Beechcraft Bonanza 33 Debonair / F33A

This page describes one airplane: the Model F33A, serials CE-290 and On, built from 1970 to 1995. It is Section XIV of FAA TCDS 3A15 Revision 100, which covers the F33A and the aerobatic F33C together — same engine, same 3,400 lb Utility maximum weight, same airspeed limits, same wing. The F33C is in the variants table with the Acrobatic category limits that make it a different airplane to fly.

Everything before 1970 — the 35-33 Debonair of 1960, the A33, B33, C33, C33A, E33, E33A and E33C — is Beechcraft Debonair 33 (Pre-F33A, 1960-1969). The V-tail equivalent of this airplane, with the same wing and the same engine at the same weight, is Beechcraft Bonanza V35B.

The F33A is the Bonanza that outlived the Bonanza. Beech stopped building V-tails in 1982 and kept building this one for another thirteen years, and Aviation Consumer's summary of why is hard to improve on: it is "every bit as good an airplane" as the V-tail, with none of the V-tail's insurance history.

Section XIV of TCDS 3A15, with the F33C's own Acrobatic block.

Serial breaks that change the airplane:

• CE-316 — a sixth seat becomes available (Item 607(b), at +154), and the baggage station moves from +140 to +150.
• CE-674 — the handbook changes from P/N 33-590009-15 to 33-590009-13, which is the book this page is sourced from.
• CE-816 — the IO-520-BB becomes eligible, and the 15-degree approach flap detent appears with its own 154 KIAS limit.
• CE-884 — the 74-gallon fuel system becomes standard.
• CE-891 — Part 36 noise certification, and a 2550 rpm normal operating limit for airplanes with Item 11(a).

How many F33Cs exist. Aviation Consumer's 2003 review says "There was also an F33C, total production: five aircraft", and that cannot be right. AD 93-24-03's applicability table reads "E33C and F33C CJ-1 through CJ-179", the F33C begins at CJ-26, and 3A15's own required-equipment blocks split the F33C into a 14-volt group (CJ-26 thru CJ-148) and a 28-volt group (CJ-149 and On) — a second group that would be empty if only five had been built. The real run is roughly 154 airframes. The article's E33C figure of 25 matches the certificate exactly, so it is right about the E33C and wrong about the F33C.

The reference cruise is 172 KTAS at 75% maximum continuous power, 2500 rpm and 23.0 in. Hg, at 6,000 ft on a standard day, burning 15.2 gph. That is one row of POH Section V sheet 5-21, and 6,000 ft is where the table peaks; by 7,000 ft the engine is at full throttle.

The economy row is the handbook's own 65% page, 2300 rpm at 22.4 in. Hg, same altitude: 161 KTAS on 13.3 gph — eleven knots slower, 1.9 gph less, and about 45 nm further. Beech labels these pages by percentage of maximum continuous power, which is what lets this page show both rows.

Every cruise figure is computed at 3,200 lb, 200 lb below the maximum. An F33A at gross will not quite make 172.

Aviation Consumer's owner survey lands in the same place from the other direction: "Figure 165 to 172 knots on 13 to 15 GPH for a 285-HP model." The page's two rows bracket that band exactly.

Which years these figures describe. P/N 33-590009-13 covers CE-674 and after, roughly 882 of at least 1,266 F33A serials. The first 384 airplanes (CE-290 to CE-673) carry the earlier book P/N 33-590009-15, which was also found and deliberately not mixed in. The differences that matter across that break are the flap detent and the fuel system, both of which are recorded above as serial breaks rather than smoothed over.

The range figures are read off the 74-GALLON sheet of the Range Profile. There is a 44-gallon sheet facing it, and taking the wrong one moves every number by about 250 nm. Both readings are from a graph and rounded to 5 nm to say so; the calibration used reproduces the chart's own printed 800 nm example to within a nautical mile.

Four things this page does not claim. There is no rate of climb, no service ceiling and no take-off or landing distance, because this handbook publishes none of them as a number. The climb charts are nomograms and — the detail that decides it — sheet 5-19 splits its curves by two-blade and three-blade propeller, so one stored climb rate would be wrong for one of the two propellers TCDS 3A15 approves on this airframe. The reasons are written out in the page's validator_exempt entries rather than filled with something plausible.

This page carries no empty weight and no useful load, and the reason is worth reading before assuming the omission is laziness. Beech published no model standard empty weight for the F33A: Section VI of the handbook is a set of blank forms, and unlike the V35B's book it prints no sample loading with a filled-in figure. No Beechcraft specification sheet for the F33A survives anywhere the Internet Archive can reach. The old page's 2,100 lb empty and 1,300 lb useful were generated in April 2026 and cited nothing.

Two real reference points, neither of them a model figure:

• The copy of the handbook read for this page belongs to F33A serial CE-835, N2062P, and its completed factory weight-and-balance form (12 December 1979) gives a basic empty weight of 2,192 lb — 1,208 lb of useful load.
• Beech's own sample loading for the V35B, the same wing and engine at the same 3,400 lb gross, uses 2,230 lb — 1,170 lb useful.

So a well-equipped F33A is a roughly 1,200 lb useful load airplane, and with 74 gallons (444 lb) aboard that leaves about 760 lb of cabin payload: four adults at 170 lb and 80 lb of bags, or two adults and the full 270 lb baggage allowance. Read the specific airframe's form; on a thirty-year-old airplane with three panel upgrades behind it, the number will not be the one in the brochure.

The F33A's advantage over the V-tail is not payload, it is the envelope. TCDS 3A15 gives the F33A a CG range of (+82.1) to (+86.7) at 3,400 lb — 4.6 inches — against the V35B's 2.3 at the same weight. Aviation Consumer quotes exactly those figures, and they reconcile with the certificate to the tenth of an inch. It is twice the loading latitude for the same cabin, and it is why the same four passengers who put a V35B behind its aft limit fit inside an F33A's.

• Flight Training (3): Not a primary trainer, but the straight tail and the better insurance rates make it a more realistic complex and high-performance platform than the V35B. Some organisations do use F33As for that.
• Backcountry (2): Low-wing retractable with a 64 KIAS clean stall. No.
• Business Travel (8): 172 KTAS on 15 gph, four comfortable seats, a proper IFR platform, and a wider CG envelope than the V-tail. The classic owner-flown business single, and it beats the V35B here on insurance alone.
• Aerobatics (1): The F33A is a Utility category airplane and intentional spins are prohibited. The F33C is a different airplane — 2 PCLM in the Acrobatic category at 2,800 lb, with a strengthened tail and a jettisonable door — and roughly 154 were built. If aerobatic capability is the mission, the F33C is the airplane and it is rare enough to command a large premium.
• Cross-Country (9): What it is for. 715 nm at 172 knots or 760 nm at 161 on 74 gallons, with reserve, taxi and climb already deducted by the manufacturer's own chart.
• Cargo Hauling (3): 270 lb of baggage at one station and no cargo door. The 36-series exists for this.
• Local Fun Flying (8): Bonanza handling without the V-tail's yaw coupling. Aviation Consumer notes that the "Bonanza Boogie" tail waggle is not unique to the V-tail — "the straight tail 33s have it too" — and that many owners fit a yaw damper.
• Surveying (4): Low wing, high wing loading, fast.

• As found ($0): A 1970s F33A commonly still has a King or Century autopilot and a mixed stack, now with a WAAS navigator and ADS-B Out added.
• Basic IFR modernisation ($20K-$45K): GTN 650Xi or GNX 375, a GI-275, GTX 345.
• Full retrofit ($60K-$120K): dual GI-275s or a G500 TXi, GTN 750Xi, GFC 500 autopilot, engine monitor. Late F33As (CE-1056 and on) already have a standby instrument air system per TCDS 3A15 Item 621, which simplifies the job.

The throw-over yoke on earlier airplanes complicates a centre-stack redesign; Beech went to conventional dual yokes on the 36 in 1984 and never did on the 33.

• IO-550 conversion, the most common performance modification. Aviation Consumer records owners who "rave about the performance" after it; one F33A owner reports 176 knots true after conversion against the stock 172.
• Tornado Alley turbonormalizing, and GAMIjector tuned nozzles from GAMI.
• Tip tanks from Osborne, which also raise gross weight.
• Speed modifications and vortex generators from Knots 2U, Beryl D'Shannon and Micro Aerodynamics.
• Precise Flight speed brakes and oxygen.
• Three-blade propellers. TCDS 3A15 Items 11, 12, 14 and 17 approve several, and the F33A handbook publishes separate climb charts for two- and three-blade installations — so this is a performance change, not a cosmetic one.
• TKS weeping-wing de-ice is available.

• Annual inspection: $3,000-$6,000 before squawks. Aviation Consumer's owner survey put total maintenance at about $60 an hour exclusive of engine reserve — in 2003 dollars, so read it as a shape rather than a number.
• Parts: available and expensive.
• American Bonanza Society (bonanza.org): technical advisors, service clinics, the BPPP. Aviation Consumer: "they don't come any better."
• Mechanic familiarity: common, with the same caveat the V-tail carries — most poor Bonanza maintenance traces to unfamiliarity rather than carelessness.
• Expensive items: engine overhaul ($48,000 per reference/engine-overhaul-pricing.md), propeller overhaul, fuel cells, landing gear overhaul, spar repair if a crack is found.

All three price fields are ASKING prices, observed on 7 September 2026 and recorded in raw/market/usedvalues-bonanza-2026-09-07.md. Vref and the Aircraft Bluebook were tried first per runbook rule 27 and both sell their values by subscription; Trade-A-Plane returned HTTP 403. Asking is not selling — treat $429,900 as the top of the market, and expect real transactions below the $244,000 typical figure as often as above it.

Hangar67's twelve-month F33A report averages $265,868 across nineteen listings, with an average of 4,126 airframe hours and 813 hours on the engine.

Historically the F33A sold new for about ten percent less than the V35B — Aviation Consumer records a 1970 V35B at a little over $54,000 against an F33A at roughly ten percent less. On the used market that reversed: the straight tail now trades at or above the V-tail, and the reason is the ruddervator AD and the insurance that follows it.

What moves the price:

• Engine time. A $48,000 event at 1,700 hours per reference/engine-overhaul-pricing.md.
• IO-550 conversion, the largest available performance change.
• Spar carry-through inspection history under AD 95-04-03.
• The 74-gallon fuel system on an airplane below CE-884.
• Panel. A modern WAAS and autopilot retrofit is a $60,000-plus job.
• F33C rarity. Aerobatic airframes command a large premium; Aviation Consumer put it at "at least $25,000 extra" in 2003 dollars.

See Aircraft Valuation Methodology.

Numbers are the FAA's own, from the Dynamic Regulatory System's AD Final Rules index and recorded in raw/tcds/faa-ad-bonanza-33-35-36-2026-09-07.md. Aviation Consumer's 2003 article writes them in a shortened form the FAA does not use — "95-4-3" for 95-04-03, "93-24-3" for 93-24-03, "89-5-2" for 89-05-02, "97-14-15" correctly.

• AD 95-04-03 (current) — "Beech Aircraft Corporation 33, 35, and 36 Series Airplanes". Wing front spar carry-through frame: inspect, then reinspect at intervals not to exceed 500 hours, and repair or reinforce any crack found. Supersedes 91-14-13. This is the structural AD that matters most on a pre-buy.
• AD 93-24-03 (current) — rudder forward spar assembly and rudder centre hinge, 500-hour repetitive inspection. Its applicability names "35-C33A, E33A, and F33A CE-1 through CE-1425" and "E33C and F33C CJ-1 through CJ-179". This one applies to the straight tails and not to the V-tails, which have no rudder forward spar — the mirror image of the V-tail's ruddervator AD.
• AD 2019-23-10 (current; supersedes 2019-21-08) — right aileron flight control cable end fittings, applying to F33A S/Ns CE-290 through CE-680 and F33C S/Ns CJ-26 through CJ-128.
• AD 97-14-15 (current) — door handles, on a very long model list including every 33-series airplane.
• AD 91-20-08, AD 87-18-06 R1, AD 88-20-01, AD 88-21-02, AD 93-03-02, AD 2008-13-17 and AD 2009-25-01 all name the F33A on specific serial ranges.
• AD 2001-08-08 — turbocharger V-band exhaust clamp. It applies only to airplanes that "incorporate a certain Teledyne Continental engine configuration", so a stock F33A is not affected.

The AD the F33A does NOT carry is AD 94-20-04 R2, the V-tail ruddervator inspection and modification. That is the single clearest ownership difference between this airplane and the V35B, and it is worth money every year.

Common problems:

• Wing spar carry-through cracks, per AD 95-04-03. Clean inspection history is a real value item.
• Continental IO-520 crankcase and cylinder cracking. Not a safety issue but an economic one; Continental service bulletin M91-6 covers certain post-1980 cylinders.
• Landing gear. Electro-mechanical, sturdy, and Aviation Consumer describes it as "far less prone to trouble than some other types" — but the reversed gear and flap switch positions on earlier airplanes are a documented cause of inadvertent retractions.
• Aft CG. "The airplane doesn't like aft CGs and, in the words of one pilot, it gets squirrely if the CG isn't kept forward." Burning fuel from the leading edges moves the CG aft.
• The fuel system on early airplanes. With the extended-range tanks fitted, excess fuel from the auxiliaries returns to the left main tank and vents overboard if there is no room. Run the left main down before switching.
• Parts cost. "Paying high parts prices simply goes with the territory when flying a Bonanza."

Per GA Insurance Underwriting and reference/insurance-costs.md.

• Hull: roughly $2,000-$4,000 a year at $150,000-$300,000 of hull value.
• Liability: $1,000,000 smooth typically $500-$900.
• Pilot minimums: instrument rating, several hundred total hours, retractable time, dual in type.
• No V-tail surcharge. This is the straight-tail's structural advantage in the one place it shows up as money every year, and it is the main reason a buyer choosing between an F33A and a V35B of the same year and equipment picks this one.
• Bonanza Pilot Proficiency Program completion is commonly required or discounted for.