Originally Posted by
BackPacker
BPF, have you ever flown a SLPC aircraft? Although their operation is indeed very simple if all is well, the failure modes and thus the associated emergency drills are completely different from your conventional Lycosaurus.
The authorized emergency/abnormal checklists for our clubs avgas burning aircraft is one column on an A5 sheet, while the same checklist for the DA-40 TDI runs for two A4 pages. Admittedly that's probably a bit overkill but it was the first diesel in our fleet and they wanted to be thorough. Still, at least one possible failure scenario was not covered in that checklist, almost causing a mate of mine to overshoot his emergency power off landing because the engine all of a sudden went from 0% to 100% power, apparently uncommanded. Quick thinking and quick reactions saved the day, fortunately.
So yes, as far as I'm concerned, differences training is a justified requirement, with an emphasis on failure modes and emergency scenarios.
Yes I have flown a SLPC. The power lever was connected to a pair of 4000hp
Alison 506 turbines.
Since I had just come from the DC6 with its 4 piston P&W R2800's the list of things I no longer had to do/monitor when demanding more or less power from the engine, was breathtaking.
I think you missed the point of my comment. The fact that it has a single lever power control isn't the issue, it is understanding what is happening to the engine it is attached to. In this respect that there is a definite requirement for differences training. If you take a PPL C172 pilot as a baseline there is far more training involved in making sure a pilot can properly operate an aircraft with a turbocharged, VP prop engine, than any of the current small SLPC aircraft. The whole point of the SLPC is to make the aircraft simpler to operate
yet regulators and the flying training industry seem to be making a big deal about this special new SLPC "qualification".
