Foot steps
Big Bucks
Yep they are combined foot step and fuel tanks, they feed into the main system but can't be refuelled freom the main system i.e. you have to fill em separately.
If I remember correctly there is a reduced VNE and therefore cruise and a slight increase in fuel consumption due to the extra drag.
The trade off in speed doesn't make them much use on longer transits.
As to the original subject of the thread I too have had the pitch up, this extract from the report to the operator;
Conditions at the time were +20˚c, 6000’ amsl 1015mb , 65% torque with an IAS of 125kts, little turbulence, straight and level with the APs both engaged in SAS mode, fuel load was 220 kg and the AUW was under 3000kg but not by a significant amount. The aircraft was not fitted with any external accessories. Internal load distribution was not considered to be a factor.
After the recovery was achieved it was noted that the AP1 and AP2 captions were illuminated and the following codes were displayed, 1E45 and 2E43 no other captions were noted to have illuminated during the incident.
Earlier in the transit the SPAS caption illuminated for no apparent reason it was selected off for a period and then reselected on with no disturbance or further failure. It was noted that the movement of the cyclic during the reselection of the SPAS was similar to that experienced when the pitch up was experienced and I concluded that there may be a connection to this system with the pith up event.
For those interested it was a C1 which had suffered an number of these events, ECD gave the systems (Hyd, AP/SPAS, Controls and rigging) a full going over and no faults were found.
To regain control I initiated a roll to the left and wingovered out of it so to speak.