.........'bushy' even though I understand where ya comin' from there that's a long bow yr drawing there. One could even go as far as to say the 747 was Wright Bro's technology ( as was every A/C) but with transport cat A/C they have to have guarneteed performance with en eng failure from the day they where made 'till the day they are scraped. A/C of the PA31 type simply deteriorate during there life & where at best marginal due pwr to weight ratio on one donk from day one. You had to have everything going for you to make it work, rarely do we have that many years down the track with man & machine.
'remoak' old planes like the PA31 will go on killing people no Govt agency is going to ban them just as no Govt agency is going to ban the automobile the other mode of transport that kills far more than some old beat up planes. There is simply no 'to cover all' answer, we designed them, we accepted them & we use them & will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. One can reduce the risk by lowering the A/C's T/off weight etc to give it a better climb gradient in the critical stages of flight but few operators would agree to that on commercial grounds, the most powerful reason why we do anything in life where profit is concerned.
At the end of the day what have we got here?
We have an old airframe that is marginal under these circumstances (Eng failure)
We have low/er experienced pilots flying them with at times minimal training.
We have them operating in the worst level of WX, blw 10K with few protections
We have them conducting flights that are based on nothing but commercial reasons
And the real hit home hard one is we operate them to climb that ladder & we ALL do what we have to do to get to the top meaning we have done things along the way that where somewhat risky in a high risk plane design. (not just the PA31 either)
'guanty' yr right the Dr's didn't like the Mojave's at all I believe. To get any guaranteed performance from them they had to operate them at a reduced weight making the plane marginal in other area's, range & mission capabilities etc.
Wmk2