Cary wrote:As have most pilots with much time in the saddle, I've had my share of mishaps, some of which could have become very serious had I let them. But I didn't give up--I flew the airplane. Here's the list:
1. On a return trip on a SE charter in an Archer, the pitot iced up, so I completed the trip sans airspeed. No big deal. I flew the airplane.
2. 3 different mishaps with the Mooney 231:
a. IFR north of Pueblo, CO, at 12,000', the engine died due to intake ice. I declared, and asked for vectors to Pueblo, which was showing 200 and a half in blowing snow. By the time I restarted it after pulling the manual alternate air door, we'd lost 1300'. We climbed back up and completed the flight. I flew the airplane.
b. IFR in VMC on a pitch black night to Newcastle, WY, the autopilot glitched and threw the airplane into a sudden hard right turn and the altitude hold kicked off. I kicked off the autopilot, returned to straight and level and climbed back on course. I flew the airplane.
c. I flew the airplane to Fort Collins from Laramie for its annual, after discovering that a line boy had broken the steering arm to the nose gear with a tug. Stupid move on my part, because the nose gear jammed in a left turn. When I landed, it departed the runway toward a large snow berm. I firewalled it and cleared the snow berm, stalling into the soft snow behind the berm. Minimal damage to the airplane. I flew the airplane until it stopped. FAA rightly suspended me for 45 days.
3. 15 hours after I purchased my current airplane, it lost oil pressure and threw a rod. By the time the engine croaked, I was at 800' AGL. I landed in a field. Minimal damage to the airplane. I flew the airplane.

Contrast with what the PC12 pilot did. He had the opportunity to avoid the issue initially, but he had several opportunities to correct the issue, had he only done what he and countless other IR pilots have been taught: fly the airplane. Focus on the instruments, level the wings, maintain the attitude, maintain a reasonably consistent altitude, and fly out of the weather. Instead, he tried to get the autopilot to do what he should have done. He did not fly the airplane.

Cary

Terry wrote:

Cary wrote:As have most pilots with much time in the saddle, I've had my share of mishaps, some of which could have become very serious had I let them. But I didn't give up--I flew the airplane. Here's the list:
1. On a return trip on a SE charter in an Archer, the pitot iced up, so I completed the trip sans airspeed. No big deal. I flew the airplane.
2. 3 different mishaps with the Mooney 231:
a. IFR north of Pueblo, CO, at 12,000', the engine died due to intake ice. I declared, and asked for vectors to Pueblo, which was showing 200 and a half in blowing snow. By the time I restarted it after pulling the manual alternate air door, we'd lost 1300'. We climbed back up and completed the flight. I flew the airplane.
b. IFR in VMC on a pitch black night to Newcastle, WY, the autopilot glitched and threw the airplane into a sudden hard right turn and the altitude hold kicked off. I kicked off the autopilot, returned to straight and level and climbed back on course. I flew the airplane.
c. I flew the airplane to Fort Collins from Laramie for its annual, after discovering that a line boy had broken the steering arm to the nose gear with a tug. Stupid move on my part, because the nose gear jammed in a left turn. When I landed, it departed the runway toward a large snow berm. I firewalled it and cleared the snow berm, stalling into the soft snow behind the berm. Minimal damage to the airplane. I flew the airplane until it stopped. FAA rightly suspended me for 45 days.
3. 15 hours after I purchased my current airplane, it lost oil pressure and threw a rod. By the time the engine croaked, I was at 800' AGL. I landed in a field. Minimal damage to the airplane. I flew the airplane.

Contrast with what the PC12 pilot did. He had the opportunity to avoid the issue initially, but he had several opportunities to correct the issue, had he only done what he and countless other IR pilots have been taught: fly the airplane. Focus on the instruments, level the wings, maintain the attitude, maintain a reasonably consistent altitude, and fly out of the weather. Instead, he tried to get the autopilot to do what he should have done. He did not fly the airplane.

Cary

Looks like the makings of at least 2 lawsuits there to me. And if I remember right you are a lawyer?
I'm guessing you have enough common sense and scruples that there were no lawsuits involved?
You could have easily found someone without the above to work the system and probably made some cash.
But then even with a fat wallet you still need to sleep at night.

Cannon wrote:

SA Maule wrote:...800 hrs are plenty for that plane, it is not complex at all, 35 on type plus he went through proper ground school..

With all due respect, I have serious issues with this statement.

During my furlough from the majors, I flew a PC-12 for 6 months or so - not nearly enough to even consider myself 'very good', but certainly enough to be proficient (we flew it out of a 2100' strip). I've also spent nearly seven years training others in the TBM-700/850/900. I'm a relatively high time airline guy, a vast majority of which is turbine time. I'm a true airplane nut and have flown everything I can get my hands on. Even so, at the six month mark in the PC-12 I was just getting to the point where I felt like I was getting it figured out. Not VFR level comfortable, but truly IFR, single pilot proficient. I still wasn't very good by my standards, but at least I was getting proficient. It takes time - I don't care how good someone is.

Yes the PC-12 is a very easy airplane to fly, but to suggest that someone with 800TT, almost no turbine time and 35 hours in type is 'plenty for that plane' is absurd. This isn't a VFR Maule or 180, it's a 270KT, 31,000', pressurized, known-ice, IFR single pilot turbine powered airplane. In my experience, it's a several hundred hour learning curve before most feel truly proficient in *any* new-to-them turbine aircraft. My interactions with well over a hundred turbine aircraft owners confirms this. I know it certainly was for me, and I have a lot of time in similar and better performing airplanes.

The accident rate also confirms this - in the TBM world, over 60% of the accidents occurred in the first 150 hours. A full 75% of the accidents occurred in the first two years of ownership (63% in year one alone). Of all of the hull losses in that fleet only *two* had any mechanical anomaly at all (neither should have been fatal). The rest were 100% pilot induced.

Please don't propgate the myth that just because an airplane is seemingly easy to fly, one can skip over or take for granted the several hundred hours of time it takes to become profient in it. There are a lot of dead pilots, several of whom I knew, that would still be here had they truly understood this.

SA Maule wrote:it is interesting to note that no matter what happens it is always the pilots fault, whatever external factors contribute to an incident is immaterial, just blame the pilot, if the wing fall of after a repair, blame the pilot, if the engine throws a rod after a rebuilt blame the pilot, if the hydraulics go after an MPI blame the pilot.
the one question left....... what do the pilot do and where does he fly until he has gained "enough" experience to be competent.
How I am going to gain enough experience for the first 200 hours on my Maule until i am deemed competent....... should I only fly circuits and never out of site of the runway....... or maybe I should fly with a CFI for the first 200 hours.
everybody in the value chain can do what they want as badly as they want, after all if something goes wrong, just blame the pilot

L18C-95 wrote:Lufthansa used to use the F33C for upset training, and there are possibly still one or two schools in the USA which provide upset training in aerobatic IFR aircraft.

This accident, while having many lessons to take away on better airmanship, also suggests that when the automatics disconnect it only takes a few seconds of inattention, indecision and you are in genuine upset training territory. Not the usual partial panel unusual attitude recovery scenarios.

It would be interesting to hear if anyone has attended an IFR upset training course using real aircraft (typically a F33C or SF260), or experience in the military.

How was the course structured: ground school, sim and aircraft time? How did it compare to the standard unusual attitude training for IFR?

In VMC aerobatics you spend a fair amount of time practicing safe recovery when a manoeuvre has been mis-handled, but you have the benefit of a 360 degree horizon.

I would suggest this accident is a good advertisement for single pilot IFR serious upset training.