Rockwell Commander 685

The Rockwell Commander 685, also sold as the Aero Commander 685, is a pressurised light twin built by the Aero Commander company, a division of Rockwell International from 1965. It is the piston-engined sibling of the turboprop Commander 690: a high-wing cantilever monoplane with an enclosed nine-seat cabin, retractable nose-wheel landing gear and two wing-mounted 435 horsepower Continental GTSIO-520 engines driving three-bladed Hartzell feathering propellers. The Federal Aviation Administration type certified the Model 685 on 17 September 1971. It entered service that year and was retired from production in 1976, after only 66 aircraft, and the Jetprop series followed as the next generation of the line. Published performance figures give a maximum speed of 449 kilometres per hour at 20,000 feet and a range of about 3,090 kilometres.