Hang in there Flyingjack. I have little heavier and more powerful airplane experience but I think the low ground effect takeoff and power pitch approach works with heavy airplanes as well. I grew up building, with my Dad, golf courses for Press Maxwell. He was the AAF pilot who flew with Tito's colonel getting downed AAF crews out of Yugoslavia. He flew the B-24 into very unimproved strips and came out overloaded. Power pitch to get in and ground effect to get out made those missions possible.

contact

Contact; absolutely using ground effect. Learned about ground effect, thermals and ridge lift while student in 65HP Champ in Colorado.

Jack

Yes, the best in energy management training. Press flew B-24 on bomber missions and later B-25 on rescue missions with Tito's colonel. I got that wrong. Getting a little senile.

Yes, the best in energy management training. Press flew B-24 on bomber missions and later B-25 on rescue missions with Tito's colonel. I got that wrong. Getting a little senile.

I use to have a 1978 T210 that I took into the BC. I also own a 185. I was looking at the 210 because I was in Denver and felt I needed the turbo and was looking to go faster.

When I bought the 210, I also had narrowed my search to the 210 or the A36. Ultimately I decided the 210 because it had a better CG range.. With some evaluation of the A36s CG range I realized that it could easily get loaded too far aft and after playing around with some typical loads and the CG envelope for both aircraft, I decided the 210 was better for me. There is a reason they put the middle seats in backwards in the A36.
I also liked the high wing. Both for shade from the sun and for being able to look down at the ground.

I took my 210 into the Idaho & Utah back country and into a few BC strips in CO. My limits were 2500’ or so depending on terrain, elevation, temps, etc.. I could generally land shorter, but takeoffs became very uncomfortable on strips shorter than that. I did not have a stol kit on the 210. I did not operate near sea level really ever.. so I might feel comfortable in shorter strips at lower elevation.

The nose wheel was pretty much the limiting factor for rough strips and soft soil. It is a smaller tire and when you are light(Ie no ballast in the back) the nose wheel is hard to keep light even with the yoke buried in your lap.

Places that I felt comfortable going.. Moose creek 1U1, Johnson Creek 3U3, Upper Loon U72, Sulphuric Creek, Smiley Creek U87, La Garita Creek, Hidden Splendor and a few others. I have been to Stehekin 6S9 in the 185, and would have taken the 210 there, but never did.

At the end of the day, I sold the 210 because to get meaningful speed advantage you needed to be above 12,500 and I did not enjoy breathing bottled air. At 8000’ the 210 would true out at about 165knts and 17.5gph... my 185 will get 135 knts and 15.5gph.. in a 3 hour trip, it only saved me 35 min or so and that did not turn out to be worth the $ to me. And, I knew I would be back in AK flying floats, fat tires & ski’s, so the 185 was not going up for sale.

The 210 was more $ to operate.. retractable gear, mine had TKS deicing, o2 system, turbo charger, TSIO520 with a lower TBO, auto pilot, etc.. Every time I opened the cowl to change the oil, I would cringe thinking about the what it might cost if something deep in there were to break..


The things I loved.. no strut to look thru/around when looking down. The 210 cabin is wider than the 185(same as a 182 I think).. 89 gallons usable(wet wing).. super stable IFR platform, auto pilot, looking at the ground speed.. unfortunately when the gerund speed was high I could not see the ground very well..

It is a great plane, perhaps not as sexy on the ground as an A36, but it performed better than an A36 for my mission. If I were to move south again, I would seriously consider getting another 210.

Check out this AOPA comparison. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all ... -centurion

Hsivany wrote: At 8000’ the 210 would true out at about 165knts and 17.5gph

Did you type that right? That seems slow for the gas burned. My S35 with the NA 550 gets that speed at 21"/2500/13 GPH.

Yep. Gotta feed it gas to keep it cool with the turbo. The A36’s that I really wanted had a 550 with the TA turbo normalizer. I thought that would be the hot set-up.. No 210’s that I know of would keep up..

The IO550 is a screamer on its own.. I have been considering it for the next engine in the 185 and everyone I talk to says it ads 10knts to cruise easily.

These are the numbers from my 210 POH that I found to be accurate. You could run it harder and squeeze a few more knts out, but I tried to balance it out and get my engine to TBO.

T210M TAS
26" / 2400 / 70%
2k - 152k
4k - 156k
6k - 159k
8k - 162k
10k - 166k
12k - 169k
14k - 173k
16k - 176k - 15.0 GPH
18k - 179k
20k - 182k
22k - 184k

Last 15 yrs/1200 hrs, running LOP: 32"/2400 @ 14.5-15.2 gph= 165kts +/- at altitudes 10,000+. Engine has 1700 SMOH & 1300 STOH; compressions 69-75 and Blackstone oil reports indicate very good. We've been lucky; this T210 has been bullet proof since we bought/rebuilt in 1999.

Jack

I thought I'd give you guys a quick update. Now that I have a little over 40 hours in my new to me 1977 T210m.

I have generally been cruising in anywhere from 10 to 18,000 ft, with true air speeds hovering around 165 to 180 knots. That is reduced my flight times for the same 650 nautical mile trip from five and a half hours to three and a half hours.

It has a Robinson stole kit, to which I've added VG's. The VGs were necessary because the aileron authority with full flaps with the Robinson stole kit is pretty weak. That said, even without the VGs, I learned that an approach speed of 60 knots will always get me down and stopped and under a thousand feet. I can fly and approach at down to 50 knots, but then my margin for error is a lot less.

In a stock wing 210, this is not possible, and in an a36 this is not possible either. I think that Robinson makes this plane into something completely different, and if that was available for the a36, I would have definitely gone the a36 route.

I can routinely take off in under 600 ft, with a climb rate of around 500 ft per minute the second I leave the ground. That is with 20° flaps. Oddly enough the plane seems to go straight up like an elevator without much deck angle with that much flaps.

So I'm beginning to realize that I did make the right decision versus the a36 in terms of getting into short airstrips.

That said, if I ever want to have a plane they could get me through known ice etc I would probably have gone a completely different direction.

in terms of the 5th and 6th seats, I find that they are usable for smaller people, and although I'm not sure if I would choose this airplane if I routinely filled all six seats, the reality for most of us is that we fly with one person a lot to people sometimes and four or six occasionally.

But when you need those six seats, where are you going to rent a plane?

Who knows, if I stop flying into shorter back country strips, I may go for the a36, cuz I think the barn doors the build quality and the handling are all much better!

Glad you're happy with your choice, sounds like you got a good airplane! However, if you're saying that an A36 can't land in 1000ft, you are ohhhhh so poorly mistaken. I would recommend you keep believing that though since buyer's remorse is real.

SloRoam wrote:, and in an a36 this is not possible either.
!

Where can I get one of them Robinson kits?