PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Convair 340 (C-131D) ZS-BRV crash Pretoria, South Africa
Old 11th Jul 2018, 21:21
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Zlinguy
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Florida
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The CV-440 was my first "real" flying job nearly 30 years ago - 2 of the 3 we flew have subsequently crashed ( one departing SJU under similar circumstances - ours were based in the states). It was mostly "On-the-Job Training", fortunately the Captains I flew with were very experienced and doled out prodigious amounts of "tribal knowledge". I honestly don't remember that much about the plane (other than it was old and leaky - even back then), but, almost every Captain was loathe to arm the Autofeather switch. Apparently it was implicated in several accidents when a faulty BMEP sensor (kind of a torque gauge) would trigger an autofeather of a perfectly functioning engine/prop. I believe the AUTO RICH/AUTO LEAN settings could get you in trouble pretty quickly, as well...

One of the crash reports cites a pilot stating that it was unlikely to climb at over 500'/min single-engine - I remember that number being our 2-engine rate-of-climb (mostly due to cooling issues). It was a very stable platform ( and a very robust airframe - I can attest to that), but, incredibly busy for the non-flying pilot to keep temps in the ideal range for different phases of flight adjusting cowl flaps, oil cooler doors, not reducing power below 100 BMEP for descent, etc...

I still have some old flight manuals from the mid-50's when our planes were operated by Delta Airlines...
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