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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 19 May 2017, 18:37 
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Location: KGNF, Grenada, MS
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The Youtube video posted actually has some very interesting information if you pay close attention.

First, it is a factory new airplane with a factory pilot. Secondly, you will notice that on each takeoff, the pilot positions the airplane on the right side of centerline and each time drifts to the left of centerline before touchdown.

Next, is that he never pulls power until 88 knots which on the DA42 is a full 7 knots above blue line. I must admit that I am very impressed with such a low blue line.

Then, you have to recognize that the pilot is not having an engine failure, he is pulling and feathering power to one engine and, except on the last takeoff, is pulling power to the right engine as well. So, he is really doing nothing more than making a power off landing with one engine feathered.

On the last takeoff, after he is well past blue line, he pulls and feathers one engine. We cannot tell if he had already retracted the gear, but it is likely. The airplane loses a little altitude and then establishes a 300' rate of climb. As the DA42 only has a 210' roc at gross, that would indicate that the airplane is light.

I'm not berating the pilot, he performed a smooth transition each time, but I have to believe that there are few current twin pilots who could not smoothly handle an intentional power reduction and feather in their airplane if they were 7 knots beyond blue line.

Point is, the airplane was handled adequately in ideal conditions. There is almost no take away here for an unexpected engine failure in a piston twin below blue line and 50' above the runway.

Wow, I'm so surprised Mark didn't see that :bugeye: .

Jgreen

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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 19 May 2017, 22:28 
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Location: In between the opioid and marijuana epidemics
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Jesse,

I would be very curious to see a Chieftain or a Panther climb on one engine near gross on a 95 degree day and try to climb say.....10,000 feet. I can not imagine how the engine could run cool at 100 percent horsepower for the 40 plus minute trip to altitude.. If a panther could do this without near redline oil temps and high CHT 's I would be pleasantly surprised. A video of this would be really interesting.

Do panthers or chieftains have intercoolers? I thought both had -J2B's?

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"Paranoia and PTSD are requirements not diseases"


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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 19 May 2017, 22:41 
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Username Protected wrote:
Jesse,

I would be very curious to see a Chieftain or a Panther climb on one engine near gross on a 95 degree day and try to climb say.....10,000 feet. I can not imagine how the engine could run cool at 100 percent horsepower for the 40 plus minute trip to altitude.. If a panther could do this without near redline oil temps and high CHT 's I would be pleasantly surprised. A video of this would be really interesting.

Do panthers or chieftains have intercoolers? I thought both had -J2B's?


Did my Commercial and ATP checkrides in the Navajo last year. Lots of single engine airwork at a 5,000 airport. No intercoolers. Lycomings. No temp issues.

Why would you ever climb 10,000' OEI at gross at 100%? The goal is to land, not climb for 40 min.

I have flown my PBaron 85NM at 8,000 OEI at near gross on a 110dF (surface) day. It did fine. The Panther does better. The 421C was best.


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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 20 May 2017, 00:03 
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Location: In between the opioid and marijuana epidemics
Aircraft: 182, A36TC
Impressive, I would like to see it in person. Thanks for the data points. Still dreaming of a twin.

Why 10,000? Rare scenario. I could see myself departing a mountain airport IFRand having to climb SE to get out. One would have to decide if they wanted to do a single engine IMC approach or go find VFR. I guess with proper cooling and enough FF it could be done.

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Ryan Holt CFI

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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 01 Aug 2017, 11:37 
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Joined: 01/14/12
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Username Protected wrote:
Here is a video. Check it out, especially the last take-off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQeBHSsL56o

This competent Austrian pilot handles engine out with aplomb.

The OP didn't invent here anything. He merely posted what the competent authorities - such as Piper - are telling us to do in their POHs.

M




I'd forgotten about this gem.

"Mark", to my eyeball, in your short time on BT your content / conflict ratio remains at zero.

:doh:

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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 02 Aug 2017, 08:30 
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Username Protected wrote:
Here is a video. Check it out, especially the last take-off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQeBHSsL56o

This competent Austrian pilot handles engine out with aplomb.

The OP didn't invent here anything. He merely posted what the competent authorities - such as Piper - are telling us to do in their POHs.

M




I'd forgotten about this gem.



"Mark", to my eyeball, in your short time on BT your content / conflict ratio remains at zero.

:doh:


Yea my conflict ratio is zero, and your conflict ratio is way up there Ward. You should start to work on it.

Mark

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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 02 Aug 2017, 09:09 
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Dude,

I was referring to your content / conflict ratio.

(Still zero)

:thumbdown:

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Forrest

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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 02 Aug 2017, 09:47 
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Joined: 01/21/17
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You don't establish the member's participation criteria.

Mark


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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 03 Aug 2017, 15:05 
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Joined: 12/09/07
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Username Protected wrote:
I would be very curious to see a Chieftain or a Panther climb on one engine near gross on a 95 degree day and try to climb say.....10,000 feet. I can not imagine how the engine could run cool at 100 percent horsepower for the 40 plus minute trip to altitude.. If a panther could do this without near redline oil temps and high CHT 's I would be pleasantly surprised. A video of this would be really interesting.

Do panthers or chieftains have intercoolers? I thought both had -J2B's?

Most piston engines will operate just fine at the full 460F CHT, and 240F Oil Temp.

Most, if not all, will get you on the ground while doing so, from mid-point of a long oceanic crossing, or a max climb of long duration.

What they will not do is operate at those temperatures for any kind of reasonable duration towards TBO. The cooler you keep 'em, the longer they'll last, to and far beyond "rated TBO."


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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 03 Aug 2017, 19:28 
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Location: KGNF, Grenada, MS
Aircraft: Baron, 180,195,J-3
John,

Let me ask you a stupid question like how long is a piece of string. :peace:

There is such a thing as too cold on operating temps and a point at which cooler doesn't do much better.

So: ideal CHT, Oil and TIT, in your opinion. Don't make it too complicated, I'll just get confused.
:scratch: :scratch:

Jgreen :D

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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 05 Mar 2018, 15:43 
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Aircraft: Navajo 600
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Hello, and Merry Christmas!

OK... we're going to 'take the long way home' here. As mentioned before, Piper built (14) normally aspirated standard Navajos from 1967 through 1969, interspersed with their turbo brethren. They are the PA-31-300 models, but there was a long controversy in the infancy of Navajos, and some PA-31-310 turbo Navajos got listed as a -300. So for awhile, Piper decided to just name them all PA-31. Later, the remainder of that series were just listed as PA-31-310. Both engines turn clockwise on all of these models. The gross weight of the PA-31-310 without V/G's is 6,500#. There is no V/G mod for the PA-31-300 normally aspirated aircraft, and their gross weight is 6,200#.

An old friend of mine is a master at working on and rebuilding wrecked Beech 18s. He was once the DOM for one of the largest Twin Beech operators in the country -- Buckeye Air Freight -- and his name is Bruce Bullock. Later in the 1970's and throughout the '80's and much of the '90's, Bruce had his own company at Cleveland-Hopkins, OH, Called Electroair, Inc., and was contacted by none other than Carl Millard (Millard Air Canada fame - Toronto), to try and duplicate the earlier normally aspirated version of the Navajo for some contract flying they were doing in Canada. Everyone knows the weak spot of up-and-down flying in those aircraft is primarily the turbos. If you don't need them for mountain flying purposes or the gross weight, they can be a significant headache and unnecessary cost center. The other weak area can be the heater, but there's now a fix for that... thanks to Bruce Bullock (and Bruce McSwiggan [former Academy Airlines] -- who now holds that STC and can furnish kits.)

During this time, I was developing a small commuter airline out of Jonesboro, Arkansas, called Air Mid-South, to reconnect all the smaller towns that lost service several years after deregulation. Bruce had mentioned what he was doing for Carl at Millardair, and we decided it would be the perfect plane to start this commuter with. During this time, we started petitioning the FAA to allow IFR single pilot commuter ops with a single-engine Cessna Caravan, but that was a growth aircraft in the distance, and no single-engine planes were yet approved for IFR commercial pax ops. That's a whole other story. By the way, the "Canada-Mod Heater" for Navajos, is really not from Canada. It was done in conjunction with Carl Millard, but was designed, built and certified by Bruce Bullock, in Cleveland... as were the cargo mods done to the 90, 100 and 200 series King Airs.

Bruce ended up converting (6) planes from turbos to normal aspiration. Because the Piper aircraft were PA-31-300's (signifying the horsepower of one normally aspirated engine), he ended up calling his the "Navajo 600" (the total horsepower of both engines). The engines are Lycoming IO-540-M1A5's. Some were the earlier models and some were later models with the extended nacelle baggage. None of the factory normally aspirated aircraft had the extended nacelle wing lockers, as Piper was done with that experiment by then. What was discovered during the testing, was that the single-engine characteristics of these aircraft with the long nacelles and lower powered normally aspirated engines, was borderline abysmal at gross weight. Apparently, the longer nacelle on the critical (left) engine blocked too much airflow to the tail in single engine situations, and at heavy weights, that coupled with angle of attack wouldn't give you enough control with the rudder. I was steered away from the ones with the wing-lockers. We did not follow through with our commuter plans after the marketing research had concluded, as we ended up moving to Texas to be involved in something else.

Fast forward to 2007, in another fit of insanity, we moved to the Puget Sound of the Pacific NW to begin an air tour operation, that could also someday be morphed into a small commuter to serve the uncovered territories of that region. Once again, we sought to find some normally aspirated Navajos after a futile attempt to begin this operation trying to keep some passenger Beech 18's in commercial operation. That's yet another story. I got in touch with the principals involved in the Navajo 600 ordeal, as I had decided to try to buy the STC to do the conversions ourselves. Finding any of these normally aspirated aircraft at that point was becoming elusive. What we discovered, was that Bruce had such a great reputation with the Cleveland FSDO through all his other work over the decades, that they let him convert ALL of those Navajos under Field Approvals, so no STC was ever issued. You'd now have to set precedent with a factory normally aspirated aircraft, and work with a DER on the certifications for an STC yourself by replicating. During the planning process of our company in 2003, I actually visited with Mr. Joe Soloy, of Soloy Aviation Modifications, in Olympia, WA, and he was interested in helping us modify and receive an STC for this Navajo conversion, but unfortunately, he passed away the year after that and Soloy changed hands. I also discussed a follow-on aircraft that I drew up and called a "Super Chieftain". I wanted to hang 400 hp normally aspirated, direct-drive 8-cylinder, Lycoming IO-720's on the Chieftain. You'd eliminate the turbos, free up that cowling space for cooling and have plenty of room for the extra two cylinders. With the precedent already set by Excalibur on the Twin Bonanza, Queen Air and the Mr. PRM Aero Commanders, this mod was not much of a stretch in engineering. It is not impossible to do these things, just not very cost-effective anymore. Unless you were converting an entire fleet of turbo-Navajos, the numbers just wouldn't work after it was all said and done. You're better off financially just overhauling turbos every 600 hours if you do a lot of up-and-down flying. That's what we have concluded. The now limited fleet, and its' age, will no longer financially justify this kind of capital investment.

We almost bought that recently advertised normally aspirated Navajo on Controller. Tried hard. That aircraft, C-GMLJ (31-228) was in fact the FIRST factory delivered normally-aspirated Navajo, and was the actual aircraft originally used by Bruce and Carl to develop the conversion. It was the plane they replicated to begin with. It had been sitting for years (with another later serial number converted Navajo 600 -- C-GAFF) in Millardair's big hangar following the demise of the company and the ensuing troubles of the Millard family. In the end, the price to be paid for it was too great for what existed. The aircraft was sold to a fellow in the Caribbean, who - let's just say - has had a colorful past in aviation.

Sorry it's not what you probably wanted to hear, but hope this helps explain some things anyway. ~~ Mark


Good Evening,

Sorry to resurrect this dead thread...but we recently bought one of these Navajo 600s for private use. Just ferried it back to our home airport last week. This post in particular was very interesting. We have one of the later conversions with the extended wing lockers, and are looking to possibly convert to the short nacelles.

Are there kits available? an STC?

Also, if there are folks who have any more information on these birds, I'd be really happy to chat privately or on the thread.

Thanks!


Last edited on 06 Mar 2018, 01:14, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 05 Mar 2018, 16:30 
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Joined: 08/15/11
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Location: Mandan, ND
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While off topic a bit, I saw a turbine Navajo the other day. PA-31-T3. There are only 2 in the US, with Pro Aire Cargo running both of them.

Pretty neat. Not sure what dash Pratt's are on it. 60As or something?


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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 07 Mar 2018, 02:32 
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Hi Brien,

Congratulations on your purchase. :thumbup: Could you please tell me the registration # and serial # of your Navajo? Also, where are you located?

There are some very cost effective and reliable mods for the Navajo. Yours may already have some of them depending on which one you bought. Also, Mike Jones Aircraft in Murfreesboro TN USA, can probably reverse those baggage lockers for you, but there are a number of places you could go to accomplish this. The good thing about Mike Jones, is that they know the type pretty well, and also kind of 'own' some important mods you might be interested in... such as the inboard gear door removal kit. I've talked to the fellow that actually developed that kit at length. He did an exclusive U.S. licensing deal with Jones to install those. There are a number of aircraft around to get the original nacelles from. You just missed a good insurance write-off in NOLA. Jones probably has some short nacelles lying around from Panther conversions, so you might be able to work a trade.

*Of course, if not already on board, you might want to join the Piper owners group.

http://piperowner.org/

https://www.piperflyer.org/

*You can also check in with this group:

Piper Navajo PA-31 Type Club
http://pa31typeclub.proboards.com/


Happy flying and we'll look forward to hearing more. ~ Mark


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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 09 Sep 2018, 23:12 
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Joined: 04/19/09
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Location: Montego Bay, Jamaica W.I. (MKJS)
Aircraft: Baron B55/Cessna 140
Mark,

Finally seeing one up close Pa-31-300 C-GMBM s/n 31-833 : - they have a farm close by... Grow houses in Dom Rep and Jamaica for the Canadian Market. Fitted with 6 seats.

Regards,
Nigel


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 Post subject: Re: Turbo Navajo to Normally Aspirated Navajo Conversion
PostPosted: 12 Sep 2018, 13:18 
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Hey Nigel,

Very cool! :clap: I almost went up to look at that one when it was for sale at Sky Wings in Red Deer, AB, CA, but never had the time, and it finally sold. That plane is in pretty good shape all in all. It does have the long baggage nacelles though, which are not necessarily your friend on a PA-31-300. Thanks for sharing. Not exactly happy about where it ended up... but, oh well. :doh: At least they can probably afford it! ~ Mark


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