Southern Airways Express 208 Landing on Road
- Thread starter Murdoughnut
- Start date
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
The boots do what they were designed to do, buy you time to get out.
If you expect any airplane to do more than it was designed to do, you can expect things to end badly.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Yup. The EX is what the Grand should’ve been in the first place. Keeping the CG back when flying empty was annoying but that was about it (and I’m wagering pretty much nobody else flies them empty so much).
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
One of the magnificent movies of all time. You have to show the WHOLE clip. It is sacrilege to do otherwise.
I saw it in the theater. Everyone in the theater was gasping for air they were all laughing so hard.
View: https://youtu.be/0M0FfQzSngM?si=am8V_UquQkk5cCfc
KLB
Well-Known Member
I actually got banned from the spinoff where all the halfway decent folks went over a similar discussion a few years back. I was shocked by that.
Stone Cold
Well-Known Member
Oh I know. I was based in STP for a year in the plane, and I have 1000 hours from that time in the plane. A Baron could go days in icing but the Turbine Suburban didn’t like it at all. That was the basis for my comment.
ppragman
No pasa nada.
The caravan isn't as bad as people say in icing - but you have to get out of the ice, you cannot linger. That's pretty much all there is to it. To be fair i never flew a 600SHP van in icing, but I flew the 675 van in icing in the PacNW and some up north here, and I flew the EX quite a bit too. Lots of the terrible performance basically went away as soon as they put bigger engines on it or TKS, or both.
The problem I remember in the 675SHP van was that it's easy to be doing your paperwork or something and look up and suddenly you've lost 10kts. In the 675 they were really sensitive to where the ice was iirc, and the airspeed could be trending down before you realized you were even in icing. I felt like the airplane really came into it's own with more power. Having flown the Aerotwin Van and the EX I'd say that it's a demonstrably more capable airplane with more "oomph."
The EX is really performant and great, the only disadvantage is that you can run out of TKS, but you don't insta-die when that happens, it is just an emergency and things get a little more exciting. Still, the one time that happened to me there were plenty of options and it eventually worked out fine, the key was doing all that route planning stuff you're supposed to do before flying anyway, so I had options. Things could have gone very differently had I not planned.
I guess my take on the van is "it's fine, it's good enough, it does fine in ice if you actually follow the requirements of the AFM, but requires respect", more than say, a Navajo, or a Baron a lot more. The crazy thing about the Navajo was that it basically didn't care about ice - you be slinging scary amounts of ice off the prop making some helacious racket and beating the crap out of the nose baggage and literally no airspeed was lost. You'd see ice forming on the VGs of the BLR kit at max gross and literally not even worry about it. Meanwhile in the 675 van a snowflake hits the wing and you're 10 kts slower.
The problem I remember in the 675SHP van was that it's easy to be doing your paperwork or something and look up and suddenly you've lost 10kts. In the 675 they were really sensitive to where the ice was iirc, and the airspeed could be trending down before you realized you were even in icing. I felt like the airplane really came into it's own with more power. Having flown the Aerotwin Van and the EX I'd say that it's a demonstrably more capable airplane with more "oomph."
The EX is really performant and great, the only disadvantage is that you can run out of TKS, but you don't insta-die when that happens, it is just an emergency and things get a little more exciting. Still, the one time that happened to me there were plenty of options and it eventually worked out fine, the key was doing all that route planning stuff you're supposed to do before flying anyway, so I had options. Things could have gone very differently had I not planned.
I guess my take on the van is "it's fine, it's good enough, it does fine in ice if you actually follow the requirements of the AFM, but requires respect", more than say, a Navajo, or a Baron a lot more. The crazy thing about the Navajo was that it basically didn't care about ice - you be slinging scary amounts of ice off the prop making some helacious racket and beating the crap out of the nose baggage and literally no airspeed was lost. You'd see ice forming on the VGs of the BLR kit at max gross and literally not even worry about it. Meanwhile in the 675 van a snowflake hits the wing and you're 10 kts slower.
Itchy
Well-Known Member
The TKS lets the van slide through ice like a greased suppository compared to a booted one. Plenty of time in both. In fact, I too got to experience a 10 minute glide in one in IMC, busted out at 800’ and got lucky and had a handy field. No damage. I am very curious if this one failed for the same reason, a compressor failure that was catastrophic and moved the entire gas generator back 3/4 of an inch. Seriously thought my ticket was going to punched that day. There was a thread here about it back then. Here’s the ATC end of the conversation that day.
View: https://youtu.be/v2u9k8XJuDw?si=yPU3NqSbh7bH_soi
View: https://youtu.be/v2u9k8XJuDw?si=yPU3NqSbh7bH_soi
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Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
I flew both booted and TKS 210s back in the day. Let's just say that there was a reason they generally kept the booted planes in Florida.
That said, even the booted planes worked ok, if operated with the above advice (re: use the boots to get out of the ice) in mind.
But then of course 210s don't have all of those weird, unprotected dangly things hanging off of them
That said, even the booted planes worked ok, if operated with the above advice (re: use the boots to get out of the ice) in mind.
But then of course 210s don't have all of those weird, unprotected dangly things hanging off of them
ppragman
No pasa nada.
this is pretty badass. o7
ppragman
No pasa nada.
I just listened to the whole thing "flying single engine never bothered me until right about now." A god damn missile man.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
Yeah hell and death, I was trying to wind down to sleep, now I'll be up all night. BZ, Itchy.
ppragman
No pasa nada.
That's actually one of the cooler things I've seen on here in over 15 years. BZ is f-ing right.
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
That was intense. I don’t remember reading about it when it happened, was right around the time I joined.
The CT blades failing for various reasons has been pretty much the failure mode on the Caravan engines over the years. Usually the reports end up finding some sort of shortcoming in maintenance as in @Itchy ‘s deal. Guess we’ll find out in this particular case.
The CT blades failing for various reasons has been pretty much the failure mode on the Caravan engines over the years. Usually the reports end up finding some sort of shortcoming in maintenance as in @Itchy ‘s deal. Guess we’ll find out in this particular case.
Itchy
Well-Known Member
Thanks, it was a hell of a day.
I will never forget the radar altimeter beeping at 1000’ and still being IMC. It was a real depressing feeling. The FAA gave me a plaque for my me wall, which I thought was outstandingly nice of them, and, got a real BZ from the purple tail folks too. That plane was back in revenue service in seven days.
I will never forget the radar altimeter beeping at 1000’ and still being IMC. It was a real depressing feeling. The FAA gave me a plaque for my me wall, which I thought was outstandingly nice of them, and, got a real BZ from the purple tail folks too. That plane was back in revenue service in seven days.