Power Move
Blackhawk Aero is ready to level up the TBM 700
Currently, the company’s focus is on a new supplemental type certificate to upgrade the Daher TBM 700 to the power of a TBM 850.
Perhaps best recognized for its Beechcraft King Air upgrades, 25-year-old Blackhawk Aero is close to achieving certification for this new STC, expecting completion of the approximately one-year process to conclude before EAA AirVenture 2025. Blackhawk already has customers lined up for the upgrade, with the company’s track record of successful engine upgrade STCs paving the way for this new offering to the turbine owner-operator market.
Blackhawk’s XP66D program will replace the stock PT6A-64 700 shaft horsepower engine with the PT6A-66D 850 shp engine. This extra power will in turn improve performance to that of the TBM 850. For propellers, owners can choose among Hartzell four- or five-blade or MT five-blade props and can keep the round gauges or upgrade to a dual Garmin G600 TXi displays. And with approximately 300 total TBM 700 series aircraft worldwide, there will be plenty of opportunities for owners to implement Blackhawk’s XP66D program.
The Waco, Texas-based company brought its testbed aircraft to AOPA headquarters in Frederick, Maryland, to show us how it flies. The morning of the flight, the hope is to get an unrestricted climb up to flight level 240 in 850 XP mode, see how much that extra power changes the climb, then level off at cruise and see how much faster we get going there. In both climb and cruise, Blackhawk pilot Chris Dunkin says we’ll take the power back to the standard 700 shp to compare performance in real time.
The weather is imperfect, as it often is during spring in the Mid-Atlantic, and controllers around the Washington, D.C., area have their hands full. An unrestricted climb is not in the cards today. Shortly after takeoff, Dunkin engages XP mode with the press of a button, demonstrating how, from an end-user perspective, this new mode will be a straightforward transition for pilots. While we do not get the requested climb, we get something even better—a real life glimpse at the practical application of 850 XP mode. A few minutes after takeoff, we’re in the clouds and in icing.
“Even with the inertial open robbing power, I’m still able to get full power,” says Dunkin. “That’s impressive. All right. And I’m still able to do a climb rate here of 1,800 feet a minute.”
“And with the inertial open I can go all the way to [flight level 240] at full power. Now I’m gonna bring it back to where we would be on a normal TBM,” Dunkin says. “And you’ll see kind of what the climb rate does.” He takes the power back until the engine monitor registers the standard 700 shp. He changes our recommended climb speed to match the standard TBM 700’s as well.
“And now look what our climb rate just did.” It decreased almost in half, to about 1,000 fpm.
“It becomes a safety factor,” he says, adding the power back in as he continues the climb.
With the inertial separator open and a higher climb airspeed as is required for icing, we still climb through the IMC faster than we otherwise would have. How much faster is hard to determine, but minutes and seconds make a difference in any riskier flight condition, and just knowing that we have a better rate with XP mode engaged is comforting.
We level off at flight level 240 in clear skies and the airplane gets a chance to speed up and continue to show off, eventually showing us a TAS (with a little coaxing) of 300 knots, about 350 over the ground. We have no problem getting full power at FL240.
“You can see how you can easily take this on up higher and have that horsepower up to the service ceiling of thirty-one thousand.”
As Dunkin points out, being faster means less time in the air and less wear on the airframe, resulting in cost and time savings. The descent and return to the field are standard, with the gains of the extra power naturally most valuable in climb and cruise. Dunkin turns off 850 XP mode and flies a normal TBM 700 approach. The transition out of the extra power setting, just as the transition into it was, is unnoticeable.
Blackhawk has already received deposits for delivery positions on the XP66D upgrade. The earliest customer says he has “high confidence in Blackhawk’s ability to successfully execute the XP66D upgrade…as well as their commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.” Blackhawk also notes that “even without immediate plans to sell an aircraft, the upgrade could increase value and desirability.”
“In the overhaul world, overhauls are expensive,” says Dunkin. “So, especially if you’re going to have to overhaul, then you’re going to get a lot more bang for your buck, and a little bit more money, usually, sometimes it’s a break even. And we’ve seen that throughout our other [engine upgrades] we do.”
When this STC comes to the market, there’ll be seemingly no downside, especially for those already close to an overhaul. The typical purchase price of a TBM 850 can be nearly double that of a TBM 700; this upgrade could be a great opportunity to get more airplane at an overall lower (or at least similar) cost. With increased performance, safety margin, and resale value, Blackhawk’s XP66D program will offer an enticing upgrade to the TBM 700. The biggest question now is: when? 
