Stuck in a King Air

CoffeeIcePapers

Well-Hung Member
This happened to a friend of mine.

Situation: King Air B200. Fly into the middle of nowhere (closest city with more than a few thousand people is 2.5-3 hours away by car) and it is 12F. No hangar, GPU, or facilities to speak of. Unload the passengers, get the crew car, eat dinner, and hang out in the city office for about 5 hours.

You go to fire up the right engine, and it only gets to 55% N1 (62-65% is normal). You start up the left engine, without issue and try to get a cross gen start going. Same thing on the right. Call up MX, cancel the flight, take care of the passengers and get a hotel.

The only mechanics available the next day are some turbine helicopter mechanics. The company sends these guys out and check for obvious signs of failure. With the help of company MX over the phone, they diagnose it as the FCU. Still shows the same symptoms after multiple runs. Now, they send out an engine guy from a reputable PT6 company, but it takes a few days.

A few days go by, and when the reputable mechanic shows up, there are no issues after multiple runs. He rules out the FCU, as it is almost always a catastrophic failure and claims once they go out, they don't come back.

The reputable mechanic has done nothing at this point, but run the engine. What do you do at this point?
 
Is it within limitations? Yes, continue everything is normal.
 
It's a King Air nothing goes wrong with them! If a reputable PT-6 mechanic says it's good than who are you going to trust?

We did have a FCU go out in one of our engines and it was a pain for the mechanic to get the new one tuned.

Here is our King Air looking like a real beast on a rich start up.

 
It's a King Air nothing goes wrong with them! If a reputable PT-6 mechanic says it's good than who are you going to trust?

We did have a FCU go out in one of our engines and it was a pain for the mechanic to get the new one tuned.

Here is our King Air looking like a real beast on a rich start up.


Nice Velocity rolling by!

Oh... and nice AB on the king!
 
Yep. Mech signs it off, go fly.

Saw this on a bunch of cold-soaked 99s. Sometimes, you can get it running by SLIGHTLY advancing the throttles, but watch the Temp!!!
 
@mojo6911, I'm curious if the answers posted here matched your expectations, or were you (or your friend) expecting something different?

Edit to add; Earlier in my career I would have been like "... and they didn't even do anything to it?!? I ain't flying it like that!" Since then I've seen so many intermittent problems come and go that it doesn't surprise me anymore.
 
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@mojo6911, I'm curious if the answers posted here matched your expectations, or were you (or your friend) expecting something different?

Edit to add; Earlier in my career I would have been like "... and they didn't even do anything to it?!? I ain't flying it like that!" Since then I've seen so many intermittent problems come and go that it doesn't surprise me anymore.

I pretty much agree with everyone else in the thread. As long as reasonable precautions are made, like proper engine runs, test flight, etc, I think it is a manageable risk. My friend was questioning the decision to go, mainly because it made him nervous that nothing was actually done.
 
I pretty much agree with everyone else in the thread. As long as reasonable precautions are made, like proper engine runs, test flight, etc, I think it is a manageable risk. My friend was questioning the decision to go, mainly because it made him nervous that nothing was actually done.
There's a reason "ops/ground checks ok, no problem found, return to service" is pretty much a joke and punchline all in one. You'll get used to it. Eventually some thing will hard fail and you'll find the problem (hopefully). We've chased gremlins up and down our LR45 for the last two years.
 
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