First time in a 182RG today

Morne

Morne

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Morne
Went and rented a 182RG for some complex instruction time. WOW!

I had the notion that this would be no big difference from my straight-legged 182. I was wrong. The 182RG is a totally different plane.

Even on take-off you could tell. The Lycoming feels like it has more torque, regardless of how similar the horsepower might be. Also, once you got to the end of the runway and retracted the gear it LEAPT upwards even faster in climbout.

I'm glad I did my high-perf in my straight-leg before trying to play with retracts. I would've been way behind the plane today if I had still been trying to figure out power settings, CS prop and cowl flaps.
 
yep, great airplane. might ask if the nose gear downlock pin SB has been complied with.
 
They're also a bit heavier feeling, even than the normal 182, in the nose when lightly loaded, during landings. Good birds.

Got a few hours in both the normally aspirated and turbo varieties. Turbo was as a non-logging right-seater though.

The really fun one is the turbo. You mentioned "more torque". That one will push ya back in the seat a little bit as you shove the throttle forward.

Have to fiddle with the throttle during takeoff though to not overboost since its a half throttle/half wastegate thing with one throttle control. Smooth pushup is good. Jockeying and shoving is bad. ;)

That became my job, in the right seat. Pilot Flying pushed up to close to max power then called out for takeoff power and I tweaked it on up to the limit for him.

Freed up his hands to stay on the controls and more importantly, his eyeballs outside.
 
only time i flew a turbo was from iowa city to ames. winds required the flight to be made at 4500. was intersting to watch our freshly overhauled 2 blade NA 182RG outrun the 3 blade turbo'd RG. of course the turbo wasn't doing much except subtracting from useful load in this case.
 
ROFL! Yeah... Not so useful down low. Up here the turbo is useful for even taking off in the summer. ;)
 
Morne said:
Went and rented a 182RG for some complex instruction time. WOW!

I had the notion that this would be no big difference from my straight-legged 182. I was wrong. The 182RG is a totally different plane.

Even on take-off you could tell. The Lycoming feels like it has more torque, regardless of how similar the horsepower might be. Also, once you got to the end of the runway and retracted the gear it LEAPT upwards even faster in climbout.

I'm glad I did my high-perf in my straight-leg before trying to play with retracts. I would've been way behind the plane today if I had still been trying to figure out power settings, CS prop and cowl flaps.
Click to expand...

That 182RG, more properly known (and certified as) the R182, is a real pussycat. Get a load of Vso: 37 knots. It will float forever if you approach at more than 65 and don't get the speed off before getting into ground effect. In a steep turn, it takes very little back pressure to hold the nose up. Cessna got the handling very right with this airplane. And yes, that 230-hp Lyc does have more torque than the 230-hp Continental; it has to, to generate that horsepower at 2400 RPM instead of 2750.

But it has its weaknesses. The bulkheads behind the baggage compartment are prone to cracking, particularly where they're cut away to pass cable bundles. The whole airframe around the cabin doors flexes in flight and places heavy loads on the door hinges, cracking them. They're not cheap, those hinges. And getting at the carb or just about anything else on the engine is a real pain; things are jammed in there pretty tight. And it has the Bendix/TCM dual mag that isn't made anymore, and parts aren't made either. The Lycoming crankshaft AD fiasco involved a lot of those 540 cranks. A recent SB on the main gear pivots demands a check for cracks in the spline stub radius; I have seen that, and a new pivot casting is $15,000.00. Ouch. A symptom of that is a spongy or flat brake pedal, or red 5606 fluid dripping out of the belly. And the main gear actuator castings are also prone to cracking and those are over $8000 each. A new carburetor is $8800.

In short, it's a really nice airplane but there are some expensive pitfalls. A good prebuy is in order for anyone considering it.

Dan
 
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I love the 182RG that I currently rent- a really nice flying airplane. The only problem now: I don't want to go back to 172's for my IR and in a straight leg 182 of the same vintage I'll miss the speed. :)


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tonycondon said:
nose gear downlock pin SB
Click to expand...

AKA "Tony's Law" :rofl:

I was also surprised at the differences between the 182RG and the straight-leg 182. I got my commercial in the 182RG after a few hundred hours in the straight-legged one, and a couple of things I noticed in particular:

1) I couldn't land it at all at first - Then I realized the cowl is longer on the 182RG (more stuff from underneath the engine had to be mounted in front/behind to make room for the nose gear, maybe a longer engine too), so the "perfect" sight picture from the straight-leg doesn't work.

2) It's much easier to over-brake and make the RG skid when attempting a short-field landing due to the relatively tiny diameter of the main tires on the RG.

3) Do NOT have your head down by the floor when the master first gets flipped on after the plane sits for a couple days. The hydraulic pump will scare the crap out of you. Er, so I hear. :redface:

Really, though, once you get it up in the air it flies pretty much like the regular 182, and it pretty much has all the advantages of the 182 plus some extra speed. Really an excellent airplane. :yes:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
2) It's much easier to over-brake and make the RG skid when attempting a short-field landing due to the relatively tiny diameter of the main tires on the RG.

3) Do NOT have your head down by the floor when the master first gets flipped on after the plane sits for a couple days. The hydraulic pump will scare the crap out of you. Er, so I hear. :redface:
Click to expand...
That's a couple of other things to watch:

Those 15 x 6.00-6 tires are smaller than the typical 6.00-6 so they'll fit in the wheel wells. Their small diameter and the massive brakes on the R182 will skid those tires really easily if you don't get the airplane slowed right down before touchdown, which that nice wing doesn't want to let you do. It's full of lift even after touchdown, leaving little traction, and so the tires suffer and they aren't cheap to replace. A good series of stalls with and without flaps will teach you just how slow it will fly so that you can make intelligent approaches and touchdowns and not leave so much expensive rubber on the runway.

The nose stays up real easy in the rollout, especially with aft CG, and the oleo on this model tends to get sticky. The squat switch is in the nosegear scissors and it will be closed unless the nose oleo is squashed a bit. That can bite the careless pilot who reaches for the wrong lever after landing (gear instead of flaps) and that nose will crash down on the runway instantly. Very many AMUs there. I used to deliberately plunk the nose down after touchdown to make the sure the switch opened. I have seen the airplane come to a full stop with the oleo still fully extended if the airplane is loaded. It has to do with the old-technology O-rings in the oleo: Buna-N AN O-rings, which was the material of choice when the AN series of hydraulic o-rings was developed. It takes a set under the constant pressure of the gas in the oleo and starts to act as a brake on the strut barrel. New O-rings fix the problem for a few weeks but it returns.

There are space-age materials available (have been for decades) that far outperform Buna-N but the certification costs, even for an STC, are ridiculous. The same reasons give us felt seals in the wheel bearings: 1920s-1950s technology.

Dan
 
Dan Thomas said:
Those 15 x 6.00-6 tires are smaller than the typical 6.00-6 so they'll fit in the wheel wells. Their small diameter and the massive brakes on the R182 will skid those tires really easily if you don't get the airplane slowed right down before touchdown, which that nice wing doesn't want to let you do. It's full of lift even after touchdown, leaving little traction, and so the tires suffer and they aren't cheap to replace.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I learned this doing some short field practice. Is this an issue with the R182 in particular or do many retracts share this with the tinier wheels?



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tonycondon said:
only time i flew a turbo was from iowa city to ames. winds required the flight to be made at 4500. was intersting to watch our freshly overhauled 2 blade NA 182RG outrun the 3 blade turbo'd RG. of course the turbo wasn't doing much except subtracting from useful load in this case.
Click to expand...

That's where turbo-normalized aircraft have a disadvantage. But if you can get the altitude... :)

denverpilot said:
ROFL! Yeah... Not so useful down low. Up here the turbo is useful for even taking off in the summer. ;)
Click to expand...

That part is nice. When I brought the Aztec out one summer, it was about 25" for takeoff power and 8000 ft DA. Similar DA, brought the Chieftain, got 50". Life is good. :)
 
Another point to note about the 182RG feeling different than the 182:

I've noticed that a number of different aircraft that are quite similar can end up feeling a decent bit different. For example, I've been known to fly three different PA31s: a PA-31-310, PA-31-350 (Chieftain, with the 24" longer cabin), and PA-31T-620 (Cheyenne II). Despite being the same aircraft by and large, there are some differences in the feel.
 
jjflys said:
Unfortunately I learned this doing some short field practice. Is this an issue with the R182 in particular or do many retracts share this with the tinier wheels?



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Click to expand...

I think the R182 suffers with this because of its low stall speed, primarily, and those large brakes that are needed to hold the airplane against a full-throttle runup. Lots of thrust there. The low stall allows really short landings but the pilot must take advantage of that slow-speed capability; he can't approach at the speeds that other similar singles approach at and he has to do a proper round-out above ground effect and get rid of what speed he has before arriving at the surface. Flying the thing on at 50 Kts is just going to eat tires.

Dan
 
I really like the 182RG. It's probably the 'smallest' plane that doesn't feel cramped to me. I like the handling characteristics of the RG better than the straight-leg, too.

I like the fact that you can put full flaps out and be pointed nose down enough that your weight goes onto your shoulder harness. Makes clearing those trees on short final a breeze.
 
I had to fly to Las Vegas to ferry a R182 back to SNA when the owner locked the right brake ON TAKE OFF causing a blow out.

Subtle trick to eliminate chasing pitch when exercising gear and flaps. I'd keep the speed up a bit, select gear up and milk the flaps up and the deck angle stayed the same.

My instrument instructor, Rod Machado, was the mentor that taught me to look for subtleties like that! Good man! Great Instructor!

Marc Bourget

Onward and upward
 
Finished up my complex endorsement today in the 182RG!

On my first takeoff I felt something fall off of the panel, hit my leg and then roll onto the cabin floor. No, I didn't lean down to pick it up, I was rather busy at the moment (was less than 100' AGL). Turned out to be one of the little instrument lights.

Only other interesting thing that happened today was I got to abort a takeoff. We'd been to two other airports in the area already and had come back to the home field. Did a full stop landing and taxiied back to take-off again. As I advanced the throttle something sounded "wrong" and the engine didn't quite respond right. So I quickly closed the throttle and stopped the bird. Taxiied back to the runup pad and put her through the paces again per my instructor's guidance and all was well. Shrugged and carried on.
 
jjflys said:
Unfortunately I learned this doing some short field practice. Is this an issue with the R182 in particular or do many retracts share this with the tinier wheels?
Click to expand...

I think it's mostly the Cessna retracts that use tiny wheels, as they fit into holes on the lower corners of the fuselage on some models rather than having doors that close after them. Also, most low-wing retracts simply fold right into the wing, where the designers can simply carve a reasonably-sized hole for the wheels to fit into flat rather than going into the wells at a funny angle like the Cessnas do.
 
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