Transition into the Fastest Single-Engine Turboprop Aircraft (TBM 930)

hi everyone and welcome to and you know blah blah blah let's start over okay mutual line hi I'm David gasps Mayer and welcome to airplane Academy I'm excited to talk to you today about the differences in flying a variety of different airplanes I've amassed 3,500 hours of flying including owning and operating a number of different single-engine high-performance airplanes also flew a baron for a while I have a commercial multi instrument rating also have a seaplane rating from Alaska highly encourage you to go do that maybe we'll do a video on that one time but here today I'm here to tell you about the transition that I went through taking all of that experience and applying it into owning operating the TBM 930 right over here okay here I am sitting in front of a 2016 TV M 930 and the the step that it took to get to this TBM 930 was immensely different than all of the experience and training that I had in every airplane that I owned and operated before this airplane this airplane is a quantum leap in terms of your ability your skill ability your pilot ability your systems knowledge and your ability to operate the airplane and of all the things you have to learn I can boil it down to three or four key areas one is you have to understand appreciate and be able to control the power that this beast provides with this pt6a 66d engine that is continuous II continue continuous rated at 850 shaft horsepower and that is a big piece that you have to respect the next piece is understanding the systems there are a variety of systems on this airplane that you don't have in other piston engine airplanes we'll talk about that also there's also some training considerations and there's also some caustics considerations so let's jump right into talking about what the power that this airplane exhibits and how you have to deal with it one of the things that surprised me the most about this airplane I knew it was fast I didn't know how fast it was until I was in the left having to control the airplane it flies in a speed envelope that can carry you along at cruise speeds of 310 320 knots indicated but still land coming over the fence with a V ref of about 85 knots and that is a big difference and that's something to get used to there's also a respect that you have to have for the takeoff power of this airplane and we've all been taught that the right foot to counteract the the torque of the engine of the propeller is necessary in every airplane and that's true it's Super Cub needs it so does the 182 but in this airplane you better wear a big shoe because you're gonna need all that right foot can give you as you depart it's particularly more difficult when you're doing a go around it at a low airspeed and trying to climb out of it that's a flight maneuver that can be dangerous in any airplane but in this airplane you have to respect it because it has so much power the other thing that it provides is that we're used to hearing that you have to be out in front of the airplane well when you're flying along at 140 knots being out in front of the airplane is maybe being five miles in front of the airplane in this airplane you need to be 30 to 40 miles out in front of it and on a long cross-country where you're up really high you're planning a hundred miles out in front and you're planning your descent you know 30 minutes before you're going to start down there are a lot of those things that you have to learn but that's the fun of the airplane is that you're flying in the flight levels at flight level 3 1 0 may be 28,000 feet which this airplane loves to 8'o and you're you're up there with the big boys and pressurized comfort it's quiet but it is extremely fast and powerful and you have to respect it and learn how to fly it ok the next area I want to talk to you about briefly are the systems that come with this airplane that are not in those other planes we talked about and the first one I'd like to talk about is the inertial separator and as you can see in the cowl scoop here in the front of the airplane it is designed to intake massive amounts of air to feed this engine and it's a reverse flow engine but if a bird flies into that there's got to be a way to prevent that bird from entering the the airplane airplane engine you don't want them in the airplane it makes all the way to the airplane you got other problems but if it makes it into this cowling the inertial separator is a door inside that can be activated from the control panel that allows that foreign object debris when it goes through the cowling to exit the bottom of the airplane it saves the airplane from ingesting any Fahd birds other things and you operate it during departure on certain environments always on the ground and always during landing and that's a new system you'll have to get used to another new system you'll have to get used to is pressurization and that comes from a new system called bleed air and bleed air is taking the heat off the engine and using it for environmental systems and also the pressurization in the airplane at flight level 3 1 0 and the TBM your cabin altitude will be about 9600 feet sometimes 9,800 feet at 6.2 PSI differential but at flight level two eight zero the cabin altitude may be only 80 300 feet but at any of those altitudes you need to understand how the pressurization works and in the event of an emergency you have to know how to work the oxygen masks for the crew and also for the passengers and understand how those work there's other systems to learn but those are two really really big ones that are new if you're moving into the turboprop world another system that's new that in the TBM 930 it has AG a garmin g3 thousand flight deck and many of you may have experience with Garmin products the 5:30 to 4:30 the g1000 this G 3000 is a flight deck that is being put into some of the entry-level jets some of the citations and other airplanes are getting the G 3000 I chose to learn the fly the G 3000 because it was another step up in the learning curve and I really wanted to have the most advanced avionics if I'm flying an airplane that's this fast but that's another piece that you have to learn and I'll talk about that in training in just a minute but those are some of the things you're going to have to encounter and they're going to be new to you if you're moving up from a single-engine airplane into it okay let's talk about training and like many of you I really enjoy training some people don't like training they like to stay you know just do the minimum but if you're going to move into a high performance airplane like this it's a much more serious decision and so the training that that I got with this airplane when I bought it new came with a sim come and included it started with eight days in Orlando flying there down motion sim ground school and also flight time in the afternoon in the evenings so by the time I got done it was a very intense serious high quality learning experience that was a lot of fun and when I got done and was checked out I had twenty five hours in the airplane and I had 12 hours in the simulator plus all the ground school time and passing the tests and all that there's no check ride other than the last day they throw every possible problem at you at the same time but it's a much more organized and calculated training approach to taking to you taking the skills that you have built in your career and applying it to this this airplane platform another part of the training and this comes from the insurance company but it's not the reason to do it but it's the annual recurrent training every 12 months I go back to Orlando into the simulator and fly for three days in the sim and then take another day on the other end to fly with an instructor and we go do approaches and a lot of fun things but then about every three to six months as a member of the TBM owners association they have a different flight safety events where we can hire an instructor and go do some recurrent recurrent training and the idea is to be having instructional training in this airplane two to three four times a year to stay sharp in the airplane and it's really a lot of fun when you have an instructor show up and it's the with the weather is down to 400 overcast with about two and a half miles of visibility stable air and they just can't wait to go flying and it forces you to go do it and when you get done with that you realize how capable this airplane is and how much more polish you are as a professional pilot that's well trained in a airplane that is really really a top at the top of the game in the world of single-engine turbo props so the last consideration I want to mention to you are the costs associated with owning one of these airplanes and yes it's more expensive the higher you go the faster you go it's exponentially more expensive so I remember when I went from my first airplane a piper arrow 180 arrow it cost me I don't know how much to operate but it seemed pretty expensive at the time and then when I went to a bonanza it got even more expensive then I went to a cirrus and it was more expensive then the Baron was more expensive but nothing like this guy the TBM will burn in crews anywhere between 55 and 60 gallons an hour on the ground when it's just an idle it's burning 30 to 35 an hour the insurance premiums are very very high putting them in a nice hangar like this as expensive and and and recurrent training is expensive so this is not the type of airplane to buy if you're looking for a budget weekend $100 hamburger type trip but for the reward it gives you to fly something like this at the flight levels and be in the system being in some weather just makes all the flying that I did in the single-engine Pistons all those years that much more rewarding and last thing I'll leave you with this that the funnest rating that I ever received was in Alaska flying a float plane a piper Super Cub on floats and it took all the experience I had and put it on floats in a lake up in Alaska is absolutely the funnest rating you'll ever have it's not like flying a TBM but it's part of the training it's part of you know being an ambassador to your own your own hobby and your own professional desire to fly the best you can I guess the real point is that not all training and flying needs to be expensive to be fun and that's why the seaplane rating was absolutely the most fun I've ever had in an airplane I got to tell you it was fantastic and it wasn't all that expensive and it was a heck of a lot of fun find the TVM was a lot of fun but there are there are balances to everything and I think if you can find the things that are inexpensive but they're fun but still be committed to training and getting better as a pilot I think you'll find a lot of satisfying hours in your logbook you'll look back on and be very glad that you did and you know what's more fun than talking about flying the TBM 930 is flying the TBM 930 so we appreciate you being with us today we're gonna pull the airplane out of the hangar and go fly the TBM 9:30 look for us in the next video we'll be able to post some of that footage I think it'll be right up here someplace all right up in here okay good luck happy flying and we'll see you next time it's gonna be so bad I'm already sweating golly I don't know how you do it

Channel: Airplane Academy

Views: 134,153

Rating: 4.8986211 out of 5

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Id: DDXtJ1zF78s

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/upchuckair]

I recently got to make a few TBM930 videos, and this one covers what it's like transitioning from piston aircraft to the world of turboprops, along with footage flying the TBM 930. As much fun as that was, I believe there's still a lot that is magical about flying a super cub or a 182. But fun to get the turbine experience and see what that side of things is like. I hope it helps in some way!

[u/flying_fark]

50 gallons and hour? That a pretty expensive ride.