New DA42 VI Owner!

[tjmoody]

After getting my Commercial ME add-on earlier this year training in the Galvin DA42 TDI’s in Seattle, I decided to jump in and buy at DA 42 VI. I considered a new plane but I came across a 2018 that Lifestyle was selling. I took delivery of N62DL last week at SouthTec near Charlotte NC after they completed the prebuy. My Commercial ME instructor and I flew it back to Seattle this weekend

Overall impressions:
• I was pretty familiar with the TDI after getting my rating in one and obviously I was positive enough to go out and buy one. Hence my comments are more related to the VI vs the TDI
• I’ve owned a C172N (and still have a share in one) and a 1992 Mooney M20J which I sold just recently. If I hadn’t bought the DA42, I probably would have bought a Cirrus SR22. I think the Cirrus is a great plane but at the e of the day I went with two engines. I am sober about the need to keep proficient in OEI operations. I hope I will do this on a regular schedule
• The Austro engines start so much quicker, are smoother in flight and are noticeably quieter
• I guess my experience has made me skeptical of book performance numbers for GA planes. However the DA42 VI performance was easily at POH (or numbers posted on DAN) or better in all scenarios. This is refreshing. The plane doesn’t have inbuilt O2 but has a Mountain High add on. We didn’t get this set up prior to the cross country so the highest we went was 13,000 (for less than 30 min). I’m looking forward to seeing the performance at higher altitudes when I work out the O2
• The handling, particularly in roll, is a little heavier than I experienced in the TDIs. Not sure why this would be but both of us noticed this
• The G1000 NXi is such a nice step up from the G1000s of course. My Mooney had the GTN 750 and GFC500 which was a really nice set up. The G1000NXi + GF700 is different but very capable
• We hand flew the plane much of the cross country and found it to be very solid and easy to fly in IMC. I believe it is actually easier to hand fly in IMC than my previous two planes but I suspect the G1000 contributes to this

Dumb mistake
• After the first shutdown at KBRL, we noticed that the props on both engines were in a feathered position. After much discussion we realized I had not had the power levers all the way to idle at shutdown. I’ve shut down DA42s dozens of times and never made this mistake before. Hopefully now I’ll never make it again. After a lot of discussion about what do we do now, I managed to get in touch with an experienced Diamond mechanic. He said that if 3 people each grab a blade and turn them to them to the unfeathered position, they will click back into place. We did this and it was very easy. Only modest force was required and they clicked into the correct position and there was no subsequent problem

I used Savvy Prebuy on the process and was favorably impressed. I was especially interested to do this since I was buying a plane on the other side of the country. I would certainly use them again. For a modest price, I found it very helpful to have an expert on your side with no incentives related to the deal helping navigate the pre-buy steps and key decisions.

In case anyone is interested in the route back to Seattle from Charlotte .. almost 2000nm:
Saturday we departed about 11am ET after reviewing the books, setting up the G100 database, activating the XM account and waiting out some weather.
We flew KRUQ to KBRL (Burlington, IA) (610nm) and stopped for fuel and a quick lunch. The FBO had a crew car.
Then we flew to KPIR (Pierre, SD) (490nm) and stopped for the night. It was about 8pm by the time we arrived but there was still plenty of light.
We departed about 8:30am Sunday morning as big single cell was bearing down on the airport. We made it out fine and headed to KHLN (530nm) for lunch. After a quick turn we headed off for Seattle (440nm). We landed at KRNT flying the RNAV 34 about 2:45pm after navigating some classic PNW IMC generated by a big cold front coming through.

I can’t say enough good things about the service we received at these airports. The FBOs at KRUQ, KRBL, KPIR and KHLN were universally friendly and accommodating.

I also wanted to thank all the contributors to these forums. The content and advice has been been hugely helpful as I think about this big decision. I’m sure I’ll still rely on the wisdom of others here but hopefully I can contribute a bit more as well.

Trevor

[Chris]

Congratulations on your DA42-VI! It's great to hear we have another Austro DA42 up here in the Pacific Northwest. I've been flying the NG for six months (58 hours) and have found it to be a joy to fly. I haven't flown the TDI, but if the roll controls are heavier on the -VI, I'm guessing it's due to the Austro engines each being ~90 lbs heavier (combined with full fuel tanks for cross-country flying?).

Thanks for sharing your experience with Savvy and the cross-country flight. I'll be interested in hearing where you plan to go for scheduled maintenance on the Austros. The service network seems to be a bit thin up here. The last time I checked with Galvin, they didn't have any experience with them yet.

[CFIDave]

• After the first shutdown at KBRL, we noticed that the props on both engines were in a feathered position. After much discussion we realized I had not had the power levers all the way to idle at shutdown. I’ve shut down DA42s dozens of times and never made this mistake before. Hopefully now I’ll never make it again. After a lot of discussion about what do we do now, I managed to get in touch with an experienced Diamond mechanic. He said that if 3 people each grab a blade and turn them to them to the unfeathered position, they will click back into place. We did this and it was very easy. Only modest force was required and they clicked into the correct position and there was no subsequent problem

This is the first time I've heard of needing 3 people to twist blades before trying to restart engines. Perhaps some of the pilots who've landed at Lake County (Leadville, CO, KLXV, at nearly 10,000 feet) can comment on this. To prevent "combustion extinction" of diesel engines at high altitudes, the plane will idle at 20-30% power after landing at KLXV, so the engines will be running at more than 1800 RPM when shut down, causing the stopped blades to look like they've been feathered. But my understanding is that it's still possible to re-start the engines normally with the starter without having to twist the blades.

[tjmoody]

• After the first shutdown at KBRL, we noticed that the props on both engines were in a feathered position. After much discussion we realized I had not had the power levers all the way to idle at shutdown. I’ve shut down DA42s dozens of times and never made this mistake before. Hopefully now I’ll never make it again. After a lot of discussion about what do we do now, I managed to get in touch with an experienced Diamond mechanic. He said that if 3 people each grab a blade and turn them to them to the unfeathered position, they will click back into place. We did this and it was very easy. Only modest force was required and they clicked into the correct position and there was no subsequent problem

This is the first time I've heard of needing 3 people to twist blades before trying to restart engines. Perhaps some of the pilots who've landed at Lake County (Leadville, CO, KLXV, at nearly 10,000 feet) can comment on this. To prevent "combustion extinction" of diesel engines at high altitudes, the plane will idle at 20-30% power after landing at KLXV, so the engines will be running at more than 1800 RPM when shut down, causing the stopped blades to look like they've been feathered. But my understanding is that it's still possible to re-start the engines normally with the starter without having to twist the blades.

Dave - That's interesting. I had read about the high-altitude experience with the Austros but didn't make the connection to my feathered situation.

In soliciting advice on "what do we do now?", at least one opinion was it would be fine to start normally and the pressure accumulator should be able to get the blades unfeathered. The POH seems to support this. However given the input to manually turn the blades came from a very experienced Diamond technician we decided to try that as Plan A. A regular restart was plan B but we didn't need to try that.

[tjmoody]

Thanks for sharing your experience with Savvy and the cross-country flight. I'll be interested in hearing where you plan to go for scheduled maintenance on the Austros. The service network seems to be a bit thin up here. The last time I checked with Galvin, they didn't have any experience with them yet.

Hi Chris - SpanaFlight (KPLU) is going to be offering (or may already be offering) Austro service. I understand this is a new development. Also Galvin (KBFI) may be adding some Austro experience now. So hopefully this is good news for those of us in the PNW!

T

[TimS]

Congrats! Sounds like a neat jump in capability.

Tim