I’m flying the Beechcraft Baron (G58, I think…). I frequently get a message indicating I’m exceeding 150 knots when climbing after takeoff, and to bring my nose up to bring the speed down. I can see being informed of speed when landing, but when taking off?
I usually gun the engines and climb fairly steeply, then decrease throttle as I approach cruising altitude. It’s not uncommon for me to hit 170 knots during my climb. Is this wrong? Should I not be full throttle when taking off? I’m not fully understanding the meaning behind the 150 knots message.
Each aircraft has a chart of v-speeds, critical speeds to be remembered and honored depending upon the phase of flight. This one is for sim use only, but good enough for our purposes.
Note rotation speed is 85 knots - that’s the speed at which you would pull back on the yoke to get the plane off the ground.
Note best angle and rate of climb speeds. You would use one or the other to reach planned altitude for cruise.
At 150 knots - you’re just 6 knots shy of maneuvering speed which supports abrupt (gross control) movements. But for rotation at 85 knots and say, a best rate of climb at 105 knots, you’re way over the tested and intended v-speeds.
And as far as Vx and Vy goes – I had some issues understanding the difference between them.
Vx gets you to your target altitude in as short a horizontal distance as possible – the best way to climb when you’re trying to avoid things like trees, power lines or mountains.
Vy gets you to your target altitude in as short a time as possible, so that is often used when terrain clearance is not an issue.
Since you’re moving faster than at Vx, you’ll cover a longer horizontal distance during the climb, but the added speed means your vertical speed is also higher, so it still takes less time to reach your target altitude.
For any standard trip, airliners, best rate-of-climb (to your planned flight level) speed 105 KAS is the thing to do, the speed most efficient in gain of ground and fuel burn. Waning you’re passing 150 means you’re inefficient in your trip calculation, you’re too fast in dense air burning too much fuel, your gain of ground is not offsetting fuel burn, which is the most expensive part of your trip.
The 150 kts is prob to notify you are reaching top of maneuvering speed (abrupt leveling out could be considered a maneuver) which is abuse to the fuselage integrity against air density.
The Baron’s best rate of climb is achieved at 105 knots indicated airspeed, but often Baron pilots will climb at a faster speed than that. This is known as a “cruise climb” and the main benefits are better engine cooling and faster ground speed during climb out.
You should be at full power when taking off, but once you hit about 400 feet above the ground, you’ll want to pull the propeller (blue) levers back so that the RPMs read 2500. The throttle can stay wide open for the climb. You should adjust your pitch for somewhere around 136 knots for the rest of your climb. Pull up to slow down, push down to speed up.
In the real Baron, that will get you approximately 1,500 ft/min ± 500 ft/min depending on how heavy you are and the density altitude. I’ve noticed that in the simulator the Baron’s climb performance is a bit in excess of what the book says it should be, so it may be more than that.
Also, don’t forget to lean the mixture as you climb for max power. In the real thing, there’s a handy little arrow on the G1000’s fuel flow gauge that tells you exactly how to set your mixture for the climb, but in the sim, you just have to eyeball it. Pull the mixture (red) levers back slowly until you see the fuel flow stop increasing. If it starts decreasing, you’ve gone too far. Keep checking that every 1,000 feet or so of climb.
Agree, it is too fast for climb. It doesn’t have any benefit climbing at such speeds unless really in a hurry. That being said it is inside the normal flight envelope, there is nothing wrong flying over maneuvering speed.
No, it’s from one of my older Sims, but close enough to the Asobo modeling. There’s no such chart available in the sim. I believe the Baron can use the Working Title G1000 NXi. If you click the softkey marked TMR/REF on the PFD, you’ll get a very small reference chart of some of the V-speeds. Very handy.
