Beechcraft Bonanza 35: prices, price cuts and days on market

Buyer's notes

About the Beechcraft Bonanza 35

What it is

The Model 35 is the original Bonanza. Beech started delivering it in 1947, an all-metal four-seat retractable with a V-tail and a 165 hp Continental. Production ran through the V35B of 1982, and something over ten thousand were built. Along the way it grew from 165 to 285 horsepower and picked up fuel injection, a longer cabin, six seats and several hundred pounds of gross weight.

It is fast for the fuel it burns, the controls are the best in the class, and the ride is firm and quiet. The tail wags in turbulence. It also has a reputation, partly earned, as an airplane that punishes pilots who get behind it: early V-tails broke up in flight when pilots lost control in weather and overstressed them, which led to a fleet-wide tail strengthening in the late 1980s.

Variants that matter for price

The early airplanes, 35 through G35, have the E-series Continentals (165 to 225 hp), lighter structure and a lower gross weight, and the engines are getting hard to overhaul. The H35 of 1957 brought the O-470 and a strengthened airframe. The J35 introduced fuel injection with the IO-470 in 1958, and the N35 and P35 took it to 260 hp. The S35 of 1964 is the big break: 285 hp IO-520, a longer cabin and the optional fifth and sixth seats. V35 followed in 1966, V35A in 1968 with the speed-sloped windshield, and V35B from 1970 to the end.

Buyers hunt S35 and later, and among those a late V35B with a clean tail history and a modern panel commands the top. A P35 or N35 is the value pick for a 260 hp airplane with the short cabin. Sellers write them as V35B, V35A, S35, P35, N35, K35 and "straight 35."

What buyers check

The tail. Every V-tail has a required stabilizer strengthening kit and a recurring inspection of the tail structure, and a buyer wants to see both in the logs and the magnesium-skinned ruddervators free of corrosion. The same electric landing gear as the 33 needs rigging by a Beech shop, and the same magnesium and fuel-bladder issues apply. Fuel management is a bigger deal on the 35 than on almost any other single: multiple tanks and a long record of fuel-exhaustion accidents.

The 35 loads aft easily, and two adults in the back with bags can put it out of the envelope with the front seats still light, so ask for a current weight and balance. IO-470 and IO-520 engines carry the usual Continental case and cylinder history. Tip tanks, an IO-550 conversion, a yaw damper, dual yokes and a good autopilot add value.

Who it suits

The V-tail suits an experienced pilot who wants the fastest, best-handling four-seater of its era for real trips and is willing to learn its fuel and loading rules cold. It is not a first airplane, it is not forgiving of sloppy weather flying, and the earliest models are a restoration project with a propeller. The cross-shop is the F33A, which is the same airplane with a conventional tail, the A36 if seats matter, and a Mooney M20 or Comanche if the budget is the constraint.