Icon A5 down....

Shawn said:
Not necessarily.

I had a 10K hour CFII that was all airline hours and now retired and back to put put planes and instructing as a side gig. He "taught" me so many things that were procedurally wrong that were GA related...some even counter to the AIM...I just had to do it his way to get through the training knowing what was correct and not...and double checking the things he DID teach me.
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You are missing the big picture imo. It’s not about having all GA stuff down pat... I’m not sure I could pass a PP checkride tomorrow without some dual. Similarly, a 20 year lawyer or doctor would need some brush up to pass their respective bar/boards. That’s just the way it works after a number of years in ones profession. BUT.... who would you want to be in the plane when the shist hits the fan? I’ll take the flight experience anyday over someone who can remember tomato flames or whatever it is.
 
Salty said:
As I said, it can apply to professional pilots. There are pro pilots out there that just bus drivers. Sorry if that offends you, but I know some. They exist. I didn’t say you were one of them, I only said you can’t use hours to determine if you are or not.
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Does not offend me, but I feel you are mostly incorrect. As I said, I do this most every day and few are mundane. Some out there may have been lucky in that mistakes have not caused them grief. I have certainly made mistakes, but rarely the same large mistakes multiple times due to constant training.
 
Shawn said:
Thank you.

Nothing is more infuriating than someone that uses a quantity of hours for validation. There is something to be said for experience but just because you may have been doing something wrong for 10,000 hours it does not somehow make it more right!
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Salty said:
As I said, it can apply to professional pilots. There are pro pilots out there that just bus drivers. Sorry if that offends you, but I know some. They exist. I didn’t say you were one of them, I only said you can’t use hours to determine if you are or not.
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Does this look mundane to you?

 
Look... 20,000 hours as a CFI is NOT equal to an airline guy with 20,000 hours.
No matter how many times I go into SAN it’s always a challenge. I don’t care how many jump plane hours you have, you will be buried unless you have this experience. That’s what airline hours give you.

Heck, I’ve done it numerous times and am still scrambling.
 
Palmpilot said:
Wow!
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Yup. That was not me, but it could have been. We are trained and qualed to do a 300 rvr landing

Far from mundane bus flying with 200+ people in the back.
 
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Banjo33 said:
And you let this person train you? Even KNOWING he was training you wrong, believing you would catch the mistakes AND correct them BEFORE completing a check ride?
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Yes...it was all superficial things...but things I knew procedurally were correct but he had his take on the way to do it because he has his 10,000 hours.

The point was that even a 10,000 hour pilot is not and expert in every aspect of all of aviation...and not always correct just because they have more hours.
 
Shawn said:
Yes...it was all superficial things...but things I knew procedurally were correct but he had his take on the way to do it because he has his 10,000 hours.

The point was that even a 10,000 hour pilot is not and expert in every aspect of all of aviation...and not always correct just because they have more hours.
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But.... there are times when a high timer just may have seen a thing or two that he wishes to pass on... even if it’s out of the norm.
 
Kritchlow said:
Look... 20,000 hours as a CFI is NOT equal to an airline guy with 20,000 hours.
No matter how many times I go into SAN it’s always a challenge. I don’t care how many jump plane hours you have, you will be buried unless you have this experience. That’s what airline hours give you.

Heck, I’ve done it numerous times and am still scrambling.
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Gee, that’s pretty much exactly what I was saying, but somehow I’m wrong.

I’m guessing the reason that is is that you were triggered and that stopped you from actually understanding what I wrote. I’ll give you a hint. I never used the word airline as you did.
 
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Kritchlow said:
Look... 20,000 hours as a CFI is NOT equal to an airline guy with 20,000 hours.
No matter how many times I go into SAN it’s always a challenge. I don’t care how many jump plane hours you have, you will be buried unless you have this experience. That’s what airline hours give you.

Heck, I’ve done it numerous times and am still scrambling.
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I think I'm seeing the difference, here, though, @Kritchlow. I talked to a guy on the phone yesterday who has the kind of hours you are talking about, but freely admitted he had close to 0 hours in non-airliners in the last 13 years. I also flew a flight review with an 80 hour pilot yesterday morning that hadn't flown since LAST September, but had what appears to me to have been very good instruction from Huffman Aviation down in Fort Worth. The 80 hour pilot in my estimation flew an AA-1B remarkably well for having taken 10 months off (I did give him some areas we need to work on and we'll be flying again before I sign him off) even though there was some rust. I would expect the same from the bus driver in his first 5-15 hours in a small plane - he won't be safe in a single-engine, land just because he has a bazillion hours in jets. I still remember the airline pilot that repeatedly tried to flare a mile up in the sky when I was trying to check him out 6 or 7 years ago. A ton of airliner experience that isn't relevant isn't going to help you much if you flare a tailwheel biplane 30 feet in the air uncoordinated and subsequently ground loop. That said, the airline pilot was exercising good judgment to call around to several CFIs and ask for some ride along help to get proficient again, and I have no doubt with the dedication he was showing he'll be fine with a little help.

In direct response, 20K CFI hours won't help the CFI in the jet until the CFI has the cross training, but the CFII who flies actual with students might be pretty good on the instruments portion. The counterpoint is that neither will the jet pilot's 20K help him in a Cub, that much until he's got the training he needs to figure things out.
 
kyleb said:
Curious - At what point in that approach is the pilot (not the automation) flying the airplane?
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Exiting the runway. Though, as you can hear, the pilot gets to deploy spoilers and speed brakes. Even rollout and braking is automatic.
 
kyleb said:
Curious - At what point in that approach is the pilot (not the automation) flying the airplane?
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If your definition of flying the plane means manual control of stick & rudder, never.
But we all know that’s a poor definition of flying the airplane.
There are PLENTY of things going on for both crew members.
 
Kritchlow said:
If your definition of flying the plane means manual control of stick & rudder, never.
But we all know that’s a poor definition of flying the airplane.
There are PLENTY of things going on for both crew members.
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I’m not throwing shade, I was simply curious.
 
Arnold said:
Exiting the runway. Though, as you can hear, the pilot gets to deploy spoilers and speed brakes. Even rollout and braking is automatic.
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Close. The speed brakes on the Bus are automatic.
Correct that the disengagement of the AP is taxi speed. The Bus will track centerline on rollout.
 
I sometimes think that a company calling an airplane an AirBUS leads to these types of “discussions” :D

Cheers
 
Kritchlow said:
If your definition of flying the plane means manual control of stick & rudder, never.
But we all know that’s a poor definition of flying the airplane.
There are PLENTY of things going on for both crew members.
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Maybe throwing a little bit of shade here on what that video was intended to show/prove but I feel like that video you posted was a "look at me and the type of conditions we fly in." Which, when you post a video landing in near 0/0 and talk about how non-mundane landing in such conditions are, is suggesting that the conditions make the landing harder but functionally, since its an auto-pilot flown approach, the conditions have no bearing on the difficulty of the approach or landing.

I'm not discounting the fact that the crew is cross checking the automation and doing plenty of work in the cockpit but the conditions could have just as easily been CAVU and the role the pilot played in the approach and landing would be the same.

Now as far as mundane goes? Well that's an issue of perception and interpretation of risk which humans tend to be quite bad at. Is this landing, which is flown by the autopilot, inherently riskier than the same approach flown in CAVU conditions? Not in most circumstances but our perception of it absolutely makes it seem that way. For that matter, if it weren't for the altitude call outs, different checklist and eventual touch down on the runway, there is nothing functionally that would distinguish the video landing in those conditions from flying in a cloud at anu altitude. We cant see the ground or any obstacles along the way so its really our pre-knowledge we're landing and getting close to the ground as well as the altitude call outs that tell us we should be more concerned and that its more out of the ordinary.

It's these same perceptions that cause students and experienced pilots a like to pull that yoke back into their lap when they think they might hit something (even when they probably would have had no problem clearing the obstacle had they just maintained their flight path) or go skim across the water because 120kts feels faster at 20 ft than it does at 2,000 ft.

So yeah to most of us who have never flown a auto-pilot 0/0 approach or maybe even an approach at all (or one to minimums), that does seem particularly out of the ordinary and not at all mundane. To a pilot who flies an autopilot approach every time, maybe even in 0/0 conditions, that probably does get at least somewhat mundane.
 
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As someone who has less than 3000 hours, I wouldn't presume to pass judgment on the usefulness of the experience of those who have more than 10,000 hours. The fact that one may occasionally meet an individual pilot with that many hours who is found wanting in some way is merely reflective of the fact that there's going to be variation in any group you can name, especially when you're talking about a different kind of flying than what they do professionally.
 
Palmpilot said:
As someone who has less than 3000 hours, I wouldn't presume to pass judgment on the usefulness of the experience of those who have more than 10,000 hours. The fact that one may occasionally meet an individual pilot with that many hours who is found wanting in some way is merely reflective of the fact that there's going to be variation in any group you can name, especially when you're talking about a different kind of flying than what they do professionally.
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I agree with this, and that why it bothers me when people pass carte blanche judgment on lower time pilots..
 
Kritchlow said:
Yup. That was not me, but it could have been. We are trained and qualed to do a 300 rvr landing.
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Just to note - that video was not 300’ vis, it was less than 200, perhaps less than 150.

Not mundane at all, but what’s the legal minimum.
 
bflynn said:
Just to note - that video was not 300’ vis, it was less than 200, perhaps less than 150.

Not mundane at all, but what’s the legal minimum.
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How do you know the vis? I did not hear the RVR reported, but perhaps I missed it.

On a Cat IIIB approach, no visual cues are required. If it’s 300 RVR at the FAF, you are good to go.
Plus... RVR is lighted, so not what you may see during daylight.
 
You can visually (not) see it in the video. Assuming standard runway markers, the distance from the beginning of one runway stripe to the next is 200’, each stripe is 125’ and they are 75’ apart. At no time in the video are two stripes visible at the same time. Ergo, visibility is less than 200’.
 
I recently followed a buddy on an IFR flight in his older Mooney on FlightAware. He was hand-flying, as he doesn't have an auto-pilot. I was surprised to see how much he struggled to stay on the VOR radial.
He is a captain at a major airline with around 20,000 hrs!
Track.jpg

Talking to him, it is also obvious, that he is not really comfortable with operating in a little bit more challenging terrain or the planning of longer cross country flights in general.

Now, I certainly don't want to disparage airline pilots. However, there seems to be a surprisingly small overlap between the skills required to fly an airliner and those needed to safely operate a light aircraft, particularly if factors like weather and the general environment we operate in, are also taken into consideration.
Frankly, I also don't understand the fixation on hours: How many of the typical ~10 hour of flight time from the US Midwest to Europe translate into experience that it beneficial for flying light aircraft?

Again thinking about my buddy, I feel the he his a bit cocky and over-confident because of his many hours.
I think this is a potentially dangerous attitude, as he has very minimal / zero experience with many of the aspects that are unique to flying light aircraft.
 
And ..... it was almost a flight of two that crashed. Wife had 1.2 gallons usable remaining in her plane after landing.

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2019/07/icon-a5-n83ba-accident-occurred-july-11_12.html

On July 11, 2019, about 2042 central daylight time, an amphibious Icon Aircraft A5 light sport airplane, N83BA, collided with trees and terrain during a forced landing near Wheeling, Illinois. The private pilot was not injured, and the airplane sustained substantial damage. The airplane was owned by CG 422 LLC and operated under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91 without a flight plan. Day visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the accident site. The cross-country flight departed Eagle Creek Airpark (EYE), Indianapolis, Indiana, at 1832, and was destined for Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, Illinois.

The pilot reported that he and his wife own two identical Icon Aircraft A5 airplanes, serial numbers 51 and 48, respectively. Earlier on the day of the accident, the pilot and his wife flew from St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia, Illinois, to EYE, in a loose formation. The pilot stated that both airplanes departed CPS with 17 gallons of fuel, as indicated on each airplane's fuel quantity gauge. The pilot reported that both airplanes had about 5 gallons of fuel remaining after completing the 2.9 hour flight from CPS to EYE. The pilot reported that the distance between CPS and EYE was about 202 nautical miles (nm) according to his flight planning software. After landing at EYE, the pilot had each airplane serviced with 12 gallons of fuel. After refueling, the fuel quantity gauge of each airplane indicated 17 gallons. The pilot reported that his flight planning software calculated 13 gallons of fuel was required for the estimated 2.4 hour flight from EYE to PWK. The pilot noted that the distance between EYE and PWK was about 165 nm, and that he expected to land at PWK with at least 4 gallons of fuel remaining.

The pilot reported that the flight from EYE to PWK was uneventful for about 2.3 hours at which time the engine began to lose power due to fuel exhaustion. The pilot stated that the loss of engine power occurred when the airplane was on a 3 mile left base leg for runway 16 at PWK. The pilot reported the engine subsequently had a total loss of power and a forced landing was made in a forest preserve about 1.2 miles from the airport. The airplane collided with trees and terrain during the forced landing, which resulted in substantial damage to the composite fuselage and wings. The pilot noted that his wife was able to safely land her airplane at PWK, and that her airplane had about 1.4 gallons (1.2 gallons usable) of fuel remaining after her 2.4 hour flight.​
 
Doing the math from Kathryn's summary:

17 gallons at EWE (per fuel gauge)

Less 1.5 gallon per measured gauge error​

= 15.5 potential gallons on board

Fuel burn:

1.2 hours at 100%, 7.1 gph (POH limited to 5 min) = 8.52 gal

Additional 0.4 hours in power mode, assume 7.0 gph = 2.8 gal

0.8 hours economy mode, 4.8 gph = 3.84 gal​

2.4 hour flight to PWK, 15.2 gallons fuel needed.

Looks like using POH numbers and basic math wins again, within rounding error.

Perhaps someone planned the flight in economy mode, then flew mostly at full rental power to PWK??


The airplane's pilot operating handbook (POH) contains a flight limitation for a maximum continuous engine speed of 5,500 rpm. The POH also limits engine operation at 5,800 rpm to 5 minutes or less. The POH provides expected fuel consumption rates from sea level to 12,000 ft pressure altitude at engine speeds between 4,000 rpm and 5,500 rpm. According to the cruise performance tables, the expected fuel consumption rate at a cruise altitude of 3,000 ft and an engine speed of 5,500 rpm, with a standard temperature lapse rate, was about 5 gallons per hour. The POH does not provide fuel consumption rates for engine operations above 5,500 rpm.

The operator's manual for the Rotax 912iS engine states that the engine operates between two modes, economy and power, which have significantly different fuel consumption rates. The manual notes that the switchover between the economy and power modes occurs when the throttle position is advanced above 97%. In the economy mode, the expected fuel consumption rate was about 4.8 gallons per hour at 5,500 rpm and a manifold pressure of 27 inches of mercury. In the power mode, the expected fuel consumption rate was about 6.9 and 7.1 gallons per hour at 5,500 rpm and 5,800 rpm, respectively.

The airplane was equipped with a digital data module that recorded basic GPS, engine, and flight parameters. According to the recovered data, the airplane departed runway 3 at EYE and proceeded north-northwest toward PWK. A preliminary review of the available parameter data indicated that the flight from EYE to PWK was 2.3 hours at a cruise altitude of about 3,000 ft mean sea level (msl) and an engine manifold pressure of 26.5 to 27 inches of mercury. The engine data indicated that 60.4% of the flight, about 1.4 hours, was operated above 5,500 rpm. Additionally, the data indicated that about 74.6% of the flight, about 1.7 hours, was with the throttle positioned at or above 97% (where the engine normally switches between economy and power modes). The data indicated that about 52.5% of the flight, about 1.2 hours, was with the throttle positioned at 100%. Additionally, the engine had operated in power mode for 68.4% of the flight, about 1.6 hours

A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the fuel tank did not contain any useable fuel and the low fuel annunciator light was illuminated. Water was added to the fuel tank in 1 gallon increments to verify the accuracy of the fuel quantity gauge. The test results indicated that the low fuel light turned off after 1.75 gallons of water was added to the fuel tank. Additionally, the test results indicated that the fuel quantity gauge indicated on average about 1 to 1.5 gallons higher than the actual tank quantity.​
 
asicer said:
"We need to go faster because I only have an hour of fuel remaining" ?
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I find it really hard to slow down if and when fuel remaining becomes marginal.

I know intellectually that it’s the right thing to do, but as your facetious post indicates, intentionally prolonging the uncertainty is hard to do.
 
FastEddieB said:
I find it really hard to slow down if and when fuel remaining becomes marginal.

I know intellectually that it’s the right thing to do, but as your facetious post indicates, intentionally prolonging the uncertainty is hard to do.
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Well, I was only half facetious because I'm the same way as you. What helps me in that situation is to slow myself (my thought processes) down, which is also easier said than done at times.
 
FastEddieB said:
I find it really hard to slow down if and when fuel remaining becomes marginal.

I know intellectually that it’s the right thing to do, but as your facetious post indicates, intentionally prolonging the uncertainty is hard to do.
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It occurs to me that headwinds might change the optimum speed for low-fuel operations. It should be possible to test that hypothesis using POH data.
 
Palmpilot said:
It occurs to me that headwinds might change the optimum speed for low-fuel operations. It should be possible to test that hypothesis using POH data.
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I wonder if you had flight planned for a minimal amount of margin and then the headwinds were greater than forecast whether any solution exists to get you to your original destination.
 
FastEddieB said:
I find it really hard to slow down if and when fuel remaining becomes marginal.
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Its easy enough to do some quick math in your head in those situations. Becomes much easier to slow down after you've worked the math out and realize 2100 rpm keeps in you air long enough to get there and 2400 rpm doesn't.
 
^if you have a totalizer with a fuel on destination read out then it is definitely very interesting and educational to see just how much gas you can "make" by slowing down, leaning out, etc
 
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