Those are high performance aircraft.
A lot of things “work just fine” if you have the power.
I think someone doing fine in an F18 can handle a TB10, but that’s not the point. I’m reading Sully‘s book, and the training and challenges he describes are astounding. The direction, or better cliffs, these guys have to master, from „simple“ pistons until they progress to fast jets is surely more difficult than the other way round.
I agree with you @Peter that one can easily be spoiled by power and equipment. Yes – a given identical situation – is much easier to master in a jet vs. a non pressurized piston. Things like icing, terrain etc..
But, enhanced capabilities don’t come alone, they are relative to the much broader differences that will evolve. Flying on a 99,9% schedule to make money in all weather for starters, or some military flying to top that.
For private GA this means: on a sunny day and cross country VFR flight a TBM will spoil one in capability vs. a TB10, which could be „overwhelmed“ even by some puffy clouds popping up. That same TBM however will still be used in all kinds of scenarios where the TB10 isn’t even considered. Capability is relative.
Why that pilot hit a mountain we don’t know. I don’t think he falsely assumed to have turbine power in that plane. Maybe, like you say, him being used to more sophisticated planes played a part, maybe it was just a little glitch that can happen to any of us (like high pitch), maybe it was something medical… all speculation.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Flying max range for me is not a question of airplane type but of having an accurate fuel flow meter and a fuel totalizer. Even for a C172 there are cheap models. If my plane had not had one, that would have been the first thing to put, no matter if it was a C150 or a Mooney.
Yes, you will need a fuel totaliser for max range mission even with decent reserve,
My point was on thinking how much M20C vs C150 max ranges do get impacted by headwinds? this is a decent mental exercise,
60kts instead of 30kts? down -33% on M20C and -50% on C150
90kts instead of 30kts? down -70% on M20C and -99% on C150
Usual answer inside cockpit tend to be: got 10Gals reserves and did this before, C150 should be like a walk in the park
The same can be said when moving form 737 to TB10 near the Alps
Snoopy wrote:
I think someone doing fine in an F18 can handle a TB10
True, but they surely you know the risks flying F18 (icing, windsheer, density altitude are never discussed there)
What kills are the risks that you are not aware of or underestimated, so misjudgement or little attention?
Ibra wrote:
True, but they surely you know the risks flying F18 (icing, windsheer, density altitude are never discussed there)
What kills are the risks that you are not aware of or underestimated, so misjudgement or little attention?
Of course they are discussed there. Wind shear, icing, density? I bet he did far more of that analysis than most GA pilots.
This was a very experienced GA and professional pilot. It is a massive cop out to say he was a pro who was so used to high power aircraft and didn’t get light GA. He just made a mistake it would seem. Like all of us can do.
Just bad wording on my side, some of the factors start to affect you a lot moving from fast jet to GA, those treats could be a big source of misjudgment but this is just my speculation
In the other hand, you could talk about CFIT flying GA only and CFIT flying military jets, there is load of each and all of it boils to mistakes that everybody can make
Snoopy wrote:
I think someone doing fine in an F18 can handle a TB10,
This accident (and some others) is the sad proof that this is dangerously wrong!
While obviously some aspects of flying a TB10 are simpler than flying an F18, in general the TB10 is not Always an easier plane to fly than a F18. Therefore an “F18 experienced” Pilot is not experienced in flying an F18. In fact, the broad experience the Pilot in this accident had in flying jet aircraft was actually an important contributing factor to this accident: The Pilot could not imagine how bad the climb performance of a TB10 is and therefore did not realize the consciously chosen flightpath as dangeous.
A pilot not that experienced with jet aircraft would not have Chosen this flightpath.
Just because you are doing fine navigating a PC-12 IFR between thundertorms at levels doesn’t mean you can fly a cub through a narrow mountain valley and vice versa.
Speed here can tell us how flying an F18 compares to flying SEP.
Ibra wrote:
Yes, you will need a fuel totaliser for max range mission even with decent reserve,
My point was on thinking how much M20C vs C150 max ranges do get impacted by headwinds? this is a decent mental exercise,
60kts instead of 30kts? down -33% on M20C and -50% on C150
90kts instead of 30kts? down -70% on M20C and -99% on C150
Right, I get your argument. For me, it was my experience with the C150 as owner which made me want a totalizer in ANY airplane I fly, as the fuel gauges were totally inaccurate to the point where you would loose half the range only to that. I landed several times with that plane in my early flying days after “loosing” half the fuel over half an hour only to find that I had plenty left when I was on the ground again. If I remember correctly, the C150 had 22.5 USG total fuel and a fuel flow of roughly 5 GPH at 90 kt. I always planned with one hour final reserve (5 USG) leaving 17.5 USG or roughly 3.5 hours flight time or 300 NM still distance. I experienced it often that the fuel indicators went towards empty mostly on one side (as you can’t select l or r tank) or both went low at altitude after maybe 2 .5 hours only finding I had about 10-12 USG left once I landed and refuelled. A totalizer would have helped massively there.
But you are quite right, a 30 kts headwind on the Cessna means you use 1/3rd of your cruise speed while it’s 1/5th of the Mooney. In fact, I had it twice that we almost stood still and if it had not been for our then revoltionary Pronav 100 (later Garmin) we thought we flew backwards… actually we had about 40 kts forward speed still…
In the Mooney, this is not so much a problem, the gauges are quite accurate. Still I am very happy to have a totalizer. Final resreve I take on the Mooney is 10 USG / 1 hr as well, so I am left with 42 USG max trip fuel (including alternate) which with about 8 GPH and 140 kts translates into roughly 700 NM. A 30 kts headwind will reduce that to 550 NM….
JasonC wrote:
This was a very experienced GA and professional pilot. It is a massive cop out to say he was a pro who was so used to high power aircraft and didn’t get light GA. He just made a mistake it would seem
It’s out of question that he made a mistake – there are extremely few aviation accidents where no mistakes are involved…
What we are discussing – as in every reasonable post accident discussion – are the circumstances that led to the fact that someone made so many/ so significant mistakes that finally people got killed.
And one of the facts is, that while the Pilot had more than 8000 total hrs, only 540 of them have been in SEP (according to the accident report). Deduct the about 100 SEP hrs. you typically fly to get your CPL/IR that is 440 hrs SEP in the last 28 years or on average less than 16hrs SEP/yr!
Why is that so important? Obviously not because the Pilot is to blame for something (which would not make sense anyways as he is dead).
It is important because that very risk that realized here is relevant for many of us who fly different types over time. The case that someone coming from F18 and PC-24 is flying a TB10 is very extreme – but the same mechanisms act if one is used to fly a SR22 or a PA-46 and for whatever reason is now in a C-152. Or someone flying a high powered microlight switches to a PA-28. We are all not immune to that “I had 200 hrs last year so what would be the challenge of this coffee flight in plenty VMC …” type of thinking.
This is dangerous to all of us, esp. when a second contributing factor in this case kicks in: Knowing the area! It might Sound paradox, but when flying a type that is unfamiliar to us, few things are as dangerous than doing so at our homebase!
Why is that? When was the last time, we did performance calculations for our homebase? When was the last time we actually checked how high this obstacle really is? Why should we – we know, it works and we are clear of this obstacle by a good margin …
In the end I can only talk about myself. And I know that if I rent out a tripacer in Alaska backcountry on a gravel strip, I double check every performance figure very carefully. If I did the same thing at my homebase? Ah – come on – runway is Long enough – let’s go flying…
This accident give me the chance that this mistake doesn’t kill me – at least not in the next 2-3 years until I get complacent again.
Malibuflyer wrote:
And one of the facts is, that while the Pilot had more than 8000 total hrs, only 540 of them have been in SEP (according to the accident report). Deduct the about 100 SEP hrs. you typically fly to get your CPL/IR that is 440 hrs SEP in the last 28 years or on average less than 16hrs SEP/yr!
Well, put that into perspective and say that the average PPL flies 12 hours every 2nd year to keep his license…..
Reto Aeschlimann was certainly proficient and seeing that he also had a current FI endorsement he must have flown a number of hours in recent times. In fact, had anyone asked me prior to that whether I would let my family fly with him, then he would probably have been one of those people I would have trusted.
But what bugs me with this accident is, that people like him DO exactly have the skill to actually fly airplanes even outside the envelope as happened here due to this noise abatement rule, that is what they do for a living…. when they start testing new airplanes there IS no book. So much the more it is totally crazy that someone like that would fly into a hill. Personally, I am by now pretty darn sure that the main reason this happened was the reduced power they used which reduced his climb performance by 50%. Going over this ridge is 2nd nature to all of them, it is the typical exit point. We don’t know what SEP’s he flew before, the only thing we DO know is that he had not flown the TB10 for a considerable time. So let’s assume he has flown the AA5 they also had: Fixed pitch prop and therefore flown full throttle, the AA5B can do this departure without a problem, so can any Archer and, flown correctly, the TB10. But with reduced take off power and climb power it can’t, but somehow someone taught the people flying with this plane that 2500 RPM at FT yields the same power than 2700. And that is wrong.
Then in climb if you are additionally slow and with a relatively high pitch, you can’t see the terrain in front. Well, that is already two potentially fatal holes in the cheese. Third may well have been that he was glad that they were finally on the way and relaxed a bit too much, as he thought he was in familiar terrain. My bet is he never realized what happened.
MY personal take is clear: NEVER operate any airplane outside it’s POH procedures just because some NIMBY’ folk threaten your local airport. To them, the death of this family is probably just one of those noise making fools less, and good riddance…. no, they are not worth this kind of sacrifice. If an airplane is deemed too loud in it’s normal operation for a particular place, sell it and get one which is not. But for heavens sake don’t fly around with less power than you can in mountainous area.
