The Meridian PT6A 42A Engine Start Procedure Explained 

I am a virtual pilot on Xplane and I don't even think I will ever own any PT6A engined airplane but I understood every bit of these instructions. Very good teacher and wishing you a very Long Life. Salute, Captain.

Outstanding video - thanks for taking the time to create and post this. It gives us piston flyers great insight into the turbine world.

The O-360 in my club’s Archer may be the biggest engine I ever start, but I appreciate and thoroughly enjoyed the detailed explanation of starting the Meridian’s Pratt. Thanks!

Thanks for putting together such a thoughtful and detailed explanation. My Pilatus on-boarding never mentioned certain nuances like wind direction at start. Very nicely done, thank you.

Very well presented and informative. Thank you. Former DC8 driver

Congratz and thanks for the video! The explanation really helped now that I'll start flying this aircraft! Cound't find any better!

Thank you Sir, for the very detailed and expert explanation.

Great point in knowing this about starting into the wind or as you say seeing the prop moving

Excellent explanation and video - thank you!

Great video. Very detailed. Safe travels.

This is the best video I have seen, as a student pilot this is the plane I'm going buy once I get more fight time

Excellent explanation. Thanks

Thank you, very useful and explanatory.

Great video, thank you

Great vid thanks for sharing,

Amazing video, thank you.

Fantastic documentation, thank you very much! I'm not a real pilot, but I like to operate in my simulator as realistic as possible!

Captain, thanks for explaination, i fly on a piper m600 .

Nice video !!! thanks

Checklists is always top notch in all aircraft

Thanks so much for a great video! New to the channel and new subscriber!

Thank you for putting together this video. Very good and informative. You covered Bat Voltage, health way better than Ive seen it at expensive training. What I do different is. During start, I allow the starter Ng to stabilize before introducing fuel, this shows me the capacity of the battery. I have personal limits. I want min 18% but a Cold battery, lower voltage, Ill except lower but next warm start should be back up. If a storm is coming 14%, Tornado 12.5%. If introducing fuel at 12.5 - 13% Ng, A weak, low capacity battery may drop voltage after light-off and could be hidden. As you stated Voltage Sag, or Dip shows battery health but nothing compares to Work (= Ng %) after a few seconds. The other thing is I, Count seconds after introducing fuel. Light off should happen at a consistent time. ie 4-5 sec, if no light off I continue to 10 sec, Fuel off, Starter off, WTF.... Having the set time and shut down procedure reduces the (oh shit I forgot the ignitors! On, Boom, Hot start. Take it for what its worth. Nice plane.

By far the best explanation i have come across. Quick note on the itt being below 140, if the engine was hot due to a prior flight, do you let the itt temp drop by maintaing an ng at 13%? I think you mentioned that it only takes few extra seconds for it to drop below 140 if it was hot already.

Great video, and very informative, it would be nice though if P & W had a fully automatic start and shutdown system available

Could you sometime (when time permits), do a video on takeoff power/climb and cruise limitations. Also, since the meridian and the pc12 doesn't have a prop lever, i presume the PCL sets the props automatically based on power setting? Thank you in advance. Safe flying

I just got MY bird and it was flown from Strasburg to Valence France yesterday Jan 14. This video is definitively a warning of what not to do - and that's usefull. THANKS! (I may look at this video some more times.......)

I used to work part-time for a UPS contractor loading ULDs into the Boeing 757. I note the wind would have the fans spinning in reverse. I asked the captain about a possible hot start considering the wind was hitting the aft engines. As we are standing next to one of the giant Rolls Royce RB 11 engines. it's free-spinning backward you can hear the clank clank clank of the fan blades. He said not much chance of hot-start because we would be using the Huffer at startup that night. I ask why the huffer? He said the APU isn't functioning properly and he would have it checked out in Louisville KT. I thought that was unusual.

Ultimately, in today's world, the start should be "push start button". P&W is just going to that now, GE's Catalyst is designed with it. The RR's don't seem to have that in the plans.

1800$ per blade, did I understand it well? how many of those does each turbine have, 20-25?

It's eye watering the amount of money aviation requires, especially when you start getting into turboprops and, even more so, turbofans. I will never understand how anyone can afford to operate these things.

You called it dip(?) voltage, I never had a name for it but after turning on the battery switch I didn’t want the voltage to drop below 24 VDC with a NiCd battery, because of the discharge characteristics of the battery, when switching to lead/acid gel batteries I could get away with lower initial voltage. On initial starter engagement if the voltage dropped and didn’t start recovering, it was abort time and find an apu. Healthy start had N1 stabilizing above minimum and battery recovering. After start pay attention to voltage the longer it stays above 28 the sicker the battery is. I much rather start a turbine with PAS air.

Outstanding Instruction. Is your checklist available?

The most difficult plane I ever started was a fuel injected Skyhawk with an IO-320. I think they call it the monkey paw method. Thumb on the mixture with it at full lean, index finger and middle finger on the throttle at wide open, run the fuel pump for 4 seconds, turn the key, and at the exact moment the engine coughs switch the throttle and mixture positions. If you miss the cough you have to let it sit for 30 seconds and start from the top.

Dip voltage, or voltage under load for a car battery is 9 volts when the starter is running. The starter will cause a voltage drop of 3 volts. All cars with distributors in a 12 volt system have ballast resistors that keep the voltage in the ignition system at a constant 9 volts. When the starter is engaged and the available voltage for the ignition system drops to 9 volts current to the ignition system bypasses the ballast resister until the starter is released via the cars key switch. When it is released current is sent through the ballast resistor thereby maintaining 9 volts. An airplane such as the meridian uses 24 volts instead of twelve. If the airplane uses a piston engine I would expect it to run a ballast resistor like a car does. In a turbine engine, I don’t know if that is necessary, but that would explain the dip voltage that the creator of this video is talking about.

I operated large turbofan engines for 16,000 hours and never had a start problem. I did have a starter fail at starter cutoff and the starter blew up. We only knew this happened because someone called on the radio and said they saw sparks come out of the center area of the engine cowl. After maint did an inspection they said the starter had exploded.

I'm surprised that P&W has not implemented a semi-automatic start procedure on the PT-6 which would protect the operator from a hot start.....

If you have to push the plane into the wind, how can you do that? Can this heavy plane pushed manually buy one person?

Great video and very informative. How about a full flight with tons of information like in this video??

Just before 8 minutes, you state and show on your checklist that the pumps and ignition are set manual. Yet at 8:45 in the video the switches now appear to be selected to Auto. The lights still show manual, but the switch position now is selected on AUTO. When did you switch it to auto and why? Confusing.

Refering to the ITT I think you mesn TIT did you ?

@5:52 - Testing a plane battery - breaks out a near $2000, true 6 1/2 digit resolution meter and props it on a stool in the hanger. That is the fastest "like" i ever slapped on a video.

In 1963, Chrysler produced several dozen prototype motorcars powered by gas turbine engines mated to a typical automatic transmission and driveshaft. How on Earth could someone start that engine day after day and not encounter ruinous disaster? Ultimately all but a few of the vehicles were crushed by Chrysler so it wouldn't have to pay a special tax on them, and the program was terminated. Please enter the following into the YT search box above: 1964 Chrysler Turbine Car Start 1963 Chrysler Turbine: Ultimate Edition - Jay Leno's Garage

How high can this aircraft fly?

I don’t understand why this isn’t automatic. 50 years ago I could start a turbine APU on a P-3 by just flipping one switch that would open the doors, start the APU and pick up the electrical power.

Looks similar to a PA32 Lanceair

99.999999999% sure I will NEVER own or operate a turboprop. However, IF I do, this video is officially my start sequence bible (even if the aircraft is equipped with a FADEC engine)!

I've seen people start a PT-6 with someone holding one of the blades from moving

🛩️🛩️🛩️👏👏👏👏👏👏👍

The Pratt and Whitney Canada company is about 2 decades behind the times. That was when all the airlines had FADEC and one button starts, auto throttle for their engines and not risk a financial melt down. Other companies had to develop their own but P and W can get help from the US parent company, so dragging their feet is even more unacceptable. They can afford it because they have 70% of the small turbine market, but things are changing. It is like P and W on a railroad track, they have 3 choices, 1) keep up to speed of the traffic, 2) move aside 3) get run over. A few years ago, GE quietly bought a Cz company , Walters that made a PT-6 clone . They are initially working with Cessna for an engine to power their PC12 clone. Once that is done, I believe they be expanding their line. Since that just happened within the last 5 years, for decades more , many planes and chopper pilots still have to watch TIT temp like a hawk and be ready to cut off fuel.

Half a million for an engine...my head spins

💦 P-R-O-M-O-S-M!