Turbine-powered -10.

[pierre smith]

I was speaking with a gentleman from Oklahoma a while ago and he'd sold his partially-built -10.

There is a company in the process of developing a turbine engine kit for that airplane and they hope to have it at Osh this summer:

http://www.diemechturbines.com/RV10kit.htm

Best,

[Pat Stewart]

Pierre,

There was a mock up at Sun-n-Fun on a 10 firewall. It looked interesting but I am not sure the fuel burn would be worth it given the limitations that the airframe will have on speed.

Pat

[Ron Lee]

Maybe it is all about the turbine sound and smell. Don't they burn Jet-A?

[johnny stick]

Just curious from all you techies out there, what are the advantages of a turbine? Lower fuel burn, lower installed price, better reliability? What?

[David Z]

Turbines will burn whatever you put in them. Doesn't mean it's good for them though.
Some PT6s are allowed to burn gasoline for short periods of time.

[smokyray]

Johnny, in a word, yes. Turbines have an advantage in reliability, length of time between overhauls and inherent design simplicity. Disadvantages are high costs, higher fuel consumption and high repair costs. That said, Missionary Flight organizations have been leaning away from piston/100LL burners in lieu of Turbines recently. The reason? Fuel availability and field reliability. The Quest Kodiak is a PT6 powered replacement for the venerable Cessna 206 and has proven itself stellar in the far reaches of the world where 100LL is cost prohibitive or unavailable. It's high fuel burn is offset by carrying twice the load on half the trips, reliably, quickly and burning easily accessible fuels.

In our sport plane, limited budget world, turbines are impractical mainly due to cost. Until someone designs a FWF for RVs at a reasonable price and gets them into the field, we forge ahead with current technology.
My opinion is turbines are the future, where the Missionary and AG operators like Pierre have gone, can we be far behind?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsRLF...e_gdata_player



Smokey
www.fly-4-life.com

[pierre smith]

I echo his sentiments on reliability. I have over 9,000 hours on my PT-6 in the Air Tractor without an overhaul. I burn 47 GPH compared to the old 1340 cu. in./600 H.P. Pratt radial burning 40 GPH of Avgas. Back in the '80's, avgas was twice the price of Jet-A or #1 kerosene, which is a kissin' cousing to Jet-A, so our turbines operated much cheaper.

I've run diesel, avgas, kerosene and mostly Jet-A in my airplane and they're cleared by P @ W for those fuels. In the bush or faraway places, avgas can be next to impossible to find but diesel is plentiful.

Costs? A new engine for my airplane is north of $350,000, while a radial may go for $50-60,000, but the radial will hardly go over 1,000 hours without a $25,000 overhaul.

The useful load goes waaaay up as well. My PT-6 weighs 330 lbs, the radial 1,000+ lbs. and puts out 680 SHP and 1633 lbs. ft. of torque! That's why the nose is so long...CG issues.

Best,

[MauiLvrs]

Originally Posted by johnny stick

Just curious from all you techies out there, what are the advantages of a turbine? Lower fuel burn, lower installed price, better reliability? What?

Higher fuel burn, higher install price, better reliability, lower fuel cost, The smell of burned jet fuel, better sound, higher coolness factor

[Seansull]

This is a pic of RV-10 turbine project at OSH '11. These guys said their main motivation is the realibility and fuel avilability. Not practical for most of us but pretty cool looking.

[Wayne Gillispie]

I used to ovhl and hot section p&w pt6, allison 250(now Rolls Royce).

I would not have a turbine in my 10. Like the above poster mentioned it would be speed limited. To fly into the FL's safely you would have to have eng inlet/prop/wing deicing and 100-120 gal fuel. You may not have to overhaul the complete engine often, but try $25,000-100,000 for hot section repair. You want to work on it yourself, get some big money ready for all of those special tools. Fuel burn during climb 30-35 gph and cruise 20-25 gph depending on alt/temp. You might save on engine weight but your fuel/deicing equip/engine mount weights will more than make up for it. Unless you run it at higher rpms, airspeeds and FL altitudes your going to pay even more in fuel burn. If I had the money for a turbine I would first pick a faster, properly equipped airframe to stick it in or better yet just buy a proven certified. You think our fatality rate is high now, start putting turbines in RV's. The statistics won't sound so cool.