Ok, I’m going to jump in here. I managed to fly MU-2s (the series were the G, J, K, L and the M) for around 600hrs and lived though it, mostly by skill and luck.
The MU-2 is the worst airplane I have ever flown, period. And I have flown a lot of airplanes. It has the worst accident record of ANY type airplane ever put into production. The loss rate is so high (48%) that if the MU-2 were in combat operations the U.S. Air Force would pull the aircraft out of the field and ground them.
The MU-2 is the ONLY airplane that the FAA has reevaluated its airworthy certificate at the request of the NTSB.
The blasted things tried to kill me more times than I can remember, following are a few of the worst things that happened to me.
1. J model, on short final the flap handle slipped out of the full flaps position and started to retract, only by applying full power as fast as possible did I avoid hitting the approach lights.
2. J model, a short behind the baggage compartment bulkhead (inside the pressure vessel) caused the wooden, yes wooden, bulkhead to catch on fire. The only thing that saved us that day was that an ex-air force pilot was on board and he flew the airplane while I went back and torn the bulkhead apart and put the fire out. By the way, the cabin door on the J model is in the baggage area. If anyone is wondering way I didn’t just let the autopilot fly the airplane it was because I had killed the electrical system because the only thing that can cause a fire in that area would be electrical.
3. J model, landing in Salt Lake City during reported LIGHT icing. I had to use full power to get to the runway from the outer-marker due ice build up, yes the de-icing equipment was working and the wings were clear of ice, it was the rest of the airplane.
4. J model, the left tip tank fuel cap failed on takeoff (yes it failed, they found the pieces on the runway) creating a huge imbalance and I was barely able get the blasted thing on the ground with part flaps and full spoiled deflection.
5. M model, on take-off as I retracted the flaps and trimmed the nose up the right thrust lever started to move back to idle. I stopped trimming and shoved the bloody lever back to full power. As I started trimming nose up again the right thrust lever started back towards idle again. Now I must admit that I was bit puzzled at this point, however by this time nothing the MU-2 did really took me by surprise. For those of you that have had the misfortune to fly MU-2s you will recall that there is not enough room in the cockpit to have the autopilot mounted like normal airplanes. It is stowed under the throttle quadrant for ease of getting in and out of the cockpit. Before this happened ever time I would get into the left seat I would pull the autopilot head up and lock into position. Yup, a wiring bundle for the autopilot managed to wrap itself around the trim wheel and the bottom of the right thrust lever. And no, trimming nose down did not push the lever back up. An AD note came out of this incident.
6. L model, the right engine oil filter housing cracked and the engine seized up. This happened in cruise and the engine did auto-feather (or whatever they called it in the MU-2, negative torque thingy or something), however an MU-2 on one engine is not good no matter what the situation is. Oh yeah, I had one passenger and a light fuel load, was able to stop the decent around 12,000ft.
Anyway those are the worst things that happened. I had to crank the gear down about five times due to icing on the gear door proximity switches. On at least three occasions we couldn’t open the cabin door because the door seal froze and would not deflate, that was always embarrassing.
The only way to fly these pieces of junk is to never, never get slow, stay way ahead of the airplane, keep it on the ground until you get single climb speed and look for another job with a different airplane. Oh yes, one more thing, don’t believe that crap about the MU-2 being a good short field airplane, it ain’t.
