Pilots no longer have to wait until 2000 to fly a turboprop-powered Piper Malibu. Customers with an aircraft and $589,000 to spare can now have the piston single converted to a Pratt &Whitney Canada PT6A-34 engine by JetProp. The Spokane, Washington-based company is owned by the same person who is converting Mooney singles to turboprop power at Rocket Engineering.
The US Federal Aviation Administration awarded a supplemental type certificate for Darwin Conrad's JetProp DLX conversion last month. The modification installs a 560kW (750shp) PT6A-34, a 2.1m-diameter Hartzell four-blade, fully feathering propeller, an extra 160 litres (43USgal) fuel capacity, an extra battery and electrical bus. Other associated changes have also been designed into the package.
At the same 1,950kg (4,300lb) maximum gross take-off weight as the basic aircraft, the JetProp Malibu can carry a payload of 734kg, up by 32kg. The Jet Prop flies up to 2,400km (1,300nm) at speeds of up to 270kt (500km/h) - 45kt faster than the published best speed for the 260kW piston-powered Malibu Mirage.
Take-off and landing distances are reduced by about half, but luggage capacity in the nose shrinks to below 14kg, from around 45kg. Conrad expects brisk business caused, in part, to interest stimulated by New Piper's launch of its own turboprop-powered Malibu derivative, the Meridian, which is due for certification in 2000.
Source: Flight International
