First time to fly a turbo . . . tips and tricks
 

Gidday Gidday all,

Will soon be flying a 2005 turbo T206H with a TIO-540. Oxygen equipped. Have never flown a turbo before or used oxygen.

Can anyone with experience on T206Hs/turbos/oxygen in general offer any tips and tricks on :

a) not breaking anything
b) using them efficiently?

Cheers

1. Before you release the brakeson your take off roll ensure you are getting boost ie. More than 30' MAP, if not then abort the take off.

2. On descent (for the circuit) reduce MAP by 1' per minute to gently cool the turbo (no shock cooling, they dont handle that well). Back to about 20' - 22' MAP usually for the circuit depending on weight. This requires a bit of forward planning in flight so think ahead of the aircraft.

3. Upon landing ensure a minimum of 3 minutes (5 preferably) to futher cool the turbo.

Beyond that its business as usual, all the same engine management points that you would normally use still apply.

I hope this helps mate, good luck.

Muz

The decent planning is the most important thing. you need to understand the amount of heat that the turbo is producing to realize why it's so important. on C402 at night you can often see the turbo glowing orange. hence take extra caution on decent.

don't forget to always park into wind after landing to take advantage of the extra airflow through the cowl.

On long taxis keep an eye on your temps, if you have to hold for a long period, turn into wind on the taxiway.

High oil temps cause the waste gate to not operate properly on some engines, usually you will notice full throttle being 1-2 inches off where it should be.

Lastly have a chat to your LAME about your particular engine and understand how the turbo system works. It could make a big difference one day when the donk starts making silly noises.

As for efficiency, you only get the extra value out of a turbo aircraft at higher altitude. try to cruise at 8000+ where you can.

In my time the turbos I flew tended to be a bit sluggish in the circuit particularly on a hot heavy day. What I learned after some time on type was to manage the descent to arrive in the circuit higher than normal so as to avoid disrupting the 12 inch/minute cooling process. It was a satisfying engine to manage and made you more aware overall.

It could be a handful to start when already hot on a hot day. Needed a lot of priming (throttles open mixtures off pumps on). Anyway that was our procedure see what your company wants for yours.

Hey Seaplanes, if your using a nasal cannula, ensure that your oxy lines don't get crimped by you or your pax accidently sitting or resting on them ! :ouch:

Also get yourself a Oxymeter, you stick it on the end of your finger every 10-15 mins and it will give you your percentage oxy sat levels and resting heart rate. if your % oxy levels get low, a quick big inhale should get them back up to over 90%. (you can get the oxymeters for around $100 USD on line).

lastly, enjoy the great view up in the flight levels :ok:

On cold mornings it can take quite a while to get warm oil into the waste-gate mechanism so sometimes that can make it a bit sluggish to close and therefore slow to bring on the boost. Expect some lag, pause on increasing the throttle position once you get just over 30" to allow the turbo to spool up then feed in the remainder smoothly.

If you're sticking to 500fpm RoD, then 6nm/1000ft may work out well for descent planning; especially if you have to advise ATC as they will typically only allow for 3nm/1000ft.

For any given fixed manifold pressure, boost will be higher as you climb, lower as you descend... so that 25" at 10,000ft boost should be around 6"; at 1000ft 25" should be producing no boost at all (therefore a coolish turbo).

Sea level manifold pressure is around 30" less 1.5" for engine inefficiencies (e.g. air filter, throttle turbulence) so its typically around 28.5".

Then, you will need about 1" of boost per 1000ft on climb to maintain the same manifold pressure.

Be mindful that traffic in the flight levels will typically be TAS'ing around 240kts+

Watch out for the EGT, keep it within limits, especially on descent.

Don't slam the mixture full rich at ToD, or shock cooling can result.

If you're on the Oxy be mindful that it is at zero (or close to it) humidity, so STAY HYDRATED! Hypoxia is induced earlier when dehydrated. Get familiar with the symptoms of hypoxia and don't muck around with it. If more than one pilot/pax is using oxy, make sure you use an antiseptic wipe on the nasal cannular tubes so that you don't catch anyone else's cold.

Descending from flight levels with a cold might leave you with barotrauma so don't try it.

Have a look through the performance section of the manual and run a few basic calculations to compare time, fuel & distance to climb vs TAS and Groundspeed so that you end up at select the most efficient level you can.. i.e. not at FL220 for a 30nm sector and not at 3000 for a 120nm sector.

Good luck, enjoy it!

TSIO540

And read articles 31-36 here (and all the other engine management ones for that matter, it's all good!)

PK

Clearly you've never operated off anything other than a nice wide black sealed runway.

Yes Peter I have, however he was asking for tips on operating a turbo charged engine not operating on a gravel strip. Im sure hes a big boy and can make up his own mind as to when he should follow that advice or not.

Rather than trying to criticize, how about you contribute something positive to the discussion, as the other have.

I'm not familiar with the t206h if it is fixed or automatic wastegate...

Main thing is be smooth... If it's automatic then easy as - smooth on applying power - remembering as it makes boost after passing the n/a map limits it increases at a faster rate. Check map at full throttle during roll.

If fixed you can't apply full throttle and must set your required map without overboosting - just take some t/o's to get a feel for it and scan agin being mindful of the overboost light and map.

On decent you need to plan your power reductions remembering it may not coincide with your todpt. Inch a minute is a good rule of thumb... I used an inch every 2 minutes on some gear just depended on the Cp and sop's.

For the oxy as others have said - know the limits of the gear - chances are you'll spend moat of your time with it off but if it's on probably only upto 14000" unless your punters have oxy as well. Understand your limits as well as the system hypoxia can creep up on even the most seasoned guys. Always check the bottle ... Keep a stopwatch or a time for using it if you want. Include lines and flow bars as part of your scan. Hard to not have an escape route in Oz as we got no terrain but just be mindful - if in doubt descend no problems there.

Have fun you will enjoy it - no more advancing throttles in climb...

Cheers
r

Might find some additional information from the Lycoming Flyer:
http://www.lycoming.textron.com/supp...Operations.pdf

I thought he wanted tips for a T206? You guys are making it sound like the Space Shuttle!:E

Peter F you are right on the money, no prop damage means bring up boost on the run, the turbo will come into play at about 30 knots indicated then go for full power ( max boost for density ) props actually cost more than Turbo's.

Bringing the boost up slowly on the run is a good idea, if the dirt runway is 2k long. Most POHs state takeoff distances calculated are from full power application, so, why not ride the brakes until full power is applied. If you keep the aircraft moving at a speed greater than walking pace, you won't damage the propellers.

:ok:

The message you have entered is too short.

yeah yeah.

I've heard this a lot and am not convinced about it at all.
True enough I'm more familiar with car turbos and not aviation ones but the car ones are very robust and can take huge temperature changes without any trouble at all, even the older oil-cooled (and lubricated of course) bearing types.
I suspect the real cooling with turbo piston aviation engines is more the manifolding (with regard to expansion & contraction from the heat & temperature changes) and the engine itself with the usual rapid temperature changes.
I'm quite prepared to be wrong - any ground engineers have any good information on this. And apologies for the thread hijack.

You would never get to fly an aircraft that I own with operating procedures like that!!! or any operator that I know for that matter!!!

Reading Deakin's articles is excellent advice from a general knowledge point of view but unless this particular engine also has Gamijectors/engine monitor some of the specific techniques won't be available to you. Having said that who, in their right mind, wouldn't have them fitted to a latish model T206?

If this aircraft is so fitted operate it exactly as John suggests as long as that is in accordance with the owner's wishes (I suppose). If not then reducing MP an inch/minute on descent won't hurt a thing but be aware than once you're down around 5000'/20 in MP then the turbo is not doing much and hasn't been for a little while. Its cooling nicely and you can leave it at 20 in until joining downwind and then bring it straight back to whatever setting is appropriate for speed reduction to Vfe and then leave it there - merely adding drag (flaps) as you curve around base and final - one last reduction to idle as you round out. I haven't flown a T206 since 1987 but if memory serves 12-15in MP on downwind.

Since the Turbo has been cooling and spinning down for the last part of the descent, the circuit and approach/landing, the coolest it will be is on touchdown. Every minute you spend sitting at idle on the ramp is just heating it back up again - and your pax.

Capt Fathom
I know a lady quite well who has flown the space shuttle three times, in fact she is visiting in a couple of weeks, and she would tend to disagree with you, having been one of the very few people to fly both.

The Deakins articles are quite good. But the oracle is the engine operators manual. Hardly anyone uses them anymore, but the two I bought for engines I fly are excellent. At the end of the day, the guys that wrote them (on manual typewriters) almost certainly have more engine dyne time than anyone else. The 2 engines for which I have manuals have a lot less discrepancy between the Deakins / GAMI leaning procedure than Deakins would have you believe.