PC 12 lands on street !

[Cutlass1287]

"Miers received permission to land on Indiana 933"

???

My thoughts exactly. Maybe, in some odd, twisted way a news reporter overheard something about the PIC being able to break any rule that he needs to, and somehow translated that into being given "permission." You never know with these zany reporters.

 

[FN FAL]

Yea I flew a 12 for a while.......and this very senario was my worst nightmare on the 200 and 1/2 days. I was not sorry to see the 12 go up for sale. Great airplane, great performance, lots of room........but I have had to shut down too many engines (ie. secure a dead engine) to be warm and fuzzy on one PT-6 in heavy weather.

Kudos to the crew, somebody needs to buy them a beer and a pair of pliers......the pliers being to dig the seat cushion out of their rear, I know mine would have dug a nice hole in the seat!!!

Great job guys.

Hahaha...200 and 1/2? Sonny, 100 1/2 are not my nightmare, but my re-ality and PT6's are my bread and butter. Most of our fleet has 7-9000 hours on them...tell me a story where they had to shut one down, the first freaking question I'll ask is, "what did the pilot do to it?"

What is it they say in the "X-Box" commercial? Live in your world, play in ours...or some kind of crap like that.

For every shut down, cage the engine, save the day story you can come up with, I can find a multi VMC story to shut you down....on my mark...start now!

 

[sqwkvfr]

I was waiting for you to chime in....

 

[FN FAL]

I was waiting for you to chime in....

Hehe...only the good die young...and I ain't that good!

I feel confident that my PT6 is going to get me up and going on nights where a "Blizzard" is not some Dairy Queen treat. I know the limitations of my plane and as well, I have landed after a two hour flight with turbine oil bathing the entire bottom of one of the Caravans I flew. The approach was to mins and oil pressure guage never gave a clue...neither did the idiot lights. Out of 14 quarts of oil, I was down to a couple quarts and never even knew it. There was a pinched "o" ring on a return line and it dumped at least a gallon an hour onto the cowling. If I had to hold or whatever, who knows how long I could have flown with no oil pressure? Guess what...the oil pressure light would have came on, then I'd be shooting the approach with 1/4 mile vis and a hundred...or maybe I'd be landing in some coniferous trees? Heck...if you live forever, how the hell are you going to get an airport or a bridge named after you?

Who knows...better yet, if I burn in, who would employ them poor bastages that make Vodka in Estonia or Pilsner Urquell? And most importantly, who the hell is going to be listening to my wife asking..."Does this SKS make my ass look fat?"

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

Hahaha...200 and 1/2? Sonny, 100 1/2 are not my nightmare, but my re-ality and PT6's are my bread and butter. Most of our fleet has 7-9000 hours on them...tell me a story where they had to shut one down, the first freaking question I'll ask is, "what did the pilot do to it?"

What is it they say in the "X-Box" commercial? Live in your world, play in ours...or some kind of crap like that.

For every shut down, cage the engine, save the day story you can come up with, I can find a multi VMC story to shut you down....on my mark...start now!

I never had the luxury of flying freight with a turbine. 100 and 1/2 on raw data (No flight directors or radar in those worn out Barons ) were our "Re-ality" as you say. We only had two in the fleet that had an HSI. That was a real treat when we could grab one of those birds for the night.

The PT-6 is a good engine, but if you fly anything long enough, you will have a failure. Cat I and Cat II is routine in my neck of the woods, 95% of the time I have the Company owner and the CFO on board. It is a simple risk analysis, In the 12 if I lost one, they crap themselves and worry about their mortality. In the Citation if I lose one they worry about the repair bill. (And mix another drink)

As to the VMC issue, well I can't speak for the ones that stuffed it in the ground. I guess those boys should have practiced their single engine procedures a little more often. Me? I'll still take a single engine cruise to destination over a romp in a cow pasture any day. Dried Cow dung is way too hard to get off the paint.

 

[FN FAL]

Fleet wide, we have almost 10,000 hours each on all the carvans ever produced...and yet there is no record of shut downs for this or that.

Like I said...if there is a story involving a shut down of a PT6 powered caravan...I have to ask, "What the hell did the pilot do to it?"

You can do a search of the NTSB reports and prove me wrong...it's not that hard.

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

Fleet wide, we have almost 10,000 hours each on all the carvans ever produced...and yet there is no record of shut downs for this or that.

Like I said...if there is a story involving a shut down of a PT6 powered caravan...I have to ask, "What the hell did the pilot do to it?"

You can do a search of the NTSB reports and prove me wrong...it's not that hard.

If we were only talking about Caravans then you would have a valid point. The PC-12 doesn't have as good a record as the van. The majority of the 12 incidents appear to be owner operator induced events. However there are 3 or 4 that are engine related. The PT-6 has not proved to be as reliable in the 12 fleet. I saw a tech article a while back about it possibly being PC-12 specific installation issues, but I have not seen anything since about it. The 12 is using a much bigger version of the PT-6 than the caravan. That may be part of it. I can't think of any other planes using the -67 1200 SHP version off the top of my head. May be teething problems that are occuring here and there. Kind of like the CFM's on the 737's back in the 80's, just flame out in cruise for no good reason.

I never had a speck of trouble with ours, but we only kept it for 600 hours or so, never really broke it in good.

 

[hydroflyer]

"Craig Miers politely declined to speak with reporters."

Another smart move by that pilot.

 

[dispatchguy]

I live very close to SBN, where this happened, and its blanketed the local news around here (and the lake effect snow we've had)

The aircraft has been in a hotel parking lot since being secured by the NTSB (with 24 hour local Police guard), and now the issue is how to get it back to the airport without doing more damage; idea is to tow it. They were going to do it yesterday, at 0800 local time, but the planned route wouldve caused chaos with local traffic. 933 feeds right into the heart of downtown SBN, passes a major hospital, then the route wouldve looped onto Lincolnway west to the airport, thru the ghetto.

They nixed the 0800 idea; they were to have done it last night, but I dont know if they did.

On the TV news, it looked like one of the mains was deflated, a nice gouge out of a leading edge due to hitting a pole, but otherwise, the aircraft looked undamaged.

933 here is a major route out of South Bend towards the north, and he's D-A-M-N-E-D lucky he didnt kill someone landing it - helluva job.

<news>

Now the plan is to remove the wings and put it on a truck back to the airport, at least according to the local newsies around here... The police say that there is no real way to get a 42' wide anything to the local airport from where he set it down.

 

[Kingairrick]

The 12 is really cool. I got to fly in on once recently. However, if I lose an engine in the BE300, it just means that I'll be crapping my pants because I can only climb at 1500FPM...

 

[NEDude]

Posted by KeroseneSnorter:

I can't think of any other planes using the -67 1200 SHP version off the top of my head.

The Beech 1900D has the -67. The -67D, as opposed -67B on the PC-12. But same power output. In fact I heard from a mechanic that the only difference between the "B" and the "D" had to do with the prop governor, and not the actual engine itself. It would be interesting to find out the failure rate on the 1900D (not other versions of the BE-1900) and compare it both to other versions of the PT-6 and compare it to the Pilatus PC-12.

I used to fly PC-12s before I flew the 1900D. When I flew it, being single engine never bothered me. But after a couple thouseand hours in the 1900, as much as I like the PC-12, I would be nervous being single engine again.

 

[PC12Cowboy]

PC 12 driver

I have the joy of flying a 12...and it just got a new govenor/gear box assy...courtesy of P/W....seems that has been a source of metal with part numbers on it! So we in the 12 community are awaiting the verdict.....Engine is prolly already on its way to CaNaDa...lol

 

[Groundpounder]

I used to work at an FBO with the pilot. Spent most of his time working on his dads Cessna 180, and not much time working. Guess he was a better pilot than line guy.

 

[FN FAL]

Great job to the pilots, and yes the PC12 is cool, but two questions keep popping into my head;

1) What if this had been a King Air 200?

2) What if it had been 100 & 1/2?

Again, great job guys!

What if it had been a Buick stalled out on the train tracks with the electic door locks shorted out and a fast freight train bearing down on them?

What if it had been a submarine and someone remebered they only had the screen door secured when they submerged?

What if they were snorkeling and there were sharks nearby, but the boat had drifted off it's mooring?

 

[FN FAL]

If we were only talking about Caravans then you would have a valid point. The PC-12 doesn't have as good a record as the van. The majority of the 12 incidents appear to be owner operator induced events. However there are 3 or 4 that are engine related. The PT-6 has not proved to be as reliable in the 12 fleet. I saw a tech article a while back about it possibly being PC-12 specific installation issues, but I have not seen anything since about it. The 12 is using a much bigger version of the PT-6 than the caravan. That may be part of it. I can't think of any other planes using the -67 1200 SHP version off the top of my head. May be teething problems that are occuring here and there. Kind of like the CFM's on the 737's back in the 80's, just flame out in cruise for no good reason.

I never had a speck of trouble with ours, but we only kept it for 600 hours or so, never really broke it in good.

That's true, but weren't those shut downs due to the fuel tank vents icing up? According to Kelner up in Canada, he puts 100 hours a week on a PC-12. From what I hear from him, he does his 100 hour on Sunday.

 

[PropsForward]

Says subscrition required

 

[PropsForward]

Another link to the artical.

http://www.aero-news.net/news/commb...257ed-2453-41a3-9e1c-7b25974cf6ae&Dynamic=1#d