Jay,

It was a VFR day ; at Air Jamaica - you flew the published approach always no matter what the conditions. It was a throw back to when Air Canada set us up ;that and Sim every 6 months.

I don’t advocate tossing a Mits or any airplane around in IFR conditions, you however should be comfortable flying an “Emergency descent profile” in an pressurized aircraft.

I chose to practice that regularly- Kingston has a 9000ft MeA and no obstacles south of the field. However all the Afternoon Thunderstorms build at the IAF for the approach. I can either fly pax through the rain and turbulence or I can stay VFR cross the VOR on field at any Alt up to FL330 and know I can have the have the aircraft on the downwind in 5-7 minutes.

Life in the Tropics .... Thunderstorm are a part of daily life.

Anyways apologies to the OP - didn’t mean to Hi Jack his thread.

There is a big difference between flying a turbine on a clear and a million day and exploring the envelope vs flying a poorly executed unstable approach in any high performance aircraft. In my example, with a well known mu2 instructor in the right seat after 500 hours in type.

Based against mountains that are 9k higher than the field makes being able to ‘drop in’ rapidly a very useful maneuver. Other option is to skim terrain to airport or fly out into the Bravo shelf and come back in.

I would never suggest doing that IMC. That’s insane.

No joke.
Day VMC if you know your mount: King Kong, can do no wrong.

Night or IMC the fangs are fully retracted. I always got configured early and on profile purely by the book. In fact in our partnership if we knew it was IMC, night, or commingled business flight ops we just took two pilots.

Once on the approach trimmed up, flaps 20, gear set, 100% rpm, lights and protections on, speed in my fists - good to go! Great ride.

Airplane full of pilots and the one at the controls says “watch this?”

That usually has a different outcome

Exactly my experience. Mains came off first and it climbed with the nose down!

Can second this recommendation. Dan is fantastic.
Dave

Ok its a done deal now so I'm happy to say I got financing and I bought a very very fast MU-2 M-model! Initial training starts tomorrow. Thanks again for all the tips and advice!

Congratz!

I was coming back from Memphis yesterday at 12000 feet 8 miles from the airport. I landed normally. Amazing airplanes!

Big thanks to you Michael for answering my numerous calls and texts!! See you at the Mountain

SOAP history is more important than a single sample. Usually, that is available since that is part of routine work.


Can be a big deal. The older sensors can come apart and are expensive to repair. Still, very rare to have that happen.


I didn't think it was a big deal to do, so wouldn't spend time on it during prebuy. It is a good mod, requires moving a wire or two.


And flap screws, too. Those things wear our. If your airplane doesn't spit grease after an inspection, they aren't using enough.

My list:

Glass condition.

Boot condition.

ACM operation.

AP working.

Lastly, the amount of time before the 7500 inspection. Can be expensive. Involves wing and tail demate. Almost nothing is ever found wrong, which begs the question why do it, especially given the potential for maintenance induced failures.

Last piece of advice: get good training and fly diligently.

As Anthony said: "Once you get comfortable in it, it can do some amazing things."

It will do amazing things BEFORE you are comfortable, too, and that may be too amazing for you to handle. Treat it with respect.

[Apologies for my hit and run, way too busy to properly participate on BT.]

Mike C.

They do, like a B52 or DHC Caribou using heavy flaps on takeoff.

The flaps 40 takeoff is an emergency procedure that should only used when it is a better option than crashing into the airport fence. The fence might still be the better option in many cases.

Once you get to ~65 knots, the plane will go airborne as soon as you select flaps 40 and seem to lift tail first and almost vertically. The lift is mostly from the prop wash over the flaps, "blown flaps". Stay as close to the ground as you can while you accelerate to at least 105 knots, then flaps 20 and the rest of the climb out procedure.

Do not reduce power, your lift will go away. If you have an engine failure, chop both immediately since you will have no directional control otherwise, and then "land" (crash) on whatever surface presents itself. Hope that you are not very high because you lack lift and you won't be able to stop the "descent" (fall).

The best objective is, of course, to never find yourself in such a situation. The MU2 can land in ridiculously short distances (under 1000 ft) but takeoff will always require more. My general rules, for flap 20 takeoffs:

4000 ft: not a thought
3000 ft: check the book, pay attention to technique
2500 ft: check everything, winds, weight, temp, etc, probably okay
2200 ft: everything has to be perfect, spot on, not full fuel
2000 ft: nope

A newbie should add 1000 ft to the above numbers.

Mike C.

Good to see you back Mike!

Mike is back on BT. Things are looking up for the rest of 2020. Mike, I sincerely have missed your posts and knowledge. Quit working so hard and post more!