Tips on flying the Cessna 310 and 400 Series

[340drvr]

Here's another with some useful operating tips:

http://www.ramaircraft.com/Maintenance-Tips.htm

One good general operating tip I've heard, regarding power changes, is to treat every power change as if you're holding a raw egg(s) between your hand and the power levers (especially the throttles, but applies to props as well, maybe not so much with mixtures.), make your adjustments so as not to crush the "egg." It's probably not a bad idea to baby power changes in any engine, but a necessity for the big turbos, and absolutely required for the GTSIO's in the 421/404. That doesn't mean you can't bring power up swiftly and promptly in a go-around or missed approach, but you can strive to be as smooth and gentle as possible.

 

[svcta]

They're right: Be ginger with the power changes, all of them(MP, RPM, Mixture), it will pay off in spades re: cylinder life and nose cases(gear reductions) on the geared engines.

Most of my time is in 310. So that's all I'll talk about here:

Great platform. Fast, fairly efficient....it's an autopilot airplane to me, not one you'e love hand flying in weather for a period of time. If you're normally aspirated run a 310 around 10,000 feet if the winds are not prohibitive. you'll get 25 gallons/hr out of it and should see 180 Kts true all day long(varies from airframe to airframe, but close). The landing gearbox needs attention from time to time. If there's an irregular wear pattern on the gears it can lock up. This is generally a result of the uplocks not being properly adjusted. It's a pain in the arse but better than the alternative.

In flight use drag to slow you down, not a lot of pwer reductions. Lead a speed reduction(assuming you're setting up to land) with the landing lights. Depending on the model they'll shave off 5-10 kts and get you closer to flap speeds. Then as you get in the initial flap range just sort of sneak them out. If you go to the first 10 degrees(if memory serves) the thing will balloon like crazy. Beyond that it's fairly normal. Slow it down early!!! We used a 7:1 descent profile in order to keep the power up throughout the descents. That's a lot. 70 miles @ 10,000'; 35 miles @5000, 7 miles @ 1000' (AFE, of course). 7 miles to lose 1000' sounds like a lot, but if you're really careful with the powerplants it's right on the money. And if you're level at 7 miles you'll be working hard to get it slowed from cruise speed, so start easing off the speed before that, somewhere in your descent. This is where the flatter descent path will pay off. You'll be asking for lower a lot, but don't be afraid of that.

When you're single engine in a 310 DO NOt get hamfisted. In any airplane for that matter, but much more so that in most light twins here. Make smooth power changes and it will return the favor.


Approach speeds are high, well over 100kts. I seem to remember easing back to around 100 over the fence and just fly the airplane in to the flare. And keep power on throughout the approach and into the flare. It comes straight down without it. So flare with both hands. Yoke back power back to idle(gently, you hack).

I love 310s. I think that they are a great stepping stone for something much bigger becuase of the philosophy of operating it: Get down early, slow down early, carry power, etc. It just forces you to be way out ahead of the airplane and that's one of the hardest disciplines to teach.

Enjoy.

 

[time builder]

I love 310s. I think that they are a great stepping stone for something much bigger becuase of the philosophy of operating it: Get down early, slow down early, carry power, etc. It just forces you to be way out ahead of the airplane and that's one of the hardest disciplines to teach.

Enjoy.

I agree, the C310 was much more of a hand full than the Seneca, but much more rewarding. I felt it was a great prep for the BE99.

 

[PositionandHold]

wow some great advice here. I'm going to print this out.

Thanks so far, keep 'em coming

 

[RedGuy]

Don't forget to stage cool, both for the engines and the turbo's. I use 2 inches/ 2 minutes. So that means in the 402 coming out of cruise at 30 inches/ 2300rpm I want to be at 22 inches when I get to the pattern, so when the GPS says I'm 8 minutes out I start pulling out power. The 310 isn't as big of a deal since your only coming from 23 inches, I use 2 power reductions in the 310, one from 23 to 21.5, then after 2 minutes from 21.5 to 20. From there you can usually put in 15% flaps if your in level flight, then back to 18 inches, drop the gear, and about 16-17 inches down final. Also don't forget to cool those turbo's on the 402 I make sure I have at least 4 minutes at 1000 rpm with the cowl flaps open before shut down. Which is usually pretty easy since 1000rpm usually gives you about a 15-20kt taxi speed and unless you have a really short taxi, you eat up most of that 4 minutes taxing.

 

[JediNein]

4) With the tip-tanked types, if you walk up to the plane to check the fuel and find an aux tank overflowing and the main down a bit (assuming it was topped-off after the last flight), don;t necessarily jump on the line guys. You might have a fuel selector going bad. There are little o-rings in there that can fail and will let the fuel from the main (which sits above the aux) flow down back through the line and into the aux.

[/b]
Akso check the function of the fuel cutoff valves and crossover valves every so often. It sucks to try to shut down a engine that's on fire, but it won't as there's still fuel.

 

[CRXAV8R]

Thinks for the tips guys currently working on Comm/Multi in a C-310R.

 

[RedGuy]

Thinks for the tips guys currently working on Comm/Multi in a C-310R.

That must be alittle expensive.

 

[SPBRIAN]

In flight use drag to slow you down, not a lot of pwer reductions. Lead a speed reduction(assuming you're setting up to land) with the landing lights. Depending on the model they'll shave off 5-10 kts and get you closer to flap speeds. Then as you get in the initial flap range just sort of sneak them out. If you go to the first 10 degrees(if memory serves) the thing will balloon like crazy.

All of the information is great and good tips but this one I don't possibly agree from a wear and tear stance. It was mentioned that you can increase the longetivity of the landing light motor+gears, to only operate them within the flap speeds, thus decreasing the loads on them. Also if you run them out for every landing don't raise them back up until after takeoff, that way you save an entire cycle plus if you test them during pre-flights it saves another cycle there.

-Brian

 

[deadstick]

Landing Lights

Those lights are a pain!! Some engineer in Wichita must have been smokin' some funky wheat chaff when he came up with the wiring.

In the 414 (and I assume the 310 alhough it's not mentioned in the Fuel System section), the Shuttle Pump (aka Main Tank Transfer Pump), which comes on with the Master, is on the same CB as the landing light. SO, if the landing light motor gets overloaded, like if it's OLD and doesn't to turn off once extended/retracted or is extended at too high of an airspeed (although no published limitation), then the CB could blow and no more shuttle pump. Hope you always get a shallow let-down. At night, you can tell if a landing light isn't on and might check the CB. But duringthe day...we just had to add that to a mental checklist to always check the CB after they were extended or retracted.

Another thing, exercise the Alt Air controls regularly. When you need it is the wrong time to find out the cable is gummed-up with 20 years of oil and dirt.