If a twin isn’t in the cards, Cessna’s P-210 Centurion is the most accessible pressurized aircraft. It has decent cruise speed and a lower maintenance load than the Piper Malibu.

by Marc Cook

You want to ditch the nose bag. You want to fly among the big iron where the air is smooth and the tailwinds tantalizingly strong. (Let’s not think about the headwinds coming home, okay?) You want to make the most of your airplane’s altitude performance in total comfort. You want pressurization.

Several manufacturers have given pressurization a go in the piston market, pumping up the cabins of singles and twins. Inherently conservative, the manufacturers based most of the early designs on non-pressurized models, a tactic that’s good—because the airframe and engine combination are already well known—and bad—because a pressure vessel is ideally circular in cross section, something you wouldn’t…