Threads here do tend to wander a bit and folks chime in with experiences, comparisons, and tangents that aren’t always directly on the original question. It’s not meant to be critical, just the nature of Beechtalk. I don’t think anyone was attacking you. I’ve enjoyed reading the responses so far from other current and former P210 owners.

Fly a piston single into ice on purpose?

Uh, yea...no.

You should demand a refund for what you paid to get these comments.

Staying with the FIKI theme here instead commenting on whether or not a 210 can fly in ice.

To my knowledge, the FIKI 210’s all had small vacuum pumps to run the boots. I am not too sure they were always up to the task. This would be a real concern of mine if I found myself in bad icing.

To those worked up about flying in ice and FIKI. I can’t ever say I have been worried about known ice. If I know what type and quantity of ice it is really easy to make a good preflight or inflight decision.

Every bad instance of icing I have had was not known. I have run into some horrific icing near Lake Superior and put out a pirep for severe icing. The regional jet 10 min behind me reported even worse icing than I experienced. At the time there was not even an Airmet. Within 30 minutes a sigmet for icing was issued.

Under these circumstances a FIKI 210 with boots would be >>>> than any plane without ice protection. One with TKS would be another level in performance and peace of mind

It's a feature, not a bug

Thomas,

If you see 212 TAS, you are actually faster than the SE.
The Allison looses some efficiency that high up, and its sweetspot is around FL170.
The faster Silver Eagles(enhanced mod) max out around 215 on a ISA cold day.

The 550 is an amazing upgrade.

Lets enjoy this discussion without the obvious self-righteous post starter.
He might have missed out on the basics of this forum.
Happy someone else can enjoy some hard learned experiences.

Always willing to help........

FWIW, not withstanding the obvious duration limitation, TKS works very well.

Yes, the Vitatoe TN550 really makes the P210 into the airplane it should have been all along. Part of me wonders if Textron hasn’t noticed this. When the wing spar A.D. came out for the 210s and 177 Cardinals, Textron actually produced new carry-through spars which they didn’t have to do and arguably set themselves up for years of liability exposure that they otherwise would not have had.

If they ever did decide to bring the 210 back with a TN550, TKS, parachute and a few modern updates, it could be a direct competitor to the Cirrus and arguably better but that’s probably wishful thinking.

Going back to the original thread regarding ice protection, I agree that the whole idea of a single-engine piston in “known ice” is a bit wild (even in the Cirrus). Still, for light or moderate encounters, it’s a very useful capability. With modern flight planning and the performance of a Cirrus or TN550-equipped 210 I feel like it can be managed effectively. For those who have added the flint tip tanks, am I right that there’s no icing protection for those, even with TKS? How does the Silver Eagle address this?


Lastly i’ve heard people say the later R-model’s performance is pretty close to a TN550 conversion. Curious what others have seen there.

I’m kinda glad you asked. I enjoyed reading the responses.

Daniel, get a hold of the P210 maintenance manual. It lists the serial numbers and equipment required for a P210 to be FIKI with the boot system. The manual is available online. I am not home right now but have a copy on my home computer.

http://www.aeroelectric.com/Reference_D ... 8-2-13.pdf

In the Mooney FIKI, there is this limitation:

Do Not Exceed the Following Speeds:
SL - 11,000: 173 KIAS
Above 11,000 Decrease by 3 KIAS per 1000 ft

It is infrequently an issue on descent, though I've never had the system fail to keep up. It's possible that the cabin pressure on a P210 keeps enough head pressure on the reservoir/pump that this is not an issue, but I don't know if the reservoir is inside the pressure vessel.

The FIKI supplement is here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/2511059 ... ion-System

Corrosion has not been an issue except a couple of small spots aft of the tail panels under the paint. Mine was the 2nd to last produced before the 2010 shutdown, and the quality of the paint prep suggests bounced paychecks. Belly / tail / inside the wing corrosion never seen. My 231 had zero issues with corrosion under the paint.

A good rinse after running the system and liberal use of a spray bottle Corrosion-X inside the horizontal stab seems to keep everything corrosion-free.


-dan

Daniel, get a hold of the P210 maintenance manual. It lists the serial numbers and equipment required for a P210 to be FIKI with the boot system. The manual is available online. I am not home right now but have a copy on my home computer.

http://www.aeroelectric.com/Reference_D ... 8-2-13.pdf[/quote]

Thank you Jeff! This is the answer. I’ll try to find one for the T210 also and see if any of those were factory equipped.[/quote]

there were FIKI T210s as well, same equipment requirements as the P210. No idea as to what serial number ranges could be equipped this way and not many were produced with FIKI compared to P210s.

Daniel, I have the IPC for 1970 to 1980 210/T210. There is a placard listed "not recommended for FIKI above 14,500". I can only guess that all the FIKI equipped planes need this placard.

Does that apply to every possible FIKI plane, or just some in a certain serial number range for some other reason? I don't know. Hoping this may help, the placard is applicable to s/n 21061040 THRU 21062884.

the first version of deicing boots for 210s was a simple system that inflated all the boots at once. There wasn't enough air capacity from the one vacuum pump to inflate the boots above 14500ft. even though the boot coverage area was less than later systems. The second version of deicing boot setup put timers and valves in so the boots inflated in sequence, tail boots, then inner wing boots and finally outer wing boots. The boot coverage area was greater, and the boot inflation was more effective. This was a better system and had the capacity to inflate the boots better since each sequence used less air than all at once. The FIKI setup added the vertical stabilizer boot, fixed heated windshield and a larger capacity heated pitot tube. Dual vacuum pumps became available, although only one large pump was plumbed to the boots, the second smaller one was a backup for the instruments. The '83 and later models had the best setup, two large vacuum pumps, both plumbed to the boots and instruments like on a twin. Twice as much air supply and better boot inflation. The placard Tom referenced was for the first boot setup. It was not on the later versions or the FIKI aircraft.

Thanks Jeff. With that info in mind, does it make sense that s/n 21061040 was the start of the FIKI planes? As I suspected, some other factor removed the need for the placard.