Cessna Turbo Skylane
Now with synthetic vision and more, Cessna's legendary utility airplane is reborn as a high-tech marvel. It's a great fit.
By Robert Goyer
Photographed by mooreclark.com/Cessna
June 2009
What is there left to say about the Cessna Skylane? You'd think not much. After all, it's an airplane that's been in production (with one decade-long break in production from the mid-80s to the mid-90s) since 1956. During that time Cessna has built more than 20,000 Skylanes, making it one of the most popular models ever, and arguably the most popular nontraining model period.
It's easy to see why. Cessna, then and now, has always been about providing buyers with great value, that is, a lot of performance and capability for the money, with an emphasis on airplanes that don't weigh much and that can carry a good payload. The 182, or Skylane (as it's been called since its second year on the market), isn't the fastest four-seater in the sky, it's not the sleekest, the most modern looking or the most technologically advanced. What it was, and remains today, is a solid, safe, good handling, decent-sized load hauler with good range and enough speed to get the job done, whether that job is hauling a load from one side of a rural county to the other or flying four friends to a vacation resort three states away. It's an extremely versatile airplane.
But even though it goes by the same name, today's Skylane is far removed from those straight-tailed, bare metal machines of yore. Today's Skylane is sleeker, more solid, much more comfortable, rangier, faster, and far, far more technologically advanced than anything its originators could have dreamt of. After all, who would have guessed back when they first bolted a nose gear on a 180 and tacked on a couple more digits to come up with an airplane, the 182 would still be flying strong in 2009? But it is.
So, to get back to the question, what is there left to say about the Skylane? Lots. In fact, unless you've flown it lately, I'm betting that there are sides to this airplane you just haven't seen yet.
Pair of "T"s
The airplane I flew for this report is the T182T, with the latter T being its model designation and the former T standing for its turbocharging. The upgraded model was added to the current product line in 2000.
Experience says that when a factory-turbocharged version of a popular airplane gets introduced it nearly always outsells the nonturbocharged version. It happened with the previous production 182, and it is the case with the new production Skylane; the turbo version outsells the nonturbo one by a good margin.
There are some sensible reasons for that.
First, you get a lot for the money. You could add all the elements of a turbocharged Skylane -- the turbocharger, the built-in oxygen system and the heated prop -- to a nonturbocharged model, but it would cost you more than Cessna charges for those upgrades (about $35,000) and you would miss out on some nice features of those systems you can't get on the aftermarket. And even if you live in the flatlands, when you go to sell your airplane, there's more of a market for the turbo version, as even Rockies dwellers will be interested in taking a look.
The airplane is faster, too, though it won't make you think you've somehow ended up in a high-wing version of Cessna's recently named Corvalis (née Columbia). The turbocharger gives you better takeoff, climb and hot and high performance, and it can maintain its mojo up to 20,000 feet, where it can make some really nice true airspeeds (up into the 170s) while stretching out the range.
The engine that powers the T182T is the Lycoming TSIO-540-AK1A, a factory turbocharged 235 engine that features an automatic wastegate and improved turbocharger cooling. The engine seems very smooth and quiet, but maybe that's because I've spent so much time in older Skylanes, where the soundproofing was very minimal.
What's New
The question "What's new?" in regards to the Cessna Skylane is best answered with another question: "Since when?"
The latest additions to the airplane are few but impressive, and the list of features added when the T model was launched a few years back are numerous.
The airplane that I flew was outfitted with what I see as three of the most noteworthy improvements to come down the pike in a long time: Garmin's Synthetic Vision Technology (SVT), Garmin's excellent GFC 700 autopilot and WAAS. Coupled with the G1000 system's host of other impressive capabilities, these features give the Skylane a suite of avionics utilities that are hard to beat in a single-engine airplane of any description.
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