Mitsubishi MU2

[Natit]

Hi All

I was just wondering if any of you guys/gals out there had flown this type before?

I searched the Australian Register and found that only 2 exist here - JES and KOH. Anyone know what these are used for? I thought that they used to be used for bank runs and freight but could be wrong.

Any info is appreciated.

Natit

[404 Titan]

Natit

I could be wrong but I think the MU2 had its Certificate of Airworthiness removed for carrying passengers. All they can be used for in Australia is carrying freight. As I have said I could be wrong as I have heard this second hand from a work colleague that use to fly them.

[Torres]

I'm amazed there's even two left! Anywhere.

[Desert Flower]

Ah so, the old rice rockets, or Hiroshima screamers. ****** of an aeoplane to refuel, let alone fly. You couldn't do all the tanks on one side & then go to the other side as the weight of the fuel in the full side would make the other side "reach for the sky" & be so high up as to be impossible to reach the tip tank. Plus you had to watch when filling the tip tanks as they would "drop" considerably. Yes, Interair at Essendon still has one (JES) & KOH is registered to someone in NZ.

DF.

[Natit]

Thanks for your replies so far...sounds like a fun aircraft to fly and prep

DF, do you know what Interair use the MU2 for? If it's for freight, what kinda freight and to where do they fly?

Thanks, Natit

[Anti Skid On]

I vaguely remember a review and test flight in the UK Pilot mag about 5 or 6 years ago; perhaps put a post on the GA board (the main one, not D & G) and see if someone still has that.

[Soulman]

Could be what you are looking for...

Hey Guys,

After reading your article, thought I'd do a quick search of the trusty Photo Database (which contains some 380,000 images!). Found this photo which may be of some interest to you.

Mitsubishi MU-2 - Bank run

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Souls.

P.S Photo remains copyright of Anothony Jackson.

[Desert Flower]

A truly wonderful machine, but one which will not suffer fools.

Absolutely!! If I remember correctly (getting harder & harder these days!!) these aircraft have turned around & bitten a few people on the bum over the years. Very high performance & one you would not want to be behind the eight-ball with.

Natit, I don't know what Interair are using their aircraft for, but they did have another one (think the rego was MIU) back in 1989 that they were using to do scenic flights over Lake Eyre (in the far north of S.A.) when it was full of water.

DF.

[fruitbatflyer]

Absolutely agree with the above two posts - a great machine and would make a good trainer for jets when you can't afford a jet. More demanding than most jets, so anyone with time on these things would easily upgrade. Airline recruiters take note.
Much bang for the buck if you are buying, but you would need to go to the USA or possibly Europe to source a good Marquise or Solitaire. You would also need to do a full conversion course there with some reputable outfit like Flight Safety.
Can't see how CASA could ban these from pax flying if FAA etc still accept them. On what grounds?

[Torres]

BIK I think your megabuck may be a bit over the top for a Rice Rocket. I can only find one MU2 for sale on Google:

1971 Mitsubishi MU2 – F. Registration N92TC. Ser No 209. TTAF 7,201 Hrs. US$ 295,000

The rest of the “MU2” listings on Google are mostly accident reports…..!!! I seem to recall the main problem was very high wing loading and no ailerons? But hey, with Dash 10 engines, wings probably aren't necessary!

It's a long time ago, but I seem to recall they were grounded in Australia at one stage - possibly after an accident in West Australia?

[Spotlight]

Torres & Bik

The mute has undergone a bit of a renaissance in the States after being a dog with a very bad name for a lot of years.

The problems primarily were that the demograph of people flying them was that of low time, C402/PA31 experience or successful private pilots. ( a bit like the C210) operating in what is by any measure a high speed flight regime. And not knowing what they didn't know.

Nowadays the training (knowlege) is more sophisticated, and operated properly of course the machine is very economic.

As for Australia, the killer as far as I know was that the CASA requirement for 500hrs command or Icus brought in after 3 prangs here made it unviable once the experienced pilots moved on.

A million US is a bit steep, but there are certainly some good ones on the market. Check Tradeaplane Torres.

[nasa]

Check Here

http://www.aso.com/i.aso/ForSaleListing.jsp

[AD/DUNNY/01]

Good little machine but as has been said, don't let yourself get behind it!! In early-mid nineties during Pel Air's takeover of Newcastle Av. they picked up two or three... did later sell off though with the Metro 2's that also came in the deal for their current Metro 3's.

[AMRAAM]

MU2 in WA

Hello BIK

You obviously like this aircraft and have a soft spot in your heart for it.

Just on the WA crashes, after a brief read I think you may have two prangs combined into one here.

The first was near Laverton (one of the L towns out east of Perth) which was a mining charter. The Cause, I believe as you described.
The second was with the EX BASI investigator (just resigned) and well known WA flying identity, which was a freight charter and just happend to have a second person (pilot) on board who was on his way to a new job in mid NW WA (RIP Mate). This crash was just north of Meekathara. This is the one with the full description all the way down. There was another aircraft a few miles behind (PA31) from memory who saw the aircrafts nav lights come out of the overcast and go down. This is the crash which saw the added restrictions and the intital grounding applied to the aircraft.
BASI put out a booklet on the MU2 about this time and which is still available on the net.

As usual the Media went ape over the MU2 and gave it a very bad name over in WA. Everone that had one got rid of them so as to not offend the mining industry.

I think that there was another MU2 lost about the same time, as I remember 3 in the news within very short period. Was it bieng ferried out from the states and went missing in the Corral Sea?

I hope I may have contributed something to your post.

Anway its good to see that you have a Passion for this machine.

Ohh, and one more, what about the "ROCKET SHIP" in the Darwin Aviation museum. A good friend told me that it was never to fly again, after finding the top of the wing was all "Rippled". I belive due to "Unusual Attitudes" that the aircraft experienced with the owner at the controlls.

[Desert Flower]

The close proximity of the right propeller delayed initial attempts to rescue the pilot.

Why so? I don't remember any doors being on the right side?

DF.

[Bunglerat]

Some very interesting comments on a much-misunderstood machine. A friend of mine has a couple of thousand hours on the MU-2, and has often commented to me that its reputation would not have been so tarnished if the regulators of the day had insisted on a Type Rating, rather than just an "endorsement." Having flown an enviable list of kero-burning types, he lists the MU-2 as his all-time favourite turbo-prop and, like some of the comments made by others on this thread, talks quite lovingly of it as a very sweet and rewarding machine - provided you are appropriately trained and have a healthy respect for it.

[Desert Flower]

Not withstanding all of the above, the first priority for any rescuer is their own safety – to ensure that they don’t themselves become a victim needing rescue!

BIK, yes you are 100% right there. I guess I was having a "Senior moment" when I posted that, because as a trained first-aider & a member of the local State Emergency Service the reasons should have been obvious. Also, as you pointed out with an engine still operating anything could happen.

I have just been going through some old aviation magazines of mine & found a copy of Australian Flying, dated May/June 1981. In it was a photo of VH-MIU, with the following caption:
(Photo not shown)
Above: Interair of Essendon Airport have been appointed Australian distributor for Mitsubishi and Partenavia aircraft. The second of two Marquise sold is shown at Sydney Airport and the company expected the first Solitaire to be delivered last month. A local demonstration of the MU-300 Diamond 1 is being planned for next September.

Thanks for all the great photo links, & yes that could be a "Pig" in that photo. It looks like the rego is FSC, & I have been looking through all my old register books (going back to 1991) but can't find it.

DF.

[blackburn]

I refer to the link to the picture of the MU2 shown as N7560. This acft is actually N756Q - the Q can just be made out. This acft, an MU2B-20 or F model, is based at Interair and appears to be company owned. I understand that it, and JES - an MU2B-30 or G model, are currently under major overhaul and N756Q is not far off flying again, the engines being back from overhaul. JES should follow shortly afterwards. There is also another short body version based at Essendon, N728FN, an MU2B-25 or K model.

The specifications shown in the Airliners.net info section are a little out as far as the Marquise is concerned. I recall the best speed for the Marquise (MU2B-60) from the flight manual was about 284kts at around FL240. (I should check this when I get to work again). While the acft was certified to FL350, the speed dropped off markedly above the level I have mentioned.

Interair had another Marquise in the early 80's and this acft was the first of the 3 Marquise that have been lost in Australia. This was MLU, being lost at Bargo, about 50NM south of Sydney, the other 2 being BBA and MUA. These 3 almost certainly were victims of carriage of excess ice where it could not be seen and at least 2 of them were probably on autopilot when the acft became uncontrollable.

The autopilot in the Marquise had "Vertical Speed Hold" a feature that is desirable for descent but not for climbing. I attended the Forum held at Sydney a few years ago where Flight Safety showed videos of icing trials carried out as a result of a procedure similar to a "Special Certification Review" that the FAA does when specific acft have unforeseen problems. The videos showed an enormous amount of ice being purposely built up on a short body MU2. The result was predictable, but provided the speed was kept up, the acft behaved in a reasonably normal manner, as most acft will when carrying a load of ice. It should be noted that a number of GA acft now have flight manual speed requirements when carrying ice. The Flight Safety personell present at this seminar were involved with these trials and agreed that a lack of situational awareness of the flight conditions were more than likely a major cause of the acft picking up the ice and the acft then rapidly getting to an unmanagable condition. THe MU2 now has an ice detector fitted to the nose of the acft and this emits an aural warning signal when conditions are conducive to ice formation. Another simple way of monitoring the conditions at night was to leave the taxi lights on from start of taxi until shutting down at your destination.

These 3 Marquise accidents were largely the reason for the restrictions that CASA, or CAA as they were at the time, put on the type for additional pilot training and experience before solo operations on the type. There were no restrictions on passenger carrying involved in this.
I am sure that when the other 2 fatal accidents are looked at, - both to G model acft, the reasons will be seen to be common to many other accidents - not just MU2's.
The Tullamarine accident previously described, involved a pilot who had done more like 150 hours of ICUS and who had had an incident at Sydney on the previous leg. The radar tapes showed that his ground speed was still around max gear speed at about 7NM final, and with major excursions from both the localiser and the glide slope up to the point where he hit the terrain. It was not a nice night, with ML Tower asking pilots to report when they were on the ground as they could not be seen from the tower.
I understand that the Bathurst accident involved ducking under a very low layer of fog/stratus can be a very unhealthy way to finish a flight.

There was a G model lost at sea, infact there is a photo of it upside down in the water, in the NZ Avation Disasters book. I think it was bound for NZ and there is a date and position noted in the book that I could also check on if any one is interested. I think it was flown by a US ferry pilot.
The accident report for the Meekathara accident lists a Mooney as the other acft in close proximity.

For interest, the G model was nowher near as fast, 250kts TAS was about all that one could expect at 96% RPM and max torque for the conditions.

In the late 80's, Interair also operated JER, a G model, Marquise MVU and also MIU as noted elsewhere. JES was also owned but not serviceable at that time.

The PIG shown in the background of the photos of the early model MU2 at Essendon, mentioned by DF, would probably have been FSC as Forrester Stephen Aviation (FSA) had a number of them in the late 60's - some of which were operated by "Commuter Airlines" which from memory was a related company to FSA.

They were a challenge to fly, but as someone else said, they were rewarding also. One important item was to get the roll trim sorted out immediately you became airborne, to reduce the amount of spoiler required to keep the wings level. Then wait until you reached Vyse before starting flap retraction. Depending on the model, a minimum of flap 5 (J model??) is required for take off, but I think flap 20?? is the minimum setting for the G model. They are definitely curvature of the earth machines on take off if flap is not used. And yes, I enjoyed them too.

Re my MU2 post:

One other related item that I forgot is that the "follow the US system" will bring us the "Multi Engine Land" endorsement that BIK mentioned previously. As stated, the regulator will abdicate their responsibility and leave the insurance companies to perform the regulation of pilots via the hip pocket.

Look out for this in the Reg changes that are currently up for comment, as it won't be only the MU2 that is affected. The Beech 200 and C90, EMB110 and Metro 2 are all in the area (below 5700kg) that will be covered by this crazy proposal to follow the US system. At least one well known US instructor has expressed his desire that the US have mandatory type training such as we currently have.

The Kiwi's have dabbled with this sort of system, and are mostly back with separate type ratings for almost all types including singles.

I suggest that any one interested have a close look at these proposals (Part 61?) and make their thoughts known!!



Rgds

Blackburn

[Screw Jac]

Is a good machine.

Interair were the distributors of the aircraft commencing operations in 1978.
VH-MIU was the first one on the register, there was also MVU and MLU. MSU was the solitaire, they were all immaculate in appearance.

Although the endorsement process by the then CAA was as stipulated elsewhere, the MD of Interair who had around 4,000 hours on type was very thorough as an operator of the machine and spent a lot of time with Flight Safety in the USA and then a lot of time endorsing the pilots on the type. He did a lot of the early certification flying on the original aircraft operated by Forrester Steven Aviation, hangar 6 at Essendon.

The MU2 required an attentive pilot, and a pilot who understood accuracy. It like many aircraft does not like icing, so you had to be focused on performance particularly when flying through conditions when ice MAY be encountered.

I have come out of retirement for this post as I beleive the Mu2 suffered from as much mis-information and ill informed comment as I have personally witnessed. Something i had also heard stated....The Yanks had a hard time with it (read that as certification) as they realised that it was in fact built by their "old enemy" and out performed many of the local built product.

That was of course until the final assembly work was completed at love Field in Dallas Texas!

[Screw Jac]

My mistake there the years getting away from me, Love Field did some of the interior work on the ones on route to Australia, namely the Marquise and Solitaire. Forigve me I was only young at the time.