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How high can turbo piston aircraft really go?

From here

jwoolard wrote:

You see, you need an aeroplane with a turbo! I was climbing at 700fpm at FL200 the other day.

Welcome to the world of turbocharged engines! Does that mean you bought a Mooney?

You get addicted to O2 and the “use GFS forecast” feature of the Autorouter to optimise your flight time.

LFPT, LFPN

Aviathor wrote:

Welcome to the world of turbocharged engines! Does that mean you bought a Mooney?

I’m afraid so. Great machine!

EGEO

Congratulations, jwoolard! The turbo is a game changer – preferably with some de-icing capability.

LFPT, LFPN

The downside to these altitudes is that bottled oxygen becomes quite marginal – if you’re regularly above about FL200 you also need pressurisation.

The other downside is that you will be changing cylinders well before TBO

Congrats on the Mooney!

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:


The other downside is that you will be changing cylinders well before TBO

Sadly probably true. I see it as the price to pay for the extra capability.

EGEO

I know a DA40 (Lycoming IO360) that already has had 2 cylinder changes…

And I believe Mike Busch ran his 2 TSIO470 (?) to 4000 hrs with only 2 cylinder changes.

The alternative is to nudge your plane to FL190 at 50 fpm and then gung up your cylinders by running the NA engine at 40% BHP with the stall horn blaring.

Last Edited by Aviathor at 14 Sep 05:42
LFPT, LFPN

Aviathor wrote:

The alternative is to nudge your plane to FL190 at 50 rpm and then gung up your cylinders by running the NA engine at 40% BHP with the stall horn blaring.

Peter can still climb with 1000FPM @ FL160 in a TB20 – under certain conditions

EDLE

I could have had a TB21 but (a) the lead time was a few more months (because Socata had already decided to stop making SEPs around then, 2002, and were mostly assembling planes from a remaining parts stock) and (b) I got various warnings (some true) about issues and a dire lack of maintenance expertise in the UK (6 months’ downtime in one case). In retrospect I made the right decision. I think the best way to solve the “FL250 issue” is a Jetprop which at least does it properly (FL270 / 270kt TAS) but at the cost of a new fully loaded SR22. Oxygen at FL250, for multiple occupants, is a big hassle and you lose the ability to think in tens of seconds if something isn’t right.

Weather is unfortunately somewhat “binary” in the sense of

  • clean MSLP
  • non clean MSLP

The former, any decent SEP (TB20 upwards) will get on top of. Plus, many fronts are not really anything. The latter is addressed by turbo aircraft (say +50fpm at FL250) only marginally, because e.g. warm front tops are often FL250 and then you are looking at some 15k feet of icing conditions to climb through.

There is a middle route, for those with radar and good de-ice, which is to fly in IMC / icing conditions enroute. That’s how a lot of flying used to be done and still is to some degree.

One has to decide which battles are worth fighting. It is unfortunate that in the piston business the upgrade path is fraught with issues; it isn’t like buying say an Audi R8 which is quick and reliable. Upgrading to a turbo is like buying a Lamborghini (you need two of them if you use them daily, according to one pilot I know who has two identical ones).

Anyway, this is a great thread which might benefit from more stuff on flying VFR in bad wx.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

The latter is addressed by turbo aircraft (say +50fpm at FL250)

The ceiling of turbo aircraft is mostly not determined by their ability to climb at >50 fpm.

Peter wrote:

Oxygen at FL250, for multiple occupants, is a big hassle and you lose the ability to think in tens of seconds if something isn’t right.

How often do we fly with multiple occupants? But I agree that FL250 is unsafe without a good fallback solution.

LFPT, LFPN

Having the ‘luxury’ of flying MEPs with built-in O2 and service ceilings of about FL200, I should also offer that the wind starts to play a big part as you get higher. I’ve certainly reached the utopia of being VMC above a lot of icing but paid the price with an 80-100kt headwind. As Peter says, sometimes it is far better to utilise a bullet-proof anti-icing/deicing system and ride out the weather at lower levels.

Fly safely
Various UK. Operate throughout Europe and Middle East, United Kingdom
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