Navajo / Chieftain in skydiving? Seriously?
 

One for all PA31 drivers and skydiving pilots out there that operate this aircraft. How dont you cook the turbos on a 30 minute turn around. This has been bugging me for days!

Im not trying to be a smartarse, im actually interested to see how you stop the turbos making that shocking little ping, crackle, ping, crackle, hand over your wallet, sound.

I know basically how other aircraft are operated in this capacity but was wondering with my limited turbo experience, how you took care of them with such rapid changes in temp and speed.

Any power settings and or techniques would be helpful to soothe my brain because it sounds like either you are playing with death via the a/c owner or you are some of the most talented guys out there.

CA

(a) one doesn't HAVE to cane the engines

(b) 31s have been used as jump platforms over the years without necessarily having major problems .....

mind you .. probably not the best suited bird for the job ...

You wouldnt get me into any of those old PA31's without a parachute.

Hello C.A. I flew a navajo on skydiving ops for over a year with no engine problems, thats not to say we didn't have other problems...

Power settings etc, if i can remember correctly were.

After takeoff 36' 2400rpm, and lean to approx 1400 egt for the whole climb.

Approaching the final run reduce power to 30 inches over about 1 min, then reduce rpm to 2200, this will reduce the manifild pressure to about 25'. Leaning the whole time to keep 1400egt.
Airspeed between 90 and 100 knots, jumpers away, close cowl flaps, descend at 180 knots at this same power setting.

Then i would descend to about 500 feet, pull the nose up to reduce airspeed, flap gear etc, join final push mixture to full, not to quickly of course, full rpm and land. If shutting down cool engines for 5 mins first, otherwise if continuing on, jumpers get on board and repeat the whole process.

This is the method we used, as i said no engine problems for the 3 years i worked at this drop zone. Some of the best times of my life.:D

Master of the house thankyou,

Sounds like you had it sorted especially with the 5 min shutdown. That has eased my fragile mind. Just kept imagining a line of change-over turbos lying in the hanger ready for the next week. Haha. Cheers buddy.
CA