Single Engine Hard IFR

[GottaFly]

i've heard many a story regarding Navajo Victory Rolls.....

[sprucemonkey]

By regulation and certification, all certified single engined airplanes have a Vso of 61 Kts. or less....

Isn't a PC12 64KTS?

[CID]

Also, if we were to lose the engine below 500', it wouldn't make one lick of difference if it were VFR or IFR, put 'er down straight ahead with full flaps and minor deviations. Stall speed with full flaps is less than 70 knots, by the way if you didn't know.

So, if you were visual and you noticed a cliff in front of you and a school yard with a large field to the left, you'd still elect to proceed straight ahead?

[flyinphil]

READ THIS!

I believe that this debate is not being properly analyzed by most pilots that have responded here. I do not believe this should be an issue of singles vs. twins, Navajo vs. PC12 vs. King Air etc… Let’s face it, nobody likes to admit to any fault the aircraft they are currently flying may have. Chances are most pilots will feel offended by any “my aircraft is better than yours” type comments. Because most pilots here are reacting with emotion instead of logic, the issue is being overlooked. Instead of looking at things from the singles vs. twins perspective, maybe we should focus more of our attention on the risk factor involved based on the type of operation conducted by the specific operator. Some types of operations may present a low risk factor; some may present an extremely high level of risk. One method that could be utilized would be a grading system that would serve the purpose of informing the flight crew and general public using the service of the risk factor involved in that particular type of operation (consider not only aircraft type but region of operation, type of operation, airports served, types of approaches controlled/uncontrolled etc…). Similar to the CFIT checklist grading system currently employed by the Flight Safety Foundation, a similar system could exist not only to inform pilots of the level of risk they are exposing themselves to on a regular basis as part of their job but also to inform the general public. A good example of this would be; a particular commercial operation has been assessed a 1, which would represent the lowest possible risk factor, or, a particular operation is assessed a 10, which would represent the highest risk factor level possible. Let’s face it, most passengers don’t want to just suck it up, grow “balls” and become pioneers of aviation by having enough guts to just do it like the old days. Most passengers think that the flight or aircraft they are embarking on is as safe as that 767 that brought them from Montreal to Toronto. The fact is that depending on factors mentioned earlier, a particular flight might have a different risk factor number, it might be less or it might be higher. This method would serve not only to constantly remind the crew of the type of mission they have accepted, but also to inform the general public of what they are getting into. By utilizing a grading system everyone onboard can individually decide whether the level of risk is acceptable or not.

Good post A300, As is evident, some of the responders here are obviously incapable of determining risk on their own.

[flyinphil]

Also, if we were to lose the engine below 500', it wouldn't make one lick of difference if it were VFR or IFR, put 'er down straight ahead with full flaps and minor deviations. Stall speed with full flaps is less than 70 knots, by the way if you didn't know.

So, if you were visual and you noticed a cliff in front of you and a school yard with a large field to the left, you'd still elect to proceed straight ahead?

Breaking out at 1000 feet offers a lot more options than 100 feet does. I dont know why that isn't obvious to some.

[flyinphil]

So, if you were visual and you noticed a cliff in front of you and a school yard with a large field to the left, you'd still elect to proceed straight ahead?

Breaking out at 1000 feet offers a lot more options than 100 feet does. I dont know why that isn't obvious to some.

Let me choose any spot at random in NWO and we'll have the 100 vs. 1000 feet contest. In both cases you're going to end up in a) rocks, b) trees, or c) water. The extra 40 seconds afforded by having another 900 feet underneath you isn't going to make much difference at all.

That is absolute rubbish CPL. Just a few seconds can avoid a building, a tree, a power line, a poulated area like a school yard and put you in an empty field, a roadway, or even into a lake or a stand of trees. Have flown a lifetime of CATII approaches ie: 100ft agl, I can assure you the outcome due to absence of adequate visual reference will be quite different.

[snaproll20]

A300

Your risk factor assessment idea, like many ideas, has merit.
However, I have observed that pilots, to a degree depending on their experience level, automatically decide risk factors. Sometimes, it is subconscious. I cannot remember seeing someone, with more cojones than sense, blasting off into the face of extreme challenge. I do remember one pilot who, bored out of his gourd at not flying, took on a flight which put him into a cliff face. This however was not a gamble, it was done in ignorance of the topography along his route.

My point (finally!) is that under your idea, would we see the risk assessment of a commercial flight posted at the gate for the benefit of passengers i.e

Superair Flight 2345 Winnipeg to Toronto. This flight has been assessed as a risk of 6 due to low time pilots, 8 MEL items, thunderstorms, navaid unserviceabilities enroute.
Passengers without the backbone to board this flight can book a later flight at an additional cost of $40.


To me, it is ludicrous to involve passengers in any kind of informational dialogue concerning how safe the flight is. If I am putting my ass in it, then I expect the aircraft to arrive.
The only time I ever involved passengers in the conduct of a flight was to give them a percentage chance of arrival due to weather, and ensure they would pay if we tried and failed to see destination.

[Cap'n P8]

Also, if we were to lose the engine below 500', it wouldn't make one lick of difference if it were VFR or IFR, put 'er down straight ahead with full flaps and minor deviations. Stall speed with full flaps is less than 70 knots, by the way if you didn't know.

So, if you were visual and you noticed a cliff in front of you and a school yard with a large field to the left, you'd still elect to proceed straight ahead?

First of all below 500' it's straight ahead with minor deviations so as to not stall spin and most assuredly die.

Second of all, like I said, I was always very cognizant of where I was and what the terrain was like. I never took off in a place with cliffs ahead of me or ball parks for that matter. I was very familiar with the area because I spent many years there.

[Cap'n P8]

For the record, stall speed with full flap and gear down in a -12 is 64 knots.

[flyinphil]

Let me choose any spot at random in NWO and we'll have the 100 vs. 1000 feet contest. In both cases you're going to end up in a) rocks, b) trees, or c) water. The extra 40 seconds afforded by having another 900 feet underneath you isn't going to make much difference at all.

That is absolute rubbish CPL. Just a few seconds can avoid a building, a tree, a power line, a poulated area like a school yard and put you in an empty field, a roadway, or even into a lake or a stand of trees. Have flown a lifetime of CATII approaches ie: 100ft agl, I can assure you the outcome due to absence of adequate visual reference will be quite different.

Re-read my post. I said NWO, as in wildnerness, which is where the debate was headed a few pages ago. There are (virtually) no power lines, there are no school yards, and almost no roads out there. When you have 50 miles of rocks, trees, and lakes in every direction, the extra 40 seconds is not going to make a material difference on where you come back to earth.

Je me give a shite pas where you are. It doesn't change anything. You stand a much better chance from a higher altitude. Why do you think non precision minimums are higher than those of ILS and CDA approaches?

[Cat Driver]

First of all below 500' it's straight ahead with minor deviations so as to not stall spin and most assuredly die.

I can't speak for you but I have yet to fly any small light airplane such as those being discussed here that I could not turn in any direction I wanted within reason after an engine failure without stalling it. How close to the stall speed are you flying at 500 feet?

Obviously there is need for some airplane handling courses for a lot of pilots , judging by what I'm reading here.

Then again maybe I'm not reading this right......

[Roadtrippin']

Cat,
I do think you might be misunderstanding the "no turns below 5oo' " that Cap'nP8 is talking about. In the PC-12 I flew the procedure was that if we had an engine failure/fire below 500' we were to land ahead turning only to avoid obstacles.
This was briefed on every takeoff because when the only engine you have goes out soon after departure the natural instinct of most pilots would be to steep turn back for the field. In the -12 we practice emergency returns all the time and as a company decided that 500' was the lowest altitude at gross weight that we could have a really good chance of making the runway. Below that altitude you'r much better off "landing straight ahead" simply meaning not attempting a turn back for the field.

[Doc]

So, most of you feel that it's safe to depart at 100 and 1/2 in a single full of passengers? Some of you feel you could even pull off a 180, and glide in on the LOC? Some of you feel there is no difference between 100 feet, and 500 or 600 feet? Some of you must feel, that after an engine problem occurs, a circling approach at 100 and 1/2 would be easy? And some feel, that because you "glide" in the SIM, it would be no big deal in real life with a cabin full of screaming passengers?

ARE YOU ALL NUTS???

CID feels there should be no single engine IFR with passengers at all? With the prevailing attitude displayed here, I tend to agree with him.

Some of you feel, that when I post questions like this, it's a good excuse to take shots at me on a personal level? It's just "food for thought", but then, alas, you would have to be capable of thinking.

Endless, thinks that because some airplanes do not meet balanced field, it's Okay for PC12's to depart with no way of surviving a catastrophic failure? They're "apples and oranges" there, endless.

My feelings are we need higher departure limits for single engine aircraft.

[xsbank]

So do I. CAVU.

[shimmydampner]

Thoughts?

I think Wop May would be disgusted if he read this thread. But maybe that's because I fly 1950's radial machines in the mountains or at 50' off the trees in weather that the IFR boys are going missed in.....I'd love to have just one PT6 in front of me.....except for the sound, oh how I would miss that sound.

[RFN]

The emergency return after takeoff is not as hard as it sounds (and I'm not that good). Of course 500-600ft is the lowest you can start the 180deg turn and still make the runway. Everyone that goes to SimCom does that manoever many many times (at least we did), and we never missed the field once. Having said that, we were doing it 2 crew where the PF feathers the prop and starts a 45 deg bank turn. The PNF selects the dep aprt waypoint, direct - enter NAV and then all the PF has to do is get on the FD and and keep a safe airspeed.
In cruise in NWO, there are not many places where you cannot reach a runway after the engine quits (at least from a decent altitude). I remember something like a new-from-factory glide of 2.77 SM per 1000ft AGL.
As far as the approach goes, we just avoided doing procedure turns (procedure whats?) to keep pointed at or nearly at the field all the time.

If memory serves, the 64KIAS speed is the shaker speed, and the actual aerodynamic stall speed falls inside the 61kt restriction.

[flyinphil]

Je me give a shite pas where you are. It doesn't change anything. You stand a much better chance from a higher altitude. Why do you think non precision minimums are higher than those of ILS and CDA approaches?

That is irrelevant when you're talking descending towards a known safe landing point, i.e. the runway. I'm talking about hundreds of miles of Canadian Shield in every direction. Apples and oranges.

Can someone who is a PC12 pilot tell me what the sink rate of an engineless PC12 is at best glide with flap, etc?

Then we can calculate the difference in forward or lateral positioning (because it's one or the other at that point) of a PC12 going down from 100AGL vs 1000AGL. And then it will become immediately obvious to anyone who has ever seen the terrain of NWO that it won't make a whit of a difference whether you've got 10 seconds or 40 second to spot where you're going to crash the airplane.

CPL, I spent the first 7 years of my career in NW Ontario and have flown pretty much every inch of it. Yep, on the whole it is pretty flat but there are hills, there are some very pretty vertical walls of stone, there are antenas and there are areas of muskeg swamp beside areas of beautiful dense trees. There are numerous lakes and solid tree lines at the end of runways. I wish I could help you out here but it seems you just don't get it. The difference in visual cues between breaking out of cloud at 1000 feet and 100 feet are huge! As an example, I can fly a Standard Cat1 ILS to 200 ft. The transition to visual at my 700 ft per minute descent is pretty straight forward. If I fly a CAT II, the F.O. is at the controls and in the last 500 ft AGL, I am outside and take control for a visual landing once I have appropriate visual cues. This was all mandated because of the heads up transition to visual and the number of accidents attributed to it over the years.

I am not saying it can't be done, just that it shouldn't be done with paying passengers onboard.

It really is very basic, well, if you have experience.

[flyinphil]

So, most of you feel that it's safe to depart at 100 and 1/2 in a single full of passengers? Some of you feel you could even pull off a 180, and glide in on the LOC? Some of you feel there is no difference between 100 feet, and 500 or 600 feet? Some of you must feel, that after an engine problem occurs, a circling approach at 100 and 1/2 would be easy? And some feel, that because you "glide" in the SIM, it would be no big deal in real life with a cabin full of screaming passengers?

ARE YOU ALL NUTS???

CID feels there should be no single engine IFR with passengers at all? With the prevailing attitude displayed here, I tend to agree with him.

Some of you feel, that when I post questions like this, it's a good excuse to take shots at me on a personal level? It's just "food for thought", but then, alas, you would have to be capable of thinking.

Endless, thinks that because some airplanes do not meet balanced field, it's Okay for PC12's to depart with no way of surviving a catastrophic failure? They're "apples and oranges" there, endless.

My feelings are we need higher departure limits for single engine aircraft.

THANK YOU! You are correct, the minima should be higher, especially where passenger are involved.

[app flap]

i don't understand why there seems to be this margin of acceptability when you don't have passengers onboard. why does it make a difference who is on board? who in their right mind would do something so dumb/risky that they wouldn't do it with passengers, but they'd do it alone. how does that make it any smarter/safer?

i don't get how its ok to do something marginally dumb by yourself, but you can't do it with passengers... is your life really worth less than theirs?

now i realize and airplane performs better empty, and we've all done things we wouldn't do with pax on ie. low flying, formation, whatever. and i'm not saying SEIFR is dumb/risky, my comment applys to all aspects and loopholes in the rule book where it says you can do something empty, but not with passngers on board. you're still expected to get that airplane from A to B in one piece.

[flyinphil]

appflap, There have always been double standards applied to "paying passengers". That is why we have different standards for CBAA Private, old CARS 604 and CARS 704. Does it make sense? Not to me so I use judgement and determine when I will and won't fly.

[sstaurus]

Hey Doc what do you fly out of YQT? I'll have to keep an eye out... I'm flying the rinky-dink 172s that hold up Jazz and WJ on the taxiway haha...

(sorry no hijacking intended

[flyinphil]

OK CPL, we agree to disagree on this. I used a Cat II approach as an example because there is a significant difference in visibility over only 100 feet.

At 1000 above ground, you are going to have options. Even if they are behind you by the sounds of it. A couple of hundred feet left or right may make all the difference from a survivability standpoint.

[SAR_YQQ]

Thoughts?

...the mountains or at 50' off the trees in weather that the IFR boys are going missed in.....

Sounds like a future customer!

[xsbank]

They're out there, SAR! They will noodle around in weather unfit to drive home in and think they're Heroes of The North. Too bad you don't get paid by the hour to find 'em.

So, your leetle engine, she go poof! and you just turn around and land? Right.

The PT6 I had that baked, puked all its oil out...but I had three more of them tiny engines and they weren't in front of my window.

[snaproll20]

I don't care what anyone says, the 150 hours I accumulated in a C-208 were attended by apprehension I never felt in anything else I ever flew. Most of this derived from the fact there was only one engine. Failure of such has inevitable return to earth, and that's where the real luck kicks in.
In over 14,000 hours of PT6 flying (that's 28,000 hours total, minus about 5 for SE), I had about 6 or more engine failures. Some were fuel contamination and did not require a full shut down. Three were catastrophic. ***
I think that measures at about 4 times the CARS 724.22 fail rate.(?)

I still think the PT6 is a marvelously reliable engine but my feeling is that a lot of people posting here, with only a few thousand hours of constant noise in front of the cockpit, are developing some complacency, or sense of invulnerability.

*** In all fairness to P & W, two were influenced by (other) human error.
But, fact is, they did happen.