Cessna 421C Ferry & Performance Review

[Music] trucky Tower information mik zero Z four ner Zulu wind trucky ground 2 421 Lima golf on the FBO ramp with information Mike for a VFR departure will be Southeast bound2 run the golf Tre win 2 and Z one2 Gest one7 324 uh do you want Runway two or what do you want two niner we'll take two for 421 Li go 421 Li golf thank you sir Runway 20 taxi V Alpha golf cross Runway 29er on golf alpha golf cross 29 on golf for 421 golf for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e okay we leveled off at 175 off of a off a trucky uh was going to go a little higher but the winds up higher don't really favor uh the most efficient uh trip here so I'm going to stay at 175 for now and I haven't done anything I'm going to I'm going to uh set this up now for Crews and I did uh let this KFC 200 autopilot uh capture altitude and it it worked perfectly I don't know if you could see it but we're right at 175 and it came up and made made a nice uh capture and this this KFC 200's working really good in this airplane so I got the uh engines at uh 30 in uh actually 32 and a half which is the top of the green and I'm going to bring them back to 31 that's just where I've was cruised at I always take my time doing this CU I like to get them right on the money there's 31 in and uh need just a little bit on the props they they're set up pretty nice but I'm just going to pull them back just to touch that's 1900 RPM now I'm going to turn the prop sync on and these prop syns in these airplanes can be see my power got off there a little bit then you got to really take your time setting up the power make sure it's exactly where you want it and that it stays okay so 19 31 19 and then um now I don't just flip the prop syn on I like to match them up the right props moving just a little bit faster I'm going to bring it back just a touch till I get that meter where I want it and I also do it by ear and then I'm going to flip the prop sync on and you're probably going to see it wobble a little bit and then we'll just kind of fine-tune it once it's locked in there it is going through its little gation here and then I'm gonna just reset this just a little bit once that prop sync get locked on I feel like it does does a good job of holding it there we go I like that looks pretty good left engine need to touch okay you yeah the prop syn now is locked on we got 31 in 1900 RPM now we're going to go to the fuel flows and I'm going to bring them right back to about 20 gallons an hour again this is something that uh you can't really be in a hurry bring them back slow and I always take a cross reference on my uh cylinders as I bring these back and I did look in the book and I've you know always cross check I've flown all these a lot so I kind of know the power settings and the fuel flows but I always cross check the book and see what the advertised fuel flows are and make sure that's one way we look at these engines and make sure they're set up right make sure they're pretty close on the way up here they were real close and so uh I got this glare right in my face ever in a hurry to do this there's about 20 on the left comes the right F tun them pretty close 20 in my engine instruments all look pretty good my temps look good on the cylinders it sounds good that's another thing you know I I I like to listen to these engines too and they sound good so uh we're I'm going to see if I can look at this so we're indicating right at 160 knots indicated probably a little warmer than Isa and let's see if I can uh use my calculator here get a true air speed so we're at 175 and the altimeter is 3024 3.24 outside air temperature is0 C and we're doing one I call it 1507 that's 209 true according to this calculator drops have come up a little bit yeah and the cylinders are showing about 165 um on the temperature that's Celsius that's 330 which is fine with me everything is uh matched up nice engin sound good doing 200 almost 210 knots true speed at 175 and uh I don't I hopefully you can see on the video how matched up everything is another thing we look at is the throttles and the props and the mixtures you know it's very difficult to get these matched up perfectly I often wonder when these were brand new if these were all matched up perfectly and I I'm guessing they probably weren't but it's it's not uh it's not uncommon to see these way off this one's pretty tight you know and it' be very tough to get these matched up more than what they are through all ranges of of power settings but i' I'd say these are these are doing pretty good so um and then the uh let's look at the cabin so cruising at 175 I got 175 set that's about a 40 that's about a 5,000 foot cabin we got a 5,000 foot cabin and we're we're at uh Max uh ma almost Max diff me dial it down just a little bit so the pressurization is looking good and uh I've if I've said it once I've probably said it 10 times maybe 20 how much of a pleasure this airplane is to fly when it when you get them set up like this big roomy cockpit lots of room in the back a lot of utility and uh just a really really solid airplane for the money in my opinion um it it's it's a lot of airplane a lot of utility and this airplane has old avionics in it it's got a king HSI a king uh attitude indicator all analog gauges it's got a 530 uh it's got some digital fuel flow and some supplemental not primary uh engine electronic engine instruments the original analoges are in there upgraded transponder probably the original radar maybe an upgraded radar um and this KFC 200 autopilot um obviously I'm a huge fan of Garmin avionics and the all the upgrades but I'm not sure he can hold altitude any better than this so while you have all the upgrades you could ever hope for uh in in Garmin and you've seen 55 Romeo Lima before I always refer to that airplane because it has the you know the panel that's everybody wants but I mean I've been you know I've flown these this setup for a long time and it's pretty nice and as you can see this this autopilot is just right on the money now flying instrument approaches if you're flying a lot of instrument approaches a lot of IFR uh you know the the reliability of this autopilot you'd have to really understand it be prepared for it you know maybe not to work and a lot of limitations on instrument procedures U that it I mean I'm not in any way suggesting that it's anywhere close to being a Garmin 600 autopilot for this airplane but I mean for cruising like this it's doing a pretty good job but that's one that's one thing that adds a lot of value to these 421s is the capability upgrade them so you get a good low time airplane uh good Pedigree Good logs you know complete no no damage reasonable you know I'm not a I don't call replacing a uh Rudder or an elevator that got dinged up in a hang rash I don't call it damage history in fact uh I think that's a a real disservice we do as an industry to get uh beat up airplanes over just common uh a little Boo Boos that they get and then everybody wants to beat them up because because now it has damage history I don't I don't I don't believe that uh when things are replaced with new or even uh overhauled or reconditioned and there's no damage on it the airplane shouldn't suffer a devaluation for that and so I I don't uh I don't consider that kind of stuff damage history but you know there are some things you got to look at maybe that they are and uh that would devide the airplane but these 421s a good value in the in the market and uh like I said uh maybe I didn't say but I haven't really done a video in a 421 cruising I don't have any Wing cameras hooked up because I'm going you know trucky to Long Beach and I don't want to have a camera out there the whole time if you want to see some cool video from a wing camera you can go back and watch the other video I did on this airplane I did a local flight and I had a wing camera on and it it turned out pretty good I don't know what else to say I've said it all about these 421s and uh I don't want to I don't want to beat in the ground too hard if you have any questions about them or you uh you're considering buying one upgrading it operating it I can't uh I can't say enough good things about them okay wanted to go I didn't really touch on the book performance here so this particular airplane talking about weight and balance has a 2135 useful load and you figure it it carries more than 200 gallons of gas but just figure 200 gallons of gas we're burning 40 an hour right now so three 4 hours would be 160 so be 4 hours plus a VFR Reserve 200 gallons uh I don't know too many people want to spend that much time really in any air plane uh these are comfortable airplanes but 4 hours is a long time so but let's let's use that number so you got uh four hours I'm going against the headwind right now I'm doing 190 knots I was doing about 230 on the way up here so let's just use 200 knots as a average ground speed uh let's make it a 3our flight so that's 600 nautical miles in 3 hours on uh 120 gallons of gas you want an hour Reserve so you got 160 gallons of fuel 160 gallons of fuel based on U the calculator here 160 that's a let's just call it a th000 pounds of fuel that leaves you with uh 1135 use full load the 4 4 200 Pounders is 800 plus 300 lb of bags and three hours 600 nautical miles so those are the numbers okay performance book performance let's get over here performance Cruise performance so I'm I'm at uh 175 right at zero so we'll just use 20,000 ft 31 in 1900 RPM that's uh pretty close to should be minus five or at zero would be would be Isa so that's 65% power the way I have it set up 28 true is what they say I'm I'm I'm getting 209 but this is 20 and I'm at 175 so that that accounts for some of it and there's calling uh 231 pounds per hour see what that equates to and 231 pounds would be 40 gallons 39.55 two so it's right on the money on fuel flow per the book uh just to look at 15,000 it's the same fuel flow because it's the same power setting 230 231 and uh at they're calling it 210 at 15 no that's not right 208 so I mean it's pretty pretty tight on book performance what the way I have it set up extrapolated between uh Set uh 15 and 20 which are the altitudes in the book I'd say that's pretty good it's pretty pretty close on a performance adjusted for temperature and altitude it's it's like the book is right on the money and uh so there you have it uh this this particular airplane is is achieved book performance speed true air speed and fuel flow based on altitude and temperature and power settings it's pretty good that's pretty good for a airplane that's you know 40 plus years old okay it's getting dark I don't I think it's I'm gonna run out of daylight so I'm gonna end wrap this video up um again this is just to show like I've never shown a 421 uh on a cross country to Le golf's descending for 3,500 right um so I wanted to go through the performance I'm a big fan of 421s and uh it's nice to show actual performance you know true air speed if go up higher I probably should have said with with the 220 knots at at 23 or 24,000 feet is what the book says and we saw book speeds as you as I mentioned at 175 so I think it's reasonable to conclude that you would achieve book speeds at 25 as well anyway I just wanted to show how how these airplanes uh perform and I haven't touched anything except except the power and everything's pretty much locked in the way I have set it up so sometimes people say these are busy airplanes and they can be but they also can be pretty uh pretty easy to work with so hope you enjoyed the video again if you have any questions about 421s thinking about buying one doing some nice upgrades to them um I can uh help you with that just leave me a message on YouTube give me an email phone call happy to talk to you thanks for watching gears down three green 3311 I'll be star 30 clear land clear land 30 Southwest 3311 got the r onef two left clear land make sure to approach your fa for traffic land clear to land 2 six left we'll make short approach 421 Li go okay he GES a short approach now I can go to flaps full cuz I'm coming in on a tight my speed is right at Blue Line believe it or not worked out nice and man I have not hardly trimmed this airplane at all I turn the autopilot off that's the altitude warnings okay now I can start reducing my power as we come in a little high okay speed's perfect gears down three green flaps are in the land and Southwest is out of my way all right this worked out perfect and I'm bringing the power back now but that's okay because I got to bring it back to land but I never added power nice bright LED lights in this thing the power back all the way Tower say 5594 over Queens at 1,900 wasn't my smoothest Landing but I can bring the mixtures and props up and some people might argue that pumps coming off flaps are coming up 382 Dr coming off close traffic approved two left exit here intention