Single turboprop commercial IFR
 

There is a proposal to allow single engine commercial ops in IFR for the Uk. Any views on this would be welcomed.

Once again, safety takes a back seat to cost and convenience...

SE IFR
 

Old news the Aussies been doing it for years as with others.

ASETPA.

Still thing if prefer 2 donks!

The future is here...
 

The PC12 and the Caravan are amazing aircraft. So, why not? Two engines across an ocean? OMG! If progress had not prevailed, we would today cross the pond in 10-engined turboprops like the SaRo princess.

2000 hours on multi engine aircraft with PT6 engines and I've seen 2 major failures.

I will not get on an airplane with you. You are unlucky. The mean time between failures for the PT-6 is 346,000 hours.

:D hilarious!

But back to the topic. This is bound to happen in certain areas. There has been very little development in the 8-12 pax sector in the last 35-40 years.
Lots of Navajos, Chieftains and C402s were flying domestic sectors when I was learning to fly in the late seventies. Some of these are still around, even in the USA Cape Air is operating close to 80 C402s.
There has been development in single engine turboprops, but less so in smaller twins in this size category and none in piston engined planes AFAIK.
Perhaps this will come to something http://www.tecnam.com/Traveller/P-2012-Traveller.aspx

This idea was proposed by Dave Willmott and others at Emerald Airways in the '90s.

Didn't get anywhere with the authorities - irrespective of whether the routes were over land or sea.

The proposal was for a 'spoke and hub' arrangement with single-engine turboprops feeding into larger airports where (in those days) HS748s, F27s and Electras would carry loads further.

This would have made commercial sense, it was suggested, with lower operating costs on the shorter, lighter routes.

Apparently this arrangement is common in the US (?)

With just 1000hrs in a C208, all of it over inhospitable bush I'd have no hesitation in supporting this.

There must be a huge untapped market out there for this sort of thing as long as it isn't strangled by the bureaucrats, not to mention an excellent training ground for newbies and a big stir-up of the employment scene.

It us done safely and routinely all over the world, why not here?

But how many pilots? One or two? I expect a second "pilot" who is in reality no more than an employed passenger would knock the bottom line out of the balance sheet and cripple the whole thing. Else second pilots will be paid nowt which isn't progress. Even so that's a waste of 80Kg of payload.

FO Kite, that's the system FedEx have been using for decades. They operate hundreds of Caravans - see their website.

Just over 10k PT6 time, 2 precautionary shutdowns "prop seal, and nicked oil line, 1 that ate itself. Not in favour

IMHO issue in UK is population density and therefore greater risk that when (and it is when not if) there's a failure that impact will be on populated area.

It's already being done in Scandinavia for cargo, in quite inhospitable environment. Winter, icing, open sea: Nordflyg Air Logistics | Nordflyg Air Logistics

Done in Finland also: Home - Hendell Aviation Oy

It doesn't have any relevance but AFAIK the scale of the operation is quite small.

Yes, you've jogged my memory - it was precisely that FedEx model that Emerald were hoping to emulate in the UK.

Isn't that the same when you drive to work?

Safety is relative and in this case as in all aviation it's defined and codified in the regulations for one to read before getting out of your car and onto a plane.

The plane wasn't designed unsafe, it simply is now allowed to take willing passengers.

Populated area, just adds runways
 

Surprised no one has mentioned this incident. This guy landed his PC-12 on main drag in South Bend.
PC-12 Makes Remarkable Street Landing In Indiana | Aero-News Network

Hope that link works but if not it was a PC-12 , 22RG, in December 2004

Single vs twin
 

This is how it was in 2007.
Single- and twin-turbine accident rates similar | Aviation International News

And PC-12 vs Kingair and other TP aircraft
Single Engine Turboprop Safety | Western Aircraft

And single engine TP safety 2012
http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace...ss-utility.pdf

Personally wouldn't be concerned with it.

Small turbo-props seem quite prone to shut-downs, don't they? Maybe it's because of the operating environment most work in.

My phone has rung twice in the small hours after double-engine failures in twin-engine aircraft I was responsible for, engaged in civil air transport operations.

By the way, "mean time between failures for the PT-6 is 346,000 hours" does not mean that each engine can be expected, on average, to operate for 346,000 hours without an unplanned shutdown (aka failure).

That statistic is perfectly consistent with various pilots' experiences described here of multiple failures in relatively small numbers of hours, presumably with all the PT6 variants.

I'm sure that there's someone here who can explain the interpretation of MTBF data, and its relationship to real operations, better than I can. All I know is that it makes me very wary about being in a twin over large expanses of water/inhospitable land. (See above re phone calls).

Great statistic, but it excludes failures of external components like fuel pumps and oil lines, both of which you need for the engine to keep running. It's great for setting standards and comparing engines, but a discussion of single engine IFR should include total engine failures for any cause, which isn't even tracked.

The relevant metric is called IFSD (engine in-flight shutdown) which is tracked and reported by law. E.g., for ETOPS operations the FAA requires that the 12-month rolling IFSD rate for the aircraft type/fleet worldwide must be less than limits set in 14 CFR 21.4 (ETOPS Reporting Requirements).

An engine event is considered an IFSD if it ceases to operate or is shutdown in flight for any unplanned reason (internal failure, icing, bird ingestion, etc.).

The mean time between IFSDs for PT6 is 125,000 hours. This is calculated for the population. E.g., if you have a fleet with 100 PT6s operating, then expect an IFSD over the entire population average 1,250 hr.

The 346,000 hours is actually not the MTBF of PT6s, but the mean time between engine failure accidents for PT6 equipped Cessna 208 Caravans.

This does not mean a particular Caravan will make it 346,000 hrs before an engine accident. In fact, only a minority (1/e = 1/2.71) = 37% of Caravans can be expected to reach this amount of hours without an engine accident.