How do you get access to the MOR report?
He wasn’t exactly a PA46 novice though:
His logbook indicated that he flew N186CB frequently, visiting Dunkeswell at least 25 times between September 2013 and October 2015 and flying 60 instrument approaches in the aircraft during the same period. In March 2015, he commenced training for an FAA Instrument Rating (IR) and was due to take the test for this rating the week after the accident. The pilot had logged over 120 hours of instrument flying, including 55 hours in N186CB.
You need to be registered. It’s nonsense and does nothing to promote safety – typical EASA. Unfortunately data protection takes primacy.
https://www.caa.co.uk/Our-work/Make-a-report-or-complaint/MORS/
Is there a limit to how fast an average individual can learn over calendar time, regardless of 600 hours flown in that period? Is age (50s versus say 20s) a factor in that issue?
IMHO the limiting factor in light GA is not the speed of the plane. A piston PA46 is not that quick. In VFR usage, low level like this guy was doing, you are doing maybe 170kt max IAS/TAS. There is no practical difference between 170kt and the 140kt I do in the TB20. And I have seen 180kt GS due to wind… none of this is difficult. You aren’t doing 500kt at 200ft AGL…
From what I see, the limiting factor, relevant to this topic, is aircraft systems comprehension – IOW, what the hell does this button do? Too many people get into stuff which they can’t get their head around. And this happens at all levels; e.g. many people would not understand an EDM700 type instrument installed in a C150. Now transplant that to a G1000 cockpit… Some stuff I hear privately, and won’t write about in detail, is simply mind boggling.
The above para applies to straightforward simple GA flying, like I do. Not bush flying, landing on snow with skis, water stuff – all that requires special skills which are not related to aircraft systems, and which can be learnt by people who cannot learn aircraft systems, beyond knowing what the trim wheel does.
A PA46 is slippery in that if you lose it you will be past Vne in a matter of seconds, but a TB20 or SR22 will do the same just as fast if you don’t keep it the right side up.
Dave_Phillips wrote:
You need to be registered. It’s nonsense and does nothing to promote safety – typical EASA. Unfortunately data protection takes primacy.
Cos it’s not like you want to “use the information on occurrences in order to attribute blame or liability”, is it? 
If you think that casting aspersions on a pilot’s capability or attitude on an internet forum based a homebase and type similarity is a legitimate use of data submitted in a just-culture system, I think I’m with EASA.
The GTN series has, in my opinion, a dangerous feature that I have highlighted to Garmin a few days ago (I just bought a GTN750 for my RV7): the VNAV function (I think called VCALC in the GTN), which is the one used for DIY approaches, in the GTN takes as only input the target Rate of Descent (in feet per minute), but not the target Angle of Descent (on the opposite, in the G1000, the AoD is a possible target input as well as the RoD). However this is unnatural because to be sure to be at a given waypoint at a given altitude (i.e. the VNAV function “raison d’etre”), the natural input is Angle of Descent (like in an ILS), because the RoD may have to change during time if your Ground Speed changes during the descent (because of wind change, or because of acceleration due to pitching down, or deceleration because of flaps deployment, etc..). From what I understand, the GTN calculates the Angle of Descent using the target RoD and using the instantaneous speed (not sure which speed) observed a few seconds before the Top Of Descent (not clear how many seconds before), and then fixes the Angle of Descent to an unknown value (unknown to the pilot) and keeps the flight director (and autopilot) on that flight path till the end (so in fact allowing the RoD to vary in order to keep the “unkown” AoD constant). This means that you can practice the DIY approach in nice VMC many times, but you will never be able to replicate exactly the same approach (i.e. the same AoD) when you need it in marginal VMC. I don’t want to discuss the never-ending issue if DIY approaches are bad practice, but if the G1000 (and many other non-garmin systems) has the correct implementation of the VNAV function, I think the GTN can have it too.
ValerioM wrote:
…which is the one used for DIY approaches…
Since when do avionics manufacturers provide functions to be used for “DIY approaches”? I guess that if you have a closer look at the manual, you will find a boxed paragraph in bold print which explains that the VNAV function, however it is implemented, is intended for enroute descent and climb only…
Anyway, in this case it does not matter the least (in my opinion) how Garmin coded this function as the accident pilot obvoiusly did not master his aeroplane and/or understood it’s systems.
Looking into the report and the comments in this forum, I really think that this is “just” another loss-of-control-while-entering-instrument-conditions accident. The pilot had in ecxess of 100 IR training hours and over 60 instrument approaches and yet did not perform well enough to pass his exam. Leaving the autopilot engaged and probably fighting it while manoeuvering away from the approach did not help much either. What he was really attempting to do will never be known.
Peter wrote:
IMHO the limiting factor in light GA is not the speed of the plane. A piston PA46 is not that quick. In VFR usage, low level like this guy was doing, you are doing maybe 170kt max IAS/TAS. There is no practical difference between 170kt and the 140kt I do in the TB20. And I have seen 180kt GS due to wind… none of this is difficult. You aren’t doing 500kt at 200ft AGL…
The report did have some witnesses saying they saw the aircraft just below cloud at roughly 300ft AGL.
Of course eyewitness accounts aren’t often that reliable, but that order of magnitude height above undulating terrain, in poor visibility, at 160-170 knots doesn’t sound like a lot of fun and sounds like asking for trouble. It’s a much different proposition to doing the same thing at, say, 35 mph indicated. (The Army used to do this in Austers – they would fly at treetop height at 35 mph when doing a low observable approach into makeshift airstrips used for artillery spotting).
Personally, I really wouldn’t like to be in a PA-46 trying to maintain VFR at 300’ AGL. It’s really not a suitable aircraft for ‘scud running’.
Looking at the report and the flight track I don’t think it was a DIY approach but a VFR arrival which went wrong. He was consistent under the clouds and had visibility, albeit was way too low for comfort (isn’t 500 ft the minimum altitude in the UK?) and then something happened that he had not forseen and he had no safety margin left to deal with it. Fighting the trim unconciously and then having a huge pitch up when the AP finally was released could well fit that scenario.
There were some similar accidents involving two 737’s in the last two years, which were caused by bad autopilot use. So it’s not really a thing limited to PPL’s. In both cases the airplanes went out of control in a go around. Both of them had huge trim movements prior impact.
another accident in this league was in 1994similar accidents involving two 737’s in the last two years, which were caused by bad autopilot use
