HS 748 Stansted
 

Well said Madbob, I could not agree with you more, it was a good move.

Oooops I missed this earlier this month. Fly Montserrat are back in the air:-

Fly Montserrat resumes flight operations | Antigua Observer Newspaper

Stanstead HS748
 

Moab I agree with the Captain's decision. A fire is deadly in a very short time and time is needed to read and act from the manual.!

My personal opinion; throw the book out the window and get the bugger on the ground....NOW! It is the trade off between a total loss of passengers and crew or the increased possibility of curtailing, if not completely avoiding, a total loss through a ground evacuation. Bravo to this captain, he did the right thing !:ok:

I've got quite a bit of time on islanders flying in Africa. The bn2 flies very well on one engine when compared with other light twins. With only 3 paxthe islander can comfortably climb at 1000 fpm at about 90 kts cruise climb. From the ground after takeoff the islander looks extremely slow in flight although it is probably safely above blue line 65 kts. Rotate speed is between 51 and 58 kts depending on weight. With 41 kts red line it's pretty easy to recover even shortly after takeoff.

I've failed engines in flight and at MAUW even unfeathered I could maintain 7000 feet. Once feathered I could even climb a bit. Maintaining 80 kts on one engine.

Probably one of the safest light aircraft you can fly in.

you fly a very special piston Islander then Jekijock. The ones that I used to fly (all maintained to a very high spec with no cost cutting) would be lucky to climb on one donkey at max weight above 500 to 1000ft having suffered an EFATO. The drift down chart gives a stabilising altitude of about 2400ft for the BN2B.

Like any twin though it will bite if you simply don't react fast enough to an engine failure and if you are heavy and do not feather that prop then you are not going to come back around the circuit. An Islander has an advantage over most light twins in that you don't have to think about the gear.

I would think it differs a bit between different models.
With the more powerful engines(300hp) and for example no deicing boots it should have more margins then with the 260hp engines.
I only have flown BN2A-21 w/ 300hp engines, so just a guestimate above.

Anyway, it feels really safe due to being fully controllable w critical engine inoperative at stall speed.

If I recall it correctly there was a bad crash just after take of (quite some years since now) when both engines was supplied with watermixed fuel. If I remember it right there was water in both fuel thanks that came in the fuel lines after rotation (due to the nose hig attitude).

Nope. Both islanders I fly are normal. One BN2A-26 which has the 260 engines and also the BN2A-21 which is the 300. I was referring to the -26 as I believe that's what was being flown in the crash. I see you mentioned the much newer BN2B. Ive never flown it although I'm sure the differences aren't huge.

I love the islander and stand by it as a wonderful machine when things go wrong. all aircraft are different. Where were you flying them?

Hi Jeki Jock,
I flew Islanders in the Falkland Islands for 10 years, the fleet consisted of six 260hp aircraft. As I mentioned on my earlier post the poh gives a drift down stabilising altitude of about 2400ft in ISA conditions. I was fortunate enough never to suffer an engine failure at all so my experience on one engine was always under test. At max weight they all climbed like pigs on one engine (all airfields in the Islands are below 500ft amsl). During Base checks or air testing we would do an actual shutdown and we would only maintain altitude at a light weight.
As you say though every aircraft is different and we are only humans in the front.

Vpf,

Fair enough haha. The islander I feel has a very poorly written POH but reading mine it says the aircraft should maintain 7000 feet on one engine feathered. I've done about 5 or 6 CofA flight test and post maintenance tests also with engine fully shut down. I've had one failure in flight but that was in the injected 300 HP due to a fault in the tip tank system. That luckily had no pax but all the test flights were within 100 lbs of MAUW.

I always liked to think that the bn2 flies better with no engines than some twins on one haha.

Must of been brilliant flying in the Falklands on them.

Has anyone heard anymore on the Antigua crash yet?

Cheers,

7000 single engine???
 

You're joking right? Check your POH at the temperatures you operate and have another think...

A take off briefing for a single pilot operation? Intersection departure unsafe even though almost all airlines regularly conduct them?

Many places use the same 135 req you have in the US, for multi what matter at times is insurance requirements.

135 outside the US is also a lot stricter, where I fly there is no difference between 135 and 121 many thing that are allowed in the US here are off limits.

Unfortunately a lot of places do not have the instructing possibilities you have in the US and flying charter PIC with 200TT is not uncommon.

I started doing 135 PIC with about 400 hours, to be honest wouldn`t have been much different if I gad 250-300 hours, you learn really fast.

It may be not ideal to have runway behind you on takeoff but looking at the runway in question if you depart from the central intersection on 07 you have 1300 meters in front of you. That is not a risk in my books, if you are flying an Islander. For what it is worth I used to fly them on and off grass runways (with three pax) frequently and safely at less than four hundred meters, and with eight pax from 600 meters of grass. In fact there is only one runway that I ever operated from that was greater than 900 meters.
Looking at the length of that runway I cannot understand how anyone could run out of runway trying to stop an Islander, it is 3k long :ugh:

Special Bulletin S4/2013 - Britten-Norman BN2A-26 Islander, VP-MON
 

Link to the report by the UK AAIB, just a few new bits of information

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...3%20VP-MON.pdf

As an aside and coming from someone with no A/C wrench (spanner) experience......

The first Triumph motorcyles with a rear disc brake also had the bleeder on the bottom (a nutso idea unless you can invert gravity) and the solution was to bleed the caliper inverted before placing it on the machine. This was done by inserting a smooth wooden block slightly thicker than the disc between the pads while supporting the caliper with the bleeder on top, and then bleeding it normally. Once done, slip the block out carefully and install the caliper on the machine, pump the pads into place, and give it one more bleed cycle just to play it safe.

I'm pretty sure A/C mechanics are required to follow a specific protocol issued by the manufacturer, but maybe I'm wrong, or maybe something could be worked out with the manufacturer to allow this procedure in the interest of safety and simplicity. I'm not giving anyone instructions here- only relating something similar as an analogy.