4 engine failures in over 5 million flight hours and never a fatality due to engine failure.
https://the-journal.com/articles/30490

Why can't you go back once you've gone jet?

It's just psychological. You see 400+ knots and you're done.

I had dinner with a Gulfstream pilot not long ago. He flies all over the world. He says he'll be over the Atlantic at some ridiculous speed and still wishes he could push the throttles forward and go even faster. Speed is a drug.

4 engine failures in over 5 million flight hours and never a fatality due to engine failure.
https://the-journal.com/articles/30490

JB actually owns a PC12

John
It’s a lot more fun going over it. To see a thunderstorm from the top is interesting.

I am getting the vets oil changed Tuesday morning do you offer BTers discounts?

I think the PC-12 as a personal transport is pretty hard to beat.

If you (me in this case) are cramming in two or more business meetings a day that are located several states apart, the speed of the jet can make a difference of extra days vs extra hours (our meeting window is generally 9-3). I've also had trips where the flying day became too long for me at KA speeds and I needed a stop-over whereas the CJ would have gotten me home that night. The cost of these extra days is multiplied by the number of co-workers I have with me for these meetings so it gets pretty easy to justify the extra speed if I get them back in the office a day or two earlier.

None of the above would matter to a lot of people even for business trips.

It is pretty fun looking down from 450 at a line of storms but I don't remember ever not being able to find a way through them in the KA. For me the storms shorten my available flying hours. They are some work to get through and I have a rule that if the flight has anything hard about it, I shorten the number hours I'm willing to fly. Studs like JC and MP can stay awake and alert much longer than I can.

As Jason said, for the pilot it is speed (and jet jock status)

For the passengers, the jet is typically much quieter. The ride smoother... often a LOT smoother.

From a safety standpoint, the jet engines are more powerful and closer to centerline giving the aircraft a lot more margin in an engine loss, especially on take-off. Plus, no need to feather a prop in a few seconds.

The engines are also simpler, no gearbox or prop. The throttle quadrant is simpler and most newer airplanes have Fadec.

The ability to climb and get above weather is HUGE. Not just for the comfort, but the faster you climb through icing altitudes the less of an issue the ice is.

Not to imply that t-props are unsafe, they are not. There's just less margin and tighter operational parameters.

Speed and turbulence... main reasons it's hard to go backwards.

4 engine failures in over 5 million flight hours and never a fatality due to engine failure.
https://the-journal.com/articles/30490

Is it possible that engine technology has improved turboprop reliability to the point that that the safety benefits of a second engine are negligible?



The PC12 has only 1 ditching on it's record which all onboard survived and all the 12s delivered to the americas have flown across the Atlantic (all brand new airplanes with the infant mortality gremlins aboard, I might add).

I had dinner with a Gulfstream pilot not long ago. He flies all over the world. He says he'll be over the Atlantic at some ridiculous speed and still wishes he could push the throttles forward and go even faster. Speed is a drug.

Tell that to the jets that have had runway issues the last few weeks.

Pilatus has fewer "operational parameters" of any airplane I've ever heard of.

I think it is possible to go back to a TP from a jet. I have flown some and ridden in quite a few including some really big ones like the 747 (in the comfortable seats) and would take my TP over that most days. A SETP can do pretty much anything a jet can do, just slower, but you have to be a little better with weather management. Jets can't do everything a SETP can do like make high, hot, short and contaminated strips a non-issue. Jets are good for flying high and far and best into good infrastructure airports. If that is not your typical mission, then they have a lot of compromises. As far as turbulence, I would like to see some hard data but seems to me TP's may have an advantage. Jets and TP's cruise above the thermal turbulence everybody has to deal with, but below the Jet-stream turbulence that the jets have to deal with. Quite often, I am listening to the airliners destroy the comms trying to find smooth air, when I am glassy smooth at 260. In a perfect world, I guess I would have a jet for those longer missions, but it would be sitting in the hanger most of the time while my work horse is wearing out tires.

I don't remember anything but smooth at FL410 or above...

The airliners are just above TP altitudes... getting beat up.

The other component critical to a smooth ride is the wing loading, most jets have high wing loading and the ride is smoother... same is true of some turboprops like the MU2.

This is also a major factor in the high / hot issues. Aviation is always about trade-offs.

I do agree that for private transportation a SETP is hard to beat and the Pilatus is the ultimate SETP.

All PT-6 engines are not the same. Those in KA's are a different and less robust series (Pratt engineers have publicly admitted this) than in the PC-12. The PC-12 engine is derated further and has a manual power override as well. There's a 3500 TBO (and HSI halfway to that point). Finally, the recommend operating parameters (heat and torque) are quite a bit lower than the standard that would be applied in a multi-engine use context. For all these reasons, that's why the failure rate of one of the engines in a KA is substantially higher than the failure rate of the one engine in the PC-12.

No one bothers to run their PC-12 on an engine program for the same reasons....