Cessna T210F Turbo Centurion (1966)

This page describes one airplane: the 1966 Model T210F. FAA TCDS 3A21 Section VII covers it alone, 197 airframes, serials T210-0001 through T210-0197. Nothing here is averaged with another variant.

The T210F is the airplane that turned the Centurion into a high-altitude machine. For the 1966 model year Cessna hung a turbocharged Continental TSIO-520-C on the last of the strut-braced airframes, and the result climbs to a published 31,300 ft service ceiling — higher than any 210 that followed it, because the airplane it is built on is the lightest one Cessna ever turbocharged.

It outsold its own normally aspirated sister. The certificate's serial ranges give 197 T210Fs against 103 210Fs, close to two to one, and Cessna Flyer's history of the type remembers the margin as three to one. Buyers wanted the turbo from the day it appeared.

Why this page exists, and what it replaces

Until this pass the T210F was a row in the strut-braced 210 page's Variants table, listed under a designation that does not exist. That page called it a "T210E, 1966, Continental TSIO-520-C". 3A21's model list runs

210 · 210-5 (205) · 210-5A (205A) · 210A · 210B · 210C · 210D · 210E · 210F
210G · 210H · 210J · 210K · 210L · 210M · 210N · 210R · P210N · P210R
T210F · T210G · T210H · T210J · T210K · T210L · T210M · T210N · T210R

There is a 210E and there is a T210F. There is no T210E.

Worse than the name: the finder scores aircraft from frontmatter, and that page's frontmatter is a normally aspirated 3,100 lb 210D with a 17,500 ft ceiling. Every T210F in the catalogue was being scored as an airplane with half its altitude capability and none of its running costs.

Splitting it out is what docs/CATALOG-SPLITTING-RULE.md Step 3 asks for. Step 1 does not fire — same four seats, same retractable gear, same piston single, same type certificate — and Step 2 cannot fire on the evidence, because the T210F and the 210F share a 3,300 lb gross weight and 63 usable gallons exactly. But the buyer test is not close: 31,300 ft against 20,700 ft, a 1,400-hour TBO against 1,700, a $58,000 overhaul against $48,000, and a pre-buy that has to look at a turbocharger, a wastegate, an exhaust system and a cylinder-head-temperature history that the normally aspirated airplane does not have. A buyer choosing between them needs different advice.

What this page cannot tell you, and why it says so

There is no cruise speed, no range, no fuel burn and no price in this page's frontmatter. That is deliberate and it is the honest position.

AOPA's fact sheet is the only variant-specific source located for the T210F, and it prints "Unknown" against fuel burn and carries no cruise or range row at all. The figures that used to sit beside this airplane's name on the strut-braced page described a normally aspirated 210D, and reading them across an engine is the single error this catalogue is being re-sourced to remove.

A blank is honest. Filling those four fields needs the 1966 Cessna T210F Owner's Manual and a dated market observation, and both are recorded as outstanding.

There is only one. Section VII of 3A21 is a single-model section: no serial split, no optional interior, no gross-weight kit, no second airspeed block.

Its nearest relatives, for context rather than for reading numbers across:

The 26 extra usable gallons on the T210G are the reason it is a separate page, not the airframe: 63 against 89 is a 41% difference, twice the splitting rule's fuel threshold.

Only four performance figures on this page are sourced, all from AOPA's 1966 T210F column: a 31,300 ft service ceiling, a 1,280 fpm best rate of climb, and stall speeds of 58 knots clean and 50 knots in the landing configuration. Every one of them is stated for the T210F by name.

The ceiling deserves a moment. 31,300 ft is higher than the T210K's 28,500 ft and higher than the T210N's 27,000 ft, and it is not a misprint — the T210F carries the same 285 hp turbocharged engine as the T210K on an airframe 500 lb lighter at gross. Later Turbo Centurions traded altitude for payload. In practice it is an oxygen-mask airplane above the mid-teens either way, and the useful load is 1,335 lb against the T210N's 1,779 lb.

The airspeed limits are CALIBRATED

3A21 Section VII is headed *Airspeed Limits (CAS) and prints miles per hour first with knots in brackets. The stored figures are the bracketed knots, unconverted.

On the Cessna 172 certificate, NOTE 4 states for named serials that "TIAS is exactly equal to CAS", which lets calibrated figures sit in indicated-airspeed fields. 3A21's NOTE 4 makes no such finding and its handbook list does not start until the 1976 210L. So these are calibrated airspeeds in _kias fields, recorded rather than converted, and settling it needs the airspeed calibration table from the airplane's own Owner's Manual.

AOPA prints "196 KCAS" and "165 KCAS" for the T210F, agreeing with the certificate on both the numbers and the basis.

Gear speeds

160 mph (139 knots) both for operating the gear and with it extended. There is no vlo/vle field in this catalogue, so the limit lives here.

Parts availability is fair rather than good: the airframe shares its wing, gear and fuselage with a strut-braced 210 line that ended in 1966, and the turbocharger installation is specific to a small production run. Mechanic familiarity is specialist — a 210 gear system plus a turbocharged Continental is not a field-A&P airplane, and the two together are why the type has shops that specialize in it.

This page carries no price band, and that is a statement rather than an omission. A price was searched for on 7 September 2026 and none exists to report; the full survey is saved at raw/market/usedvalues-survey-no-listings-2026-09-07.md.

The guides were tried first, as they should be — Vref and the Aircraft Bluebook are what a dealer, a bank and an insurer value from. Both sell their values by subscription and neither could be read. The closest thing obtainable is second-hand and about other airplanes: AVweb and Aviation Consumer, writing in January 2022, quoted the Aircraft Bluebook at "$70,000 average retail" for a 1967 210G and "$180,000" for a 1980 turbocharged T210N. Neither is used here. The 210G is normally aspirated, and a turbocharged airplane does not trade at a normally aspirated one's value; the T210N is fourteen years, a cantilever wing and two extra seats away.

Then the market was checked, and nothing is advertised. Controller has no T210 model facet and its keyword search returns nothing older than a 1973; GlobalAir's Cessna T210 page holds a single 1976 T210L; AeroGurus' oldest T210 is a 1973; Hangar67 publishes no T210 report; Trade-A-Plane refused every request. That is what 197 airframes in one model year looks like from the outside — a type can go years between public listings, and one sale would not make a band anyway.

The consequence for you as a reader: without a price this page cannot be budget-filtered, so the finder will never surface a T210F and you are here because you typed the URL. Price a specific airplane from a Vref or Bluebook lookup. What can be said without a band:

• A T210F is scarcer than any of its neighbours: 197 built against 576 Model 210s and 2,070 210L/T210L serials.
• The engine reserve is the number that separates it from a normally aspirated strut-braced 210 in ownership cost. $58,000 over 1,400 hours is $41 an hour against the IO-520's $48,000 over 1,700, which is $28 — half again as much, before the turbocharger's own overhaul.
• Time since overhaul on a TSIO-520 with no intercooler dominates the asking price more than airframe hours do.

Everything that afflicts a strut-braced 210 applies here, plus a turbocharger.

1. The engine-driven hydraulic gear system. A single pump off the accessory case runs retraction, extension and the gear doors. Cessna's power pack service is effectively mandatory on these airframes; budget $3,000-$5,000 if it is overdue. Pre-buy must include a gear cycle on jacks and a hydraulic pressure test.
2. AD 76-09-13, dye-penetrant inspection of the gear saddles at 1,300 hours and annually after. Non-compliance grounds the airplane.
3. The turbocharger and its plumbing. Wastegate condition, exhaust system integrity and the induction couplings are the T210-specific items. An exhaust leak in a turbocharged installation is a fire and a carbon-monoxide problem at once, and the parts are sixty years old.
4. Cylinder head temperature history. The TSIO-520-C has no intercooler. Cylinder life on a turbocharged Continental is a direct function of how it was operated, and a logbook showing frequent top overhauls is telling you something.
5. Parts. 197 airframes were built, all in one model year, and several T210F-specific items are shared with nothing else. Confirm availability of the gear power pack, the wastegate controller and the exhaust before buying.
6. Fuel: 63 usable, not 65. Two gallons of the 65-gallon total are unusable and are already counted in the empty weight. Any range planning that starts from 65 is two gallons optimistic before it starts.