Turbo Lance II opinions

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
k.net...

"John Doe" wrote in message
news

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
ink.net...
My first airplane was a 79 Turbo Lance. I bought it for the roomy cabin
for my dogs, reasonably fast cruise and fairly good altitude capibility.
It was a releative bargin compared to other six place, 170+kt, turbo
airplanes. I found it to be a good airplane for me and it met my
expectations. Mine had most of the availible speed mods and an
intercooler which I recommend. I only had if for about 16 months so I
can't tell you what the long term cost of ownership would be.

Mike
MU-2

I must admit that I'm not very smart on the turbo options. This would be
my
first turbo engine.

I've seen some Lance's advertised with Turbo and then there are some that
specifically advertise Turbo with Intercooler. Are these two seperate
options available or are they one in the same? The Lance I'm looking at
just says Turbo in the ad and doesn't mention any intercooler.

Thanks.



The intercooler is a aftermarket STC'd modification. Without it, the
airplane will not be able to maintain high power settings above about
16,000' without overheating.


Does the intercooler require any maintenance ? I checked on it and it
appears that the company that was making the intercooler option has gone out
of business.

"John Doe" wrote in message
news:lIQQe.2865$8q.1555@lakeread01...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
k.net...

"John Doe" wrote in message
news

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
ink.net...
My first airplane was a 79 Turbo Lance. I bought it for the roomy
cabin
for my dogs, reasonably fast cruise and fairly good altitude
capibility.
It was a releative bargin compared to other six place, 170+kt, turbo
airplanes. I found it to be a good airplane for me and it met my
expectations. Mine had most of the availible speed mods and an
intercooler which I recommend. I only had if for about 16 months so I
can't tell you what the long term cost of ownership would be.

Mike
MU-2

I must admit that I'm not very smart on the turbo options. This would
be my
first turbo engine.

I've seen some Lance's advertised with Turbo and then there are some
that
specifically advertise Turbo with Intercooler. Are these two seperate
options available or are they one in the same? The Lance I'm looking at
just says Turbo in the ad and doesn't mention any intercooler.

Thanks.



The intercooler is a aftermarket STC'd modification. Without it, the
airplane will not be able to maintain high power settings above about
16,000' without overheating.


Does the intercooler require any maintenance ? I checked on it and it
appears that the company that was making the intercooler option has gone
out of business.

No, an intercooler is just a heat exchanger.


Mike
MU-2

Hello,

I'm looking to talk with someone who's owned a Turbo Lance for their
opinions on ownership and maintenance.

Thanks.


I used to fly one for a small company. It's a good airplane overall, lots
of room and payload. When this company was looking for an airplane, they
asked me to research the Turbo Lance II, specifically a 1979 they were
looking at and eventually purchased. I discovered from an analysis of
accidents in the NTSB database that this model has had a number of smoke in
the cockpit and/or fire in the engine compartment events due to the
turbocharger. IIRC, one of the events occurred even though an AD
specifically designed to stop this kind of thing was incorrectly done, and
some of the fault was laid on the AD itself for being difficult and
confusing.

While I've since lost the data, somebody posted a question about this make /
model in this newsgroup or R.A.P a few years ago and I responded to it (not
under this username) by posting my summary of what I learned about the
plane. You can probably find it in google / dejanews.

Engine temp control is important and you ought to have an all cylinder
engine monitor on it like a JPI. Get the cowling mod because it provides a
little speed increase and more importantly improves cylinder cooling.

Wasn't there a change in the exhaust system to iconel that fixed the
problem?

Mike
MU-2


"Vertical Rate" wrote in message
.. .
Hello,

I'm looking to talk with someone who's owned a Turbo Lance for their
opinions on ownership and maintenance.

Thanks.


I used to fly one for a small company. It's a good airplane overall, lots
of room and payload. When this company was looking for an airplane, they
asked me to research the Turbo Lance II, specifically a 1979 they were
looking at and eventually purchased. I discovered from an analysis of
accidents in the NTSB database that this model has had a number of smoke
in
the cockpit and/or fire in the engine compartment events due to the
turbocharger. IIRC, one of the events occurred even though an AD
specifically designed to stop this kind of thing was incorrectly done, and
some of the fault was laid on the AD itself for being difficult and
confusing.

While I've since lost the data, somebody posted a question about this make
/
model in this newsgroup or R.A.P a few years ago and I responded to it
(not
under this username) by posting my summary of what I learned about the
plane. You can probably find it in google / dejanews.

Engine temp control is important and you ought to have an all cylinder
engine monitor on it like a JPI. Get the cowling mod because it provides
a
little speed increase and more importantly improves cylinder cooling.

I found some readings that said the Turbo Lance has a fixed wastegate and
that there are other systems out there that have a manual wastegate that
allows the pilot to better control the turbo.

How much of this is really a factor and should I really care?

You could interpret a manual wastegate as something that you have more
control over or you could say that it just provides more workload :-). The
Turbo Lance wastegate is attacked to the throttle linkage and works pretty
well. The best system is a compensated automatic wastegate but that is
considerably more expensive and complex.

Mike
MU-2


"John Doe" wrote in message
news:R5nOe.17574$Co1.9024@lakeread01...
I found some readings that said the Turbo Lance has a fixed wastegate and
that there are other systems out there that have a manual wastegate that
allows the pilot to better control the turbo.

How much of this is really a factor and should I really care?

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:44:12 +0000, Mike Rapoport wrote:

You could interpret a manual wastegate as something that you have more
control over or you could say that it just provides more workload :-). The
Turbo Lance wastegate is attacked to the throttle linkage and works pretty
well. The best system is a compensated automatic wastegate but that is
considerably more expensive and complex.

Mike
MU-2


"John Doe" wrote in message
news:R5nOe.17574$Co1.9024@lakeread01...
I found some readings that said the Turbo Lance has a fixed wastegate and
that there are other systems out there that have a manual wastegate that
allows the pilot to better control the turbo.

How much of this is really a factor and should I really care?


On cars, the waste gate is basically a variable rate spring inside a
metered valve. As the pressure increases, the valve opens...as it
decreases, the valve closes. The valve releases excessive pressure within
the turbo, thusly preventing overboost. On cars, they are simplistic. I'm
not sure how much is different between a waste gate on a car and a waste
gate on a plane.

Having said all that, I'm 100% sure I would not own a turbocharged
anything that did not have an automatic wastegate on it.

Greg

"Oracle" wrote in message
newsan.2005.08.26.17.31.58.160929@asdf...
On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:44:12 +0000, Mike Rapoport wrote:

You could interpret a manual wastegate as something that you have more
control over or you could say that it just provides more workload :-).
The
Turbo Lance wastegate is attacked to the throttle linkage and works
pretty
well. The best system is a compensated automatic wastegate but that is
considerably more expensive and complex.

Mike
MU-2


"John Doe" wrote in message
news:R5nOe.17574$Co1.9024@lakeread01...
I found some readings that said the Turbo Lance has a fixed wastegate and
that there are other systems out there that have a manual wastegate that
allows the pilot to better control the turbo.

How much of this is really a factor and should I really care?


On cars, the waste gate is basically a variable rate spring inside a
metered valve. As the pressure increases, the valve opens...as it
decreases, the valve closes. The valve releases excessive pressure within
the turbo, thusly preventing overboost. On cars, they are simplistic. I'm
not sure how much is different between a waste gate on a car and a waste
gate on a plane.

Having said all that, I'm 100% sure I would not own a turbocharged
anything that did not have an automatic wastegate on it.

Greg



The difference is that the airplane wastegate should compensate for
different altitudes.

Mike
MU-2

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:44:12 +0000, Mike Rapoport wrote:

You could interpret a manual wastegate as something that you have more
control over or you could say that it just provides more workload :-). The
Turbo Lance wastegate is attacked to the throttle linkage and works pretty
well. The best system is a compensated automatic wastegate but that is
considerably more expensive and complex.


As should also add, I would imagine that a turbo-normalized engine has a
much more complex wastegate. That's obviously a guess on my part.

Greg

John Doe wrote:
I found some readings that said the Turbo Lance has a fixed wastegate and
that there are other systems out there that have a manual wastegate that
allows the pilot to better control the turbo.

How much of this is really a factor and should I really care?

For my money, I'd care. There is a series of 6 articles on turbocharging by John
Deakin at avweb.com. Here's a link to the index of John's Pelican Perch articles:

http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182146-1.html

Scan down the list to the "Those Fire-Breathing Turbos" articles.

Dave