BeechTalk - BT

Username Protected · **Posted:** 03 Jul 2016, 17:19

Saw this on the ramp at my home field Friday. It would have been interesting to see a water cooled turboed 350 hp IO550 in a Bonanza.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 03 Jul 2016, 18:08

That's a RAM V I think. No shock cooling I hear. However I think its short on fans.

Rgs

Patrick

Username Protected · **Posted:** 03 Jul 2016, 23:59

I have flown one a long time ago. Ram only built/converted 37 of these. It was a great Idea that didn't work. It was too heavy and complicated. Engines made great power ran smooth. The first book doggle was the mobile one oil that caused lead build up to to poor suspension properties. Parts were a problem.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 04 Jul 2016, 12:42

Wow I did I not know there were any of those left! That voyager engine showed huge promise but like everything else it just fizzled out.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 04 Jul 2016, 13:24

TCM, just used water jackets around 520 cylinders, to many connections to keep tight, coolant loss and added weight stopped this program early in.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 04 Jul 2016, 21:15

I put gas in one of those things 10 years ago. I remember it because the pilots joked about how we should fill it with jet A. Checked the placard just in case and then they started laughing and said we were right. Only one I ever saw.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 20 Jul 2016, 01:27

Username Protected wrote:

It would have been interesting to see a water cooled turboed 350 hp IO550 in a Bonanza.

I read once that TCM got an STC for their water cooled engine on a Bo but Beech wasn't interested so they've never done anything with it.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 20 Jul 2016, 02:37

I got a short ride in their 350 HP liquid cooled 36 Bonanza once.

The story at the time was they had a huge hush-hush Gov contact to use the liquid engine tech on a drone project and if I knew then I would need more details about 27 years later I would have paid more attention.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 21 Jul 2016, 10:42

Rocket Engineering also tried this conversion on the Mooney PFM. Never worked out on that airframe either. I've seen those airplanes for sale a few times over the years. Here's a link to one of them.

http://www.aircraftmerchants.com/cf/acD ... 8F46178B90

Username Protected · **Posted:** 21 Jul 2016, 23:12

I've flown that airplane and was about 12 hours from making an offer on it when my Bravo popped up new on the market 11 years ago. It was a really really sweet flying airplane. I still have my notes somewhere but as I recall, the little water pump was around $12,000 to replace (part only) I figured that I could have one built from scratch way way cheaper. A replacement engine wasn't too bad at least when compared to my Bravo. I still wonder "what if" :scratch:

Username Protected wrote:

Rocket Engineering also tried this conversion on the Mooney PFM. Never worked out on that airframe either. I've seen those airplanes for sale a few times over the years. Here's a link to one of them.

http://www.aircraftmerchants.com/cf/acD ... 8F46178B90

Username Protected · **Posted:** 21 Jul 2016, 23:27

Username Protected wrote:

I put gas in one of those things 10 years ago. I remember it because the pilots joked about how we should fill it with jet A. Checked the placard just in case and then they started laughing and said we were right. Only one I ever saw.

That seems to me like the last thing anyone should joke about. Its akin to joking with a policeman that you are carrying a bomb.

Rare 414