Cessna 206 Stationair Checklist

What the Cessna 206 Stationair is

The Cessna 206 Stationair is a six-seat, high-wing, fixed-gear single — the heavy hauler of Cessna’s piston line. Where the 172 trains and the 182 travels, the 206 works: it is the airplane bush operators, skydive clubs, floatplane services, and backcountry owners reach for when they need to move people and cargo out of short, unimproved strips. The defining feature is the utility body — a single forward pilot door plus a large clamshell double cargo door on the right rear for loading bulky freight or jumpers. That door drives a quirk you will not find on a 172: a flap interlock that prevents the flaps from lowering unless the front cargo door is fully closed and latched. This template centers on the modern turbocharged T206H NAV III, powered by a fuel-injected 310 hp Lycoming TIO-540 turning a constant-speed propeller, with a Garmin G1000 panel and GFC 700 autopilot. The turbo brings its own discipline: leaning is done by turbine inlet temperature (TIT) rather than EGT, and turbocharger failure or overboost is a distinct abnormal you will not see on a normally-aspirated 206. Other things that separate it from smaller Cessnas: three fuel drains (one sump per wing tank plus the nose gascolator, not two per tank), manual cowl flaps worked in every phase of flight, a fuel selector flown on BOTH aloft but set to a single tank when parked to stop crossfeed, and a wide, tall cabin that puts weight and balance front and center on every preflight. The 206 name spans a long run — carbureted early U206/P206 classics, normally-aspirated 206H, and this turbo H-model — and the numbers are not interchangeable between them.

I fly a 172, not a 206, so I built this one from the T206H POH with a lot of care rather than from the seat of my pants. The parts I most wanted a generic “Cessna” card to not flatten are the TIT leaning, the cargo-door / flap interlock, and the third fuel drain under the nose — all easy to lose if you copy a Skyhawk checklist upward. I kept the speeds as the turbo figures and flagged everything that shifts between variants. Fly it against your own POH, not mine, and tell me if a step reads wrong for your airframe.

Normal procedures

The normal flow runs preflight and walkaround, before-start, the fuel-injected engine start, taxi, run-up and before-takeoff, takeoff (normal and short/soft-field), climb, cruise, descent, before-landing, landing (with a balked-landing note), after-landing, and shutdown and securing, plus a T206H V-speed table. The card keeps the turbo-and-utility habits front and center: leaning by TIT rather than EGT, manual cowl flaps worked in every phase, the fuel selector on BOTH aloft but on a single tank when parked, and the cargo-door / flap interlock that appears in the preflight and run-up. Weight and balance sits on every preflight because the wide cabin makes loading a real decision, not an afterthought.

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 immediately after takeoff, engine failure in flight with a restart attempt, a forced-landing / ditching flow that includes the cargo-door emergency-egress sequence, engine fire, electrical fire, an alternator/electrical abnormal, and a turbocharger-failure / overboost abnormal unique to the turbo H-model. This is a training aid built from POH-derived steps, not the AFM — verify every flow, and re-check the run-up magneto limits and minimum-oil figure per your serial, against your aircraft’s approved POH.

Verify it against your POH

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

• Which 206 you actually fly. This card is the turbocharged, fuel-injected T206H. If you fly a carbureted early U206/P206, you have carb-heat items this card omits and different speeds; if you fly a normally-aspirated 206H, you should lean by EGT/fuel-flow and drop every turbo-specific item (TIT leaning, turbocharger failure).
• Whether any carbureted U206/P206 items apply. The modern H-line is all fuel-injected, but older carbureted airframes still fly — if that is your aircraft, get a carb-heat flow reviewed by a CFI; it is not on this card.
• Exact minimum oil quantity. The sampled POH read “do not operate with less than 6 quarts,” but this should be reconfirmed against your specific serial’s POH rather than assumed universal across the TIO-540/IO-540 engine variants.
• Magneto RPM-drop and differential limits at run-up. The POH confirms a check exists but the exact numeric limits should be re-verified per serial/engine — older Continental-powered airframes may specify different tolerances than the Lycoming H-model.
• Engine-failure-after-takeoff speeds (85 / 75 KIAS). These were read from the T206H POH specifically. A normally-aspirated 206H may differ slightly with its different weight/drag profile — check the non-turbo POH directly rather than assuming they match.
• Short-field and balked-landing distance figures. Only speeds were pulled in this research pass, not the full performance charts. If you need distance numbers, pull the performance section from your own POH.