Same Aircraft - Different Operating Procedures
 

The aircraft concerned is the Beech 76 Duchess.

I have been studying the checklists provided for this aircraft, by two separate flying schools based at the same airfield. School A’s aircraft are pretty much identical to those of School B; certainly in terms of engine and propeller fit. In fact, I understand that many of the aircraft have served at both schools at one time or another. Therefore, I’m a little confused as to why one school would have a different opinion to the other as to what power settings to use during certain flight phases.

Below are examples in terms of IAS (Knots), MAP (Inches) and RPM.

Normal Cruise: -
School A - 140 23 2300
School B - 140 22 2200

Hold: -
School A - 120 18 2300
School B - 120 17 2200

Single Engine Cruise: -
School A - 100 21 2400
School B - 110 25 2500

Now I could fully understand that certain aspects of system operation could be open to debate, but I would have thought that optimum engine power setting would not be one of them. Surely, this is determined by the aircraft and engine manufacturers during flight testing and initial certification and should not be open to interpretation by individual operators?

Note that in all these stated cases, the speeds/power settings are not certification nor performance limits, and hence can be set by the specific operator.
IE; different strokes for different folks.

Having said this, some airlines try to have a 'standardized' check list for all fleets.
This is seldom satisfactory, and can lead to mistakes in operation.
The best idea I noticed was at what is now the largest airline in SE Asia, years ago.
They had ten B707's...from four previous operators.
ALL of their operations/performance manuals said 'Boeing' on the front cover, and when I asked the fleet manager why, his reply was...'Boeing manufactured the aeroplane, supplied the operating data, so we use the best information available.'
Seems entirely reasonable to me.
However, there are airlines today that are still trying to reinvent the wheel...:ugh:

It seems to me that the two schools want to produce the same performance (ie IAS) with different power settings. Then either the aircraft are different, or (at least) one of them has numbers that are incorrent. Or something spooky is going on.

It appears that it is possible for a CFI, with a bit of time to kill, to re-write the aircraft checklist / pilot’s operating handbook, based on his or her personal preferences, with scant regard to the manufacturer’s recommendations. I agree with 411A about it being entirely reasonable for an operator to use the manufacturer's operating data. The manufacturer should know the aircraft better than anyone.

Anyway, my immediate problem, is that I'm renewing my Multi-IR next week and I now need to re-learn data that I thought I already knew!

Gday,

411A, I couldn't agree more re the Boeing books.

So far though, I have only managed to work for one operator with that philosophy. We had Boeing books, flew Boeing procedures, no problems.

The only other book we had was an Ops manual from the company which was around 2 inches thick and mostly contained Admin stuff.

The Normal Procedures section read " As per FCOM 1 Boeing Normal Procedures"

Excellent!:D

Then the parent airline couldn't help themselves and had to intervene, you know, the Boeing people don't know whats best, we do:confused: :ugh:

Cheers,

Con