Cessna Turbo 310 Riley Rocket

[O. Sami Saydjari]

Does anyone know anything about the "Riley Rocket" version of the Cessna
Turbo 310? I am getting claims of "260 KTAS at 20,000 feet burning only
24 gph total." Does that make sense? Seems a little too good to be
true. Does anyone have actual experience with a Riley Rocket that
matches this experience.

-Sami
N2057M Piper Turbo Arrow III

[Nathan Young]

On Thu, 26 May 2005 17:12:57 -0500, "O. Sami Saydjari"
> wrote:

>Does anyone know anything about the "Riley Rocket" version of the Cessna
>Turbo 310? I am getting claims of "260 KTAS at 20,000 feet burning only
>24 gph total." Does that make sense? Seems a little too good to be
>true. Does anyone have actual experience with a Riley Rocket that
>matches this experience.

The Riley turbo rocket uses twin (manual) turbos per engine to allow
near 100% power output at high altitudes. Considering these are 290hp
engines, there is no way 24gph total is going to cut it. Probably
more like 24gph per engine.

If you have a fuel totalizer in your Arrow, think about how much fuel
you burn on climbout, and then imagine operating the engine that way
at cruise.

The 260ktas claim is good though... Everyone who has one says it will
do 300mph (260kts), although the number 25,000 feet sticks in my head
not 20,000.

-Nathan

[Jim Burns]

> The Riley turbo rocket uses twin (manual) turbos per engine to allow
> near 100% power output at high altitudes. Considering these are 290hp
> engines, there is no way 24gph total is going to cut it. Probably
> more like 24gph per engine.
>
> If you have a fuel totalizer in your Arrow, think about how much fuel
> you burn on climbout, and then imagine operating the engine that way
> at cruise.

I'd agree that 24gph is too low. The R/R 310 has TIO540s.
The norm-asp'd IO540's on our Aztec burn 34gph total at 75% power at 4000
ft.
6000 ft is about as high as we can maintain 75% power and we're burning 27
gph.
In fact, I just finished 6.3 hours between 6000 and 8000 includeing 2
takeoffs, climbs, descents, and landings and that is exactly what the fuel
burn was, 27 gph.
Above 6000 ft. our fuel burn goes down, but of course so does our power.
10200ft we burn about 21gph.

The turbos are going to push your power up beyond 75% continually. So I'd
guess that fuel burns around 45gph would be expected if you fly with the
throttles to the wall.

Jim

[O. Sami Saydjari]

Thanks. Is there a Riley Rocket version for the T310R? -Sami

Nathan Young wrote:

> On Thu, 26 May 2005 17:12:57 -0500, "O. Sami Saydjari"
> > wrote:
>
>
>>Does anyone know anything about the "Riley Rocket" version of the Cessna
>>Turbo 310? I am getting claims of "260 KTAS at 20,000 feet burning only
>>24 gph total." Does that make sense? Seems a little too good to be
>>true. Does anyone have actual experience with a Riley Rocket that
>>matches this experience.
>
>
> The Riley turbo rocket uses twin (manual) turbos per engine to allow
> near 100% power output at high altitudes. Considering these are 290hp
> engines, there is no way 24gph total is going to cut it. Probably
> more like 24gph per engine.
>
> If you have a fuel totalizer in your Arrow, think about how much fuel
> you burn on climbout, and then imagine operating the engine that way
> at cruise.
>
> The 260ktas claim is good though... Everyone who has one says it will
> do 300mph (260kts), although the number 25,000 feet sticks in my head
> not 20,000.
>
> -Nathan
>

[Nathan Young]

On Fri, 27 May 2005 21:43:24 -0500, "O. Sami Saydjari"
> wrote:

>Thanks. Is there a Riley Rocket version for the T310R? -Sami
>

I don't know. The Riley Rockets I have seen for sale have always been
the 1960's models of the 310.

I doubt any conversions were made on the Turbo 310 models anyway.
Since an engine rip and convert to Lycoming is part of the Rocket
conversion, it wouldn't make sense to start with a more expensive
Turbo model.

I have seen a Riley Turbostream Conversion on a 310Q, but I don't know
what it entails, and how it performs.

-Nathan