Educate me on turbos

[andy meyer]

I am shopping for a skymaster. Several I have considered have turbos. I really do not have a need for them as we are in Iowa and we rarely leave the midwest and rarely will get to altitude to get value out of them. That said, I don't want to pass on a good skymaster (they seem hard to find) only because it has turbos. But to be honest, I don't want to end up with turbos and then regret it. Our most common mission will be 1 or 2hr hops around the mid-west. However, we frequently go from our farm strip to our local airport to hang out with friends. This is all of 5mins in the air max. Another common flight for us will be leaving our farm strip and heading to one of my brothers farm strips. Both of which will be about 25mins in the air (max) and usually only cruising at 2,500 or 3,500' for this duration. Would routine short flights like such be hard on turbos? Can you adjust power inputs to avoid damaging them on flights like such? Overall, if I really don't need them, would I regret them from a maintenance perspective? Do they require a great deal of additional maintenance? Is annual maintenance cost really a big concern? Any help from people who actually have them on their skymasters or have owned in the past would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[ljmolina]

When I purchased my bird T337G early this year, I was in the same boat as you should I/Should I not...Im glad I did just because they are getting harder to find and If I ever want to take a trip and fly at those altitudes, I know she is capable, but then again it depends on your mission right?

I was told by my mechanic that the turbos on my plane are built tough, really hard to damage them with proper use of controlling your power settings. You dont want to shock cool them. Otherwise there is really no additional maintenance with them, other than just keep your engine oil clean. Im not a mechanic but I believe the only thing they check is to make sure its free and there is no play on the compressor wheel shaft....you can do this my reaching in the turbo exhaust and try to wiggle it...if its free spinning and no side wiggle...its good.

[mshac]

The flights you describe certainly don't provide any advantage for turbocharged aircraft, but what you would likely find is that you would begin to make flights of longer duration and higher altitude simply because now you can. That three hour flight in a NA 337 at 165 KTAS now becomes a 2.5 hour flight at 200 KTAS. You save an hour of flight time on the round trip. That flight that you would've cancelled in your NA 337 due to bad weather? Now you can climb over the weather and be VFR-on-Top instead of either cancelling or sludging through the soup down low.

We tend to want to use our airplanes they way they were designed to be used. The short hops you describe won't hurt your turbos in any way, but when you do decide to fly farther, higher, and faster you will fall in love with your turbos!

Eastbound flights I usually go as high as I can, and I've seen 300 knot ground speeds due to the tailwind effect. Headed west, I'll usually stay much lower to avoid those same winds. I spend lots of time studying winds aloft before I file my flight plans.

Buy the best 337 you can afford, but to me, turbos are a huge plus! We won't talk about pressurization, which I enjoy greatly as well!

[n86121]

As a helicopter owner pilot, I originally really saw no need to go over 1,000ft.
There's nothing to see up there.
So why would anyone need turbos?

To qualify for insurance I flew in a non-turbo w two instructors. Barney was a little skinny guy, maybe 140 lbs, Byron was like a linebacker, maybe 250. And my modest (then) 160 lbs) or so.

I would reimburse them an equivalent cost back and forth to Boston. They'd get flight time in their leaky old 337, and I'd get flight time w instructors going back and forth to Boston whenever I needed.

It also sounded really impressive when I could say, "Let my call my pilotS (note plural), and have them bring the plane up from Washington."

Their old skymaster left a trail of oil through the sky, but otherwise it was a nice image.

ANYWAY,

I noted that climb from 9 to 10k ft w Barney and Byron in summer was slow.
No big deal, who goes up there?

When I was looking I considered pressurized de-iced and everything else.
Having come from helicopter ownership, I realized those would be a lot of systems to maintain that I would rarely use.

An old timer put me onto 337's, extolling the benefits of the RSTOL.

Having had the airplane for 25+ years now, yes, it is REALLY NICE to be able to boogey-climb above the convective layer quickly. Especially w kids who don't like bumps.

RSTOL trick (that may also apply to non-turbo, non RSTOL):
Full power,
cowl flaps full open,
about 120 mph,
1/3rd flaps LEFT DOWN,
climbing close to 2,000 FPM (up to whatever altitude you want), and
you can still see the horizon in front of you.

So yes, originally a "turbo skeptic," for fixed wing VERY NICE to have.