What About the Performance?
You get a lot more performance in a turbine. The Cessna 210 with a Silver Eagle Conversion is a rocket ship compared to the piston Cessna 210P. The JetPROP makes that lackluster Mirage into a screaming machine. You can hardly find a Queen Air still flying, but the King Air 90 is found on nearly every airport with a runway over 5,000 feet. And the Royal Turbine Duke makes the piston Duke look like child’s play. Make no mistake, the turbine offers better performance. Any increase in horsepower sends those horses directly to performance if all the other factors remain the same.
And then there’s the experience of operating a turbine – is it really that much fun? Is it exhilarating to advance the power lever on an airplane that has a tremendous thrust-to-weight ratio? It is an experience every pilot should experience once in their lifetime.
Bottom line, operating a turbine will put a smile on your face. But, the smile wears off after a while. The Van’s RV series of airplanes is a wonderfully designed experimental airplane, and they’ve coined the phrase the “RV grin” to describe the subtle smile they propose is found on the pilot operating an RV airplane. I would say there is also such thing as a “turbine grin.” Even after 10,000-plus hours in turbine airplanes, I still get a slight grin when I advance the power levers on an airplane with a solid power-to-weight ratio such as the King Air 300, JetPROP, Turbine Duke, or TBM 940.
To me, it is less exhilarating and more of an appreciation of what a turbine can do. I’ve loaded up 10 people, a ton of bags, and full fuel in a King Air 350 and the beast jumps off the runway in less than 3,000 feet, travels 1,200 nm, all flying at 300 KTAS…yes, I grin on that flight. I’ve climbed in a JetPROP, made a left turn, and looked down at the airport I just departed and admired the incredibly steep downward angle that my eyes are looking – and there’s a grin. I’ve departed in a Turbine Duke on a 5,000-foot runway and been at traffic pattern altitude before I got to the end of the runway – more grinning.
Why Would Anyone Not Move to a Turbine?
If you’ve got the coin and mission to make the transition to a turbine, you’ll assuredly become a better overall pilot with added skills and new experiences to draw from. But there are also some really good reasons to stay in the piston world and almost all of them have to do with money.
First, a turbine is definitely going to cost you more cash to acquire. A large piston engine will cost about $100,000 to purchase, and a new conversion to a turbine will cost about $600,000. So, there’s a half-million-dollar delta to consider. I’ve found this to be about accurate for any converted airplane (JetPROP, Silver Eagle, Turbine Bonanza, etc.). A comparably equipped JetPROP from the same year as a Mirage will cost you about a $500,000 more. A single engine from-the-factory turbine (M500/M600, TBM, PC12, etc.) could cost you far more than an STC-converted turbine airplane. So, getting into a turbine will cost you at least a half-million more than a piston airplane, potentially more.
But, some turbines don’t cost all that much more to operate. A Mirage and JetPROP can be operated for about the same cost per mile. The turbine will burn more fuel, but jet fuel costs less per gallon, and the turbine goes faster. An oil change will happen every 25 to 35 hours in a piston, but a turbine has an oil change every 800 hours. The turbine will cost more per hour to fly, but it gets a lot more done in that hour. I rarely hear from people who moved into the turbine world who are unaware of the normal operating expenses. It’s the abnormal expenses that cause a turbine pilot to cuss. I call it “turbine stupid” when a pilot makes a mistake in a turbine then gets to pay “turbine stupid tax.”
The classic case is a hot start. Every turbine has temperature limits, and when those limits are exceeded during the start sequence, it is called a “hot start.” The good news is that a hot start is almost entirely predictable and preventable. No person should ever start an engine while being distracted or without proper training. A few seconds of distraction in a turbine can cost you dearly. Your turbine CFI will teach you how to avoid a hot start, but if you ignore those teachings, you’ll get to write a check.
When a hot start occurs, the engine will get a hot section inspection (HSI). A HSI is when the hot section is removed from an engine and sent to an engine shop. For this pleasure alone, you’ll pay about $15,000. Then, the engine shop will remove (and sacrifice) two blades from the compressor turbine, cutting them into pieces to look at the metal under a magnification. If the blades are heat damaged, all of the compressor turbine blades will be replaced. And there are about 43 compressor blades in a small PT6 engine. Each one costs about $2,000. That’s about $86,000 for those doing mental math. But, the financial fun is not over yet. If the compressor turbine blades are heat damaged, they’ll sacrifice two blades from the power turbine and look at them under magnification. If they are heat damaged, all the blades on the first stage power turbine are replaced at another $2,000 each. And then, on some turbines, there’s a second stage power turbine with even more blades. The bottom line is that a hot start can easily cost $200,000 before combustion liners, stators, and other parts of the engine are considered.
But, the stupidity doesn’t stop there. A foreign object damage (FOD) event is when an object (ice, pebble, other debris) goes into the intake of the turbine. The compressor turns over 35,000 rpm in most turbines, and any debris will cause huge issues to the compressor. We can see the first stage compressor with a mirror or borescope, but if there’s damage to the first stage compressor blades, there’s almost always damage to every other stage in the engine. Damage to the first stage compressor that is not “blendable” (think sand down or smooth out) will result in the engine coming off the airplane and being sent to an engine shop. The costs of a FOD event are super-hard to predict, but none of the numbers are small. Sometimes a FOD event is covered by insurance, but sometimes not. Read your policy carefully. Most every turbine has an “ice door” or an inlet particle separator (IPS), and most are controlled by the pilot. Woe to the pilot who forgets to turn on the ice protection when entering icing conditions, lands the airplane on a contaminated surface without the ice door ON, or who uses excessive reverse/beta frequently. A single hunk of ice slung from the prop can FOD an engine completely.
Then there’s the borescope. Every 400 hours you’ll want to conduct a fuel nozzle flow inspection. This is a super important part of the maintenance schedule. When the nozzles are removed it is a great time for your maintenance provider to stick a borescope into the engine to look around. What if they see converging cracks in a stator? Excessive corrosion? Liner rubbing? You guessed it…the engine will come off and get sent to the engine shop, and the costs will shock you.
So, the key to operating a turbine cheaply is to avoid “turbine stupid” and avoid sending your engine to the engine shop. Do all the routine maintenance required. Don’t hot start or over-torque your engine. Let nothing but air enter the front air scoop, and be sure to conduct engine washes regularly. If you can avoid the engine shop, you’ll have a (relatively) inexpensive ownership experience for your turbine.
This is completely different than a piston experience. If you treat your piston poorly, you might have to conduct a top overhaul ($25,000 to 30,000 for a big Continental or Lycoming). A complete exhaust system will ping you for $15,000. But, none of these numbers are comparable to the financial obscenity of turbine stupid tax. I’ve had piston owners sing the blues about an unexpected top overhaul. Those same owners would cry a river at a $200,000 hot start event.
My point in all of this? If you own a turbine, you need to keep a cash reserve just in case turbine stupid happens and you have to pay stupid tax. If a buyer tells me, “I think I can stretch to buy a turbine,” I usually talk them out of it. If you buy a turbine, you need to be financially stout enough to handle a negative event.
Let’s Say You Upgrade to a Turbine
So, how can you best make the transition with wisdom? I have two big recommendations that you already know were coming. They are simple but very true: find the experts and do your homework.
There are times when you simply need an advocate, an agent, or a mentor to help you. Notwithstanding aviation, most of us understand this. When you enter the turbine world, don’t do it alone. You need to have someone on your side who knows what you don’t know and who “dances in that marketplace every day.” It is a brave new world, and you need to admit to yourself that you don’t know what you don’t know. All of your aviation experience has led you here, but it has not prepared you for the dangers that lurk in the supposed “good life” found in left seat of a turbine you own. You need a mentor, an agent, an advocate. And be prepared to pay this person well.
Aviation is a super-small world, and a person cannot make it in this world as a buyer agent (that’s what I call this service in my business) and be an idiot. Interview the field of potential buyer agents offering their services and ask them how many deals they did in the last year in the type of airplane you are hoping to purchase. Ask them for references. These people probably don’t advertise…they won’t have to. Why? Because smart buyers follow my secondary bit of advice: do your homework.
Join the type club that represents the type of airplane you are considering. Find out who is the go-to person in that market. Talk to the owner of the maintenance shop that only does work on the type of airplane you want to buy and research forums. There will be a shortlist of names that will pop up again and again, and those are the names that you should interview. A wise business leader once told me, “In a deal, the one with the most information usually wins.” Sage advice.
So, you’ve found a buyer agent, you’ve done your homework, and now you are the proud new owner of a turbine. What is your next step?
Well, while you were doing your previous homework, you should have also been making mental notes about the various instructors that serve that community that you have joined. Pick one of the really good CFIs and treat that CFI well. Get on their dance card. And, getting on that dance card will not be easy. The best of the best CFIs in any small niche market are incredibly in demand. They’ll usually be booked up months in advance.
Don’t just look at availability, look at personality too. This is not easy to do, but you should be able to look at the instructor’s writings, videos and recommendations from clients. A good instructor will be integrally involved in the market you join and should already have prolific data infused into that market. You will spend lots of time in a very small space (a cockpit) with this instructor, and you want to make sure that CFI teaches in a way that you’ll respond to well and learn the most from. Find someone that you want to be around.
Then, once you find that right instructor, come to training with the mindset of being a sponge. Soak up the knowledge. Don’t come to try and convince the CFI of what you already know. There’s nothing worse for a mature CFI than for a “know it all” client to come and try to prove why their training event should be half the length of everyone else. The time you spend with your CFI is precious, so make sure you come to training with an “I’m here to learn!” attitude.
Making the turbine transition is not for everyone. But for the pilot looking for more power, performance, reliability, and a new skill set, it just might be the right move to make. You’ll learn all sorts of new phrases and terms. You’ll get used to raw power, performance, and a slow response in power adjustments. You’ll learn a whole new way to get the most out of your engine’s performance. And, you’ll be a lot better pilot at the end of the training.
