Hello, I have a 2020 SR22T. Preflight I had 8qt one the nose, I topped off and did slightly overflow one wing. On runup engine was good, no cas, oil pressure normal. Took off and someone in the runup said to tower I was smoking. I landed immediately but all engine gauges normal and engine running fine, I didn’t see any smoke myself.
When I shut down engine (right after shut down) CAS said “oil pressure is out of range”. I started engine up again but oil pressure was in green as normal. Shut it down and same CAS appeared.
Exterior inspection there was no oil or anything under belly, no smell of anything burning, looked in nose etc. there was fuel slowly dripping out of vent under belly though.
Obviously should take to mechanic but wanted to get your thoughts?
In my experience anything over 6 qts gets lost very quickly, thinking you may have had it overfilled if it was all the way to 8 qts on the stick. Perhaps it was overflowing oil burning off causing smoke.
I’m not a mechanic (far from it) so others with more expertise in this area I’m sure will respond with more insight. Simply wanted to share my experience on the oil levels from my own ops.
If smoke has been reported by others even if you didn’t see it, personally I wouldn’t fly the plane until a mechanic has a look which sounds like is your plan.
Time to take the cowl off and take a close look at everything. As a T, you shouldn’t see any fuel coming out of anywhere other than the small drain mast aft of the cowl vents.
Agree with Brad that 8 quarts is a lot on the stick. When I do an oil change I put in 8 quarts but that’s after the engine’s drained everything out. If you’re reading 8 on the stick and the plane’s been run within the last couple of days, you likely have too much oil.
But it’s the fuel dripping that would have me investing first and foremost…leaky engine-driven fuel pump, leaky boost pump, etc…all no-bueno issues.
Out of range cas. I’m wondering if perhaps I put too much oil in. Anything below 6 I’ll add 1 quart. When plane sits for a while checking oil is easy as the stick clearly indicates. What happens is I’ll check for example and it’s at 7. I fly to a location for a couple hours and then if a quick break when I check the oil it might say 5. I wipe stick several times to confirm. This is the pickle as I know oil hasn’t settled and could falsely indicate a lower amount. What do you do when checking oil after a long flight? Do you account perhaps a quart of loss as it is still not settled in pan?
I have never exported flight data yet. I only know how to update the databases. I’ve been searching online to find how to do it. If you know a source on step by step I would be grateful for that!
Unless the oil is at five or lower, may I suggest not adding oil until the plane sits for eight hours. If, prior to four hours of flying at the beginning of a trip, the oil is at six, add one quart.
Please join COPA. You can gain a tremendous amount of knowledge just searching what has already been written.
Maybe some time with a CSIP or very Cirrus knowledgeable CFI may be needed here. Oil management is a very basic knowledge item, and not limited to Cirrus or continental engines.
Knowledge of systems is critical to safe aircraft operation, and especially so flying a Turbo.
This is a tricky situation which I find myself in quite frequently (I do a lot of 5-6 hour flights with a stop at 2.5-3 hrs). My general rule of thumb is if it’s at 5 I know plenty is still in there and hasn’t settled so I don’t add anything. If it’s at 4, I typically add a quart out of an abundance of caution.
Often times once I’m at my destination and it’s settled, even over say a 12 hour period though 24 hours is preferred but not usually viable - I typically find that it “gains” a quart on the stick.
One really important item to keep add of is to log every single quart you add. I do this religiously logging hobbs/tac time which gives me a really accurate idea of how many quarts is “normal” to identify issues - and to help with that quick turn scenario. Makes all this much less of a guessing game.
In addition to logging each quart added to get an hourly average, I also do a separate log of how many quarts are used between each oil change. The main purpose of this is to gauge if something has changed in the engine. For instance if I’m used to burning 8 quarts between oil changes and suddenly I’m burning 12 quarts between them, I instantly know something has changed an maintenance needs to really dig in to see if I’ve got a leak or some other issue.
Bottom line, if you’re not logging oil usage, I highly recommend it. Changes in averages are a leading indicator of issues which often times can be addressed much easier and less costly as a result.
One caveat - you may see different seasonal and/or geographic changes in consumption. For instance flying Florida in the summer vs. Colorado in the winter. You’ll get to know these averages however as you build historical data.
That does not sound right in our planes. If there is too much oil due to over filling, the excess goes out the breather tube and does not normally get burned.
I never check oil right after a flight myself. I wait a couple of days to give the oil a chance to settle. For my very long flights, I am normally at the location for at least a day and check before flying back. I also track how much oil I use before I have to add a quart. For my plane 6 qts is the sweet spot, when it gets down to 5 I add a qt.