Morgan Freeman's jet makes "crash" landing in Tunica

Very classy Mr. Freeman.

The Biebster would be all over the news whining about his inconvenience.
 

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I wish I could say he didn't crash, I wish I could say that.....


The SJ30 was an experimental jet for a while, I think it was even a kit.
Not a kit, never was. They have changed names a handful of times and are based out of San Antonio, TX. It's a slick looking plane that was originally a Swearingen design.
 
Seems like a pretty remarkable airplane. But that gear looks like an engineering nightmare!

Sea level cabin to 410, capable of .83. Single pilot. Leading edge slats. Looks like a hell of a cool airplane.
 
I crawled around one on the static ramp at NBAA, the interior was... chintzy. It felt like being in a Kia. Exterior build quality looked the same - like it wasn't really built to be much of a workhorse.

Not that I have $7.5 mil to spend on a jet, but if I did this would be pretty low on the list.
 
In TPE331 school I learned that even Honeywell/Garrett folks don't like the Metro because the engine setup was bastardized due to some of Eds demands.
I'd believe it. It's the only application where I've ever heard that failures were somewhat common.
 
I'd believe it. It's the only application where I've ever heard that failures were somewhat common.
3 things Ed wanted that screwed up the engine design.
-inlet on top of the engine, which was fairly easy design wise but made the installation a bear to work on.
-105" prop which required changing the whole gear reduction setup to get tip speeds down, and some extra kerjiggering of the prop control system to keep the momentum of the prop from making the thing NTS when putting it into beta on landing (this actually ended up being a good thing for Garrett as it paved the way for other high horsepower, large prop installs)
-No derate. This made it so engines ran out of temp margin very early in their life, and may have contributed to the engines reliability rep on this airplane.

The Garrett grenade reputation from exploding gearboxes on some of the metros and especially the jetscreams was (at least according to the Honeywell instructor) partially the result of moving from a helical or spiral cut bull gear and high speed pinion on the -10s and previous to straight cut gears on the first -12s. There were multiple ADs, SBs (at one point they were pulling SOAP samples every 25 or 50 hours to detect gear wear and still having failures) and an emergency task force at Honeywell but only when they redesigned back to spiral cut gears did the problems really cease.
 
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