pattern altitude.

“I have found that 17 inches of manifold pressure at 2,400 rpm settles at 110 knots, but start adjusting power a couple hundred feet before leveling off. Once fast, this airplane does not want to slow down,” one 350 pilot told us.

As for efficiency, another Columbia 350 owner told us he operates (always IFR) at full gross weight on flights roughly four hours in length between 10,000 and 12,000 feet. He runs it at roughly 61 percent power LOP (lean of peak) and sees 163 knots and 12.3 gph. 

Maintenance

There are a handful of airworthiness directives (ADs) pertinent to both the 300 and 350 models. AD 2007-07-06 applies to all Columbia models and requires repetitive inspections of aileron and elevator linear bearings, and control rods, for foreign object debris, scarring or damage to prevent a jammed control system. This is the most onerous AD affecting Columbias. 

Overall, reliability seems reasonably good for a complex aircraft. At the top of the list of expenses (and downtime) are engine swaps. With price increases, owners we talked with are budgeting every bit of $70,000 and at least six months of downtime. 

The Columbia’s all-composite airframe largely eliminates corrosion concerns, but when composite repairs are needed, they’re more specialized and harder to get done than typical aluminum skin work. Our advice is to take the airplane to a shop for a pre-purchase inspection (PPI) that both understands the model and is knowledgeable with composite repairs—especially with an airplane that has damage history as minor as it may be. 

The dual gull-wing doors use two steel locking pins that extend into reinforced receptacles in the fuselage. If the handle is rotated before the door is fully pulled shut, the pins will punch right through the door seal. Replacing that seal is an annoying and expensive job that takes about eight hours of labor. 

Access to the engine is another weak point. The tightly fitted upper and lower cowls are heavier than they look and difficult to remove. While oil changes are a straightforward, owner-permitted task, some owners leave it up to a mechanic simply because of the hassle involved in removing and reinstalling the cowling. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s not user-friendly either. 

Batteries are another quirk. The Columbia 350 uses two—a primary battery and an essential bus battery. The maintenance manual says the maximum service life is four years for the primary battery and just two years for the essential bus battery. Every two years, owners will have replaced the essential bus battery and move the old essential bus battery to the primary battery spot. Even if the batteries pass load and capacity checks, once they hit those age limits, they’re no longer airworthy in this airplane. 

Pilot Feedback

From our experience flying and teaching in a Columbia 350, while the cruise speeds claim nearly 190 knots, real-world performance is closer to 170 ktas—still a solid number for a fixed-gear aircraft. LOP operation is easy, burning around 12 gph. We plan for 14 gph and 170 knots to stay conservative and avoid surprises. Range is a bladder-busting seven-plus hours, translating to 950 to 1,320 nm with 45-minute reserves, depending on best economy or performance settings. 

The 300 uses a conventional split-bus architecture with manual circuit breakers. The 350 steps it up with dual alternators, dual batteries, essential bus, and centralized engine control unit (ECU) that manages bus switching, alternator load sharing, and over-voltage protection. In simpler terms, the 350’s dual-alternator, dual-battery setup offers full electrical redundancy for critical avionics and systems.

Landings are quick and distinct from smaller GA planes. Our pattern speeds are 110 knots on downwind, 100 on base, and 90 on final. A smooth power pull around 30 feet, holding pitch steady with a “fly it into the ground” mentality delivers a greaser touchdown. The controls feel crisp, but the higher speed means a longer rollout. Full-flap landings (40 degrees) feel different and not as pleasant.

We fly 100 knots downwind, 90 on base, and 80 on final. Full flaps cause a significant nose-down pitch, requiring about 5 degrees nose-low to stay on glidepath, yielding around a 400 fpm descent. Once below 90 knots, the controls start to feel mushy, and getting low or slow requires a substantial amount of power to fix.

For short fields, reduce power around 20 feet, hold the nose down a second longer than feels natural, and transition to a small flare. The POH lists a 1,550-foot landing distance, and we verified this at New Orleans Lakefront Airport (KNEW). With minimal float and moderate braking after touching down on the numbers, it’s easily accomplished.

Over a 50-foot obstacle, the 2,350-foot number feels more realistic for planning. Short fields are doable. After an hour of practice, we had a student comfortably landing and stopping in 2,500 feet when aiming for the 500-foot markers. Still, we both prefer partial-flap landings when runway length allows.

Transitioning to the Columbia is more mental than mechanical. 

Cruise and descent speeds are the bigger adjustment, especially if you’re coming from slower aircraft. At 200 knots ground speed, 10 minutes of descent covers 33 miles, compared to 20 miles in a Cessna 172 at 120 knots, and you still must slow down. Things happen fast. Landings have a unique sight picture and flare, but after a few trips beating up the pattern, most figure it out quickly.

From owner Sy Pinkert:“My wife, Amelia, is a 200-hour private pilot who learned to fly in a Cessna 172 and transitioned to the 350 with ease. After a quick taxi demo of the castering nosewheel, she had it down by the time we reached the runway. The side stick took a flight or two to master, but descent planning and pattern work were the real challenges, having to learn to think in time rather than distance. Landings came together rather quickly; it just took her a bit to get comfortable with the faster approach speeds—which is reasonable considering a C172 comes over the fence at 60 knots.”

Market

We suggest getting an insurance quote before making a deal on the airplanes. With fixed landing gear, they’ll be easier to insure than retractables and twins, but insurers know these speedsters aren’t beginner airplanes. 

As you would expect, prices remain high in a piston-single market that’s still riding the wave. We spotted a 2004 Columbia 350 with 1,825 hours on an original engine priced at $319,000. A 2008 Cessna 400 Corvalis with around 1,000 hours on its engine was priced at $509,000.

If your mission includes efficient, long-distance traveling, we think these airplanes are worth a look. But unlike a Cirrus, don’t look for a whole-airplane parachute—it’s a major safety backstop that’s missing. 

Last, plan on spending as much time as it takes on transition training with an instructor who knows these airplanes. Along with committing to high-quality maintenance, it’s the key to reliable and safe ownership. 

To read the full-length report, visit here.

Columbia/Cessna Wrecks: Landing Issues

WhenThe Aviation Consumer magazine reviews accidents for an aircraft model for the Used Aircraft Guide, it seeks the 100 most recent in a search for trends or areas of concern for owners and prospective buyers. Not surprisingly, a review of all Columbia/Cessna 300/350/400 mishaps failed to uncover 100 accidents—and amazingly, only 10 in the U.S.

The many designators for the series (we found nine—Columbia 300, Columbia LC40, Columbia 350, Columbia 400, Columbia LC42, Cessna 350, Cessna 400, Cessna TTx, and Cessna T240) cause us to be suspicious that not all the accidents appear in the right places in the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) database. Nevertheless, even if there were three times as many accidents as we found, 30 mishaps in more than 20 years is a very low accident rate for the marque.

As with almost all aircraft, the most common accident involved issues on landing. With the high-wing loading of the series, we expected to see more than a few landing mishaps. We didn’t. Only 20-30 percent of the accidents (depending on how one views one of the accidents) were landing related—about average for a high-performance nosewheel airplane. 

The first landing accident reviewed involved a pilot who landed long and realized that it was time for a go-around. He brought the power up with plenty of room to take off again and climb out over obstacles. However, he left the speedbrakes extended, and the airplane ran off the end of the runway.

While this was technically an accident during a landing sequence, it did not involve the pilot losing control, rather simply forgetting to stow the speedbrakes—not surprising for a pilot who is relatively low time in type, especially as few single-engine airplanes have speedbrakes. 

There were two accidents involving true loss of control on landing. In one the pilot lost directional control on rollout facing a 30-degree 11-19-knot crosswind. He attempted a go-around but departed the left side of the runway (P-factor?), bounced, and then hit terrain. 

In the second landing accident, the pilot was “high and fast” on approach to a 2,875-foot strip. He hit hard, bounced more than 10 feet up, according to witnesses, then bounced again 300 feet farther down the runway, with speedbrakes deployed. The airplane veered left as the pilot applied full power, then went off the runway to the left, hit a berm, and turned back to and crossed the runway before impacting parked airplanes. 

There is no “both” position for the fuel system. A pilot practicing full-stop landings ran a tank out of fuel at 250 feet up on takeoff. There were 25 gallons of fuel in the other tank but not enough time or altitude to switch into that tank. 

One pilot stalled his airplane while making a steep turn at 600 feet agl in the traffic pattern and entered an incipient spin prior to ground impact. Another aborted two takeoffs “because the airplane wouldn’t lift off.” The brakes faded on the second abort, and the airplane went off the end into dry grass where the hot brakes set the grass on fire.

A Cessna 400 is faster than most piston twins, requiring the pilot to be on top of their game when flying in IMC. However, we only found one IMC loss of control accident. After entering clouds at 800 feet agl and starting a right turn on course, the pilot stopped climbing at 2,500 feet agl and entered a left spiral that continued to impact.

This feature first appeared in the August Issue 961 of the FLYING print edition.