Well NAROBS, "Light Prop planes" was just my manner of description, not the official FAA designation. I used that descriptor to mean that the TBM is less than 12,500 lbs MGW, propeller driven (therefore requires no pilot type rating) and is certified under part 23.

The "official" certification of the TBM series airplane is in the "normal" category. To act as PIC, a pilot must hold a pilot certificate with "airplane" category and "single engine land" class ratings on that certificate. Additionally, a TBM PIC would be required to have endorsements in his logbook for complex, high performance and pressurized aircraft capable of higher than 25,000' as per FAR 61.31. These 61.31 endorsements are all "one time" and have no recurrency requirements attached. Additionally, all US airspace in the contiguous 48 states above 17,999' is class A, so an instrument clearance would be required to fly there. Instrument rating and currency requirements would then be required to be met as well. That's what the regulations require.

With that said, the insurance companies are another matter. That's where the specific "make and model" initial and recurrent training and operating experience requirements really come from.

I'll save my treatise on pressurization and O2 system preflight inspection/test for another time. Likewise for personal hypoxia symptom recognition and proper reaction to system malfunction during flight at higher altitudes.

westhawk

Here is the check list for the TBM-700-900 for pressurization issues.


Anybody notice how by following this checklist could lead a pilot into a trap?


The checklist was copied from another pilot's website.

A loss of cabin pressure checklist that lists supplemental oxygen second? :confused:

Con, you mean: "DUMP" switch.......check ?

I don't have a clue, that is the checklist, I just copied it and posted same.

My real concern is the number two step on the checklist.

2 - OXYGEN USE, ............................................................ if necessary



You are going along at FL-250 and the Cabin above 10,000 warning light comes on and the checklist says, "Oxygen if necessary"?

It just makes me uncomfortable. The aircraft was certified that way, so obviously the authorities to be were okay with the way it was written.

Does anyone know if this aircraft type is equipped with a quick-donning O2 mask for the pilot?

From what I understand, no.

But let me check with my source and see if I can find out.

Yes, equipped with two quick donning masks.

Yes it is, thank you. Glad I wasn't postive about the 'no'.

Cheers. :ok:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RlwKS8-DZZA/maxresdefault.jpg

You're missing the line-feed that was presumably inserted during the formatting thats occurred to get this copied onto an internet forum. It reads:


2 - OXYGEN USE, ..............................if necessary FLY THE AIRPLANE

No, it does not say that. Look it up yourself; 3.2.22 ("CABIN ALTITUDE" red CAS message)

http://www.tbm850.com/2014/images/tb...PIM_900R01.pdf

It reads;

2 - OXYGEN USE, ..............................if necessary

FLY THE AIRPLANE

Etc.

Sorry, link didn't take, I'll try it a different way.

http://www.tbm850.com/2014/images/tb...PIM_900R01.pdf

Try that, hope it works.

But, either way, it should not be so ambiguous and clearly state;

2. OXYGEN USE..............................................DON MASK.

If they were serious about the whole thing the checklist would read:

1...Oxygen..................Mask On 100%

All the rest of them goodies like bleed air, dump valve and ram air are worth absolutely zero if you can't breathe.

Right you are. :ok:

The fine hand of Marketing!
 

When you are up there at FL280, that demands consideration, when the first order of business should be putting the oxygen mask on any time you even think you have a problem. BUT ....

You are trying to sell a multi-million dollar product to a non-professional pilot, a product that might just try to kill him?! "What is this nonsense? You mean I have to put that stupid-looking thing on, or else I might die? How can this be allowed?"

I bet that while depressurization, TUC, etc., are all covered in the training course for the aircraft, training that is not necessarily a legal requirement, it is not given a great deal of emphasis.

This unfortunate was probably sat there feeling perfectly fine, just trying to figure out why that red light came on, not understanding that was his cue to grab that mask and fit it to his face, that he had three minutes, tops, to do that or else die, because his training had not really made a big thing of telling him that. That's just my guess, of course.

That said, that warning light might come on at a pressure altitude of 13 thousand feet, say, when you could stay there for 30 minutes before descending to 10 thousand or below. Best practice might be to make the use of the mask at 100% the first order of business any time you get that light, but it might not always be absolutely necessary.

I couldn't find a checklist item that reads that the pilot should check the masks for flow and check the oxygen quantity on the first flight of the day. There's just "Front oxygen masks ... Checked," (Page 4.3.11, Item 43) which must be taken as just checking that they are present and properly stowed. I couldn't find a "First flight of the day checks" checklist.

A very valid point.

You make some very valid points chuks. I see those single engine/single pilot t-props like the Malibou, the Pilatus and the TBM as today's version of the Beech Bonanza. The Bonanza wasn't called the doctor/lawyer killer for nothing. It was for it's time an expensive high performance single, usually owned by a professional alpha male type, not prone to taking advice from many. Checklist? We doan need no steenkin' checklist.

By some reports the current victim had 5000 hours on the TBM. If this was indeed so, and not a typo, then he should have been more aware than most of the inherent danger of loss of pressurization and the use of supplemental oxygen.

Narobs, aircraft do not "Ascend" they "climb, "now can you think of another word which sounds just like "Ascend" but in fact means just the opposite? This is why grumpy old farts like me are radio examiners, maybe we can get the likes of you to use standard RT and not go bumping into other aircraft or solid objects!

Great minds think alike!
 

I had been thinking of exactly that, pigboat! When I got going in civil aviation about 40 years ago, it was the Bonanza that used to wipe out those guys with enough money to buy one but not enough patience, or respect for the Laws of Gravity, to learn to fly one properly. It must have been the exact equivalent of these modern turbo-props.

I will never forget looking at the wreckage of a Bonanza that some, yes, doctor had been flying when he lost it on instruments, spiralling in and then pulling its wings off. Aside from the engine and prop, and the wheels, the largest piece of that airplane that you could recognize as such was the baggage compartment door, still nice and shiny. The rest was just mangled junk

I remember, too, one fellow who told me in all seriousness that he depended on his autopilot for flight in IMC in his new Cessna 182, that, yes, he knew his basic instrument flying skills were not very good, but he knew how to input commands to the autopilot that should keep his airplane under control for him.

Man, that's like dangling from one silken thread over an abyss, isn't it? But that guy had a lot more money than I did (some guy working at Burger King had a little more money than I did), so that he wasn't very interested in whatever some scrawny CFII had to tell him. In fact, I think he thought I only wanted to sell him some flight instruction, to teach him some skills he probably would never need.

I was looking again at the operating manual PDF that Con-pilot linked to. There's a check of oxygen quantity and shut-off valve position on the pre-flight walk-around, and there's a check that the mask flows in the pre-start checks.

A friend told me about a King Air that turned itself into a burned-out wreck from an oxygen leak, left parked, so that some operators must shut the valve to the oxygen bottle when they finish flying for the day. It must be easy to miss opening that valve again when you next go flying, particularly if you don't check that the mask is flowing.

The TBM 900 is not similar to a King Air, there is a switch on the ceiling that turns on the flow.