TRF4EVR,

George had 2 very large qounset huts near Spartan A&P school, full of spares he bought up from San Angelo when the factory shut down, and had enough new major components to complete 10 airframes.

It was a vast complex that was spilt between Air 1St and I-jet on his death.

I don't remember that, I recall we hit a flock of mallards on descent into DFW took out Comm 1 Antenna, the L/h Gear Pod fairing, R/H tip light, both landing lights and a bird through the L/H engine. He came out and said Harley Davidson finance Corp. & the insurance co were gonna love his bill for the repairs. He might have depending on how full his red dixie cup was.

All spares owned by Sidney #1 Corp. (his cat) and sold to IBA. So the usual route was out the hangar loading bay a short trip across the road to the warehouse and since the warehouse was technically not a part of the shop. The mechanic just issued a 8130 for the new part he pulled out of storage and walked it across the road into service. He bought, sold and brokered by the parts manager's count 340 Mu-2 over the years.

I can remember sitting in his office, listening to him haggling with a seller about an airplane, finally he said " look you SOB i have owned that airplane about 8 times now and i'm not going to offer you more than X for it, you can keep it cause it needs a major inspection and i got all the parts here, all the other service centers are going to have to call me for the parts so its either sell it to me or take it to Dodson's or White's and part it out either way, I'll still own pieces of it in the end"

He reopened IBA in 1992 as living the retired life in Destin, Fl was getting to him and real estate wasn't his thing ( they developed condos on 200 acres of beachfront, his wife had a lovely little place on the beach with a 2000 sq ft master bedroom suite with elevator, he always down played it and the few of us that saw the place,he swore us to never mention it at work, and that was the least he could do after the fortune he had lost in the bankruptcy) He ended up going from 2 airplanes to 38 by his death in 2002.

Chuck was just as bad with sunflower seeds, man could he make a mess of a cockpit in just one night. i remember the cussing we got bringing a ship into MTC and the seat tracks where jammed full of seeds courtesy of Chuck ( he ate them in lue of his 2 1/2 pack a day cigarette habit).

Stinky flew us through an area of level 4 & 5's and stripped the paint off the nose & leading edges.

First of all, you're breaking my heart with all the good George stories. Call me an eternal child, but I really would have liked to have been around for that stuff. I might even have been willing to be threatened with termination every night (so I'm told) just to see the Bad Old Days when Men were Men, etc etc.

Aahahhaa. Yeah, Chuck chewed a few sunflower seeds while he was watching over my dumb posterior the first few times I flew the route. But just between you, me, and the rest of the world, there was a guy who flew with me while they were making sure I wouldn't kill myself who made no apologies about lighting up once he knew I was a fellow cancer-addict. Think he's flying DC-10s now. Definitely had the attitude of "if you don't scare me, you're cool". D.R. are the initials, did you know him? I'll just say that those beautiful little 70s ashtrays in the mitsi were not unused...

You could always tell how recently one of the RUF birds had been painted by how much of it had peeled off the nose/leading edge/etc. Never lasted long! Now, really, I think you owe us all an in depth explanation of the crew car brawl...and Stinky, too!

BTW, since we're talking all freightdoggy here and we're liable to start telling "there I was" lies ;) . I had a fireloop go bad on an MU-2 once. Shut it down per checklist (engine was fine), flew where I was headed, landed without event. Easiest plane to fly on one engine ever invented, even for a relatively low time guy who is just this side of pooping his Pampers.

TRF4EVR

PM sent:ok:

Taken off with condition levers in LOW (before SRL), de-iced the airframe by flying it around the patch, changed speed switches (located in the upper wing) while one engine running, operated in icing conditions with snow and ice protruding forward of prop spinners over one foot in length.:eek:

MU 2
 

bit like the typical young chap's slavering desire for an unattainably desirable woman of elegant ambiance.

Well I do not think that is limited to the young chaps, on any given day!

Always wanted to fly one of those birds, still do, maybe it's all those years of high altitude, and high bar stools, thinking about desirable woman , even if the were not elegant at the moment.

Well I almost flew an Mu2.....in a previous life I was tasked with finding a tprop to move up to...at that time I figured the boss was on a limited budget...so I looked at every $300k turboprop I could find...the MU2 kept coming up as an option...they didn't fly very high, but a solitaire will do 300kt...and they had the highest accident rate for PILOT ERROR, but the lowest accident rate for MECHANICAL ERROR...I did my homework, talked to guys that actually managed and flew them...the only gotcha seemed to be ice...just fly them fast 160kts+....to keep the ice off..

I later moved up into corporate jets....Ultras and Encores that I flew single pilot.....and honestly...they weren't fast enough for me...

I really do think one of the biggest limiting factors to improved aircraft designs are the lack of pilot abilities...people liking slow docile King Airs to little hot rods...that actualy get you there in a reasonable time vs some lumbering whale, banging around in the 20s through all the weather...

When they design a super sonic single pilot corporate jet, that the pilot can retract the wings back to go fast...the debutantes will really scream....

So my hat's off to the pilots that fly all the 'dangerous' planes...

Oh, yeah...positive rate....then gear up....right?? Always amazed me to see some guys throw the gear up right after the nose came up...now that's dangerous...a little time to make sure the plane is going up, never hurt anyone before putting the gear up.....

Sorry to flame you, but it doesn't really sound like you know what you're talking about.

Please explain how it's the only gotcha, I have several years experience on all models in serious winter conditions, it's no more of a gotcha on this aircraft than any other, I have had ice formations extending forward on the spinners over two feet long.

The airplane was very typical for something equipped with pneumatic boots, if you try inflating too soon, your going to scr*w yourself. Fly fast, you mean like using this on final? I hope you're kidding.

The MU2 is very straight forward, it worked quite well in heavy winter conditions in Montana and Colorado, the only gotcha was making sure the ignitions were on when descending into the warm air, like so many other Garrett powered aircraft.

I love this con air guy, first a 40 year pilot, then work for the Marshal service then he's a NTSB investigator with :hmm:inside information.

Did you fly the shuttle too?

I have owned a MU2 for 3 years and done several turns of training. The airplane climbs beautifully at 125 knots flaps 5 (800 or so fpm full gross K model).

Oh, yes I am an AA pilot. So I guess I belong along side you "aviator extraordinaire" :ok:

Hmm, from Texas I see, figures. :rolleyes:

I'm very happy for you.

However, it was just a foorball game, you need to get over it.

Cheers. :ok:


Oh, and you forgot to criticize the 21,000 hours I have. Do try harder next time. :E


And one more time, let's hear it folks.........

MU-2s are POS.

Well I don't mean to disrespect your opinion Con, but from my recollection of corporate and charter operations in almost all the turbo-props in it's class, the MU-2 had a lot of bang for the buck, easy on maintenance, easy on batteries, easy on fuel, and fast.

One of the weakest parts of the MU2 was the Bendix A/P's that were installed, but hand flying it is enjoyable, my only other complaints were on the early models that were a bit weak on power and fuel controllers (Bendix again) were dodgy.

Out of all the other aircraft in the same class, like BE200, Cheyenne, CE441 and SWIII, the Solataire is my favorite, if I was a rich AA pilot, it would be my dream to own one! 

Strikes me that this "AA pilot" is the return of SSG 1.0 thru 9.0, including johns7022. Attitude is the same.

Just saying'

GF

Dream Land, no problem at all, I realize that some pilots like the MU-2 and to be honest, the later short models did have very good single engine performance for a turbo-prop. The early long bodied series I few were underpowered and had very poor performance (G, J and N). Along with a number of other problems, which I listed in an earlier post in this thread.

Never the less, there is a reason that MU-2 are not being built anymore and Kingair 200s still are. The last MU-2 was built in 1986. I never had a problem with the physical act of flying MU-2s, but I was already flying Jet Commanders and Lear 24/25s before I flew a MU-2. Also I did go to Flight Safety initial in Houston before flying a MU-2. Then there was no simulator, only a cockpit mock-up. We did all the flight training in the actual aircraft flying out of the Galveston, Texas (GLS) airport.

As I posted above I have 99% of my experience in the long series of the MU-2 and very limited in the short ones.

My favorite joke about the MU-2; every time you turn the auto-pilot on in an MU-2, it heads for Pearl Harbour. :p

con-pilot, Yes I fully understand, I initially started flying the "J" sn549, not as weak as the G, I think the N was just a four bladed version of the J, anyway, you probably had Clem Kegler as your ground instructor as I did, I think FSI at Hobby did a great job.

A person like you would of really been able to appreciate the newer models with mods like 5 degree flap settings, glass windshields and 1000hp engines.

I think they were given a bad rap and if you look at the data, the BE200 has a pretty bad safety record in recent years, not sure why though.

Cheers, D.L.

"Oh, and you forgot to criticize the 21,000 hours I have. Do try harder next time. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ilies/evil.gif"

i personally must say i had only rarely the opportunity to meet verified +20000 hours pilots sitting now leftseat in widebodies shortly before retirement. and none of them would join every day an open aviation forum spending hours for hours in argueing for aviation questions. no- in freetime they want to hear nothing about the damn aviation, they look for their family being mostly a grandfather...

in regard to the topic... without any experience on the MU2 i can only say something general- when you fly for a company which uses the mitsubishi you just go for it. every aircraft has it advantages and disadvantages and asks for following some procedures. when you own such a plane private and have just little experience its questionable and dangerous in any case to handle a twin engine turboprop alone. thats valid for a king air, a cheyenne and the MU2 .

I'm retired. I do not argue unless attacked personally, which you are doing.

You doubt my career, fine, I could care less, as don't care what you think.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dream Land

Quite correct on the BE-200 safety records, in fact there are none of the more 'traditional' turbo-props that have what one could consider a really good safety record. By traditional I mean the MU-2, Turbo Commander, Merlin II and the BE-200. Go to the NTSB website and you'll see what I mean.

You obviously haven't met many Ppruners :eek::eek:.....

I remember C_P from his pre-retirement days, he has nothing to prove :D:D

Mutt

"You doubt my career, fine, I could care less, as don't care what you think."

noooo, what are you thinking about ? i just said i never met an +20000 hour pilot who has nothing better to do than spending hours and hours every day discussing aviation- like a fan, not more.

i think a friend of the topic starter has done the decision to buy a turboprop on more than discussing it at a forum, and i think he will follow more than forum opinions from multiple nicks which are to create in two minutes how to operate it in real life and not a forum.

i am just an general aviation guy who locks here from time to time and i am just stunned what experciended, multiple nick pilots are writing here. this discussion reminds me on an interesting thread some time ago -from a banned user you surely know.

in the meantime please keep us updated about the widowmaker MU2 .

You are remarkably out of touch a77.



I know plenty of Airline Pilots (with well over 20000 hours) that still, happily will discuss all aspects of Aviation at great length, yes sometimes for hours, in person or on line.



It is one of our great passions and many of us live, breath and eat Aviation no matter how long we have been doing it.



I know because I am one !



I certainly have always enjoyed Con Pilots posts and this Professional Pilot looks forward to hearing more about his long and interesting professional career.

Yes, I agree with stilton, I was flying the widow maker in 1979, now with over 20,000 hours and retirement still a long way away. :cool:

PPRUNE is the 7th level of hell for aviation posers and wannabes.

There are more people that I have caught on their bull!!!! here then I care to admit. If you want to keep your sanity, simply don't take what people say seriously here.

Mmmmm. Has SSG returned? :sad:

Thanks for the support Mutt and OK465. Kind of embarrassing, but I do appreciate your posts.

Cheers. :ok:

--------------------------------O-----------------------------------------

I averaged over a 1,000 hours a year while I was with the USMS and I was the second higest for a few of those years. To be honest, I cannot remember how many months I flew over a hundred hours.

The funny thing is that with the company I left to go fly for the USMS, I flew less in the one year than I did in the third month with the USMS. With my former company I flew 112 hours the year previous and in the third month with the USMS I flew 118 hours. I think they were trying to kill me. :p

Here is a list of the aircraft I flew with the USMS; B-727, Sabre 80, Westwind I/II, Sabre 40/60, Lear 25/28, Kingair 200 and a Cessna 310.

The Lear 25/28*, Kingair 200** and the Cessna 310 were seized assets, the Westwinds and the Sabreliners were leased. The 727s we owned along with the Sabre 80s, which were ex-flight inspection aircraft we inherited from the FAA.


* The Lear 28 was returned to the drug dealer it was seized from, after we overhauled the engines, repainted and installed a new interior.

** The Kingair was stolen, yes really stolen, from us when it was parked at a small airport in Miami, Florida. The CIA finally found it a couple of years later in Colombia. They asked if we wanted it back, we replied not only no, but hell no. I was very happy that we did not want it back, as I most likely would have been the poor guy that would have been sent down there to bring it back. :uhoh:


Okay, I must be getting old and forgetful. I forgot the damn 731 JetStar. It was serial number three. Started life as a -6, then was converted to a -8, the only -6 that was I think, then into a 731 when the FAA owned it. We got it from the FAA and it was a maintenance nightmare. I never finished anything longer than a one day mission with that aircraft. If it was a standard four or five day mission, it wasn't a question if it would breakdown, but where. I had two rapid de-compressions in 48 hour time period in that aircraft. First one was early Tuesday morning, returned to a maintenance base, it was fixed and then Thursday night had the second. Two different causes. The Attorney General of the United States was on board with the second rapid de-compression. He was not amused.

Dmark1 -

Thank You.

SSG=kanetoads=dmark1

You've pulled that one before SSG, posting under different aliases and agreeing with yourself.

I can assure you Mark is not me...maybe the word is getting out...others are catching on....have you figured out why the blades turn left or right yet?

Warning - thread drift

Your sciolistic post in the relevant thread was

I'm sure the plank drivers reading your statement will not take long to educate themselves on helo aerodynamics, and drop to the floor convulsing in mirth, as did the helo pilots.

For your information con-pilot is a highly experienced aviator, as a little research on your part would soon prove. His opinion is highly regarded by legitimate members, your personal diatribe against him is misplaced, but it's what we've come to expect from you.

such threads seem always to drift, in fact at an anonymus forum like here you can claim yourself to be neil armstrong and nobody can prove for sure you are or you are not.

you can have multiple accounts so one nick can confirm the "realness" of another nick being one person...

well- aviation has many fans !

i have wrote earlier that i personally know very few +20000 hours pilots, none of them would spend hours for hours in a public anonymous forum and i know nobody with such a variety of aircraft flown .

simply because the market works not that way when you think about it. scoring that amount of hours means flying at an airline for decades. that also means that you are fixed to one or very few types of aircraft and do there your everyday business. so no way or time to switch between that amount of pistons, turboprops, GA jets, airliner jets etc etc.

but nevertheless its a great forum !

20,000 hours for a professional aviator can be had without even trying hard aerobat. The highest time gal, Evelyn Johnson, gave it up after 57,635.4 hours, Max Conrad had 52,929, and the record holder, Ed Long passed away with in excess of 65,000.

I can confirm there are posters here with 20,000, and not all of them are anonymous. They just don't have a life. ;)

One may have a point.

Personally, I'm not even going to reply to the idiot/s. :p






Actually I think 'calling one out' on an anonymous website quite amusing. :D

"20,000 hours for a professional aviator can be had without even trying hard"

brian, i currently fly general aviation and we do about 400 hours a year airborne time. the rest is not free- they put you often in standby, real offtime is sometimes limited to minimum required - but its not flying hours.

previously i worked for an airline in scheduled operation and we scored in aviation boom times up to 800 hours a year , mostly in short and medium range missions and multiple legs. with the turnaround ground time between the legs , which in short legs was not much shorter than the flight by itself and the briefing before and paperwork after the day you had 11hours on duty which resulted in about 5 hours airborne time. to make 800-900 hours in a year you did this schedule ever day with rest at minimum what the law dictates.

i can really tell you that 900 hours in a year airborne time results in very little private life and everybody earning his money with flying an airplane for a company can confirm this.

beyond that many of the aircrafts mentioned as real experience here require a type rating, so for the training and rechecks of all this different types the day must really have more than 24 hours it seems.

but ok... so what ? we have here the honour to talk in this thread with aviators which in regards to total flying time and amount of aircraft flown clearly outperforms pilots like sullenberger or the polish 767 wheel up landing captain wrona ?

a google search says sullenberger had massive 19000hours scored in 30 years !!! at US airways and as a former military pilot he had a total of 40 years pilot time- which results in an average of 475 hours / year over his career. due to the fact that after military service he joined instantly airline operations he has of course no experience on lear jets, mu2, king airs etc.

wrona has 20 years 767 experience, and over 30 years total flying time resulting in impressive 13000 hours or an average of 433 hours/ year over his entire career. he of course joining LOT early also cannot say anything about learjets , kingairs and other ga aircraft since he like said spend his last 20 years to fly just one aircraft type ( 767) .

and i assume neither sullenberger nor wrona spends countless hours infront a computer writng thousands of postings in an open aviation forum.

think a minute about it brian...

Over the past few years the PPRuNe safe harbor has been surreptitiously invaded by an unwelcome influx of malodorous flotsam. While there have always been a few odd ducks and bullheaded barnacles among us, this relatively recent tide has carried with it some real stinkers that have befouled our communal waters.

What is a besieged community to do? Weigh anchor, fan out, and sail into singular oblivion? Pray to King Neptune for a cleansing typhoon? Woe is us...

Wait, I think I may have a solution! A humble request of our wise and benevolent PPRuNe harbormaster to dredge out a new cove (in a predominantly windward location we beseech thee) and thereupon these sunny new waters laden with many fine and sturdy berths we can thusly endeavor to establish a private, members-only club in the classic tradition.*

Founding members should be limited to a group of those PPRuNers of mandatory minimum PPRuNe vintage. For added vessel variety and dockside spice, newer, charter member-sponsored candidates will be granted probationary access to be followed by rigorous review for possible semi-permanent inclusion.

*Classic Tradition: We shall not discriminate against race, color, religious creed, socio-economic standing, or questionable political affiliations, however we do reserve the right to refuse any new member showing signs of limited wit (of the humorous variety - rare bona fide boffins excepted), persons overly-sensitive to ridicule, those with a predisposition towards humorless rabble-rousing, and of course, any person or persons from the government claiming to be here to help.

Now on to the important stuff - what design shall we adopt for our fore pole burgees, finely embroidered pocket crests and drink-chip faces? Will the boiling of sprouts be permitted in the clubhouse galley? In which direction should the bagpiper face during the evening blow?

Aerobat77

Con-pilot and I, among many others here have spent more time between the OM and the TDZ than you have airborne.

I work with two guys who have a completely authenticated 20,000 + hours; I know pipeline and check hauling pilots who have been logging 30+ hours a week since Carter was president. I flew 900+ hours a years for six years and know its not easy, but that is routine. The USMS is known throughout the USG for high flight hours; I flew a 1,000+ during Desert Storm and have guys knocking out 800 or more in the last ten years in C-5s. A pilot in my squadron finished his career with 13,000 hours of AF time, which is strictly take-off to touchdown, not block-to-block. There are literally thousands of pilots in the US who fly 800-1,000 hard hours a year.

GF

Loved it vapilot

You obviously missed the pleasure (though not everyone agreed) reading the posts of our recently departed 411A. Had an airline career spanning DC-7, Constellation, and passed away recently still captaining a wide body. A prolific poster, do a search for the number.

Also for those that spend a lot of time in hotels, a few minutes here and there posting on the internet is really nothing in terms of time.

Wow, I just read a years worth of posts by "20,000+" hour pilots and it made me dumber.

Junk flyer

At the 8th day of sitting in a hotel in a Gulf state during Ramadan, having rearranged the computer files for the third time, waiting for the bar to reopen on Thursday, posting on Pprune is a marked relief. OTOH, four days in Palau not having Internet, getting back is also a pleasure. Only so much Pacific paradise.

GF

Getting back to the topic.

About the solitair. Some questions.

What are they like landing in crosswind, from what I can gather, they only have a 15 kt x wind limit.

One website lists the max cruise alt as FL330. Do they regularly go that high or more comming in the high 20's. Is there any benefit going above FL330.

Wait, I think I may have a solution!

A vexed question, I fear.

(a) if we were to eliminate those whom we might think to be inferior, the forum would become unashamedly elitist.

Would that be a useful end ?

(b) if we turned our backs (hypothetically, as the owners would not permit that to occur) anarchy would ensue.

Definitely not useful.

(c) what we endeavour to do is

(i) keep the absolute ratbags at bay, having given them time to demonstrate their extremism

(ii) keep overt nastiness at bay, per the generic Rules of Engagement

(iii) try to keep threads on a reasonably even keel without exercising moderator bias or being precious

Do we succeed ? Not too sure. But that's about as good as we can do, I guess.

Safe aviating.