I bought a Titan 1912 batwing just over two years ago. Since then, they lost a court case and where forced to change their name to Iron Craft. It has a 5 foot middle deck, and the wings are 4 feet, which gives me 6 inches of overlap. I don't know if that's normal with all 12 foot batwings, but I like how clean it cuts. I also like how nice it follows the contour of the land. It's rated for 2 inch material, but I mostly just cut grass and weeds with it. Some of it can be over the hood of my tractor, and it all looks great after it's been cut.
I'm using a Massey Ferguson 4707 tractor with 70 hp at the engine. I forget what the PTO hp is, but guessing it's around 60hp. Maybe 58hp, that kind of sounds right to me. It has plenty of power. I normally cut at 2.3 mph. Any faster and I'm bouncing around in my seat, and the trees are coming at me faster then I can maneuver around them.
About three weeks ago, one of the gear boxes on the wing blew up on me. I was mowing a grassy area near a big oak tree and I hit some branches. Nothing big, just one inch stuff. It sounded normal enough when I mowed over the branch, but then sound didn't end. Kind of a banging sound. When I looked back to see why it was still making that sound, I realized that the mower wasn't cutting on that side, and there was a bunch of oil on the deck. For whatever reason, the gears came apart and blew out the rear seal of the gear box.
I sent an email to my dealer that Saturday evening, and got a reply Sunday morning. Then a phone call Monday morning. His big concern was if I ran it without oil in it. I didn't. I took pictures, and took off the top of the gear box to see what had happened, and there was still a lot of oil in the gear box. He said that was perfect for a Warrantee Claim. He took care of it and the gear box was there just over two weeks later. They offered to replace it if I brought the mower in, but I didn't want to do that, so I took off the gear box and brought it to them. They gave me the brand new gear box, and I was out the door. No charge, no questions, no paperwork. They just handed it to me. Super easy!!!!
I put it back together and filmed some video of it mowing one of my fields the next day. I don't know why it failed, but I'm very happy with the way they took care of it.
Another thing that I like about it is just the one hydraulic line. I have two remotes, so I could handle two hoses, but just having one hose to deal with just seems easier to me.
I'm still on my original blades. The cut is still good. I own 68 acres, and I'm mowing about a quarter of it 2 to three times a year. My goal is three times, but I get distracted with other projects and there's never enough time to do everything.
I looked at some other brands and felt that most of the 12 foot batwings where all extremely light duty. Then there was a big jump in price for the few heavy duty ones out there, like the Rhino. That seemed to be the strongest one I looked at, but the price was more then I wanted to deal with. I paid $13,000 for mine.
I also thought about how strong it needed to be to maintain the land, compared to the first time it's mowed. After the first cutting, it's just grass after that. No saplings, no big weeds, nothing to really justify a heavy duty cutter.
With the AC in the tractor, I mow in the afternoons when it's too hot to be outdoors. I can get into the tractor, totally worn out and over heated, and cool down while mowing. A couple hours later, when it's time for dinner, I'm relaxed and comfortable when I get back to the house.
