Look at a plane like the Beech 18. The average pilot these days would have a hell of a time finding any company to insure the thing. If someone with 1000-2000 hours and say 500 tailwheel called them, they'd probably tell them 'sorry, but we just can't insure you.' If a pilot with say 5000 hours and 1000 tailwheel calls 'em, they'll probably be able to get the insurance, but they best have DEEP pockets.
Why? The Beech 18 is an airplane just like any other airplane. If you have basic conventional gear skills and a head on your shoulders, it is operated just as safetly as any other airplane...and insurance treats it accordingly. Operating it is basic stick and rudder (and instrument) skill...not rocket science. It's just an airplane.
The MU-2, on the other hand, is more myth than fact in the public eye. Over the years, the number of MU2 accidents has roughly paralleled the number of King Air accidents...the difference, of course, being that there are far more King Air's out there than MU-2's. The MU2 has been blamed for having an extremely high wing loading, but truth is, in landing configuration, it's lower than a King Air 350, and clean, within ten pounds/sq' of a King Air 200.
Some say the spoilers for roll control kill lift. They don't. The reduce wing efficiency, but they don't kill lift. There is a difference.
Last year, three FAA teams flew 60 hours in the MU2 as part of a Flight Standardization Board to look into the MU2 as part of all the political fallout. They did it over eleven days, and in the end came to the conclusion that "with reasonable training, an average pilot can operate the MU-2 safely if opeated within the AFM guidlines." Go figure.
During research on the MU-2, with 214 total fatal accidents (since 1968), a researcher remarked that within a 90 day period five fatal B737 accidents occured, resulting in over 500 fatalities...more than the MU-2 in over 30 years. Was anybody prepared to ground the B737 for review? Of course not even though more people died in a few accidents in that airplane than in all the MU-2 accidents combined. Obviously the total number of deaths isn't the key to the picture...but to some degree I believe he makes a good point. Conversely, he notes that fatalities attributed to the MU-2 have included such things as a lineman running into the propeller of a MU-2 on the ground, and this being recorded as a fatal accident. Somewhat grasping at straws, there.
Between 1996 and 2005, 41 MU-2 accidents occured, 18 of which involved fatalities. 15 of those 18 fatals were pilot error involving a failure of basic piloting skills. 16 of those 18 involved pilots with no simulator training (FTD), who had all their training with their emplyer/operator. Some had no training, and two attended FSI but didn't complete the program. In comparing King Air accidents to MU-2 accidents, 80% of the King Air and 72% of the MU-2 accidents were pilot error. This alone, is telling. What we do not have here is a bad airplane. What we have here are bad pilots.
Bad pilots? For whatever reason, be it lack of training, lack of judgement, lapse of attention...whatever, we have pilots crashing the airplane. Not the airplane crashing pilots. Without doubt, some cases have occured in which the airplane got the better of the pilots, but overwhelmingly, most of the accidents, particularly the fatal accidents, have been lapses in basic airmanship and piloting. To blame the airplane would be a poor carpenter blaming his tools.
One of the airplanes I fly is a very unstable airplane, or can be, as airplanes go. It's suited for it's role, and it's lack of traditional stability, especially in certain configurations, is a necessary part of it's existance. Years ago, a pilot flew the airplane and returned to land. He climbed out and walked away, saying he was afraid of it and would never fly it again. This individual had the insight and wisdom to recognize his own limitations and abide by them, and there's nothing wrong with that. He made a good choice. Is he incapable of flying the airplane? I doubt that, he just lacked experience in type, and mission experience. I firmly believe that with more exposure and experience, he might have changed his mind...but it's mute point; he made a good call, and he's alive as a result. Others who didn't make the same choice since that time have since been killed in the same type airplane.
Is the airplane unsafe? No. Are the pilots incompetent? No. The dead pilots are not incompetent, just dead; they allowed or placed themselves into situations which while not necessarily beyond their means as pilots, was beyond their means as pilots in that airplane at that time. Conversely, those who continue flying the airplane...are they incompetent or guilty of improper decisions? No. There's nothing wrong with the airplane; like a computer it only does what it's made to do. It's a tough airplane; I can attest to that personally. And those who have experience in it almost universally agree (myself included) that it's got one of the better wings out there for aircraft of it's kind...point is that this airplane, like the MU-2, is just a machine. It's flyable by people of ordinary ability (such as myself) with the proper training and mindset to take things one step at a time, take the time to learn the airplane, and who will operate it conservatively.
Far better to walk up to the edge of a cliff and stop short, than to run to it, stop too late, and get a good view. One can always buy the postcard. Pushing one's limits or delving into a project with which one has inadequate training and experience is running to the cliffs; any time one approaches the edges of the envelope (be it the aircraft performance envelope, or one's own training and knowledge envelope) one has gone too far, much like the edge of the cliff. For that we can never blame the cliff, and we can never blame the airplane, only ourselves.
Soapbox over.
