CESSNA’S TURBO STATIONAIR

turbocharging. Most of Central and Northern Cali- fornia is bordered on the east by the Sierra Nevada, a range of rocks that reach to nearly 15,000 feet. Once you clear the first line of tall terrain, you may still have the Rockies to surmount, almost as high and equally as rugged. If you’re departing toward Utah, Colorado or points farther east without a turbo, you’ll be forced to thread your way through moun- tain passes – not always a comfortable experience. The Victor Advantage Ohasi purchased his Stationair knowing the engine was approaching an overhaul. With 1,400 hours on the tach, the Turbo Stationair’s big Lycoming TIO-540- AJ1A was only 600 hours from TBO. The international consultant had made a careful study of Trade-A-Plane and discovered that engines forced-fed with compressed power tend not to make their published TBO. Ohasi considered every possible option for a major overhaul, from a standard rebuild to a factory remanu- factured power plant to a new engine direct from Ly- coming. In the process of researching the best shop for an overhaul, the consultant discovered there was one shop that performed major overhauls that actually en- hanced the value of the airplane over and above the increase associated with a zero hour engine.* That shop was Victor Aviation in Palo Alto, California. Ohasi contacted company president Victor Sloan and arranged to meet, tour the shop and investigate why Victor’s company, a Lycoming and Continental dealer, receives such a major price benefit. Ohasi spent a day with Victor examining the equipment and process nec- essary to transform a standard engine overhaul into a hardened, cryogenically superior powerplant. *“Aircraft Bluebook” credits the full cost of a major overhaul as an addition to used value rather than only the per-hour additive for the reduction in engine hours. “I was impressed with Victor’s shop and his huge investment in cryogenics,” says Ohasi. “It’s apparent that he’s willing to upgrade his shop facilities to keep his overhauls at the leading edge of technology. He took me through the entire process of cryogenic engine re- building, and when he was finished, I was convinced this was the only place for my overhaul.” The interna- tional consultant bought the top option, a Victor XR Black Edition VII. A standard, overhauled XR Black Edition VII engine from Victor Aviation. Victor Sloan has long been a proponent of expanding the technological envelope on precision engine rebuild- ing. He’s been in the engine overhaul and repair busi- ness since 1980, upgrading mostly Lycoming 540s and Continental 520s and 550s to the latest standards, im- proving reliability and advancing the state of the art. “A look at some of the list of Vic’s clientele provides some idea of the regard many pilots feel for Sloan and his elves,” Ohasi comments. “Victor’s overhauls have included work on aircraft belonging to some of avia- tion’s most knowledgeable pilots and engineers.” For example, the late Bob Hoover, a renowned air- show and test pilot, had two sets of engines on his Shrike Commander overhauled at Victor’s shop, simply because Hoover was convinced they were the most reli- able piston engines available. As Hoover put it, “In my business, I couldn’t afford anything less than the best.” Hoover was famous for his dramatic Shrike Com- mander routine that involved running the engines to full power, executing a Vne dive to near ground level; then, shutting both down, pulling up and dead-sticking the big corporate Commander through several aerobat- ic maneuvers; restarting the engines and immediately returning them to full power. The airshow pilot had never endorsed any product until flying behind Victor Engines, and after 15 years and 570 airshows of operating over 5,000 hours with Sloan’s overhauls, he was happy to say, “I’ve never had to cancel an airshow because of engine problems since starting to use Victor engines.” Former X-15 rocketplane test pilot, the late Scott Cross- field, first man to exceed both Mach 2.0 and Mach 3.0, also chose to overhaul the engine on his personal Cessna 210 using Victor’s engine overhaul process. Like Hoover, Crossfield had never before endorsed any aviation prod- uct, but he had no problem vouching for the reliability of a Victor Black Edition engine in his own aircraft. More recently, Kenneth Copeland Ministries had used Victor Sloan’s services when he dropped off his hard-working Beech E55 Baron. In fact, Victor Aviation has performed at least two-dozen overhauls on Cope- land’s variety of aircraft, ranging from several Cess- na 421s to Bonanzas and the aforementioned Baron. Victor had overhauled the engines on Copeland’s E55 Baron before, and Sloan was eager to see how those powerplants had fared. In many respects, Copeland’s Baron engines were ideal test cases, as the E55 was flown often, never abused and well maintained by Copeland’s mechan- ics. Sloan felt it was a great opportunity to flight and ground test a pair of engines that had been given the benefit of meticulous maintenance. Not surpris- Fully 80 percent of the Earth’s weather tops at or below 18,000 feet, so the T206 is easily capable of reaching clear skies with little concern for the terrain below. ingly, the engines were both in excellent condition. For the new, XR Black Edition VII overhauls, however, Victor in- corporated technology that had never before been applied to gen- eral aviation aircraft engines. Vic- tor Aviation has become one of the pioneers at incorporating cryogenic technology into aircraft engine re- building. Though the concept of cryogenics isn’t that tough to un- derstand, the execution is consid- erably more complex. Cryogenics isn’t a new process. It’s been around since before World War II, when scientists discovered that cold-soaking metals to ex- treme low temperatures improved their durability, hardened them and made them more resistant to wear. Trouble was, the prevailing pre-war technology wasn’t sophisticated enough to take advantage of the new process. Cryogens such as liq- uid helium or liquid nitrogen were required to lower the temperature to -250 degrees C (not far from abso- lute zero), and those materials were scarce or unavailable in the 1930s. A scientist named Ed Busch ex- perimented with metal tools and discovered cryogenic treatment hardened the materials dramati- cally. Busch originally investi- gated cryogenic tempering rather than heat treating. The result was tools with life expectancies 200- 400 percent greater than their previous endurance. Other researchers discovered cryogenics had several applica- tions in the manufacturing busi- ness. Parts for a variety of products could be made more durable and constructed with greater precision by removing the residual stress in machine parts. Victor began his research on cryogenics in conjunction with his engine overhaul business, often working with agencies such as Stanford University, UC Berke- ley, UC Davis, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Victor Sloan with his Black Edition engine at Smithsonian at Udvar-Hazy in Dulles Airport in D.C. Partially as a result of NASA’s interest in the Victor Cryogenic Black Edition, the prestigious Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. took notice of Victor Avia- tion’s forward-looking engine overhauls and asked Sloan to prepare an engine for display at its Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, adjacent to Dulles Airport. With or without Victor’s cryo- genic engine out front, a turbo Stationair may represent an un- usual choice for an entry-level airplane, but for Zentaro Ohasi and his wife, it may represent the ideal compromise: a spa- cious, comfortable machine with interior room to spare, a huge cargo area and the power to transport family and friends across horizons near and far. the on-camera host of the 1980s TV series “ ABC’s Wide World of Flying.” Bill is currently rated Commercial/Multi/ Instrument/Seaplane/Glider/Helicopter. He can be contacted via email at flybillcox@aol.com. Bill Cox took his first flight in a Piper J-3 Cub in 1953 and has logged some 15,000 hours in 311 different types of aircraft since. He has authored more than 2,200 magazine articles and was Longer life and improved reli- ability of metal parts were of great interest to organizations as diverse as NASCAR, NASA and Boeing Air- craft. NASCAR was well aware of the problems of parts breakage dur- ing auto racing and was interested in improving engine parts perfor- mance, not only on engines that were being pushed well beyond nor- mal limits but on suspension sys- tems that could fail at high speed and send a car out of control. Proper cryogenic treatment could actually save lives on the race track. Boeing was concerned about pro- tecting their aircraft against the extreme low temperatures of oper- ating at high altitude, especially in summer when the surface temper- ature might be 35 degrees C and the temp at FL370 might be -50 degrees C. NASA was interested in Victor’s cryogenic work in conjunction with the space program where the failure of a single part out of several mil- lion could cause the loss of a multi- billion dollar shuttle or rocket. For NASA, understanding the effects of vibration and shock on parts and materials in the cold, unforgiving realm of space is a vital concern. A little closer to Earth, most gen- eral aviation aircraft engines are expected to run for 2,000 hours or more without missing a beat. Zenta- ro Ohasi’s irregular diet of trips back and forth across the Sierra Nevada and Rockies only serve to reinforce his need for ultimate reliability. Ohasi reports that the new engine allows him to cruise 145-150 knots at middle heights below 10,000 feet and 160-165 knots at oxygen heights above that. A full service of fuel lets Ohasi overfly most of the Southwest in one sitting. Dirty stall occurs down around 54 knots, and that would let Ohasi use most unobstructed, 1,500-foot strips. So far, he hasn’t had the occasion. A major part of the Stationair’s attraction is its ability to lift a big load, comprised of whatever you can close the doors on. Ohasi’s Turbo 206 sports a standard use- ful load of 1,249 pounds, and that can include as much as 92 gallons of fuel, enough for five hours travel at medium economy settings. Since that’s about two hours longer than most people would want to sit in a general aviation airplane, download fuel to 60 gal- lons and you can still transport nearly 900 pounds of people and stuff and cover almost 500 nm in the three-hour flight. 2004 Cessna Turbo Stationair All specifications/performance figures are drawn from official sources, often the aircraft flight manual or the manufacturer’s we site (on new models). Another reliable source of information is Jane’s All-the-World’s Aircraft, especially on older aircraft. Speci- fications on used models will not always agree as several sources may differ on performance. Pricing source is “Aviation Week Aircraft Bluebook” (Fall 2017 edition). SPECIFICATIONS & PERFORMANCE New Price (2004): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $424,300 Current Used Price: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $260,500 Engine(s) - make/model: . . . . . . . . . . Lyc TIO-540-AJ1A HP: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 TBO (hrs): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 Fuel type: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100LL Landing gear type: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tri/Fxd Max TO weight (lbs): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,600 Empty weight (lbs): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,351 Useful load–std (lbs): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,249 Usable fuel–std (gal/lbs): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Payload–full std fuel (lbs): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697 Wingspan: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36.0 Overall length: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.3 Height: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Wing area (sq ft): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Wing loading (lbs/sq ft): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.7 Power loading (lbs/hp): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.6 Seating capacity: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Cabin doors: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/3 Cabin width (in): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Cabin height (in): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Cruise speed (kts–75%): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Cruise Fuel Burn (gph/lbs): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18/108 Best rate of climb, SL (fpm): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1160 Service Ceiling (ft): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27,000 Stall (Vso – kts): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 TO dist ft): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,060 TO over 50 ft (ft): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,740 Ldg dist (ft): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735 Ldg over 50 ft (ft): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,385 SPECIFICATIONS PERFORMANCE