New Plane

[Colin]

Terror and excitement.

My offer (and trade in of N971RD) was accepted on N510TS so in a few weeks I should be flying home a Twinstar (KRDU - KSMO). Any and all advice is welcome.

Do people cruise at 80%?

How do you tend to manage fuel on a long flight well below max. gross? Top all tanks, wait until there is space in the wings and pump from the aux tanks?

Does anyone have icing stories they would like to share? One of the reasons I bought it was to have FIKI but although I trained for my multi in DA42s, I have never flown into cold clouds in one. Yes, I read the manual and know the drill, but I don't actually know how you would handle or plan it in real life.

Is there anything you would suggest I get right away and stow in the plane? (I love some of the advice I have gotten from Dick Filbey which includes pulling the carpets from the nose compartment and Scotchguarding them. Then using a tupperware container for the fuel tester and some gloves, so the smell never gets in the carpets up there.)

Any advice for that route on Feb 22?

[Aart]

Great Colin!

The AFM 'recommends' cruising at 70% I personally use 75% which i find a good compromise between speed, consumption, noise and just a feeling of reaching max longevity.

Yes, go full fuel and pump as soon as there is space in the mains. So you'll know soon if case of any problem with an aux tank pump (although never had any issue, not have i heard of others having it).
As an aside, you'll see that there is a 'dead zone' on the gauges of the main tanks at around 17/18 gallons. So you pump in fuel from the aux tanks but nothing seems to happen for a while..

TKS: make sure you wet your wings before entering icing conditions. Also, prime the system at least once every 4 weeks.

No more advice for now other than to thorougly enjoy it!

[Antoine]

Hey Colin congratulations. Pirep us asap and enjoy the no-vibration world!

[Aart]

Forgot something, related to maintenance:
Many metal parts in the DA42 are susceptible to corrosion, especially in a corrosive environment, like in CA near the coast. Use ARDROX to protect exposed metal parts, so on the landing gear, wing and empennage linkages. This stuff really protects well. It's a copper coloured and a bit goo-ish until it dries. Don't spray it on, but use a small brush. It is the stuff that Diamond in Europe recommends and uses.

[CFIDave]

Colin:
Congrats on your DA42. A couple of tips:

1. You can transfer fuel from the Aux tanks to the mains anytime you have less than about 21 gallons in the mains. Transfer will stop automatically upon reaching 21 gal, and then (if you leave the xfer switches ON) automatically starts up again as needed to keep the mains "topped off" to about 21 gallons. I don't usually do this, since it causes a lot of ON/OFF cycling of the fuel transfer pumps. Instead, we usually wait until the mains are down to at least 17 gallons before transferring any fuel from the mains, then turn the switches OFF until we're ready to do it again later when more fuel has been burned off, again down to 17 gallons.

The longer you wait to transfer fuel to the mains, the faster you'll fly, since the aux tanks are located aft of the plane's CG (you might pick up a couple of knots). On the other hand, when flying across large expanses of water (e.g., Iceland to Greenland, or even across the warmer waters of the Caribbean where I am now), it's a good idea to transfer fuel sooner so that you still have enough fuel to divert or turn around if the transfer doesn't work. (And yes, our DA42-VI used to have a problem with this when new until we removed some check valves as part of a Diamond OAM.)

2. Officially you're supposed to turn on the TKS system to Normal *before* entering clouds (i.e., visible moisture) that are below freezing, especially cloud tops that are where most ice is located. But you'll waste a lot of expensive TKS fluid that way since the vast majority clouds below freezing don't contain ice.

If you do experience icing, immediately turn the system on to High, and most importantly, change altitudes (usually by climbing, since you've got nice turbocharged engines that produce power much better than a DA40 up high). Most icing layers are less than 4000 feet thick. It's so nice to pop out on top into the bright sunshine. If you start getting a lot of ice (i.e., the canopy ices up instantly as you enter cloud tops on descent, for example) then set the system to Max.

So even though the system is technically "anti-ice" rather than "de-ice," we've found that turning the system on as soon as we discover any icing has worked well enough for us. The most obvious places to look for ice build-up on the DA42 are the sharp edges of the big intercooler air intakes, and the tips of the prop spinners. (On our "dash six," the in-board wing vortex generators show ice buildup first.)

An exception to the above advice is if you know you're launching into probable icing conditions. Last Friday when we left the Washington, DC area on a flight to Florida we took off into a squall with snow and sleet, so we turned on the TKS system before takeoff, and we're glad we did. We got stuck in cloud-tops at 10,000 feet because Potomac Approach wouldn't immediately let us climb to our filed cruising altitude of 12,000 (in nice sunshine) -- since there was an airliner inbound to Washington Dulles at 11,000 that we picked up on our TAS system.

Enjoy your plane and have a great flight home.

[CFIDave]

As for your route from KRDU to SoCal, Colin I suspect you have more experience than any of us in crossing the continental US. How many of these trips have you made in your DA40?

The DA42 gives you additional options to fly above the mountains rather than thru passes; for example we flew all the way from VA to CA at 16,000 feet westbound, and 17,000 eastbound directly across the Rockies on O2. But in the winter (February), you're likely to experience headwinds up high that make that impractical for a westbound trip.

So I'd fly the usual routes that a DA40 would take, such as flying via Albuquerque or El Paso to cross the Rockies, probably sticking to MEAs on airways to minimize headwinds. Crossing the Appalachians in NC you might go a bit higher than MEAs if needed to avoid mountain waves.

[carym]

Colin,
Congrats! I don't know what version of a DA42 you bought, but I still have the 1.7's on mine and fly at 75% power. I really don't find that higher power settings are worth the extra fuel cost.

Although TKS is expensive, it is not as expensive as getting ice too soon and having problems. I would rather waste some TKS and not worry about ice than turn it on and find it is not clearing the ice soon enough. I have encountered ice that accumulated rapidly, flung off the props and put some cosmetic damage into the ice shields. Consequently, I will turn the TKS on before I enter the clouds if the outside temp is +2 or lower. I like to see that both wings are getting fluid on them. I will then turn the TKS off and wait to turn it back on if I see ice develop once in the clouds.

My technique for fuel transfer is to wait til the mains get down to about 12-14 gal. I then turn on the transfer pump and watch the amount of fuel in each tank. I like to see the fuel increase by 1-2 gal to make sure that the transfer tanks are working. I, too, had problems with fuel not transferring when I first got the plane because of air trapped in the lines and the lines required bleeding to relieve this problem. Diamond eventually fixed this with different check valves, and I have not had a problem in over 6 years, but I still don't trust it. Once the transfer automatically turns off (at 22 gal in the mains in my plane) I turn the transfer pumps off and don't turn them on again until I am down to the 12-14 gal range.

Hope this helps. Obviously, you see there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Cary

[Nigel]

Congratulations Colin! Does this mean you will be flying east in the summers more often?

[Doug]

Congrats Colin
For ice operation I will make sure the system is primed and ready to go and then use as needed.
Fuel management I will start transferring out of aux as soon as mains drop to 20 gal and repeat till empty.
For my 2.0L centurnion set up I often cruise at 82%, my thoughts are that I have never had engine problems but I will have to replace components by times so I get better value running higher power settings.

Enjoy!

[Paul]

Colin,

Congrats! In the Rockies in my Cirrus, I needed TKS on high with wings wet prior to going into sub freezing moisture in order to stay ahead of moderate icing until I could execute plan B. If I just had it on normal, I'd start to accumulate. Remember TKS is designed to prevent ice from accumulating, not get rid of it once it's on the wings. For every gallon of TKS I used in anger, I probably used 5 "just in case". In the Rockies, most every cloud will have ice and at DA42 altitudes, enough ice that you want wings wet before going into the cloud. Also, make sure you run the system at least once a month to keep everything from dying out.