Beechcraft Bonanza A36 Checklist

What the Beechcraft Bonanza A36 is

The Beechcraft Bonanza A36 is the long-body, six-seat, straight-tail member of the Bonanza family — a fast, comfortable, retractable-gear single that has stayed in production, in one form or another, for more than fifty years. It stretches the classic Bonanza fuselage roughly ten inches forward of the wing versus the V-tail V35, which gives it a wider CG range and a far more forgiving loading envelope: you can fill the club-seating cabin and the aft baggage area without fighting the balance the way V-tail owners must. Its signature feature is the four-foot-wide double cargo door on the right aft fuselage, in addition to the normal cabin door — handy for loading, and a well-documented gotcha because it must be latched separately. This template centers on the normally aspirated A36 with the Continental IO-520 or IO-550, a constant-speed prop, and a two-tank left/right fuel system — the configuration most owners and instructors actually meet. Because that engine is fuel-injected, there is no carb-heat item, and the hot-start technique differs sharply from a cold start. Who flies it: owner-pilots who want a genuine cross-country family airplane, step-up pilots moving from fixed-gear singles into complex retractable time, and flight departments and clubs that value the A36’s load-hauling and stability. The turbocharged A36TC/B36TC and the glass-panel G36 are meaningfully different airplanes and are out of scope here.

The A36 is the Bonanza I always wished I could afford to own — a real six-seat traveling machine that still lands like a trainer once you respect the gear. I built this card around the normally aspirated IO-520/550 airplane because that is what most owners and renters actually fly, and I put the gear-down three-green check at every point in the pattern where somebody has landed one wheels-up. Print it, add your tail number, latch that cargo door, and fly the numbers in your own POH, not mine.

Normal procedures

The normal flow runs preflight and walkaround, before-start, engine start, taxi, run-up and before-takeoff, takeoff and initial climb, climb, cruise, descent, before-landing, after-landing, and shutdown and securing, with an A36 V-speed table. Three type habits shape the card. The gear-down, three-green check repeats through the pattern; the aft double cargo door is checked and latched separately at preflight, before start, and before takeoff, because it latches independently of the main cabin door and a door left open is a documented Bonanza event; and because the IO-520/550 is fuel-injected, there is no carb-heat line and the hot-start technique differs sharply from a cold start.

Emergency procedures

The emergency and abnormal section is deliberately conservative, with the reflex memory items in bold. It covers engine failure on the takeoff roll, engine failure after takeoff, engine failure in flight with a no-restart branch, engine fire, electrical fire / smoke, an alternator/electrical abnormal, and a landing-gear-will-not-extend flow. Be honest about two things: the bold memory items reflect standard, widely-taught practice for retractable, fuel-injected singles rather than a line-by-line transcription of a specific POH’s boxed items, and the manual gear-extension turn count and technique are approximate. This is a training aid to verify against your aircraft’s emergency section — and the ABS Landing Gear Guide — with a CFI, not an approved procedure.

Verify it against your POH

The research behind this template flagged several things that genuinely vary by variant, serial, engine, and operator. Check these against your aircraft’s approved POH/AFM before you rely on the card:

• Vy, Vx, Va, and best-glide speed. Only Vso, Vfe, Vlo/Vle, and Vne were corroborated in research. The best-rate, best-angle, maneuvering, and glide speeds were left blank on the card on purpose rather than guessed — these vary meaningfully by model year and engine (IO-520 vs IO-550). Fill them from your POH performance section.
• Boost/aux fuel pump ON/OFF phase logic. The exact altitude or phase trigger for turning the electric pump off after takeoff (and on before landing) is standard across the type but the precise POH wording for your engine/year was not verified. Confirm it.
• Alternate air / induction icing guidance. The fuel-injected IO-520/550 has no carburetor, but induction icing is still possible in rare conditions and alternate air is the mitigation. The exact activation guidance was not independently verified — confirm against your POH.
• Which emergency items are true POH memory items. The bold memory items reflect standard, widely-taught practice for retractable-gear, fuel-injected singles, inferred from type-club and training material rather than quoted line-by-line from a specific POH. Check them against your aircraft’s actual emergency section before treating them as authoritative.
• Manual gear-extension turn count and technique. The emergency gear extension is a hand-crank between the front seats requiring on the order of dozens of turns. One source referenced roughly 50 turns, but that was not cross-confirmed. Get the exact figure and technique from your POH or the ABS Landing Gear Guide before you need it.
• Fuel selector position at shutdown. Whether to leave the selector on a particular tank at shutdown is an operator/owner preference, not a universal POH rule. Confirm your operator’s procedure.
• Fuel drain count and locations. Two wing-tank sumps plus a belly strainer are standard, but some years and mods add quick-drains. Confirm the exact count and location for your serial.
• Hot-start technique. Flooding a hot fuel-injected Continental on restart is common, and the correct technique differs from a cold start. Follow your POH’s specific hot-start branch.