AnthonyQ wrote:
@C210_Flyer Given the choice between a C210 with boots and one with TKS, which would you choose (everything else being equal)?
I really cant answer that objectively since I never had the occasion to fly a booted 210. I guess you can compare notes with someone who actually used one regularily like R Collins. He wrote many articles about his P210 and icing.
There was an outfit in Fla who flew about 60 210s for check hauling. They fitted their 210s with TKS and not boots for a reason. They flew in all kinds of weather.
Michael wrote:
I had mine installed for $25,000 on my C210.
Come on C210 Flyer, full disclosure : that was how many years ago ?
Not fair you’ve gone through my log books! 
I think it was 1995 or there abouts.
There are, as so often, complications…
If you buy the parts from CAV (which is possible, in the case of the specific TB20 TKS which nobody is buying anymore and has not apparently bought for many years) and take them to a “company” installer, the company will charge you some 10-20% of the value of the parts which you free issued to them, in addition to charging you for the installation.
This is standard practice in avionics too (in the UK at least).
Whether this is disreputable/extortionate is a matter of where you stand. The company will argue that by doing work on your aircraft they are assuming liability not only on the free issue parts but for something else that goes wrong with the aircraft. The fact that you could sign a contract absolving them of liability for anything but the specific installation is near-worthless in avionics (where most old planes are cans of worms and touching them could cause unrelated issues to come up) but should IMHO work with a TKS installation which is pretty well self-contained. Well, unless the Team X does a Grade A bodge job… like I got on one avionics installation, with loads of screws stripped, etc.
The way the industry deals with this is by the vendor giving a trade/dealer discount to the installer, so you still pay just the list price, plus labour.
In Europe, it appears, CAV give a discount only to the firm at Friedrichshafen.
So any other option (meaning: any installation procedure which I could personally supervise) means using a freelance installer. That avoids the above uplift; they usually on’t care about anything except getting paid for their hours. An of course they have no liability.
Does anyone know of anyone is the UK, willing to travel to the south east, who has direct personal experience of TKS installation?
Dear @Peter,
Do you forecast a TKS installation this year ?
Did you lastly contact CAV to check if they were able to sell directly ?
Possibly, and Yes.
The delivery time is 6 months because they have not made some of the parts for many years.
Looking at this whole project, it’s fairly obviously why almost nobody installs this as a retrofit. It would take a lot of project management.
And forget using somebody who has not done it before.
The immediate problem is that unless I can find a freelance installer I am going to pay a lot more money. I know one guy who used to install these.
Probably a good time to do this would be with some big avionics job.
So huge work is forecast if you intend to update your avionic at the same time !
I guess this is the way to get the most of the 80-100k€ you are willing to invest. Adding that amount to your aircraft value wouldn’t buy more ? (I suppose not)
Besides, is there no need for special tooling which would only be available at big workshops ?
Here’s an interesting video of the installation. Shouldn’t be too tricky Peter!
No, I would not be spending anywhere that sort of money. A freelancer-installed TKS is about 30k GBP. So the thread title would be correct only if you went to a company which also really ripped you off.
And LPV avionics, logically for my panel 2×IFD540 or GTN650+750, would be another ???
No special tooling is involved. You just need very good metal bashing skills otherwise the job has the potential to turn the plane into a piece of junk.
Whether this is worth doing depends on whether the plane itself meets the mission profile, etc. The TB20 meets mine really well. The traditional solution is to sell it and buy a Cirrus with TKS and a parachute but the overall cost of such a change would be much more.
Brilliant video @Roger – thanks for posting it. I have some TB21 installation photos here and the video shows similar procedures.
Another 30k€ ?
So it would be around 70k€.
I can’t wait reading your article :-)
I have ordered the parts… watch this space, though I expect no news till the winter. The delivery time for the kit is 6 months. They have nearly all of it in stock, and as mentioned much earlier in this thread, have not sold any TB systems for over 10 years.
It would be great if one could do the LPV avionics re-fit at the same time, but there isn’t a hangar to be found in which the two jobs can be combined, with the people I would want to do the work.
