We Fly: Stepping Up in Style With Daher Aircraft TBM 980

Turboprop provides 330-knot performance, intuitive cockpit, and new long-distance travel performance.

Jonathan Welsh

Monday, August 17, 2026 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Daher Aircraft TBM 980 [Credit: Airborne Films]

Key Takeaways:

The author, a high-performance piston pilot, evaluates the Daher TBM 980 as an ideal "step-up" aircraft, needing greater speed and payload for family travel compared to his current plane.
The TBM 980 offers significant performance advantages, including a maximum cruise speed of 330 ktas and a 4,000 fpm climb rate, coupled with a cleaner preflight and smoother, quieter turbine engine operation.
It features an intuitive Garmin G3000 Prime avionics suite with three large touchscreens and a pressurized cabin, enhancing both pilot interaction and passenger comfort.
Ultimately, the TBM 980 is presented as an unparalleled choice for ambitious, long-distance, owner-flown missions, highly recommended for piston pilots ready for the leap to a turboprop single.

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Long family trips for our sons’ far-flung sporting events, and a drawn-out move across several states to a new home combined over the past year to put me behind the wheel of the car more often than at the controls of an airplane. Still, as always, I spent much of my driving time thinking about flying. Mostly I considered how much sooner we would arrive at our destination if only we were airborne.

Flying from our old home in New Jersey to the new one in Vermont in Annie, our 1992 Commander 114B, takes less than two hours compared with at least five and a half in the car, avoiding all but the most necessary rest stops. From Vermont to Geneva, New York, to visit our younger son at school takes about an hour and 45 minutes versus seven hours driving. Vermont to Deer Isle, Maine, a favorite escape, is a shade over an hour in the airplane compared with a meandering five and a half hours behind the wheel—nearly all on backroads.