Missing MU-2 Found In California

Aero-News ^ | 032204 | N/A

[Archangelsk]

Authorities in California have found what appears to be the wreckage of a Mitsubishi MU-2 at the bottom of the Napa River, not far from where it was headed more than a week ago. The bodies of Ronald and Peggy Scott, both 62 years old, were found inside the wreckage.

The discovery of the downed aircraft ended a search that began on Monday, after the Scotts were reported missing by concerned family members. They had taken off from Imperial County Airport in Southern California March 11 and weren't heard from since.

Officials said the Scotts didn't file a flight plan for the trip and weren't using flight following. It was last tracked on radar that night between the Napa County Airport and San Pablo Bay, according to a Napa County Sheriff's report.

Using sonar, deputies located the aircraft in about 20 feet of water. It apparently rested there without anyone's knowledge for several days.

"He (Ronald Scott) didn't show up for his meeting on Friday, and nobody did anything or said anything until ... Monday," said airport administrative assistant Winona Boyer. She said Scott was a frequent visitor to the Napa County Airport.

"He has been a regular transient at the airport since 1999," the employee said, adding that Ronald Scott worked with a cancer research institute in San Diego and made several trips a month to Napa County for meetings. He had one place he usually parked, and no one paid much attention," she said.

[Moose4]

Most turboprops have reversable props, used for braking on short runways. There's been at least one accident in recent years involving a turboprop and reverse pitch in flight...IIRC a pilot attempting to do a short, steep descent tried to pull the prop pitch back and pulled it a little too far back, into reverse, while flying at high speed. After the molten engine parts quit flying out the exhaust, I think the pilot wound up ditching it in a field.

Nice-looking little airplane, though a pretty fancy ride for just one man and his wife.

}:-)4

[Thermalseeker]

Better yet, no aviator (private, commercial, whathaveyou) should fly cross country without filing a flight plan or using flight following, regardless of what kind of aircraft you're piloting.

Lots of pilots don't file flight plans. Most are just lazy, but some don't do it because they fear being fined by the FAA if they fail to close the flight plan upon arrival at their destination. Regarding flight following, just because you request it doesn't mean you always get it. I've had ATC refuse flight following on a number of occasions. This is particularly true with busy centers like Atlanta. There is also large areas of the country where flight following is not available because of the lack of radar coverage.

I've never flown an MU-2, but I used to hangar next to one. That is one hot airplane. It used to be a favorite of drug smugglers because it was faster at sea level than most of the Coast Guards jets. I beleive the CG has since rectified that situation, though.

[blackdog]

It's mechanical linkage from the throttles quadrant, no relays, and it works off of oil pressure flowing thru the mechanically linked valves.

The main use is for short field braking or stopping distance. I've got a lot of time in King Airs and used it a lot. It saves a lot of wear on brakes and disks.

If it's ever used on the ramp area, the FBO will not want to see you again. If you run Garrett's, they don't want to see you anyhoo.

[Dead Dog]

1) Flight Planning is pain in the butt, and in most parts of the US, of very limited value. Ie. If the airplane goes down, you either have time to call in your location, or your dead. A flight plan wouldn't have helped these folks, just waisted gas and airframe time on a C-130.

If I were flying over BFE Alaska, I would agree it's a good idea. Flying up and down the Willamette Valley, or even the coast range..it's a complete waist of resources.

2) Radar fallowing? Transiting Class C and B airspace it is good, Flying over boonyville at 2000ft..it doesn't help much. Besides, if you can't see it you are going to hit it, whether they tell you it's there or not. In my experience, people look outside the airplane better when they don't have someone on the ground looking for them.

Both provide a false sense of security.

[blackdog]

It's also nice to get a fine for using charts out of date by a week, but no fine for flying with no charts!

Go figure?

As for flight following, I use it at night if flying VFR. Late night flying is great from a communications standpoint and any traffic called out to you is easier to spot than in daylight. The controllers are pleasant, social, and relaxed.

[blackdog]

It's amazing what one can afford in the cancer research game.....

During the hell-slide of AD's on the MU-2 prop problems, they could be had for about $150,000 back in 1990. I remember buying an Aerocommander for $72,000 when the fuselage straps to the wings were corroding and becoming unsafe. A very, very nice twin for less than a Cesna 172 or a Piper Arrow.

[sirshackleton]

Lots of pilots don't file flight plans. Most are just lazy, but some don't do it because they fear being fined by the FAA if they fail to close the flight plan upon arrival at their destination.

Yeah, back in flight school there were signs all over the place reading "DID YOU CLOSE YOUR FLIGHT PLAN?!?!?". On the plane signout sheet, the breakroom wall, the locker room, the bathroom...everywhere you could think of. I always wrote it on the bottom of my navlog as if it were another leg on the flight. I always managed to remember, but some others didn't...I don't remember them ever getting fined by the FAA though.

[Archangelsk]

Flight Planning is pain in the butt, and in most parts of the US, of very limited value.

Go here for the greatest thing since sliced bread for flight planning.

[Dead Dog]

I should state, Filing a Flight plan is next to useless. Not Flight Planning. Flight Planning is life.

[Steely Tom]

It's mechanical linkage from the throttles quadrant, no relays, and it works off of oil pressure flowing thru the mechanically linked valves.

Thanks for the info, blackdog. I concluded that prop-pitch was controlled by electric actuators because I've seen so many "prop pitch motors" for sale in surplus catalogs. Obviously, just because some props are controlled by electric motors doesn't mean they all are.

I guess the mechanical linkage makes me feel a little better, because it can't go into a failure state just due to some little piece of dirt or whatever. Still, hydraulic valves can fail...

Well, I guess there are a lot of things on an airplane that will kill you if they fail. Prop-pitch control is just one item on the list.

(steely)

[blackdog]

I had a simple method of not forgetting. It was my wife's responsibility. I had to always call her whenever I got where I was going or was weathered in somewhere. She closed the flight plan.

I'm a readback champion, so I like IFR plans out of places with grumpy, pissy controllers. They will never of course give you the route you filed for, but instead some horribly tedious readback which has you departing in as close to 180 degrees from your eventual enroute airway as possible. They read it to you in the cockpit like that speed reading guy who used to do commercials for FEDEX. They figure that might be enough to rattle you into departing VFR and filing from the air I guess. Nothing lets the wind out of their sails than a perfect readback in a single pilot plane. A readback that has more goofy headings, intersections, altitudes, and such.

The funny part is then once you leave tower, and check in with departure, they route you direct anyway? Why they play such games with people I have no idea?

[Archangelsk]

The primary reason why is because the National Airspace System was created specifically for Part 121 and 135 operations. GA screws up ATCs precious sequencing. Envision the following: "UA235 Heavy, you're following a C-150 on final, slow to 90 knots," and the subsequent muttering from the flight deck.

[FreedomFlynnie]

Why not? My understanding was that based on speed and range a MU-2 was about the best possible choice for a private pilot who wanted to step up to a twin turboprop.

Even if it is inherently ugly because of the high wing (ducking!) :-p

The question's serious, though. What's wrong with a MU-2?

[blackdog]

I'm not certain, but I think there are a few piston planes out there with reversing pitch control. I think the Queen-Air may be one. I know that when you get a prop stuck in feathered position in a Cesna 402, that it is impossible to start the engine on the ground.

I wonder what the pitch control is on helicopters? I see linkage rods that come up to the rotors, but I'm not sure what device moves them up and down. I was told a story once in flight school, which of course means it could be as false as true, but that a Ranger pilot lost pitch control and reached up thru the interior panels and manually operated the linkage by hand. He could only select full deflections though.

[Archangelsk]

It's too much airplane for the non-professional pilot. The increase in speed and the situational awareness required demand a higher degree of training and proficiency. This is not just my view, check AOPAs web site for their take on the subject.

[HamiltonJay]

Well I don't know about that, but I do know, I'd never fly without filing a flight plan.. if for no other reason than so they know where to look if I go down.

[sirshackleton]

Fortunately, I never had to deal with such folks in ATC. I was also pretty good with readbacks and the radio in general. But I will concur that it seems like you get routed in very strange directions sometimes. I used to just tell myself it was some sort of weird traffic phenomenon that was occurring at the time to keep myself smiling through it.

[blackdog]

The MU-2 had many AD's on the props. Many mid-air catastrophic separations from the hub, slicing the cabin in two.

The loads and profile of use you place on the current configuation blades is supposed to be limited and closely controlled. The inspection periods are like 100 hours.

Hey, ever do a GPU start on a MU-2? You've got to crawl up along the side of the fuselage to about ten inches from the propeller to disconnect the cable. It's the most frightening experience out there.

The best twins to transition to are the Seminole, Seneca, Dutchess, and 310. All docile and forgiving. The worst are Duke, P-Barons, MU-2(or anything turboprop), Aztec F, 421, Cheyenne, and Navajo. You need to be out in front and the engines are fussy, subject to shock cooling, overheating, and other real performance plane problems if not flown by the numbers.

The Seminole is nice because it's got counter-rotaing props, thus minimalizing critical engine out problems with airspeed.

[Moose4]

Prop problems...hmm, wasn't there at least one NTSB-reported crash of an MU-2 because of metal fatigue somewhere in the prop or prop gearing? I thought I remembered "MU-2" from somewhere, you just jogged my brain.

And I love Aero Commanders. I'm not a pilot, just a plane fan and flight sim geek, but I think the ACs are gorgeous. They look like little 2/3 scale A-26 Invaders. :) I saw a gloss-black one at the local downtown airport here recently, a Puerto Rico government aircraft I guess (the N316PR registration and PR flag design along the body gave it away). Beautiful.

}:-)4

[Steely Tom]

Helicopter blades change pitch cyclically, in sync with rotor RPM. This is done by means of a swash plate, which is under those linkage rods you saw. The pilot has two controls: one called the "collective," which raises and lowers the swash plate (thereby changing the pitch of the blades without regard to their position around the circle of motion) and the "cyclic" (if I have the word right), which tilts the swash plate, thereby causing the blades to "wobble," as it were. This causes the plane of the spinning blades to tilt, thereby causing the force vector developed by the spinning blades to tilt as well. It is the horizontal component of this tilted thrust vector that propels the helicopter.

(steely)