I understand the parameters at the start of the scenario. It's after the crew does something instinctual like pull the throttles back in response to a increases in thrust.

That's when it gets dicey.

I can't find any information on the other incident you sight. From what you pasted it is Interesting that they did pull the throttles back initially. I would bet that was a wild ride and I am guessing it occurred higher than the other scenario at 500 ft.

I think your choice of staying with the old design of fail high is a good choice for airplanes like the mu-2 or Merlin metroliners. There is not enough margin in performance during an engine failure at take off to allow any additional chance that a loss of thrust during that time could occur.

The commanders have so much additional performance during a engine failure that the choice of the upgraded newer FCU makes sense.

Maybe you should fly in a commander and experience the performance, maybe then you would understand.

On approach, the reaction is to fly the plane, notice the yaw, and then pull back the broken engine power lever.

Pilot then understands engine is broken, not responding to power lever, applies power to good engine and goes around/missed, or feathers the engine and continues.

If they went around, then at a safe altitude, the broken engine is shutdown and a normal single engine landing results.


All we have is the SDR report. It is a maintenance problem, not an accident. That's the point.


I bet it wasn't a wild ride. It is simply not that exciting when it happens. Next time you are in the sim, give it a try if the sim is capable of simulating fail high FCU.

Mike C.

It's a sim, not real!

Either scenario can be handled in the sim.

The shock value of a engine unexpectedly running away to 130%, cannot be recreated in the sim.

That's the part you don't seem to get?

You live in a world of pure theory. The world of the sim.

You will never be as good in real life as you are in the sim. Maybe you will be at 50% and that's without a bunch of distraction

Using your scenario this is how we differ.

I see it happening like this.

Pilot is being vector for a approach and a engine goes to 130%. Passenger start asking question, you are fighting the yaw, ATC calls and asks you where you going.

Worst case would be when the pilot is operating on just his lizard brain (he is close to locking up) so what does he do? He falls back on his training. He goes with dead foot dead engine and shuts down the wrong engine!

Or in a more normal case he retards the throttles leaving the engine that is running away at 130% the other at flight idle. Now his passengers are screamng and ATC is giving him altitude alerts. He is heads down, head outside just plain confused while close to the ground. Bad situation!

You think the pilot will be identify the problem and deal with it and land.

I think he will be less than perfect when he is hit with a odd ball event

Everybody understand a engine failure and that's what a fail low FCU feels like and looks like.

That makes it safer.

Never mind I produced actual examples in real life.

I'll point out that my observations come from witnessing real pilots. All you given me is conjecture.


No matter what FCU you have, this is not a proper response. Engines can fail high even with a modified FCU. Dead foot dead engine is bad turboprop practice.


Yes, I've seen it done by inexperienced pilots in the sim without briefing or warning.


Precisely.

This is why an engine failure without flame out, without NTS, without audible clues is dangerous. It isn't what the pilot expects, that is oddball.


No, they don't. The cues are not what they expect. It is a different situation than a true engine failure. You have hand waved away those differences as if they don't matter, but they do, as the Red Lake accident shows.

Mike C.

I hope they were real pilots? What else would they be --- fake pilots?




THATs the point, it not the right response. In a emergency you are operating at less than your best, Dont set yourself up for failure by buying difficult airplanes to fly or FCUs that fail high.




They were in a sim! They didn't need a warning. What do you think they were thinking? That They were going to have a trouble free flight? They expected a failure of some kind.

A sim IS NOT REAL it does not recreate a real emergency situation. It is simulated for practice. You cannot die in a sim. (Except in Wichita).

You make me think the only emergency you have experienced has been in a simulator?

Are you suggesting pilot should not be trained in how to properly handle engine emergencies? That they can select airplanes that allow them to be poorly trained?

Dead foot dead engine is not proper for turbine airplanes due to fail high scenarios (regardless of FCU mods).


And that is how you should fly the real airplane, too. Expect an emergency and be prepared to handle it.


You should tell the airlines. They are spending way too much on very realistic simulators and you are suggesting they are worthless for true emergency training.


You make me think you are getting poor simulator training if you come away feeling it is all fake and useless. For me, it is a very valuable experience that is so immersive that it recreates much of the stress of the real thing.

Mike C.

While the FCU fail high versus fail low debate has been entertainment and I have picked a side. I'm really hoping the debate/argument/street brawl might eventually end...
I think we may all have enough data to do more research and make our own decisions.

I hear you Patrick.

To put some numbers on this, Council331 analyzed the failure rate of FCUs and came up with these numbers:

Steel spline FCUs prior to repetitive inspection required by AD: 1 in 400 failure rate.

Steel spline FCUs subjected to repetitive inspection required by AD: 1 in 2,500 failure rate.

Modified FCUs with Vespel splines and no longer subjected to repetitive inspections: 1 in 117 failure rate.

All of the above done on 6 year time slices.

Based on that alone, you want a steel spline FCU and do the repetitive spline inspection. The failure rate is 20 times less than the plastic spline FCU. The Honeywell FCU shop on PEI is widely regarded as having poor QC.

Honeywell says fail high FCU failures have happened 51 times. None of those events resulted in any injury or accident. This represents an extremely high rate of success in real life.

Council331 is a consortium of engine shops and operators who interface with the FAA on TPE331 issues. They were instrumental in getting the AMOC to the FCU AD and getting the AD amended to not require FCU fail low modification.

Mike C.

Mike, where do you do your sim training. Simcom or Flightsafety?

Simcom Orlando is the only place with MU2 sims. FS used to have MU2 sims, but that was a long time ago (15+ years?).

My training schedule is official SFAR once a year (rotated among various MU2 trainers including Simcom) and then an unofficial LOFT style sim session with Simcom 6 months after that. So I visit Simcom at least once a year, occasionally twice.

The Simcom sims used to only have FCU fail high, now they have both fail high and fail low malfunctions.

Mike C.

This thread had normal thread drift. Here are my questions:

How does the 690 cabin compare with a King Air 90, Conquest I, Cheyenne, and the short MU-2? In terms of size, comfort, noise, etc.?

How does payload compare? Both in terms of weight and actual space and ease of loading?

Can you comfortably fit 8 (including pilot) in a 690?

Never flown in one, but I am intrigued.

Here's a comparison of the later Jetprop models with empty weights.

As for cabin size, I'll leave that to others, but I would think the King Air has the biggest, and the Commander or MU-2 probably the second biggest.

You can fit 8 people in, but one might sit on the foldable potty seat.

I have room for 7 adults in the cabin, including pilot, with one on the sideways seat which has the potty underneath.