Page 16 - Volume 16 Number 5

on TOT or torque redlines. TOT can go to a takeoff limit of 810 degrees C. for four minutes, then is brought back to 755 degrees for top-of-the-green power. Torque is usually around 100 PSI. Unlike the piston-powered P210, acceleration is brisk; liftoff at 70 knots comes without hesitation, the deck angle at 80 knots is about 20 degrees and at the Vy of 100 knots the climb rate approaches 2,000 fpm. At top-of- the-green power and 120 knots, the climb rate was a steady 1,300 fpm.On the day of our test, we leveled at 10,500 and set power to 70 PSI and 1,800 propeller rpm, which brought a TAS of 190 knots on a fuel flow of 27.5 gph. At a more- typical altitude, the airplane can achieve 200 knots TAS using 22 gph. According to O&N sources, a non-booted airplane will be about 10 knots faster.Compared with its piston counterpart, there’s a feeling of forgetting something in a SilverEagle. There’s very little to do; fuel is fed from both main tanks, there are no cowl flaps to adjust, no leaning of mixture, no worries about shock cooling in descent – leaving the pilot with hardly anything to occupy time. The stiff, soundproofed cabin is a comfortable place to travel. Control forces at cruise are a bit heavier than at pattern speeds, but one doesn’t need much movement to achieve results. As Mim Allison says when she shoots an ILS in their airplane, “This is really fun”; the airplane is that stable, as long as it’s kept in trim.We did a clean-configuration slow- flight test at 80 knots, where the stall warning occasionally tweeted; the full stall came at 68 KIAS, but with gear and flaps down the stall was delayed until 55 KIAS. That part is still all Cessna – mild-mannered and predictable. For descent, flight idle let us down at 1,600 fpm; lowering the gear doubles the rate. With the turbine conversion, the top of the green arc, 167 KIAS, becomes the operating redline bycertification standards. Thus, it’s no longer legal to leave the gear down while descending at up to 200 knots.The traffic pattern is typically flown at 100 knots with flaps at 10 degrees, confirming gear down by looking out the window for a tire. Adding 20 degrees flap on base and full flap on final slowed us to 85 knots, reducing to 80 knots over the hedge. Ground idle is selected at touchdown and moving over the Beta gate into reverse obviated the need for any brake to turn off at the 1,800-foot point. Small airports are not a problem for Silver Eagle owners, who know the 450-shp Rolls-Royce will get them out of any place they can land.The capability and comfort ofthe Silver Eagle makes it worthconsidering when shopping for apersonal transport. It’s an economicalalternative to the big-cabin turbinesingles, when the mission doesn’tdemand six seats in the back. Nowworks out... T&T •to see how that 340 twin conversionMim Allison and Gard, a family friend, are still smiling after a flight over Gard’s vineyard in her Silver Eagle P210.14 • TWIN & TURBINEMAY 2012