MU-2 Study

[TIGV]

Courkyle; Welcome to the webiste where a lot is said by people who know, or care, very little. TIGV says there was nothing found in the two previous SCRs. We both know he's wrong. But, he seems to be comfortable with a certain amount of ignorance in the matter. That's OK we know better. As a result of the SCR, he now enjoys flying a safer airplane when in icing conditions than before the SCR was conducted. He also seems to be pre-occupied with just making a living in the aircraft. He just doesn't want us to mess with that part of his life. After accruing 7000+ hours of flight time I would think that he would have found a better niche in the aviation world, but he seems stuck, and happy with the MU2. Wish him luck. I do.

Actaully Courkyle wished me DEATH not luck.

The SCR required 8 hour icing training spends about 2/3rds of the time basically advertizing how good the MU-2 is in ice, other than some useful info on prop icing specific to the Mitz this video might as well have been filmed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries PR department.

I won't sit here and try and show the aircraft in any kind of glorious light as a forgiving and easy to fly turbine twin, quite frankly it's exactly the opposite.
In my humble opinion the MU-2, in addition to having some different design elements to a regular aircraft that help add to it's workload, also has a couple of other design quirks that add to the same.
Basically most other flying machines of this complexity are currently being flown in a professionally trained two crew environment, we fly with an autopilot.
The MU-2 is very high workload and very unforgiving if that workload exceeds one's abilities.

The FAA will not ground the MU-2 fleet, to do so would be to admit culpability in every crash that has occured since the last SCR's you speak of, and to make grounding the MU-2 your primary objective is ludicrous and may even detract from the possibility that the political pressure you are bringing to bear could in fact have a more useful outcome.

The best I think we can hope for is a special issuance type rating, I for one am grateful that your efforts may result in mandatory, more professional and standardized training for the Mitz and possibly greater oversite for Mitz operations under FAR 135. In addition this neatly moves responsibility from the FAA to a private entity and is, in my opinion, the only realistic political outcome.

Yep, I'm happy where I am, not much else for aviation out of Kansas City, I've spent over 8 years commuting for this career and I'm done with it, I'll take my decent paycheck and my 15 days off a month and see what may or may not happen down the road.

I thank you for wishing me luck, the same cannot be said for Courkyle, his PM was in incredibly bad taste.

Cheers.

 

[jafo20]

This kinda reminds me of the story of the B-26. In World War 2, a bunch of 'em were crashing in Tampa Bay. Congress was pushing to have the aircraft removed from service. People suspected a Vmc issue was to blame with the plane. Anyway, James Doolittle flew the plane in front of a crowd, shutting down the engine on takeoff, turning into the dead motor and landing. Congress piped down, when he said the airplane was not inherently dangerous.

Training in the B-26 was modified, and when it entered combat operations it suffered very few combat losses.

I'm not saying the MU-2 is a good or bad airplane. There are things I hear about time for gear to retract, spoilers and propellers shedding blades, but you hear a lot of bogus rumors. I'm also not saying the pilots that got zapped were incompetent. They were probably pretty sharp. I just think there's an interesting parallel there.

 

[TIGV]

Bump so that others may contribute and yet others may have the opportunity for replies or comments.

Still no retractions by Courkyle or, more interestingly any responding comments by Skyking to my previous post, one can only assume that the potential support, current MU-2 pilots could represent, to the above, is of unimportance, sad really, I had hoped we could collectively be part of a change for the better in regards to safety on the MU-2.

Sigh.

 

[skyking1976]

I don't believe Courkyle wished you death at all. I believe the wish for was exactly what was written. Courkyle needs no more connection with the passing of pilots in an MU2. I really don't think a retraction is in the offing. Somehow, I've become a little confused as well. It seems that your past posts on the subject were pretty much go away and leave me alone because you're just going to upset everthing and I like things the way they are. I guess I didn't pick up on your willingness to contribute to solving the problems with the MU2. I did from other posts, but not yours. Don't sigh. It sounds like you're giving up.

 

[TIGV]

"Never give up ! Never surrender ! To infinity...and beyond "
( Toy Story )

Lots of threads on the MU-2 on this site, all my previous posts concerning this subject were set on casting the aircraft in a more objective light, realising too late that I and others have the extreme good fortune to still be able to do so.

If you toss a man the manual to a printing press, then one can only hope that in a month or so a close approximation of a newspaper might be produced with no more harm done than some papercuts and ink stains.
Not so with the MU-2 and therefore Mitz specific training, in the aircraft and simulator by high time in type, highly qualified instructors should not only already be the case but should be an FAA requirement ( Type rating )
I'm hoping this will be the result.

Cheers.

 

[TIGV]

Well, have it on good authority that we may be losing the autopilots on the MU-2, as if it wasn't a high enough workload already.

You would think some action to increase the safety of this aircraf type would have been taken, instead ...
EDIT.

DISCLAIMER: In the interest of continued employment this post has been edited by the the poster so as not to cast an opinion one way or another.

CONTINUED: we have been told not to write up inop autopilots or they will be removed.

Disgusted. ( " Disgusted " Phrase used to describe current poster ' feeling ', not intended as an opinion END )

 

[skyking1976]

TIGV; Does this info come from the feds (presumably?) or is it something that the employer decided they should do in-house in anticipation of some forthcoming action?

 

[Peanut gallery]

Here we go again......

The problem is that this attacks a symptom rather than the cause. This rather misguided notion that somehow grounding an aircraft that just happens to require some special attention in terms of piloting will fix something.
As history shows the Feds will come out with something that actually hurts the safety potential of the aircraft.
The real problem is the 135 operators inability to properly train, check, maintain and audit themselves for problems. If the MU-2 is grounded which I highly doubt since it has passed review previously. These folks will find some other aircraft that has fallen through the cracks and continue to operate in a way that leads to the same result. The problem is environmental not hardware.
Remember this one from the 90's " Same level of Safety ". That push certainly changed the Regionals. It is time to require 135 operators that operate such large fleets on a scheduled basis to step up to the plate and conduct themselves in a professional manner. Change the environment that permits operations to basically be conducted in an unchecked manner.

Just my .02

 

[TIGV]

TIGV; Does this info come from the feds (presumably?) or is it something that the employer decided they should do in-house in anticipation of some forthcoming action?

Our MEL is very specific and provides no relief, a functioning autopilot or two crew are required for IMC or NIGHT Ops, we are told that this is an error and applies to Pax not cargo Ops. This may or may not be the case, either way it's irrelevant, for the outstation based pilot the MEL specific to his aircraft must be followed.

Long story short, one of our guys grounded a plane because MX wrote up and deferred his autopilot.

Company response has been to indicate to us that if we write up autopilots they will be removed.

I argued the case that Firstly: They were jumping the gun because it is highly likely that a functioning autopilot WILL be required for single pilot MU-2 PAx OR cargo Ops at the completion of the safety revue and Secondly; It would be highly unlikely that our POI would sign off on an operational change that would appear to negatively impact the operational safety of the MU-2.

I had hoped for something better out of Denver, the above leaves me with the exact opposite impression.

So I guess I'll be looking for employment elsewhere come the winter, I will not fly one of these aircraft 5 legs ( approaches ) per day, 110 hours a month, on the backside of the clock on no sleep without a functioning autopilot, it's just asking for trouble, most of the other Midwest routes and pilots feel the same but hey it aint really a pilot's market out there.

Cheers

 

[skygirl1968]

here is a local Denver news story on the MU-2...they interviewed me for the piece, its a 4 part story and my interview is supposed to be on tonite (Wednesday) on the 10pm program. the video will be available tomorrow.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/5057122/detail.html