Waypoints

A worst nightmare. That's probably how the Twin Commander demo pilot would describe a recent flight with Editor-at-Large Tom Horne and me.

Aircraft are complex pieces of equipment, and sometimes things break. We understand that. But when it's a "media flight" and things go wrong, the anxiety factor on the part of the sales staff seems to go up tenfold.

Now who among us would pass up the opportunity to log twin turboprop time? No one on the Pilot staff, that's for sure. So when a representative from Twin Commander Aircraft called a few days before the start of AOPA Expo '96 in San Jose and asked if anyone wanted to fly a newly refurbished Grand Renaissance Twin Commander from Toledo, Ohio, to San Jose, you can believe that the answer heard throughout the Publications Division was a resounding "Me!" Exercising one of the few privileges of rank available to me, I put myself at the top of the list and soon caved in to Horne's assertions that he really should come along to determine what was so "grand" about the new Twin Commander program. He has written about the company's Renaissance Commander refurbishment program before. The Grand variant takes the Renaissance program a step further.

So, two days before Expo starts, we pile into a Beech Bonanza and head westward to Toledo Express Airport, home of National Flight Services, one of 27 Twin Commander Service Centers in the United States.

Our ride, N331RC, started life in 1973 as a Twin Commander 690A. National Flight bought it in May 1995 and set about turning it into the company's first Grand Renaissance project.

The refurb programs have been developed by the current type certificate owner, Twin Commander Aircraft Corporation. TCAC purchased the type certificates for all of the twin Commander products from Gulfstream Aerospace in 1989. Under the direction of TCAC General Manager James Matheson, the company has seen the turboprop line through some difficult times as serious AD after serious AD cropped up. But the company has come up with creative solutions to the problems, slashed parts and support prices, and negotiated deals with everyone from engine manufacturer AlliedSignal to the company that makes the landing gear bungee cords. As a result, the once orphaned products have been given new life; formerly plummeting airframe values have recovered and are, in fact, rising.

It's a nice thing to see, because these are truly remarkable flying machines, particularly when you apply the sort of radome-to-tailcone refurbishment that TCAC outlines in its Renaissance program. TCAC kicked off the Renaissance refurb plan in 1993. The refurbishment can be conducted only at selected TCAC service centers, but the process is overseen by representatives from headquarters to assure the highest standards are maintained.

When complete, a Renaissance Commander isn't new, but it's as close as you can get without forging a new aluminum spar. Virtually everything in and on the airframe and engines that moves — or has any sort of service life — is removed, inspected, overhauled or replaced, and brought up to the latest specifications. New paint is applied, a new interior installed, and the avionics upgraded to the customer's wishes.

The Grand Renaissance program goes even further. With it, some of the optional items on the Renaissance list, such as replacement of all windows, are mandatory. Life-limited items must also be replaced or overhauled. For example, the props must be overhauled at the time of the refurbishment, even if they have thousands of hours left before the assigned TBO.

A key component of the Grand Renaissance program, and one available on an ad hoc basis, as well, is an engine upgrade. Those aircraft equipped with Garrett TPE-331-5 engines can be upgraded to fly with TPE-331-10T engines. The -5 engines produce 717.5 shaft horsepower, compared to the 1,000 horsepower therodynamic rating of the -10 variant. The result is an increase in high-speed cruise of as much as 33 knots and, through the magic of new engine design, a lower fuel burn at the same time.

The refurbishment programs will set the Twin Commander owner back several hundred thousand dollars, depending on the amount of work needed for the particular airframe. However, the resale value will at least partially reflect the investment. In addition, owners will probably see their maintenance bills plummet. In effect, the refurb program compresses years' worth of maintenance into a single event, allowing the owner to fly a mostly trouble-free airplane.

With all of this in mind, Horne and I ready for our sojourn from Toledo to San Jose in N331RC. Also on board are Jeff Cousins, general manager of Byerly Aviation; and Terry L. Wagner, research, development, and special project manager for National Flight. Byerly Aviation in Peoria, Illinois, is another Twin Commander Service Center and the company that completed the paint and interior on N331RC.

Horne settles into the left seat for the first leg, planned for Toledo to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Cousins accepts copilot duties. Wagner and I take the plush executive bench seat in the cabin, where we can watch through the Twin Commander's signature picture windows as the Great Plains flash by. With climb rates at times greater than 3,000 fpm, FL240 arrives quickly. There, the big Garretts dig into fierce headwinds of as much as 65 knots. Despite the hindrance, we tool along at about 240 knots groundspeed, 300 KTAS. Playing up the executive part, Wagner and I whine about its being too cold in the back. Cousins turns a knob to bring on the heat. Minutes later we're still cold and getting colder.

It soon becomes obvious that the engines are keeping all the heat to themselves. Wagner, an expert Twin Commander mechanic with decades of experience, begins troubleshooting and soon concludes that a valve aft of the tail baggage compartment is stuck closed, causing all the warm bleed air to vent overboard and allowing only ambient air inside. At this point, the ambient temperature is a frosty minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

Soon, Horne's feet become numb (we later learn that the fresh air vent at his feet is open) and he moves to the cabin where we both take off our shoes and — being a bit overly pretentious, perhaps — place our feet against those big windows on the sunny side of the airplane. This is a temporary solution, though, because soon the sun goes behind an overcast and the cabin temperature continues to fall. Wagner and Cousins huddle in the cockpit to consider the options, undoubtedly wishing they'd never heard of the two of us. It becomes obvious that the airplane will make it just fine to Cheyenne, but its occupants will by then have taken on the consistency of frozen fish sticks.

The decision is made to land at Lincoln, Nebraska, where Duncan Aviation, a former Twin Commander Service Center, may have the necessary parts. Thirty minutes later we emerge from the frigid cockpit into the seemingly balmy 70-degree temperatures on the Duncan ramp. Horne, Cousins, and I head inside for hot coffee while Wagner immediately empties the baggage compartment, pulls out a panel, and with the use of some of Duncan's tools, triumphantly returns with the suspect valve stubbornly stuck in the closed position.

In a demonstration of the parts support available for these airplanes, Duncan quickly locates a replacement valve elsewhere on the airport. Wagner climbs back into the baggage compartment to install the new part; three hours after touchdown, I climb into the left seat and we're airborne — destination Salt Lake City.

After refueling in Salt Lake City, we launch into the unrelenting headwinds and climb out over the Rockies for San Jose. We quickly settle in again at FL240 where the wind continues to wick away 65 knots of our groundspeed. The air is glassy smooth, though, and I hand fly over the mountains. We dim the cockpit lights and, as if on a rheostat of their own, the stars brighten. For more than an hour, we see nothing around except the starry heavens, occasionally punctuated by the streak of a falling star.

Soon the glow of lights from the San Francisco Bay area appears on the horizon and then we're in the descent. As a rookie Twin Commander pilot, I make no pretense about my abilities to land the airplane — at night — on Reid-Hillview Airport's narrow 3,100-foot runway. Cousins, however, deftly handles the task, and we easily make the turnoff at the end of Runway 31R.

For the thousands of AOPA members who swarm the static display later in the week, N331RC is just another big, plush airplane to ogle over. For me, though, it's a memorable logbook entry and 5.2 hours of twin turboprop time.