Victoria MN crash last year

[T. Peterson]

57 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

It would me too now, but I used to practice it often when I flew IMC a lot, I flew most of it in a Maule with no AP, a Maule isn’t the best instrument bird, the 210 on the other had was an excellent IMC aircraft, a Mooney is somewhere in between.

I no longer fly IMC, wouldn’t do it enough to maintain proficiency.

I believe if we fly IMC we need to be comfortable with partial panel, technology can only be trusted just so far, if your dependent on the AI you might not figure out it’s slowly failing until too late.

But airplanes are easy, they are positively stable in pitch and yaw, and neutral in roll, a helicopter on the other hand is negatively stable in ALL axis, let go of a helicopters controls and very soon it will be out of control. An airplane on the other hand wants to fly and if not interfered with by unusual events or a deliberately incompetent pilot will fly. (Harry Reasoner)

Once you master a helicopter an airplane is easy

I think that statement may be a bit broad though certainly true in your case and probably many others. I, on the other hand have a completely different experience. I flew the CH-46 in the Marine Corps, Turbine Beech 18’s and Lear Jets in Part 135 operations and finally DC-9’s, MD-80’s and Airbus 320 series in the airline. They were ALL hard for me to learn and then easy once learned. 
When I got hired at Spirit folks said “ Oh it will be easy for you since you have been flying LR 20 series. Ha! I got in that Dc9 sim and felt like I couldn’t find my butt with both hands! But it was an old feeling. I was so discouraged learning to fly the Lears I almost went to another career. But I put my head down and went at it and the light came on! I loved flying those old Lears and became an instructor pilot.

When my buddy took me up in his Mooney some time ago to experience small airplanes after decades, It took a long time to get the hang of it. But once I finally figured out I had to hold her off till Ms. Mooney decided she wanted to land and not force her it became a piece of cake!

My point in all this is that we are all very different and one person’s “easy” may not be another’s, but there is no reason to give up.

While I wish I was the ace of the base and wish flying had come more naturally, it has paid off in other ways. I think I am a very patient captain and actually enjoy flying with the weaker FO’s because I think I can actually help them because of my own struggles. Maybe I am fooling myself and am just a dottering old man, but I would rather indulge myself in the former illusion! Ha hahaha!

 

[N201MKTurbo]

Partial Panel these days is when your primary ADI goes dark and you have to rely on the backup AI. 

When I learned IFR PP meant you lost all your attitude and heading reference except the turn coordinator and whiskey compass.

I haven't practiced in a while. Now that I have four independent sources of attitude information on board.

[Schllc]

17 hours ago, T. Peterson said:

While I wish I was the ace of the base and wish flying had come more naturally, it has paid off in other ways. I think I am a very patient captain and actually enjoy flying with the weaker FO’s because I think I can actually help them because of my own struggles. Maybe I am fooling myself and am just a dottering old man, but I would rather indulge myself in the former illusion! Ha hahaha!

Humility is the most important part/component of learning. 
I have not mastered anything, but I try every day. 

[Pinecone]

22 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

I think often the level of proficiency degrades after training, often the longer past training the worse it gets, unless you fly IMC often without an Autopilot.

I think several are severely autopilot dependent and that an AP failure is an Emergency as opposed to an annoyance.

This is why I do all my practice approaches hand flown.   Train to worst case.

[A64Pilot]

The 210 could couple approaches, but I never trusted the thing, just expected it would try to kill me, figured it would do it if I took my eyes off of it.

I don’t trust the Autopilot on the Tesla either, I use it often, just don’t trust the thing.

I guess I’ve had technology try to kill me a couple of times so I don’t trust it, but it amazes me how much some do, like the Tesla, so many videos of people doing other things even sleeping in a Tesla, and that’s stupid.

[Fly Boomer]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

The 210 could couple approaches, but I never trusted the thing, just expected it would try to kill me, figured it would do it if I took my eyes off of it.

I don’t trust the Autopilot on the Tesla either, I use it often, just don’t trust the thing.

I guess I’ve had technology try to kill me a couple of times so I don’t trust it, but it amazes me how much some do, like the Tesla, so many videos of people doing other things even sleeping in a Tesla, and that’s stupid.

Bunches of things I used to trust without much thought.  As I get older, trust is harder.

[A64Pilot]

This is from the manual of my dive computer, I liked how they were honest, but it’s how I treat all technology, especially automation, I wouldn’t make a good Airbus pilot.

 

[Fly Boomer]

2 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

This is from the manual of my dive computer, I liked how they were honest, but it’s how I treat all technology, especially automation, I wouldn’t make a good Airbus pilot.

That's almost unheard of.  I worked around IT for 40 years, and I always tell people there is no such thing as bug-free software.  What they are thinking is "come on, how hard could it be".  What they don't understand is that it's not just hard but, for any sufficiently complex, system, it may be impossible.

On a similar note, I talked to the Texas tank seal guy at a MooneyMax a couple of years ago, and he claimed that his contract says "I WILL damage your paint, so plan on getting it redone or at least touched up by someone else:.

[A64Pilot]

That computer is often used to run rebreathers and is the computer most often used for serious tech diving, and it is very, very good, it has the most recognized different algorithms etc and allows you to switch them. As of a few years ago anyway

They are very realistic, and as fatalities aren’t real uncommon I feel they due to their own sense sense of humanity want you to not be like most and that’s become entirely dependent on the computer.

It’s been years ago but I was delivering an airplane to Costa Rica and was out in the middle of the gulf, nav was a Garmin 296, every now and again you would have to look at the Garmin and correct your course as over water you can’t look out on the horizon and pick something to fly towards. I got to thinking I was doing really good this day because every time I looked I was dead on course, after awhile I became suspicious so I made a small turn and the Garmin didn’t change, the distance to fly to wasn’t changing either. Thing was frozen, nothing I could do would unfreeze it, I took the battery out after unplugging it and it came back and worked, but I changed to my 396 back up as I didn’t trust it.

That 296 I still have, it’s in my 140 now and I use it frequently, and it’s never frozen up again, not even once.

I don’t have a clue what caused it or why many years later it’s not happened again.

[jlunseth]

Yeah the problem is if you have two of something just because one might go south and all of a sudden they disagree, then which one is right? Now if you network the two of them so they can talk to each other, is one going wrong and taking the other with it? What if you can’t see anything so can’t cross-correct with the Mk I eyeball. Gotta be an engineer of sorts so you can figure it out.

[Pinecone]

So you need 3 AI and 3 navs.

 

[EricJ]

5 hours ago, jlunseth said:

Yeah the problem is if you have two of something just because one might go south and all of a sudden they disagree, then which one is right? Now if you network the two of them so they can talk to each other, is one going wrong and taking the other with it? What if you can’t see anything so can’t cross-correct with the Mk I eyeball. Gotta be an engineer of sorts so you can figure it out.

Yeah, you either have a unit that can do its own fault checking so that when they disagree the bad one is self-admitting, or you have alternate sources to cross-check with, or you have three so that they can vote.   The early space shuttles had five main computers and a voting plane, so if one went wack they knew which one it was and still had redundancy left to continue the mission.   In my avionics engineering days doing the initial 777 deployment the system was all doubly redundant;   there were two full avionics systems and each one was internally redundant.   So within each system if there was ever a miscompare on the internal redundant buses it just flagged a fault condition, so that side of the two systems was known to be the faulty unit.    There were a lot of internal recovery strategies so that a spurious fault wouldn't bring a unit down permanently, but you're right that just simple redundancy only gives you fault detection unless you have some way of knowing which of the two is bad.

[Hank]

"A man who has one clock always knows what time it is. A man with two clocks is never sure."

  

[jlunseth]

I still will go for two independent AI’s, if one goes south I will figure it out. If you have even one analog gauge such as altitude or airspeed you will know pretty quick, hopefully in less than the 30 second lifespan of VFR pilot in IMC.

[Hank]

15 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

I still will go for two independent AI’s, if one goes south I will figure it out. If you have even one analog gauge such as altitude or airspeed you will know pretty quick, hopefully in less than the 30 second lifespan of VFR pilot in IMC.

I thought it was "178 Seconds to Live." A least that's the name of an AOPA? Safety video . . . .

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, jlunseth said:

I still will go for two independent AI’s, if one goes south I will figure it out. If you have even one analog gauge such as altitude or airspeed you will know pretty quick, hopefully in less than the 30 second lifespan of VFR pilot in IMC.

Yes, the information redundancy from the cross-check capabilities with the air instruments, TC, etc., provides the ability to identify which has failed.

[hais]

Is it feasible for the A/P blue button to use GPS in an emergency to level wings? Surely beats a pilot cross referencing airspeed and altitude to figure out which instrument is bad? 

[A64Pilot]

13 hours ago, jlunseth said:

Yeah the problem is if you have two of something just because one might go south and all of a sudden they disagree, then which one is right? Now if you network the two of them so they can talk to each other, is one going wrong and taking the other with it? What if you can’t see anything so can’t cross-correct with the Mk I eyeball. Gotta be an engineer of sorts so you can figure it out.

Rebreathers have three O2 sensors and ignore the outlier, many install a fourth and have it display separately so they can compare themselves.

I don’t dive rebreathers, but I think the answer your looking for is if in doubt correlate with other instruments, if your AI is starting to lay over on its side but your heading is constant with you in trim and your turn coordinator is wings level, time to cover that AI, declare an emergency and ask for radar vectors at half standard rate for the closest ILS.

No Gyro PAR’s were half standard rate and it seemed to work out well.

Of course that’s an opinion, but loss of an AI in mine constitutes an Emergency, several Airliners have crashed due to loss or not understanding one.

Get proficient flying without an AI, it’s not hard once you practice it, just like landings, they used to be tough, but now you don’t even think about it, partial panel is no different.

Read the second to last sentence of the computer paragraph that I posted, when things turn inside out, that’s what will save you.

”No technology will keep you alive, knowledge, skill and practiced procedures are your best defense”

Its true in tech diving and flying 

[EricJ]

3 hours ago, hais said:

Is it feasible for the A/P blue button to use GPS in an emergency to level wings? Surely beats a pilot cross referencing airspeed and altitude to figure out which instrument is bad? 

Some of them, like the TruTrak, have their own AHRS, so as long as it isn't failed, then, yes, the blue button is a good way to assure you're right-side-up.    If the autopilot is depending on the unit that has failed, e.g., a GFC500 fed by a G5 AI, then you might still have a problem.   

[hais]

43 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Some of them, like the TruTrak, have their own AHRS, so as long as it isn't failed, then, yes, the blue button is a good way to assure you're right-side-up.    If the autopilot is depending on the unit that has failed, e.g., a GFC500 fed by a G5 AI, then you might still have a problem.   

Now that you mention it: in G3X installation, if primary fails, GFC500 disconnects. If you re-engage, it soldiers on based on G5 data. Sounds like you don't really need a third independent source unless there is a failure mode that would provide bad data without a flag. 

And if you are hand flying, a flag (or an X) should suffice. Which failure mode am I missing for which a 3rd instrument would save the day? 

[hoot777]

Final NTSB report is out. No corrosion found. Metal was over stressed. Maybe a higher tech guy can post it here on Mooneyspace   Suspect spatial disorientation as they exited the cloud in a tight spiral. May have been passed out from g loading which was at 8.  

[DXB]

8 minutes ago, hoot777 said:

Final NTSB report is out. No corrosion found. Metal was over stressed. Maybe a higher tech guy can post it here on Mooneyspace   Suspect spatial disorientation as they exited the cloud in a tight spiral. May have been passed out from g loading which was at 8.  

It doesn't mitigate this tragedy in any way, but that's still good to hear.  I'm still a bit surprised the spar snapped before loss of consciousness led to letting go of the back pressure on the controls.  

[jaylw314]

35 minutes ago, hoot777 said:

Final NTSB report is out. No corrosion found. Metal was over stressed. Maybe a higher tech guy can post it here on Mooneyspace   Suspect spatial disorientation as they exited the cloud in a tight spiral. May have been passed out from g loading which was at 8.  

Do you have a link to the NTSB report for us less adept at Google-fu? TIA!

 

[Bolter]

19 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

Do you have a link to the NTSB report for us less adept at Google-fu? TIA!

 

This is an NTSB URL, but I am not sure if the link is permanent or associated with my search:

https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/103651/pdf

I put a copy here in my Dropbox.  It may get deleted if I want the space back:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7ay0mj0nok38y5eu4h8xe/Report_CEN21FA360_103651_4_17_2024-12_10_59-PM.pdf?rlkey=607r00rm871o4wq4akwxjeg4m&dl=0

 

[Hank]

Wow. Broke out of the clouds ~1000 agl, in a 4.8g spiral; two seconds later, passed through 8g and broke the wing spar at both main gear mounts!