Page 7 - Volume 18 Number 9

sna 303sby LeRoy Cook Presentationversion of the 340 that was only built in 1980, was also replaced by the T303.What the Crusader offered was a six-place cabin-class interior, counter-rotating turbocharged engines and much- simplified flight characteristics. In this fresh-start twin, Cessna had done away with most of the objectionable 1950s and ‘60s features of the dowdy 310 and 337, particularly the 310’s patchwork fuel system, and kept the desirable ones, like the user-friendly cabin and cockpit ambience. The Crusader was designed to found a new generation of Cessna twins, and had it not been for the collapse of general aviation in the 1980s, we probably would have seen stretched, 300-hp, pressurized and maybe even turboprop derivatives of the T303. As it was, production ended in 1984, with only 297 built.On the ramp, the Cessna T303 is an upstanding airplane; its 13.3-foot tail height is the tallest of any of the Cessna twins, boosted by the trailing-link maingear. The cruciform horizontal tail placement was a new departure for Cessna, which was resistant to the T-tail fashion of the times. For an airplane grossing at 5,150 pounds, the Crusader is dimensionally large, with a 39-foot wingspan and 30.5 feet of length.The T303’s structure is largely bonded aluminum, which eliminated much of the riveting required to build the older designs. Gone were the tuna-fish tiptanks of the 310, a safety-feature laid down by Dwane Wallace in 1954. The Crusader uses integral wet-wing tankage, requiring no tank switching or transfer in normal operation. The landing gear folds into simple open maingear wheel wells, actuated by an electro-hydraulic power pack, in place of the complex sequencing doors on the 310 and 337. The semi-Fowler slotted wing flaps are electric.The Crusader’s nose, more aesthetic than the 310’s massive proboscis, has a modest baggage bin, and wing lockers behind the nacelles can take additional gear; with a baggage area in the aft cabin, the T303 can stow away nearly 600 pounds. As with most large-cabin planes, one can take six on flights of two hours or so, and carry four occupants with full fuel on longer missions.Gentle PowerThe T303’s TSIO-520-AE engines were the lowest in output of any of the big-bore Continentals, loafing at 250-hp and rated for a 2,000-hour TBO. To eliminate any critical-engine bias, the right engine is actually a counter-rotating LTSIO-model, resulting in a Vmc of only 65 knots.Why turbocharging? Simply to maximize single-engine performance at an acceptable gross weight. By holding the 250-hp all the way to 15,000 feet with a constant 32.5 inches of slope-controlled manifold pressure, the single-engine service ceiling could be published as 13,000 feet. All-engines maximum operating altitude is restricted to 25,000 feet. Pressurized magnetos were added in 1983 to prevent misfiring at altitude.As with the 310, the T303 uses sliding-shutter “cowl flaps” beneath louvers on the upper surface of theSEPTEMBER 2014TWIN & TURBINE • 5