Just a little downdraft or higher temperature will kill your 100fpm in a NA. I even wasn’t able to climb in a fully loaded C172 above FL95 in ISA+15. Never happened to me in a Turbo again. I’m currently only flying VFR, but would miss the Turbo anyway. I can get above convective “weather” (=clouds) in summer also on shorter flights. Climbing “any” altitude within minutes if need be.
The main point of TKS in something like a TB20 is for ice protection at low/mid levels.
For example you have a cloud, relatively stratified, base 3000ft, tops 12000ft, and the piece between 6000ft and 12000ft is going be be icing conditions for much of the year. It takes about 10 mins to climb up through that bit.
Without TKS you would quite possibly pick up enough ice to have to go back down. This has not yet happened to me but that’s because I pick the conditions I fly in carefully.
It takes me about 45 mins to climb to FL190-200, ISA conditions, but one is not going to be facing icing conditions for that whole time in non frontal weather. And in a warm front the tops are likely FL200-250 so that ’s not good either unless it is a short transit, because the fluid lasts only a couple of hours.
So you get more options with TKS but it isn’t a comprehensive solution that airliners have with heated surfaces. But they also have radar, which is another “must” for long periods in high altitude IMC.
Anyway, on the original topic, it’s interesting that there may be pistons which can do FL300. After all, the top of Mt Everest was photographed in the 1930s using them. Those were radial engines. I don’t know if they were supercharged.
If he has deicing available and weather is not convective, sounds to me a matter of being patient.
Even with de-ice equipment you do pick up some ice on unprotected surfaces which adds weight and drag to the aircraft which will reduce the climb rate. Even rain will reduce your performance. This is one of the reasons why you do not want to cruise in icing conditions, others being that cruising in VMC is more comfortable and allows you to avoid convective clouds visually.
Peter wrote:
What causes the extra downtime on a turbo?
This all sounds like it’s written by somebody who does not have a turbo charged aircraft and is trying to justify the wrong decision when having placed the order…
Cirrus sells predominantly turbo aircraft. The engines are generally reliable.
My turbo aircraft does not have any cooling problems at high altitude but it has something clever that most other designs miss: pilot controllable cowl flaps. Without that, the amount of cooling air flowing through the cowling is always a compromise between cooling effectiveness and drag. In a lot of the old airplanes, the cooling airflow was not designed scientifically with inadequate results. This is where a SR22 excels making it both reliable and efficient.
I’d never consider a non turbo piston aircraft for IFR touring. It’s a different world and it’s one of the things that one wouldn’t want to fly without after having experienced it. Just like deicing, an autopilot, a weather radar, glass cockpit, inflight weather download, etc. It makes the aircraft significantly better.
Is a turbo charger plus propeller anti ice the best compromise? A lightly loaded turbo 210 should be able to deal with climbing through a run of the mill icing layer. The insidious threat is propeller ice, which can occur with very little icing visible on the airframe.
Piston GA, even FIKI certified, are really only light icing capable, moderate icing has a dramatic effect on already limited performance.
RobertL18C wrote:
Is a turbo charger plus propeller anti ice the best compromise?
I have never seen the value in prop only deice. In numerous icing encounters (some of them leading to “maybe I should stop flying altogether” thoughts after landing) I have never had any problems with ice on the prop. Never seen a loss in climb power, imbalance/vibration. The leading edges and the windscreen (where a prop TKS can help) yes but never the prop. If full deicing delivers value 100, pop deicing does not deliver value 50 but more like value 5.
It’s a different world and it’s one of the things that one wouldn’t want to fly without after having experienced it.
That is exactly how feel about it too. I had some experience with a turbo Arrow and a TN Bonanza in the US a long time ago, but living in California, I was not able to appreciate it to its fullest except for one trip across the Rockies. But flying in Europe I was often frustrated about not being able to climb to VMC until I started flying the DA42 and all of a sudden was able to climb effortlessly to FL180 in less than 25 minutes at 120 KIAS.
Cirrus has sold, in 2016:
133 SR22 NA
149 SR22 T
On the used market good “NA’s” are much harder to find than T’s, and the COPA community agrees, for years now, that the NA version have much lower mainatenance cost. It is not unytpical for Turbo versions to get new cylinders at 1000 h, and there are many expensive exhaust and Turbo repairs. That’s simply a fact.
With 310 hp the NA is a very capable IFR touring aircraft for all but the very bad days. FL160 or 170 is a very practical altitude with the NA and there’s really very few pilots who like to fly higher than that.
The extreme views are really not helpful. You want to cruise in FL250 regularly and fly in almost every weather? Yes, you need a Turbo. Reality shows that it’s really not so many pilots who do that.
Thanks Peter :-)
The thread is named “How high can turbo piston aircraft really go?”
Personally I think a much more relevant discussion regarding turbo piston aircraft is cost/benefit of the turbo, rather than how high they can go above certified ceeling?
And that depends alot on the usecase of the aircraft. It might also depend on certain aircraft models, engine models and their particular turbo implementation?
It is very interesting to see how much traction is this thread getting. It sure hits the nail on its head and yes, it is more about turbo versus NA than service or absolute ceiling of turbo piston aircraft. I think we can safely assume that the service ceiling of turbo piston is typically somewhere around FL240-250. Obviously, there are two groups here, the ones, who fly without turbo and try to defend their point of view and explain why it is better to have NA aircraft and the ones flying behind turbo who are praising benefits of turbocharged piston engine. I will try to stand out of crowd and as an owner of NA aircraft I publicly announce that I deeply regret having NA aircraft, especially the TB20 where there is no way how to install aftermarket turbo so the only option is to sell it and buy another airframe. This knowledge become obvious after getting the IR ticket, which I have for three years now. As a VFR tourer the TB20 is perfect but I really hate to see 200-300fpm when climbing higher than FL120. Any noticeable accumulation of ice results in zero to negative fpm very soon. I think that I would be able to cope with the increased maintenance demand for turbo engine, thousand hours between top overhauls does not seem unreasonable to me as well as it is a lot of flying. Anyone willing to swap turbo for well maintained non turbo with upgraded avionics?
