Page 10 - Oct2016 Vol 20 No 10

the left side of the aft tailcone holds preflight inspection materials, and the ground-power plug-in is found nearby as well.A Personal CockpitWe mounted the two-step airstair and secured the two halves of the door, which carries the 5.6 psi maximum pressure differential. The emergency exit surrounds the forward right cabin window. Sliding forward into the cockpit, access was enhanced by a slightly- lower center console, compared to the M500. Overhead switches take care of engine, lighting and anti-ice operations. There are no storm windows to ventilate the front office, so we proceeded immediately into the starting procedure. With about 1,800 pounds of people and fuel onboard, our ramp weight was approximately 5,500 pounds.Piper’s after-start procedures are automated, insofar as switching off starter, fuel pump and ignition goes, so all we had to do was actuate the switches, hit the start button and introduce fuel as Ng rose above 13%. Start limit temp is a high 1,000 degrees, and we were soon settled into a 60% idle. The air conditioner controls are on the left side of the lower panel and the manual bleed air knob is under the left yoke.Comfortably settled in with the prop turning, we made the acquaintance of the M600’s Garmin G3000 flight deck, a three- screen installation with dual touch- screen controllers located at lower mid-panel. The Aspen Evolution standby instruments are on the extreme left side of the panel and the usual Garmin red reversionary button was in the glareshield. There’s no annunciator panel, since all messages would appear on the central EICAS display. The array of virtual engine gauges does not include an analog propeller speed display; since there’s no pilot control of Np, only a digital readout is shown. The three gear- down lights are found in the CAS, and so are the trim-position indicators. Pressurization is scheduled through the G3000 system, which monitors the selected destination’s elevation. A manual trim wheel is retained on the pedestal, and there is an emergency manual fuel control knob next to the main power lever.Moving away from the chocks takes little power advance, as the M600 moves easily under idle power. Piper uses a two-gate Beta and reverse selection, so taxiing is usually done with Beta control of thrust to spare the brakes. Steering control and visibility from the pilot’s seat are excellent.Ready At The RunwayThe usual Pratt overspeed governor and reverse lockout checks were made and standby-alternator function was confirmed, and we were ready to go. The M600’s torque limit is 1,575 ft/lb, so setting in a nice round 1,500 at the beginning of the roll allowed it to rise comfortably as speed increased. Lifting the nose at 80 knots had us off the ground in under 2,000 feet, using 15 degrees of flap. Flaps were retracted as 100 knots was reached, and there is a 130- knot gear retraction limit speed to be observed; Va comes at 122 knots, although 150 knots provides a more comfortable cruise-climb deck angle. At our weight, we easily exceeded 2,000 fpm in the initial climb, and could hold 1,800 fpm in cruise-climb as we passed through 10,000 feet on the way up to 15,500 feet. The M600’s ITT temps out at 800 degrees C., versus 770 in the M500.I liked the feel of the M600’s shortened ailerons, which gave solid, big-airplane handling in climb and cruise. At approach speeds, the ailerons lighten up nicely. As we leveled off, the OAT was –4 C. and we had 1,530 pounds of torque available. The IAS worked its way up to 202 knots, resulting in a true airspeed of 250 knots on 340 pph fuel flow. At FL 250 or FL 270, fuel8 • TWIN & TURBINEOCTOBER 2016