VH-MEP for sale..........No this is not an ad post

[Peter Fanelli]

Yep, MEP is up for sale, how many of us began our IFR experience sweating in that smoke filled cockpit?

[Skystar320]

I have an white pen AND NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!!!!

[Spotlight]

Brought me to earth more than once! :=

[Peter Fanelli]

I did five Worlds Longest Mail Runs in that damn thing, and you know what, with enough practice you can produce good landings in a Seneca. (I refuse to call it a 1 because there was no Seneca 1, there's the Seneca then the Seneca II etc.)

[flog]

For those of us that don't know - what / where is MEP? And include some stories - it's getting boring around here reading all the politics...

[elche]

It's a PA34-200 Seneca, I think the add said it was stored at Camden?

I would also be interested in hearing more on the "I" series, I'm working on a flight sim version and currently working on it's flight characteristics.

So... If anyone has any notes, pictures, videos, war-stories, anything they might want to pass on I would really appreciate it! :ok:

If you own one and wouldn't mind me taking pictures inside and out and maybe even some sound recording would be even beter!! :}

sorry for the hijack:E

[Desert Flower]

I did five Worlds Longest Mail Runs in that damn thing, and you know what, with enough practice you can produce good landings in a Seneca.

Yep, & the old girl did a few more after you left too! Probably the most memorable one was when VH-LIC crashed at Innamincka. What a weekend that was! And yes it is possible to produce a good landing (as opposed to an arrival ;) ) in a sneaker. I've seen some good ones, & some absolutely b:mad:y atrocious ones over the years!

DF.

[Pinky the pilot]

Ah yes, dear old MEP.:ooh: (Makes sign to ward off evil eye; Touches wood; throws salt over shoulder etc etc)

Smoke filled cockpit indeed! I did the second half of my CPL and all of my initial issue IFR rating in that A/C. Anyone else remember TK's propensity for simulated engine failures? He kept his packet of smokes on top of the fuel selectors and I quickly worked out that every time he reached for a smoke, a (simulated) engine failure followed!! Thankfully he only pulled that stunt in the cruise, all simulated EFATOs were done via the mixture control.

After TK retired and everything was sold off I was given the task of flying both the Seminole and MEP up to the Gold Coast for sale. Looking in my log book, I took MEP up there in August 05 and it apparently sold not long thereafter to a QANTAS Pilot, as TK told me later. His comment was
''He'll have to learn to fly now.'':E
I wonder why it's on the market again after only three years?

with enough practice you can produce good landings in a Seneca.

Indeed you can, as I eventually discovered.:ok:

[ZEEBEE]

I would also be interested in hearing more on the "I" series, I'm working on a flight sim version and currently working on it's flight characteristics.

A Seneca doesn't have ANY flight characteristics:=

It has been said that the Seneca would never replace the aeroplane.

[sms777]

I did my IFR training in the early 90's in VH-CTT a Seneca II out of Bankstown.
It took me a long time to realise why i could never get my NDB approaches right to satisfy my instructor.
The damned thing used to fly sideways!!! No one told me that or they just waited to see if i wake up to it after spending many hundreds of extra dollars to get my rating. Ironically it has finally crashed killing two poor buggers because being so aerodinamically inefficient. :(

I have not flown a Seneca since and i have no intensions to do so unless someone put a PT6 on each wing.

[elche]

CTT was a Seneca I, and as far as I'm aware it did not crash due to it "being so aerodinamically inefficient", but from an abrupt change in power. The owner of CTT was my first flight instructor, and I have had a chat to him about how it flew, and also another bloke that had completed his endo. just a month before the fatal accident, and both had told me although she was a bit of a pig, she was quite an enjoyable plane to fly.

[tinpis]

Seneca ?..you whippersnappers dont know yer alive.


Try covering the whole of northern SA 24/7 for medical RFDS with a Seneca 1 and a rooted 260 Cherokee 6 :uhoh:

[ZEEBEE]

Try covering the whole of northern SA 24/7 for medical RFDS with a Seneca 1 and a rooted 260 Cherokee 6

What are you on about Tin?

A Seneca 1 IS a rooted Cherokee 260 :ok:

[Capt Wally]

I can remember a time when most of us oldies in here would have flown the Wright Flyer as long as it had 2X engines. The 'Sneca' was a huge step up from a single, a good grounding (good word actually) for learning raw flying skills how to stay alive in a very ordinary A/C. PA30/39, now there's a real mans plane!:ok:Some years ago I had a chance to obtain a PA34 fuselage only (no wings/engines/interior) for the possible use as a kids cubby-house come play thing, I thought best not even without wings it was dangerous enough to adults never lone to small children:bored:

CW

[Dubya]

old MEP.....

Control wheel 10degrees right, a bit of left rudder, and the balance ball in the middle...it's the only way the old girl flew straight..

did my very first IFR CHTR in it from ADL to Olympic Dam with 2 guards to pick up the usual 180kg of payload.....on a 44 degree day....and the only way she got airborne was coz of the curvature of the earth.....
..on way back flew thru a hugh Cu that covered the windscreen with ice and in the corner of my eye I could see the ice sliding off and slipping away....yep ****t!ing bricks all the way....with crossed controls and not trusting the autopilot one bit.....:ok:

[Peter Fanelli]

I wonder if it still has the right hand windshield with the hole in it which appeared during my IR test.

Damn Tobagos

:ooh:

[Stationair8]

So Tinnpis, with the mighty Seneca on aeromedical operations for St John's would have been an interesting job. So with a pilot, flight nurse and a patient where could you actually go Parafield to Adelaide? What sort of medical equipment did you carry? Half pack of aspro's?

Funny enough yesterday I paxed home on a VB flight, and the bloke beside me got talking and he had been a paramedic in Adelaide in the 1970's and had done his time in the Seneca, Navajo and Chieftain. As this forum is read by children, I won't print is colourful description of a Seneca, he referred to the Navajo and Chieftain as VW's of the air.